eJustice Vice President Chris Brown at the Chicago Hilton for the AAJ Convention

The 2012 American Association for Justice convention is in full swing! Look for the eJustice booth and meet Vice President Chris Brown and Director of Sales Joel Maloney. We would be happy to talk to you about your firm’s marketing strategies!

We are on our way to the annual American Association for Justice convention in Chicago! The convention will be held at the Chicago Hilton tomorrow, July 28 – Tuesday, July 31. Come visit our booth and meet Vice President Chris Brown and Director of Sales Joel Maloney.

This year’s convention will include nearly 50 cutting edge Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programs, designed to inform plaintiff lawyers of the newest developments in their fields. Attendees will hear from accomplished trial lawyers and experts as they discuss the latest in trial advocacy and specialized topics.

With more than 300 events at the convention, lawyers can mingle and meet with industry leaders. We have been attending AAJ for years and know firsthand that the convention gets better each year. Look for the eJustice booth and talk to us about effective marketing strategies for your firm.

We hope to see you there!

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Have you made progress on your 2012 goals?
• Have you set deadlines for your goals?
• What are you doing to market your firm and generate new business?
• Did you set a budget for your 2012 firm marketing efforts?
• And here’s the biggie – have you even set marketing goals for your firm?

If one of your goals this year is to generate more business, but you’re not sure how to do it, that’s where we come in. At eJustice, our legal marketing team is dedicated to helping clients realize their marketing efforts, which, bottom line means: get more cases.

To find out how we can help you reach a targeted audience, build your brand, and maximize your ROI, contact us today. We would be happy to provide you with a free consultation. Together, we can help you reach and exceed your 2012 goals!

The first thing you need to do is determine whether your site has been penalized. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that a site has been penalized if its rankings have dropped, but this is not always the case.

Some of the ways to determine if your site has been penalized include:

• Compare your rankings: it is important to look at your competitors’ rankings as well as your own to determine if they’ve also dropped in the ranks, or if it is just your site.
• Check the location: it is also important to note that location can affect your rankings. A way to check this is to have other people within the target market region check your rankings as well.
• Pay attention to Google changes: algorithm changes, such as the recent Panda update we’ve all been hearing about can affect your rankings, but that doesn’t mean your site has been penalized.

These are just a few of the most obvious ways to determine if your site has been penalized or if it has been affected by something else like an algorithm change. Being penalized by Google is a whole different thing. For instance, some of the factors that can result in a penalty include keyword stuffing, duplicate content and/or scraping; bad or shady links; and paid links.

After you’ve determined if your site has been penalized or has been affected by something else, you can begin to investigate what happened and why. Then, you can make the necessary changes to begin your climb back up the SEO ladder.

It is important to keep in mind that things can happen anytime. In order to better protect yourself in the future, you should collect and keep record of certain things like Google analytics and Google Webmaster Tools so if your site does take a hit, you will have the data it takes to determine what happened.

You should also keep a log of any edits to the site, whether they are being made by you, a programmer, an SEO specialist, and so on (this includes link building activity). By keeping track of these things and your rankings, you will be in a good problem-solving position, should something cause your site to lose its rankings.

If your rankings have dropped, contact the SEO specialists at eJustice for a free assessment.  We can help you achieve the rankings you need to maximum your ROI. Call 1-877-357-8423 to get a free quote today!

Some of the most recent changes that might affect your rankings include:

1. Page titles: Google says it will be looking at the anchor text in links that point to a page and will be putting less emphasis on boilerplate links with duplicate anchor text. This will help Google find more relevant page titles that are specific to the content on the page.

2. Ranking fresh content: According to Google, it has made a significant improvement on how it crawls and indexes fresh content. This change will affect approximately 35 percent of total searches.

3. Original content: Google added new signals so it can better predict which site is the original source of content (if two sites have the same content). This will help with duplicate content issues and will give credit to the original source, not the source that copied the content.

4. Image result freshness: One of the changes will help Google find the freshest images more often.

5. More fresh and complete blog results: Google made a change to the blog search index to get coverage that is more comprehensive and fresh.

While some of Google’s changes might affect your rankings, there are several things you can do to keep up. For example, you need to make sure the content on your site is timely, fresh and unique. A blog, for instance, is a good way for you to stay current and comment on the latest legal topics. Not only is this good for Google, but it will also keep you in front of your targeted audience and will show your potential clients that you are not only a player in your industry, but a leader.

For more information about the latest changes and how they might affect your site, contact the SEO experts at eJustice to schedule a free consultation and site analysis.

Happy holidays!

The social web has created a unique opportunity for businesses to deliver a marketing message to thousands of potential clients, while building a brand and managing their reputations.

Are you taking advantage of the social web?

At eJustice, our marketing specialists are combining advanced social media strategies with search engine optimization (SEO) to increase our clients’ visibility on the web and to, ultimately, generate new business.

The following are just a few of the ways our marketing specialists can help you build your web:

• Create and manage your firm’s profile on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Produce unique content to spread your marketing message across the different social media sites
• Create unique and interesting blog posts, news items and Twitter posts to attract online visitors and links to your site
• Utilizing images and videos to boost visibility

To learn more about how the social web can help your firm reach potential clients, call your rep at 1-877-357-8423.

The study of 330,000 Israeli women was published Nov. 7 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.   The new pills contain drospirenone, which is a synthetic progestin hormone.  The substance is contained in Yaz®, Yasmin®, Beyaz® and Safyral® and their generic counterparts.

The study showed that pills with drospirenone had between a 43 and 65 percent higher risk of causing blood clots than previous pills, called second and third generation pills. That equaled slightly more than between eight and 10 clots in 10,000 women a year.

A study sponsored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published results of another study the previous week, also showing that the risk of blood clots was greater in women who took birth control pills containing drospirenone. That study involved over 800,000 women in the U.S. between 2001 and 2007.

The clots they may cause are called venous embolisms, blood clots that often form in the veins of the legs.  Venous thromboembolisms are clots that break away from their source in the vein and are carried through the blood stream to another part of the body, where they get stuck in a blood vessel and block the flow of blood.   When stuck in the lungs they are called pulmonary embolisms.  If they get stuck in the brain, they cause a stroke.

Something to think about, according to Dr. Susan Solymoss, is if you have other risk factors for blood clots.  Such risk factors include obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history, diabetes and smoking.  Solymoss works at McGill University in Montreal and contributed an editorial on the subject in the medical journal.

The study was led by Dr. Naomi Gronich, of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.  She added that age is another risk factor.  If you are older than 35 and smoke you should not be using birth controls in most situations.  The risk of blood clots increases gradually after you are 25, Dr. Gronich said.

(Source: Reuters)

If you’ve suffered because of a serious blood clot and have taken Yaz®, Yasmin®, or a similar birth control pill, you may be entitled to financial compensation. To learn more, contact us today.

There is a two to three times increased risk of venous thromboembolism events (VTEs) in women using drospirenone-containing hormones compared to women using birth control medication containing levonorgestrel, according to two studies conducted in 2011.

A VTE can be deep vein thrombosis, which is a blood clot that forms in a vein, usually in the leg. If the blood clot breaks loose and travels to the lungs, it is called a pulmonary embolism, which becomes life-threatening if it blocks an artery.

The FDA said it reviewed the results of the two studies and has funded another study to compare the risk for blood clots from several types of hormonal birth control pills.  The FDA is still analyzing the results of this study.  Preliminary results suggest the risk of blood clots in women on the drospirenone-containing drugs is one and a half times the risk of blood clots in women taking other hormonal contraceptives.

According to the agency, conflicting results of six published studies and the study the FDA paid for will be discussed Dec. 8, 2011, at an FDA advisory committee meeting.  Attendees will focus on the risks and benefits of drospirenone.

If you are taking Yaz®, Yasmin® or another birth control that contains drospirenone, call your doctor if you develop any one of the following symptoms of blood clots:

• Persistent leg pain
• Severe chest pain
• Sudden shortness of breath

The FDA warns against taking combination oral contraceptives (those containing both estrogen and progestin) if you smoke and are older than 35.  This can increase the risk of serious heart and blood vessel problems, including blood clots.

For more information about the risk of blood clots in patients taking Yaz® or Yasmin®, contact us today.

Jay Radcliffe, 33, of Meridian, Idaho, presented this information during a conference sponsored by Black Hat, a Seattle-based group for computer security technologists. He showed the audience how his own pump could be remotely hacked by breaking into it while giving his talk.

Radcliffe said the ability to hack into someone else’s insulin pump could allow the hacker to program a diabetic patient’s pump to deliver the wrong dosage.  The pumps are programed to give individually specific, closely titrated doses of insulin.

The insulin pump manufacturer, Medtronic Inc. admitted to a Reuters reporter that such subterfuge is possible, but the chances of it happening are very remote.  In addition, Medtronic said it was going to improve security in its next generation of insulin pumps.

A Medtronic spokeswoman was quoted by the Associated Press (AP) as saying, “the risk of deliberate, malicious, or unauthorized manipulation of our insulin pumps is extremely low.”

Radcliffe said that at first he didn’t reveal the company’s name because he wanted to give it time to address the problem.  He said he contacted Medtronic about the security fallibility of its pump, but the company ignored his emails and telephone calls. At that point, Radcliffe decided to go public.  He also has changed the manufacturer of the pump he wears to one he believes is more secure.

A similar computer vulnerability issue was revealed in 2008 regarding a Medtronic’s pacemaker and defibrillator, the AP said.

Medtronic, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is among the world’s largest medical device manufacturers, with locations worldwide.

(Source: Associated Press)

Evidence has been growing that Propecia® is causing sexual dysfunction in a small but significant number of men, including lowered libido, erectile dysfunction and less ejaculate. Tenderness and enlargement of the breasts and tenderness of the testicles was also found. Depression also seems to be a side effect in some men.

Data published in March in the Journal of Sexual Medicine indicate that these side effects are occurring in a much greater number of men than previously thought. More significant is that some types of sexual dysfunction persist even after the drug is stopped, according to the study.

The study was conducted by Assistant Professor of Medicine Dr. Michael S. Irwig from George Washington University and Dr. Swapna Kolukula of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Dr. Irwig first became aware of these problems when he met several men who complained they developed sexual dysfunction while taking Propecia® and said that their problems persisted after they stopped taking the drug. Many of these men had gone to their doctors seeking advice and were told to see psychiatrists and psychologists and that their problems were all in their head, Dr. Irwig told George Washington Today, a university publication.

For part of his study, Dr. Irwig interviewed 71 men between 21 and 46 years old in order to find out how long they took Propecia® and the kind and duration of sexual side effects they experienced. He found 94 percent of the participants suffered decreased sexual interest, 92 percent had erectile dysfunction, and 69 percent had problems reaching orgasm.

While the men used finasteride for an average of 28 months, the researcher found sexual problems lasted an average of 40 months. The study raises concerns as to whether the sexual side effects are long term and even permanent in some users.