SEO for Law Firms

If a few years back you could target users through TV commercials, advertisements in newspapers and so on, now that has changed. Everything that before used to be on paper or TV now has changed to a google search. If someone needs a lawyer they will either search on google which is the nearest law firm to them, they will ask a friend or they will grab their Facebook group and start asking who knows a law firm that can help them. Yes yes yes I know this depends on the law firm’s practice area and if the target is an individual or a business, nevertheless the basics are the same google search or recommendation.
Now imagine if your firm does not have an updated online presence, or your keywords do not help your potential customers to find you on the Internet. Which is the likelihood of him or her your law firm and services? Quite reduced and close to zero in most cases.

How can you change that and help your customers find you?

When it comes to the best SEO for lawyers and attorneys there are 8 main strategies you can follow to improve your online presence.

1. Choose the right keywords for your law firm?

A keyword is an idea or topic that defines what your content is about. In terms of SEO and according to Moz’s blog

“ they’re the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines, also called “search queries.”

Now as a website owner of your law firm you want the keywords on your page to be relevant to what potential customers are searching for so they have a better chance of finding your content among the results. To be able to find and create a keyword strategy here are some steps you can follow:

  • Research your target audience and find what they are searching for
  • Review monthly keyword volume – or how often users search for a particular keyword
  • Focus on words or phrases that indicate that the users are ready to start a conversation
  • Try to find phrases that are high in search volume yet low in competition

How you do that?
You can use a tool such as Google Keyword planner, or answer the public website to find exactly what users are asking when they are searching for a topic related to your services or law practice area. Remember you will find all the links below. So if you want to experiment and start finding your keywords, feel free to use all the resources we are providing.

2.Pay attention to the site’s optimization

Did you know that Google considers 200 factors to rank your website? That’s crazy! And is what makes extremely difficult to rank a website if not used the correct strategies and programming techniques. Now if you are tackling your legal SEO on your own the top thing that google considers regarding your law firm website is:

  • Security: HTTPS certificate tells search engines if your site is secure. Not only does this protect your business from cyber-attacks, but 82% of users also won’t browse an unsecured website.
  • Mobile-friendliness: Google favours sites that optimize across all device types (mobile, desktop and tablets). And so does the majority (57.6%) of internet users searching for lawyer keywords.
  • Page loading time: Consumers want their information fast. So fast that they will leave if your web page doesn’t load in 2 seconds.

  • If you want to check all these details you can use page speed insights, neilpatel.com or SEMrush. Now to tackle technical details we highly recommend to leave this task for a professional developer from our team.

3. Research your competitors

If you have followed the previous videos this information should be ready if not below you can find the link them. Before delivering an SEO strategy is a good idea to analyze your competitors. And there is a simple reason for that if you do well your research you can start ranking higher on Google, get more traffic and earn more conversions.
When doing that analysis, you should answer the following questions:

  • What law firms are ranking higher in terms of SEO
  • What keywords are they targeting? What keywords should be targeted but they are not being targeted by those firms?
  • What content and topics should you write about?

  • What content is performing better?
  • What did your firms need to outperform the competition?
  • What you can improve or do better?

If you want to do it by yourself that’s fine we provide you with some links and tools to do that. Otherwise, let this part of the job in the hands of a professional agency such as ours.

4. Optimize your law firm website

For this part, you need to perform on-page optimization. And in this part, we are going to go through more technical details if you are not familiar with them feel free to drop a message and we will come back with an answer. There are basics your website should have in place to be able to rank higher:

  • Title tags and meta descriptions
  • Proper headings and subheadings. Your pages should have at least one h1, multiple h2 and a few h3 tags.
  • Use of keywords phrases or variations of keywords phrase throughout your landing pages.
    IT is important not to use too many keywords otherwise you will be penalized by Google since their algorithms are getting better and better at catching this behaviour.
  • Image optimization

5. Improve your local SEO

If someone is looking for a law firm near their location they will pick the options close to them. How they find this? Googles My Business is the best place to start. You need to list your law firm there to gain exposure on google. When listing your firm make sure to include.

  • Long, keyword-reach description for your practice
  • accurate name, address and phone number
  • a link to your website
  • social media or online review profiles. Remember that 76% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. So do not forget to tell your customers to leave a review each time you provide them with a service.
  • Add photos of your law firms, taking into account that consumers love to know who is behind their legal service provider.

6. Create SEO- Friendly content

Once your website is fully optimized, the work does not stop there. You need to develop a content strategy as well. An SEO strategy is not limited to articles and blog posts, but it is definitely a great place to start. Your law firm’s blog SEO content should

  • have more than 2000 words
  • cover a topic completely
  • include high-quality content free of errors
  • be readable
  • be optimized for SEO
  • include videos and high-quality images

Great content paired with a great SEO strategy is everything your law firm needs. Without going in-depth below you can find a template to start developing a content strategy and a few tools that will help you do that.

7. Develop a backlink strategy

But hey what are backlinks? They are links from another page pointing to your website and this will help you rank higher. Now you should be careful to what website your page is linking to. Here are some great backlinks for SEO sources.

  • Create a guest post to other related publications.
  • Reach out to other bloggers and journalists to collaborate.
  • Perform an interview in your community.
  • Promote your content on social media.
  • Build internal links.
  • Create high-quality video and infographics.
  • Claim all listing throughout your industry and local directions.

8. Analyze your SEO results

Lastly, analyze, analyze and analyze. All your efforts need to be tracked, measured and analyzed. Some KPIs that you can measure are:

  • Total leads
  • New clients
  • Revenue
  • Lead-to-sale conversion rate
  • Return on marketing investment
  • Cost per lead
  • Book rate (from calls)

They will give you the necessary information to see what you need to improve, where should you focus your marketing efforts and what marketing actions are helping your law firm succeed.

Interested in growing your law firm? Have a general question? We’re just an email away.

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