Google has moved real time search to its own website and added some important capabilities.

Google real time search provides a continuously updated set of results from searching Twitter, Facebook and Buzz.  The new website is at google.com/realtime.  To get an overview of the service, check out the video from the product managers at http://www.google.com/landing/realtime/

One powerful feature is the ability to restrict search by geography.  You can search in your area or designate a custom geographic location.

Real time search has also been integrated with Google Alerts.  So if you don’t have the time to monitor the results, Google will send them to you by email daily, weekly or monthly.

Real time search is a way for business to find prospective clients and customers.  For example, a local hotel can monitor real time search results to find potential guests who will be staying in the area.

With its upgraded tool, Google has made it a lot easier to find your prospects.

Who has the most twitter clout in the legal services profession?

To find out, we used Klout, a recently launched Twitter analytics service, to evaluate over 100 lawyers and other legal professionals who tweet on a regular basis.

Klout uses a number of variables to objectively measure the three factors most important to a user’s Twitter influence:

• True Reach—the size of your engaged audience

• Amplification Personality—the likelihood that your content will be acted upon

• Network Influence—the influence level of your engaged audience.

We researched the Klout score for each of the attorneys that we follow and compiled the following list of the top 10 legal professionals on Twitter. If you have any favorite lawyers on Twitter, feel free to leave a comment and let us know about them.

1. @RayBeckerman: a practicing attorney in New York City and a prolific tweeter using Tweetdeck. Ray has posted 128,851 tweets so far. (Klout Score: 73)

2. @Bcuban: a lawyer and published author, Brian focuses extensively on social media and hate speech on the internet with a distinct brand voice. (Klout Score: 56)

3. @Gourmetlawyer: recently profiled in Chicago Lawyer Magazine, this foodie attorney communicates expresses his brand through a focus on food, wine, games and life. Uses a second Twitter persona (@FLSALaywer) to tweet about legal topics. (Klout Score: 55)

4. @Expertparalegal:  tweeting with an authentic brand voice, Lynne shows that you don’t always have to tweet about the news to be influential on Twitter. (Klout Score: 48)

5. @Taxgirl: A Philadelphia tax attorney who tweets, blogs, and sells t-shirts on her website. (Klout Score: 47)

6. @Nikiblack: According to Niki’s blog, she’s passionate about four things: criminal defense, food and wine, writing, and technology. She’s both an attorney and a published author as well as a newspaper columnist and blogger. (Klout Score: 46)

7. @Ideasurge: Inventor and contract/IP attorney, Kendall uses Twitter to personally connect with his 7,000 follower network. (Klout Score: 44)

8. @Tradesecretlaw: Business lawyer that takes a casual approach to Twitter with lots of tweets about the weather, sports, and personal greetings. (Klout Score: 44)

9. @BrettTrout: Patent lawyer and author, Brett incorporates many useful links in his tweets when he isn’t replying to others. (Klout Score: 43)

10. @Rossamcmahon: Located in Ireland with an interest in privacy and IP law and a weakness for baked cheesecakes, Ross frequently updates from his iPhone. (Klout Score: 41)

You can follow our top 10 list and @Klout on Twitter.  To answer the obvious question, the Klout score for @LawCMO, our Twitter presence in the legal space, is a miserable 5 on a scale of 100. But we’re working on it!

Analytics tools are abundant and low cost, so we’re surprised that we continue to see so many websites missing these fundamental tools. Analytics will tell you who is coming to your website, where they came from and what they visited. These tools will also provide insight into potential trouble spots for your site including broken links and slow-loading pages.

At a minimum, every site should have Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. These two tools provide 90% of what you need to analyze your website and traffic.

More information: Google Analytics Blog, Google Webmaster Tools Blog

While we don’t typically recommend starting with social media, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and others can be valuable ways to find, listen to and connect with your prospective clients.

Because of its enormous adoption rate and “walled-garden” nature, Facebook is both a challenge and an opportunity for professional services firm marketers. That said, setting up a Facebook page should be the first step in any social media marketing plan.

Case studies and more information on the business applications of social media sites are available through the links below.

More information: Facebook marketing solutions, Twitter case studies, LinkedIn DirectAds

Online advertising is particularly helpful for driving prospective clients to the website of a professional services firm. These prospects are more valuable than most because online ads help you connect with them at the exact time they are looking for solution to a problem.

Google, Bing and Yahoo! all provide platforms for online ads. Facebook and LinkedIn are also options. All of the platforms offer a pay-per-click (PPC) option that enables you to only pay for an ad if someone clicks through to your website.

Once they arrive at your site, prospective clients still need a reason to pick up the phone or send you an email. That’s where landing pages become important. A good landing page is consistent with the original ad, does a good job of providing the meaningful information your prospects need to make a decision and also has a clear “call to action” that compels prospects to take the next step.

More information: Inside AdWords, SiteTuners blog, Copyblogger, Ion Interactive blog, Performable blog

Establishing a strong local online presence is more important than ever as local search results play a more prominent role in the search engine algorithms and search results page. In some cases, Google now presents local results before displaying organic search results.

Yahoo! Local and Yelp are also becoming increasingly important for professional services firms’ web visibility. Yahoo! Local is similar to Google Places with tools available for businesses to control listing details as well as to advertise.

Yelp started as a consumer review site for local restaurants but is gaining traction in other service areas including medical, legal and financial services. The company provides business owners with an analytics dashboard and ability to offer coupons.

More information: Google Places, Yahoo! Local, Yelp

Email newsletters are a time-tested way to build a following of clients and prospects that leads to repeat business, new client acquisition and referrals.

What has changed over time is that email newsletters can now be integrated with the rest of your digital marketing strategy so everything works together.

For example, an online ad could point to a landing page that encourages visitors to sign up for the email newsletter. After sign-up, the form can direct the visitor to your website or blog. In turn, the newsletter can help drive attendance for seminars or other events as well as to new blog posts or website pages.

Key considerations for using email newsletter marketing include complying with CAN-SPAM, deliverability and readability by both computer and mobile subscribers.

Email tools and third party providers can help you manage these issues as well as help you maintain your subscriber list and track campaign metrics such as open and click-through rates.

More information: Constant Contact, Emma blog, MailChimp blog

The internet is constantly changing and a stale and static website eventually becomes irrelevant in the eyes of both prospective clients and the search engines.

A simple and easy way to keep your website up to date is to incorporate a blog.

A source for fresh content, blogs are also a good way to communicate your brand’s voice. Who you are, what you do and how you do it should clearly speak to your audience to help them decide that they should choose to work with you rather than with your competition.

Blogs are easy to set up with free tools such as Blogger and WordPress.com. More sophisticated blogs can be integrated with your website using platforms like Typepad and WordPress.

Blogs should be updated on a regular basis. A good source of blogging topics can be found by setting up an automated keyword search with Google Alerts or Twitter Search. As you come across websites or blogs that may be a good future source of ideas, subscribe to the site’s RSS feed. Using a feed reader such as Google’s or Feedlooks will enable you to quickly scan the latest updates.

More information: Blogging best practices, WordPress.org, Typepad, Google Alerts, Twitter Search , Feedlooks, Google Feed Reader

Your firm’s digital brand presence starts with your website. As opposed to the more dynamic aspects of the web like blogs or social media, your website is a permanent foundation for all digital marketing activities. It is the place where prospective clients will come to learn more about your practice and make a decision to either contact you or move on to the next firm’s website.

When designed correctly and supported properly, your website can also improve your firm’s visibility in search engine results. Search engine optimization or SEO, is still more art than science, but most practitioners agree on the basic best practices.

Another key factor in search engine rankings is the fact that the algorithms judge credibility based on the number of relevant links to your site. Adding links or “link-building” using appropriate best practices will make your firm’s website more findable.

Investing in optimization and link-building makes sense, because a rank in the search engine results is the equivalent of free advertising.

More information: Google Webmaster Central, Matt Cutts (Google), seomoz blog

For people who are just getting going with establishing a digital presence, one question that comes up early is this: Do I need a blog or a website?

The answer is both—or it could be neither. We’ll explain.

What’s the difference?

Traditionally, blogs and websites not only were used for different purposes, but they also used different technology. Today, the technologies are beginning to merge and the differences between blogs and websites are also beginning to disappear.

So think about blogs and websites in terms of application. A website is a permanent home for the high-level information about you and your organization. At a minimum, the website is going to include information such as an overview of your business, a description of your products and services, and how to contact you. Most likely, this information is not going change very often and will only occasionally need to be updated.

A blog is more current and dynamic. Essentially a chronological series of updates, a blog is a good way to keep your digital presence fresh and to engage your audience. A powerful feature of a blog is the indexing capability, which enables readers to browse your content catalog for a particular keyword or category.

So which do I need?

We recommend that our clients maintain both a blog and a website. The website anchors the web presence while the blog keeps things current.

Keeping a blog and a website is easier than it sounds. We like WordPress as an all-encompassing technology platform. This open-source blogging tool also easily adapts to delivering a website presence, so you will only have to invest in learning to use one new piece of technology.

Why did you say neither?

If you have a “consumer-facing” business or organization, want to start small, and are in a hurry, forget the blog and the website and stake your claim on the web with a Facebook page. In our recent article on using Facebook for business, we wrote that Facebook enables members to open their pages to anyone on the web—and that’s the key. In addition, Facebook provides enough bells and whistles to get any business or organization off the ground and onto the net.

Bottom line

To establish and maintain a serious digital presence, go with both a blog and a website. To keep things easy, use a platform like WordPress that can support both applications.

If you are just getting started, don’t let technology or money get in your way. Establish your digital brand presence with a Facebook page and upgrade to a blog and/or website at a later date.