In today’s digital world, your clients are going online to find information and compare their options. If it’s difficult for people to discover your law firm, you’re most likely losing out on a significant amount of potential clients.
To help you enhance your SEO skills, we’ve developed a guide that outlines the basic fundamentals of SEO for law firms. This guide focuses on SEO for lawyers who are at the very beginning stages of developing an online lead generation strategy.
By the end of this guide, you will:
- Gain a solid understanding of what SEO for law firms is
- Learn the tactical strategies for implementing SEO
- Understand what to look for when hiring a vendor specialized in lawyer SEO
We’ve also pulled together specific tips and examples that can be applied to your website to help you show up in search engine results.
What is SEO?
SEO is the practice of driving more visitors to your law firm’s website by increasing your website’s position in search engine results pages. In other words, the links that show up after you enter something on Google, Bing, or another search engine.
If your law firm appears near the top of search engine results, specifically on the first page, you’ll get more visitors to your website. SEO doesn’t include any ads that show up in the results.
Once visitors click on your link within the organic results (and if your website provides them with the initial information they need and are looking for), they’ll reach out to you to learn more about your services
Does SEO work for lawyers?
Absolutely—when it’s done right.
The big challenge that persists when it comes to SEO for law firms is trying to figure out how to get your law firm to the top of the organic search results.
Although there are plenty of vendors offering lawyer SEO, there are no foolproof plans or guarantees that you’ll be able to rank in the number one position of the organic search results.
Fortunately, there are a variety of ways to improve your chances of ranking on the first page of the search results. If you’re able to understand the basic factors search engines evaluate when deciding which websites hold the most value to online users, it’s easy to cut through the noise in the market and catch the eye of prospects.
Law firm SEO ranking factors can be broken down into three categories:
Content
This means the words you use, along with other types of content, such as images, on the pages of the website of your law firm. Ensuring your website has high-quality content will improve user experience and will contribute to improving your website’s search engine rankings; particularly if your content is likely to fulfill user intent.
Backlinks and off-page citations
The impression, credibility, and authority that your law firm has online when compared to other law firms. This is influenced by the number of external website domains and pages referring traffic to your website.
Technical SEO
The user experience is a major ranking factor when Google is in the process of ranking your website. That means taking into consideration page speed, title tags, and site structure are long-term goals you should aspire to.
Why is SEO for lawyers so important?
If you’re a law firm looking to grow your business, organic search traffic is a significant marketing channel that often goes overlooked. This can be a huge missed opportunity.
Why?
For one, research gives good reason to suggest that more attention should be paid to improving law firm SEO. According to the Legal Trends Report, 17% of legal consumers looked for a lawyer via online search; tied for the second-most of any method.
Cosa Nostra Media, a full-service Los Angeles-based social media marketing agency founded in 2009, is focused on unlocking brand potential and SEO services for your Law Firm via strategy, media, web design, and content creation.