Your law firm’s success depends on your ability to attract new clients and provide outstanding service to existing clients. Attracting clients, especially in a competitive marketplace, isn’t always easy.
It is important to distinguish yourself from other law firms in order to attract clients who are looking for similar services.
While this guide is a great start for your law firm’s venture into SEO marketing, most attorneys need help from an expert. A company like Gladiator Law Marketing can take the burden of reinventing the wheel off your shoulders.
SEO means more people find you. Good SEO brings them to you so that you can use your training and experience to show them how they need to trust you to represent them.
SEO for Law Firms Defined
The practice of increasing the visibility of your law firm in search engines is known as “attorney optimization” or “legal SEO”. SEO is used to attract people to search engines, such as Google, for information, products and services. SEO can be used by law firms to generate website traffic and attract new clients online.
These SEO strategies and techniques can be used to rank your law firm’s website at the top of organic search results, helping you to attract more potential clients.
What Legal SEO Does
Google is a popular search engine that most people use to find information and businesses online. This is also used to search for legal services.
SEO can help you increase your chances of being found by people looking for the services that you provide.
SEO is a technique that makes your website more easily “readable” by search engine algorithms.
These algorithms will scan your site for content, make sense, display the content in search results and show the correct page to the right person.
A successful SEO strategy uses a variety of tools and tactics to improve your search engine rankings. These include:
- Increase keyword ranking in search engines
- Organic traffic to your site.
- Increasing the authority of your website.
- Positive PR.
- Attracting clients who are happy
- Improve your website traffic
- Increase conversions/lead generation through your website.
- Attracting new partners and networking opportunities.
- Interviews, landing features, and speaking events are just a few of the many benefits.
The Fundamentals of Law Firm SEO
Do not be afraid to ask for help with law firm SEO. You can improve the rankings of your law practice, increase traffic and get more clients.
Keyword Research
SEO strategies often start with keyword research. This is because it’s important to determine what terms your target audience uses to search for law firms similar to yours.
Although you might know what potential clients are looking for, it is always better to see the data.
Keyword research tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush can be used to locate keyword suggestions and compare search volume (how many people are searching for the term), as well analyze competition level (how many websites are ranking for the term/how likely you are to rank for it).
This will allow you to determine which keywords are worth focusing on in your content.
Website Optimization
Once you have identified the keywords that potential clients are searching for, it is time to optimize your website for those terms. This will make it easier for search engine algorithms and to index your website.
This includes both technical and on page SEO. It may include tasks such as creating a sitemap, using keywords in page titles and descriptions, optimizing the site for mobile searches, speeding up your site’s loading speeds, fixing broken links (404s), etc.
These tasks can be done by you or hired professionals.
Local SEO
Many law firms only serve a limited area. Legal SEO is essential when targeting searchers in your area.
Reaching potential clients that are willing to work with you is important. Local SEO includes optimizing your website to geo-specific keywords as well as building profiles for local listings.
Google My Business, Yelp and Bing Places are some examples of online listings that allow you to update your business information and draw clients through local search.
Another part of this step is to submit your information to legal directories.
Content Marketing
Content can be a powerful tool in improving your site’s rank and turning passive visitors into paying customers.
But content alone will not get your website to SEO success. However, engaging and SEO-friendly content is essential if you are to generate new business for law firms.
Most likely, your content marketing strategy involves creating service pages, blog pages, and web pages for your website. To attract people who search for these terms, optimize every piece of content with a targeted keyword.
Link Building
Inbound links (backlinks) are what search engines use to assess a website’s authority or trustworthiness. Backlinks can be viewed as votes of trust from other websites that your website provides great information.
While some websites will naturally link to your site, others will need to be more deliberate about building links.
You want to attract relevant, high-quality links to your website via guest posts, interviews and infographics.
Reviews
Law firms need to have reviews. Not only for SEO but also to build trust with potential clients. It is common knowledge that positive reviews will make it more likely that others will want to work for you.
Many law firms request that their clients leave reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp. However, you can always be more deliberate in your review generation efforts.
Organic search traffic is an important marketing channel for law firms looking to grow their business. Research suggests that law firm SEO should be given more attention. The 2019 Legal Trends Report shows that 17% of legal consumers searched online for a lawyer. This is tied for second-most of all methods.
SEO can be difficult to grasp, especially if you have never invested in this type of marketing before. However, it is an integral part of a basic marketing strategy for law firms.
Gladiator Marketing works to stay keep you one step ahead of your competitors’ SEO knowledge.