Law firm SEO is tricky. But, it’s also 100% necessary given the high volume of competition online today. No matter where you’re located, outranking your competitors on Google will always be challenging.
At TechWyse, we’ve been helping lawyers improve their SEO for decades. So, we have a lot of experience optimizing law firm websites to increase rankings, traffic, and conversions.
That’s why we’ve created this in-depth guide outlining everything you need to know about SEO as a lawyer. Here, you’ll learn about how law firm SEO differs from other types of SEO, how to start, and most importantly, how to succeed.
But before we jump into the how-tos, let’s cover the basics.
What is Law Firm SEO?
To begin, SEO for lawyers is designed to help attorneys rank well for law-related searches on Google’s SERP (search engine results page). Depending on what a firm specializes in, there are hundreds of desirable keywords prospective clients are searching for. And overall, the main purpose is to outrank other law firms on the SERP and get relevant users onto your website to call you or fill out a form.
While there are many aspects of SEO and many strategies to focus on, the ones best suited for lawyers differ from those best suited for other services. That is the main difference between lawyer SEO and something like dental or insurance SEO, for instance.
So, to make things more efficient, it’s best for a lawyer to learn about SEO specifically for law firms as opposed to other types of businesses.
Here are some strategies that lawyers should focus on:
- High-quality content
- High-quality backlinks
- Local optimization
We’ll explore these and more shortly.
Why is Law Firm SEO important?
In other words, why should lawyers care?
How individuals find representation has evolved over time. In recent years, statistics indicate that more and more people are using Google to find lawyers.
In fact, The National Law Review found that 74% of prospects searched Google to find and contact a law firm. In addition, 96% of people used a search engine to look for legal advice.
Overall, it’s evident that people in need of an attorney are actually finding them online. That said, it’s not only important but absolutely necessary to rank well on Google if you want to gain more clients.
Simply put, if you want to ensure that prospective clients find you online, you have to have an efficient SEO strategy in place — one that actually puts you above your competitors.
This brings us to our next point.
What are the benefits of Attorney SEO?
Since you now have a good grasp of why SEO is vital for law firms, let’s talk more about the benefits.
Here are some straight to the point advantages:
- Increased online presence = more awareness
- Increased keyword research = more qualified leads
- Increased organic traffic = more prospective clients
- Increased organic conversions = more clients
- More clients = better ROI
The Biggest Problems with Law Firm SEO in 2020
When you think about this specific type of SEO being challenging, your number of competitors might come to mind. After all, there may be hundreds, if not thousands, of lawyers in your area of practice.
While blaming your competitors is convenient, usually poor SEO is the real reason for low rankings. That being said, before we go into how to outrank your competitors, it’s important to understand problem areas.
Here are some issues that an international marketing company has found in their research:
- 73% of law firm websites have no internal linking
- 40% of lawyer websites don’t have optimized meta titles
- 60% of law firm websites have indexing errors
- 40% of attorney websites have very little content or “thin content”
Effective On-Page Lawyer SEO Strategies
In this section, we’ll cover the best tactics you can use to optimize the SEO on your website.
1. Keyword Research
Before even implementing anything on your website, you need to look into the types of keywords you want to target. An example of a law-related keyword would be something like “immigration lawyer Toronto.” In simpler terms, it is a word or phrase that users search for online.
While doing keyword research, you want to use Google Keyword Planner to find the best keywords for your target audience. Be sure to select keywords that are the most relevant and have the highest search volumes.
2. Meta Tag Optimization
Meta tags include your page’s URL, title, and description. All of these should include the same primary keyword from your research. While implementing them, be sure to have your title and description at the right lengths. You can use an online pixel counter to ensure this. This should be done for every page on your website and is what users will see when they find you on Google’s SERP.
3. High-Quality Content
The content on your pages should be not only extremely well-written, but relevant to your keywords. Without relevant content, you’ll suffer from high bounce rates due to users not finding what they are looking for on your page.
Beyond effective copy and text, you should also focus on presentation and formatting. By this, we mean that you should include headers (H1s, H2s, and H3s) on your page. These headers should be optimized for SEO as well. To do this, always include your primary keyword in the H1. H2s and H3s can include either the primary keyword or similar keywords.
Effective Off-Page Law Firm SEO Strategies
In contrast to the previous section, we’ll also go over the best tactics to optimize SEO off your website.
1. Guest Blogs
The majority of off-page SEO revolves around acquiring high-quality backlinks for your website. And, one of the best ways to get these kinds of backlinks is to write law-related blogs for other websites.
In order to find websites that accept guest blogs, you can search Google with queries like “submit guest post law” and “write for us law.” Don’t forget to read their post guidelines before you start writing.
In addition, to ensure they are high-quality websites, you will want to check what their domain authority is. You can do this by using an online domain authority checker.
While writing your post, be sure to use a natural-sounding anchor text for your backlink. For example, instead of using a keyword that has a cost-per-click (CPC) value like “immigration lawyer Toronto” use something like “needing an immigration lawyer.” Overall, it should flow smoothly in your copy.
2. Local SEO Optimization
The first thing you want to do is optimize your Google My Business listing or create one if you don’t already have one. This is key to local SEO as it helps you increase your position on Google Maps search results. This can revolutionize the amount of traffic and leads you’re getting, especially as a local business.
Here are some ways you can optimize your listing:
- Make sure all of your contact information (name, address, etc.) is there and up to date
- Ensure that you have picked the right category for your business
- Add as many photos and videos as you can to your listing
- Include all of your social media profiles
- Add posts every few days to your listing (e.g. a link to your latest blog post)
- Add an embedded Google map on your website’s contact page
Besides optimizing your listing, you can also write guest posts for local blogs and news sites and add listings to local directories.
Win Your SEO Case With TechWyse
There’s no need to go to court to start seeing results! After reading this guide, you should have a better picture of how SEO works and how to be successful at it.
However, it’s no secret that lawyers work very long hours. And, as a digital marketing agency, we know that SEO also takes many hours. That being said, if you just don't have the time to plan and implement an efficient strategy for your website, we have the talent and tools in place to get things going.
Don’t plead the fifth. Let us know when we can start bringing you results. Contact us to learn more about our SEO services for lawyers!
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