SEO Experts?

[Dendox 102]

My small law firm is planning to make some changes. Name, website provider, and a few others. 

The old man at the firm has been around a long time and has a good bit of google love.  We show up well in searches we care about.  We are concerned about our changes and how they might affect where we land in google searches.  Anyone here an expert in this space that can talk me through the risks of our changes and, if necessary, help us with migration to a new "host" and google?

 

[immamac 42850]

SEO is largely content based. Changing domains but keeping the same content will dip results for a while but eventually it will get back to where it was. You should redirect the old URL to the new site.

[Handcruser 2805]

My small law firm is planning to make some changes. Name, website provider, and a few others. 
The old man at the firm has been around a long time and has a good bit of google love.  We show up well in searches we care about.  We are concerned about our changes and how they might affect where we land in google searches.  Anyone here an expert in this space that can talk me through the risks of our changes and, if necessary, help us with migration to a new "host" and google?
 

Are you going from smith, Purcell, and Lewis to smith, Purcell, Johnson, and Taylor? Just curious.

[Dendox 102]

no.  Smith Law Firm will change to Smith, Purcell and Lewis.  

If one of the legal service providers is hosting/providing our website and we are paying them for the website, along with some advertising through other "related" websites (Findlaw) - any chance that changing the website host and name will ruin us?  

Old man at the firm is gravely concerned about it.  I am less so as 90% of the people we actually end up representing come to us via referrals and word of mouth, not web searches.  

If it will be an issue, we are likely to change the name and keep the website provider and move in slow stages.  

[thunderlounge 7832]

Do you own your current domain?

That’s going to be the biggest factor.

If you do, then it’s much less of a hit. Domains change ip’s all the time, and owning your name would allow for you to move providers with minimal impact.

To best preserve content, You want to first mirror the current site on the new provider. 
Next, every old name link gets redirected to new-name matching link. So same page, different domain name. 
 

From there, you can slowly change the site over. First thing would be graphics. You don't even have to change the name, just the new image with the old name if need be. Also add the new pages as well. 
 

Then text-based name changes, maybe even a transition period where it’s “old name is now pleased to serve you as new name” type of deal.

Once the transition period is over, then you can begin cleanup of old text, text changes, etc.

 

That’s the basics of it, at its best. If you don’t own your current name, things can go downhill quickly in terms of how big a hit your seo takes.

You could also straddle both providers for a bit, long enough to have 301 redirects in effect for a while. Which would then work pretty close to ideal.

Not sure how deep seo can go these days, but it may help if the registration for the new and old domains, as well as any domain certificates, have the same name used for registration. I know they look at registration length, which is why the redirects help. 

[Handcruser 2805]

no.  Smith Law Firm will change to Smith, Purcell and Lewis.  
If one of the legal service providers is hosting/providing our website and we are paying them for the website, along with some advertising through other "related" websites (Findlaw) - any chance that changing the website host and name will ruin us?  
Old man at the firm is gravely concerned about it.  I am less so as 90% of the people we actually end up representing come to us via referrals and word of mouth, not web searches.  
If it will be an issue, we are likely to change the name and keep the website provider and move in slow stages.  

What happens when Purcell gets caught up in some child diddling sting? Or you get a new partner? Or smith bites it?

You’ll be redoing it all over again.

Why dont you just come up with 512litigation.com or some shit and ride that for the next 50 years ?

[Dendox 102]

27 minutes ago, Handcruser said:

What happens when Purcell gets caught up in some child diddling sting? Or you get a new partner? Or smith bites it?

You’ll be redoing it all over again.

Why dont you just come up with 512litigation.com or some shit and ride that for the next 50 years ?

We don't necessarily need/want a new domain name.  The old man has name recognition and we like his name being around.  The firm name is changing to reflect our ownership - but the website name/address i am indifferent on.  

Our biggest concerns and what started this analysis:

- we no longer want to advertise via findlaw.  The cost isn't huge, but the inquiries we get from there create far more burden than they are worth.  

- findlaw is our website host.  If we slow our spend on advertising with them does that affect our website rankings in searches for things like "construction lawyer" "defect lawyer" etc.  We advertise in those spaces (among others) with findlaw.  

- If we can safely stop advertising and safely stop paying exorbitant fees for our website, we would like to do that.  Safely means - not taking a profound hit on the search engines.  

Truth is - we would probably gladly pay to keep hosting with findlaw and simply stop "Advertising" if it means that we can keep our search ranks and cutback on worthless intakes.  Its not a money thing as it relates to the web (though I hate overpaying for anything) - it is a money thing when I think about what I spend each year for someone to process 20-30 intakes a week for cases we RARELY take that only show up because of the link to findlaw advertising.  

[Handcruser 2805]

We don't necessarily need/want a new domain name.  The old man has name recognition and we like his name being around.  The firm name is changing to reflect our ownership - but the website name/address i am indifferent on.  
Our biggest concerns and what started this analysis:
- we no longer want to advertise via findlaw.  The cost isn't huge, but the inquiries we get from there create far more burden than they are worth.  
- findlaw is our website host.  If we slow our spend on advertising with them does that affect our website rankings in searches for things like "construction lawyer" "defect lawyer" etc.  We advertise in those spaces (among others) with findlaw.  
- If we can safely stop advertising and safely stop paying exorbitant fees for our website, we would like to do that.  Safely means - not taking a profound hit on the search engines.  
Truth is - we would probably gladly pay to keep hosting with findlaw and simply stop "Advertising" if it means that we can keep our search ranks and cutback on worthless intakes.  Its not a money thing as it relates to the web (though I hate overpaying for anything) - it is a money thing when I think about what I spend each year for someone to process 20-30 intakes a week for cases we RARELY take that only show up because of the link to findlaw advertising.  

We don't necessarily need/want a new domain name.  The old man has name recognition and we like his name being around.  The firm name is changing to reflect our ownership - but the website name/address i am indifferent on.  
Our biggest concerns and what started this analysis:
- we no longer want to advertise via findlaw.  The cost isn't huge, but the inquiries we get from there create far more burden than they are worth.  
- findlaw is our website host.  If we slow our spend on advertising with them does that affect our website rankings in searches for things like "construction lawyer" "defect lawyer" etc.  We advertise in those spaces (among others) with findlaw.  
- If we can safely stop advertising and safely stop paying exorbitant fees for our website, we would like to do that.  Safely means - not taking a profound hit on the search engines.  
Truth is - we would probably gladly pay to keep hosting with findlaw and simply stop "Advertising" if it means that we can keep our search ranks and cutback on worthless intakes.  Its not a money thing as it relates to the web (though I hate overpaying for anything) - it is a money thing when I think about what I spend each year for someone to process 20-30 intakes a week for cases we RARELY take that only show up because of the link to findlaw advertising.  

Stop using findlaw for anything. If you stop advertising with them you’ll get fucked somehow. I don’t know how but you will.

What happens with smith dies?

Listen to Immamac.

[Bevo 13577]

2 hours ago, Handcruser said:

What happens with smith dies?

 

The devil gets a new partner

[Handcruser 2805]

 
The devil gets a new partner

Ive just never understood the infatuation lawyers have to put their name on the side of a building or on the letterhead. I guess it’s all ego driven. I mean most doctors just call it centex kidney or austin penile implants unless they’re solo practitioners.

[ROFL BOX 6649]

I am in no way a website / SEO specialist (obviously); If I'm not mistaken a SITE that has the information you want as part of the title tags or text in the body of the page & listed on every page of the site... isn't that what will get you the search recognition you need/

Example:  Site (URL) is [WeDoLawyerStuff].com & on every page of the site (even on "Meet the Staff") it lists "Doowey, Cheatham & Howe"... & the Googs picks up the names you're wanting to get recognized & indexed?

If so, this achieves what you were looking for while also going with what @Handcruser was saying.