Communication Tools

It’s smart policy under any circumstances to identify potential legal crises long before they occur. Such prophylaxis has a crucial Internet component: ensuring that your site is positioned in the search engines so that your messages and your story are found first by thousands of interested search engine users.

 

It’s called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and it is crucial before, during, and often after crises and litigation.

 

Remember, as it can take many weeks and often months to achieve high rank on the search engines, it’s self-defeating to wait until the last minute to launch an SEO effort. If SEO is not an integral part of early contingency planning, the war may be over before you’ve even turned up on the battlefront.

 

By dominating the Google and other rankings ahead of your adversaries, you: 

The relevance of search engine strategies in litigation was glaringly evident in a recent international patent infringement case. When the company’s adversary shrewdly misinterpreted a court ruling in order to claim a specious “victory” in a complicated international litigation, the company, backed by its lawyers and communications specialists, worked the blogosphere on a daily basis (at least), posting supportive third-party statements that clarified the ruling while optimizing everything it posted.

 

The company’s version garnered 1.4 million impressions and more than 4,000 click-throughs to the decisive web page. As such, the overwhelming majority of the audience with direct interest in the case – in other words, the critical audience – was mainly reading the corporate rendition. Similar clarifications were simultaneously posted on scores of independent blogs already reaching target readers.

 

In another recent scenario, a litigant’s optimized web site resulted in a call from a “deep throat” 5,000 miles away, advising where certain documents establishing malfeasance could be found. Not just messaging and public persuasion, an optimized website or blog can thus be the decisive factor in a hotly contested dispute.