Effective SEO Tips for Lawyers and Law Firms

In today’s digital world, people who have legal challenges are going online to find answers and locate an attorney who can help them resolve their issues. If it’s difficult or impossible for potential clients to discover your law firm, you will likely lose out on a significant amount of business.

In this context, SEO for law firms has become a critical component of an effective legal marketing strategy. Here’s what you need to know about SEO and some of the most effective SEO tips for lawyers to help your law firm enhance its online presence and improve its overall results.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing content and websites for higher search engine rankings. In other words, you want your law firm’s website to show up at the top of the organic search results when someone enters a search term on Google, Bing, or another search engine. Examples include “divorce lawyer in Memphis,” “car accident attorney near me,” and “business contract lawyer Alabama.”

Why SEO is Important for Law Firms

SEO strategies for law firms are important because they boost your online visibility. When people can find you online, they are more likely to click on your website’s link to learn more about your firm and read its content.

For most online searches, fewer than 1% of people will go to the second page of organic search results. In fact, the first two results on the page will receive about 50% of the clicks. So SEO is essential for placing your firm’s results as high as possible to get your target audience to visit your website.

Effective SEO Tips for Lawyers and Law Firms

Most law firm SEO strategies will focus on securing the best possible rankings on Google since it holds 88% of the search engine market share in the United States. Google employs an algorithm using hundreds of signals to rank web pages. However, effective SEO for your law firm can be condensed down into five major categories to get your business the best results.

1. Content

A key part of any law firm’s marketing strategy and one of the biggest factors in SEO for lawyers is content. Your firm’s content refers to its use of web pages, practice area pages, blog posts, videos, images, and other content to describe your services and boost engagement.

You use content to convey information to potential clients, such as answering frequently asked questions and describing how your services work. As an SEO strategy, your content marketing should include high-value keywords, such as “DUI attorney near me” or “creating an estate plan.” The content you post should be up to date and include calls to action so readers understand the next steps in getting the help they need.

2. Link-Building

Even if you have perfect content, you may not get the search engine rankings you want if your pages aren’t considered authoritative or trustworthy. The best way to show this is through backlinks, which is another factor Google uses to rank websites.

Google views high-quality backlinks as a vote of confidence for your business’s content. To get the best results, the links must be from a website with a high domain authority, include relevant anchor text, and have a link placed within the content, not in a footer or sidebar.

Link-building is tricky because doing it wrong can have the opposite effect on your rankings. To avoid poor rankings or penalties, it’s best to have a professional execute this strategy.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to the various strategies that make your website easier to find and read by the search engines. These include items like:

• Site architecture
• URL structure
• Header tags
• Title tags
• Image alt text
• Internal and external links

Many of these elements are built into your website during the design stage. But it’s also possible to “fix” some of these items during a website redesign or refresh.

4. User Experience

Another SEO ranking factor Google places value on is the user experience (UX). This is a broad concept that covers how a potential visitor to your law firm’s website will feel and interact with the content. It refers to:

• How easy and intuitive it is to navigate your site,
• How responsive your site is on different devices, such as tablets and smartphones,
• How fast your site loads,
• How visually appealing your site is, and
• How secure your site is in terms of protecting visitor data.

While it’s unclear how much the UX will impact your organic ranking, all of these factors are essential to make a strong impression for your law firm’s brand.

5. Local SEO

Most law firms cater to a local market. In other words, you offer your legal services to clients within a certain geographic area. If your firm is located in Atlanta, getting website traffic and phone calls from people in Los Angeles may not do your business much good. Local SEO helps your firm focus its efforts on ranking in local search results.

Your firm’s Google Business Profile (GBP) is what makes it eligible to rank in Google Maps and the local search results. In addition to optimizing your GBP, you should be including localities (city, state, county, neighborhoods, etc.) in your website content, and encouraging online feedback from clients to improve your local SEO.

Get the Best SEO Results from Your Law Firm Marketing

The legal industry is so competitive that it’s challenging to create a strong and lasting online presence without the right legal marketing strategy. And your focus should be on delivering high-quality legal services, not researching keywords, creating meta tags, and building links. What you need is a legal marketing partner who can help you get lasting SEO results.

Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing is dedicated to helping its legal clients achieve outstanding results through proven digital marketing solutions. We understand what SEO tactics work and which ones will only produce short-term or questionable results. Call us at (800) 649-1764 or contact us online today to schedule a free initial consultation and website evaluation.