The internet is currently dominated by three major search engines; Yahoo!, Bing and of course Google. According to Nielsen data from August 2009, Google still has the lion's share of domestic queries at 65%. Yahoo! comes in a distant second with 17% of all search traffic and Microsoft's Bing, growing at 22% month over month now accounts for 10.7% of all Internet searches.

One way to look at it is basically the difference between paid vs. non-paid advertising online. Let's face it, most everyone wants to be on the top of the first page of results when users are searching for specific key words or phrases. The easiest way to do this is to pay for terms that people are searching for, usually on a bidding system, so that your website will show up higher than your competitors for a given search result. The second way to look at it is that websites with the most relevant content matching the terms that users are searching for show up higher than those with less relevant content. Part of the recognition for relevancy is also represented by how many inbound links there are to your site from other sites. The more that people point to you, the more of an authority you must be is the basic logic but we'll save inbound and outbound linking for another post.

Let's look at Google as an example. When you type in a term like 'Bankruptcy' into Google, the first thing you'll see in the results at the top left of the page is Sponsored Links, typically three listings in a lightly shaded yellow box. If you look to the right of the page,you'll see in the vertically shaded column additional Sponsored Links as well. (Click on the chart to see a larger version.)

The Sponsored Links both across the top and down the right hand side are all paid advertising. The organic or natural results are then listed below on the left hand side. In this case, the news results for this search are pointing to a Wall Street Journal which mentions bankruptcy and then the US Bankruptcy Court page is next.

Check out an earlier post about Search Engine Optimization basics here. You can also read more about Google's recommended SEO practices here.

While we enjoyed speaking with all of the NACBA attorneys that stopped by Nolo's booth, here are just a few of the things that some of our member attorneys had to say.

(Since then, Selwyn has completed a fantastic profile!)

According to a recent report from Reuters, citing research from the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) and the National Bankruptcy Research Center (NBKRC), 135,913 consumer bankruptcies were filed during the month of October 2009, a substantial 27.9% increase over October 2008. 28.5% of all filings in October were Chapter 13, which allow debtors to keep some if not all of their assets as long as they agree to pay some of their income to creditors to lower the debt. The more common Chapter 7 filing usually wipes out any debt but also forces the debtor to relinquish any property that isn't exempt from seizure by their creditors. For more information about consumer bankruptcy, go to Nolo's Bankruptcy resource center.

Stay tuned for more information, highlights and updates from Tucson as Tom Foley and I set upon our desert odyssey!

• First, sign up for a free Google Account.
  
• Then, use your Google Account information to sign up for Google Analytics.
• Register your site(s) with Google Analytics.
• Cut and Paste the generated code onto your website - NOTE: If you are NOT the person administering your website, you'll need the help of your webmaster or the company that built your website for you. You may even want to check with them before you star.
• Set up reports for your site within Analytics to help better understand your traffic patterns.