Google is one of the real powers of the internet.
Owning more than 86% of the search engine market, Google organic search accounts for 59% of the world’s total website traffic.
With this in mind, law firms cannot afford to sleep on Google. After all, people use Google every day to actively search for lawyers and legal services. And Search Engine Optimization (SEO) holds the key to getting your business discovered by these users.
Want to harness the power of SEO for your law firm? Here’s how to put one together for use with your SEO strategy.
Law Firm SEO Defined
Contents
- 1 Law Firm SEO Defined
- 2 Benefits of SEO for Law Firms
- 3 Step 1: Launch Your Law Firm’s Website
- 4 Step 2: Conduct SEO Keyword Research
- 5 Step 3: Develop Optimized Content
- 6 Step 4: Own Your Local Organic Presence
- 7 Step 5: Build and Manage Your Backlinks
- 8 Planning a Law Firm SEO Strategy is Simple
- 9 What is the highest paying job in the world?
- 10 What is attorney SEO?
- 11 How much do law firms spend on SEO?
- 12 Do law firms need SEO?
Before you can start planning your SEO strategy, you need to understand what a legitimate SEO firm is and why it is important for your law firm.
Law Firm SEO refers to the practice of optimizing your website and internet platforms to rank high in search engines to drive organic traffic to your law firm. It involves targeting the search terms (i.e. “keywords”) people use to find services like yours.
Benefits of SEO for Law Firms
SEO is important for law firms for a variety of reasons. SEO allows you to:
Target people looking for the types of services you offer in your local area
Optimize your website experience to be faster and more usable
Deal with technical issues on your site that may impede performance
Publish content that is valuable and relevant to your audience
Reach more users with online directories and local listings
Improve engagement, clicks, and lead generation on your site
Increase your visibility on video search and YouTube
The benefits of SEO for law firms do not end there, but the success of your SEO depends on having a data strategy. Below, we’ll dive into how to get the most out of your SEO efforts.
Step 1: Launch Your Law Firm’s Website
Your law firm’s website is one of the most important assets you own when it comes to your digital marketing. It is the main platform needed to optimize for Google and drive organic leads.
The infrastructure, design, experience and content on your website all play a role in driving traffic and converting visitors into potential customers. With that in mind, you’ll want a site that ticks all the boxes:
Design – Your website should be attractive, professional and well designed. Whether you’re using a template or hiring a designer, it’s important that your website looks good to your potential customers.
Speed - Your site needs to have a fast loading time so that your content is easily presented and visible to website visitors. If it is slow, it may reject new customers.
Experience – A positive website experience is needed to make a good impression on visitors. This means having interactive design elements, great design for portable and desktop devices, and attractive images and media.
Infrastructure – Your website may look great but the technical infrastructure is just as important. You want a website that is technically sound, secure, fast, and search engine friendly.
Content – The content on your site makes all the difference in attracting new users and converting them into customers. “Content” here means the words on the web page, images, videos, downloadable, and any other valuable content that communicates a message to your users.
Once you’ve launched (or redesigned) an attractive, fast, and friendly website, you can start optimizing your site to generate organic traffic using SEO.
Step 2: Conduct SEO Keyword Research
“Keywords” are the terms people enter into Google Search to find information, products, businesses, and so on. For law firms, keywords mean the words that potential clients use to find attorneys, legal information, and legal services.
Your keyword strategy lays the foundation of your SEO efforts because it determines what keywords you hope to rank. Believe it or not, different law firms require different keyword strategies because the terms vary depending on the practice area, location and audience.
First, make a list of words that you associate with your law firm. For example, for a family law firm, some words may be “family lawyer”, “family law services”, “divorce file”, and so on.
Next, consider which of these terms should be modified by a geospecific term. In most cases, if you are serving a particular geographic area, you will want to target geospecific terms. For example: “seattle family law”, “seattle family lawyer”, etc.
Once you’ve created a relatively comprehensive list of terms related to your business and services, use an SEO tool to search for the Search Volume and Keyword of each keyword. We recommend tools like SEMRush.com or Ahrefs.com to do this. These will tell you if a term is being searched for and how difficult it is to rank for.
Finally, use your chosen SEO tool to find more keywords. You can use the Related Keywords report or search for your competitors’ domains to show unused keywords. Add these keywords to your list to establish the foundation of your SEO strategy.
Step 3: Develop Optimized Content
Your keyword research will gradually reveal the terms for which you should optimize your site. For example, Search Volume data may show that “seattle family lawyer” is a worthy term to target on your site.
Keywords can then be mapped to new or existing web pages. Be sure to “collect” keywords that are closely related to each other. For example, your “Seattle Divorce Lawyer” page is also likely to target “Seattle Divorce Lawyer” and “Seattle Divorce Lawyer.”
Once you’ve mapped these keywords to existing pages or new page topics, you can start a framework for either optimizing or creating content, respectively. Here are the basics to consider:
Title Tags – Use the main selected keyword for your page within what is called the “title tag” of the page. For example, the title tag for a Divorce Law Services page could read: “Divorce Law Services Seattle | PP&G Legal Group “
Meta descriptions – The meta description is the coded element on a web page that describes what the page is about. You can use a keyword or related keyword here. For example, a great meta description for a Divorce Law Services page might be: “Looking for Seattle Divorce Law Services? PP&G Law Group helps individuals and families navigate the divorce process, filing, mediation and more.”
H1 Title – The H1 title is another coded element that is often the visual title on a web page. It is often a slightly different version of the title tag. For example, “Divorce Law Services” is typically an appropriate H1 title for such a page.
Body Content – The body content on a page is the bulk of the content. It is the content that portrays the information or effectively describes the service. Your body content should use your keywords naturally across the page and, ideally, deliver more value than the pages of your competitors ranking for the same terms.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what is called “on-page SEO”. On-page SEO, in general, however, involves writing content that benefits your users and is optimized for the keywords you want to target.
Step 4: Own Your Local Organic Presence
Law firms rely heavily on Local SEO to reach users in a particular geographic market. If you only serve certain cities, states, or counties, then you will need local SEO.
Local SEO, as mentioned earlier, involved optimization for geospecific terms and / or location-specific platforms. For example, you want to optimize your site for city keywords and build your local listings, reviews, and directories.
Here are the basics of local SEO for law firms:
Keywords – Target keywords that contain geospecific modifiers because they relate to the markets you serve.
Content – Create content on your site optimized for geo-specific keywords (this includes web pages and some blog posts)
Google My Business – Google My Business (GMB) is a free platform that all businesses can use to host their business information in Local Search. Create your free profile and include your contact information, website link, office photos, reviews and more.
Directories – Other directories such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, Avvo and Lawyer.com allow law firms to publish their business information to attract potential clients. Add your business to reputable directories (but avoid spam).
Reviews – Positive customer reviews affect SEO and they affect sales. Ask past customers to review your business on GMB, Yelp, Bing Places and more.
A lot of local SEO requires ongoing maintenance, so be sure to monitor your listings, generate more customer reviews, and create more localized content.
Step 5: Build and Manage Your Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites back to your own website. These backlinks lend what is called authority to your site, making it more reliable in the eyes of Google. Gaining backlinks from high authority websites is great for SEO.
Building backlinks is often easier said than done, though. Here are some ideas on how to gain backlinks:
Partnerships – Take advantage of existing partnerships with other law firms, blogs, and businesses to ask them to link back to your site. This could be by you writing a guest article, they host you in their directory, or they link to you from an existing page or post.
PR – Conduct a PR activity or hire a PR agency to advocate for your law firm to be featured in the news and industry publications. Help a Reporter Out is an example of a website that often seeks to present legal experts in articles.
Guest Posting – Get high quality blogs and offer to contribute guest articles. Even better if these websites or blogs allow you to include links back to your site, for free.
Blogging – Post blog posts on your own website to attract the attention of other websites. If your content is amazing, this may encourage other bloggers and publishers to link to your content.
Furthermore, you can use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to check your backlinks. These tools will reveal the number of backlinks you have earned, the quality of the backlinks when they were acquired, and more. This will help you track your backlink acquisition efforts.
Planning a Law Firm SEO Strategy is Simple
Many marketers would believe that SEO is extremely complex. In reality, the basics are relatively easy to master. Once you have mastered the basics, you can move on to more involved strategies.
Of course, some markets are more competitive than others. If you are in a competitive market, it may be worth hiring a law firm SEO professional for more tailored support. Even so, knowing how to plan your own SEO strategy from the bottom up will help you better understand, implement, and measure your SEO efforts.
Every law firm can benefit from SEO. Start with the basics, learn from your experiences and invest your learning to develop a profitable marketing plan for your legal business.
Google Ads can work well for most businesses, including law firms. But it’s hard for beginners and can be really expensive, really fast. While you only pay per click, in some cases, those clicks can cost more than $ 50. “Lawyer” is one of the most expensive keywords.
What is the highest paying job in the world?
Here are the most affordable jobs of 2022:
- Anesthetist: $ 208,000.
- Surgeon: $ 208,000.
- Obstetrician and Gynecologist: $ 208,000.
- Orthodontist: $ 208,000.
- Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon: $ 208,000.
- Doctor: $ 208,000.
- Psychiatrist: $ 208,000.
What is the highest salary in the world 2021? Physicians and Surgeons Some high-paying physician job titles include a psychiatrist, obstetrician / gynecologist, surgeon, and anesthesiologist.
What is attorney SEO?
Lawyer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the traffic of a law firm’s website by gaining top-ranking positions in search engines such as Google and Bing.
How does SEO help law firms? SEO helps law firms beyond just traffic and lead generation; it provides a well-rounded marketing strategy that enhances the overall digital presence of your business. And a better digital presence means more opportunities to attract new legitimate customers!
Why does my law firm need a website and SEO?
SEO allows law firms to drive targeted traffic for a long time, whether to their website, directories or blog.
How much do law firms spend on SEO?
Some marketing agencies report that the average SEO budget for law firms is close to $ 7,500 per month. The top end of SEO investment for highly competitive companies is close to $ 25,000 per month.
Why does a law firm need a website?
The vast majority of your potential customers use the internet to search for information. Therefore, your law firm’s website is the best way for your firm to tell potential clients and referral sources who you are, what you do, how you can help, and how to contact you.
Does SEO work for law firms?
With the help of SEO, law firms achieve better organic search engine ranking (unpaid) positions and are more likely to get higher quality cases due to their increased visibility in search engines like Google, Bing, Youtube or smaller ones like Duck Duck Go. .
What does SEO mean in law?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of driving more visitors to your law firm’s website by increasing your site’s position on search engine results pages: the links that appear after you enter something in Google, Bing or another search engine.
How much do law firms spend on SEO?
Some marketing agencies report that the average SEO budget for law firms is close to $ 7,500 per month. The top end of SEO investment for highly competitive companies is close to $ 25,000 per month.
Why does my law firm need website and SEO? SEO allows law firms to drive targeted traffic for a long time, whether to their website, directories or blog.
Do law firms need SEO?
The short answer is yes – law firms need SEO to grow organically and reach more clients online. But there are many benefits to an SEO law firm that go beyond traffic and leads.