By James J. Mangraviti, Jr., Esq.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to review many hundreds of SEAK Expert Witness Directory listings through my consulting and teaching.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of listings I review could be quickly and easily improved.  Below are 11 suggestions to optimize your SEAK Expert Witness Directory listing and at no cost increase your exposure to lawyers:

  1. Add your photograph. Lawyers will want to have an idea of what you look like.  Please try to use a professional headshot and don’t be afraid to smile. Lawyers want to get a sense as to how you might appear to a jury.
  2. Add your cell phone number to the field labeled “cell.” Lawyers prefer experts whom they can reach directly (and outside of normal business hours) when needed. By explicitly including your cell phone number you are communicating to lawyers that you are available and easy to reach.
  3. Use both “General Specialties.” You are allowed two “General Specialties.” If you only have one general specialty listed, please double check the list of available general specialties to see if there is an applicable second general specialty which you could add.
  4. Use all 20 index/search terms in your “Keywords/Search Terms field.” You get up to 20 index/search terms totaling 300 characters for your “Specialty Focus.” Use them all to maximize your visibility.
  5. Do not repeat your general specialty verbatim in your “Keywords/Search Terms” index terms. Doing so will not enhance your visibility. You are better off using different terms so that you show up in a broader array of searches.  For example, if you are already listed under “Aquatics Safety” as a general specialty, adding “aquatics safety” to your specialty focus index terms will not increase your visibility.
  6. If you have more than 2 applicable general specialties, add additional ones verbatim to your “Keywords/Search Terms” index terms. Verbatim general specialties placed in your index/search term section are searchable through the drop-down menu on the Expert Directory homepage.  Say for example you are a physician who is triple board certified in “Internal Medicine,” “Geriatrics,” and “Hospice and Palliative Care.”  All three of these general specialties will not fit in your listing since you are only allowed two general specialties.  You could, however, use “Internal Medicine” and “Geriatrics” as your two general specialties and include “Hospice and Palliative Care” in your specialty focus index terms. All three of these terms (“Internal Medicine,” “Geriatrics,” and “Hospice and Palliative Care”) would then be searchable through the Directory homepage drop down menu. This technique in effect allows you to have more than two general specialties.
  7. Consider presenting different common permutations for the same terms in your “Keywords/Search Terms” index terms. For example, instead of listing just “MI” you might also add “Heart Attack” and “Myocardial Infarction.”  A lawyer might plausibly search any of these three terms and you don’t want to be missed.
  8. Optimize your specialty focus index search terms to be lawyer friendly. Try to use specific words you think an attorney would search for. Think in terms of areas of expertise or types of cases, for example “ATV,” “Breast Cancer,” “Business Damages,” “EMTALA,” “Rollover,” “Sailing,” “Welding,” etc. Terms such as “Summa Cum Laude,” “Award Winning,” “Highly Experienced,” etc. are not appropriate for specialty focus index search terms as no lawyer would likely be searching for these terms.
  9. Do not use the term “expert witness” in your specialty focus index/search terms. You are listed in an expert witness directory, so lawyers already know that you are an expert witness. Including “expert witness” is not helpful and wastes available space that you could use more productively.
  10. Attach a copy of your CV to your listing. Use a PDF version, not a Word version and make sure your CV is dated.
  11. Less may be more for your “Additional Information” section. In this section you are allowed up to 4000 characters.  You may be better off not filling up this section all the way. You don’t want lawyers to miss the most important things about you that make you stand out.  In terms of optimization, the “additional information” section is a great place to highlight and summarize your awards, publications, employment history, expert witness experience, education, training, teaching and communication experience, etc.

I hope the above will allow you to successfully optimize your SEAK Expert Witness Directory Listing.

About the Author

James J. Mangraviti, Jr., Esq., has been teaching expert witnesses for over 25 years and has written extensively about expert witness issues.  He is frequently retained to assist expert witnesses in expanding their expert witness practices. This includes optimizing countless SEAK expert witness directory listings. He is a Principal of SEAK, Inc – The Expert Witness Training Company.  He is the co-founder of SEAK’s National Directory of Expert Witnesses, the #1 rated expert witness directory.  Jim can be reached at 978-276-1234 or jim@seak.com.  For more information on SEAK, Inc. – The Expert Witness Training Company, visit www.testifyingtraining.com

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