SEO Tips for Law Firms

As a general rule, attorneys are knowledgeable people who can write fantastic content for a blog. But, because they know the law, and not necessarily internet marketing (there are some who major in marketing before going on to law school), they don’t know how to take those blog posts and get them ranking high in Google and other search engines. This is necessary to build steady traffic to your website – hopefully, some of which will convert to paying clients.

The excellent news is lawyers can learn SEO tips to help improve their ranking. This way, they can keep writing the content but get better results.

Start with Keyword Research

Keyword research tools like Answer the Public, Keyword Tool, and SEM Rush let you find words and phrases your potential clients use to find lawyers in your area. This information can help you find topics to write about and the terms to include on your website to help boost your overall ranking.

Take a look at this graphic from Answer the Public. Searching for child custody reveals plenty of questions people are searching for answers to. You can create blog posts around these questions to generate the content your potential clients seek. Some of them won’t be relevant if your office is in Denver, like “making a will child custody UK,” but you can make many of them work.

Write Content Specific to Your Legal Specialties

Law is a complicated and broad subject. Chances are your firm has a reputation for representing certain types of cases. If you focus on criminal defense, writing about estate or family law is unnecessary.

But let’s say you are a family lawyer here in Colorado. People may search something like “Denver divorce lawyer,” but chances are there will be plenty of searchers out there getting specific with their searches. They may search for something like, “How do I get custody of my children in Denver?”

The more specific your content is, the more likely it is to be relevant to a potential client’s search. The more information you provide to the searcher, the more likely they will see you as a valid source of trustworthy information. When this happens, they will likely call you if and when they have any questions or concerns. And if you can nail the consultation, your client volume will increase.

Write Often

The more you write, the more content the search engines will have to rank. The more often you write, the more you’ll send freshness signals to the search engines. They are less likely to list old information for fear of being outdated. Aim to write at least once a week, but know businesses that blog three times a week get 3x more traffic than those who only blog once a week.

Link to Articles (Yours and Others)

Search engines look at the number of links to and from your site as an indication of quality. Quality will always influence rankings because search engines try to ensure they provide a good experience for their customers (users) just like you are.

Whenever you talk about a subject that overlaps, link to the content that you’ve already written. When you mention cases or specific resources, connect to credible sources where your readers can find more information.

Use Local SEO Tactics

While you may be able to offer general advice on the federal level, laws vary from state to state and even from city to city. You can’t possibly serve everyone – so focus only on the localities where you’ve passed the bar and can appear in court. Depending on the number of lawyers in your field, some areas will have more competition than others. The more competition, the more SEO efforts you must make to succeed.

Tactics include:

  • Building/claiming local citations in directories: Start with directories like Google My Business, Bing Local, and Yahoo Local. If your business is already listed, claim the listing as your own and ensure the information is accurate and consistent across all listings.
  • Using appropriate schema markup: This is how Google understands the information you have on your website – instead of just reading it. We’ve written a guide on structured markup to help you see what you can use on your site.
  • Running pay-per-click ads: Use platforms like Google AdSense and Facebook Ads to run ads that advertise your website to your target audience. You’ll bid on keywords in Google AdSense and specify demographics on Facebook.

Think Like a Potential Client

Ultimately, you’ll want to think like a potential client. What would someone who needs your services use to search when they want to find you? What kind of information would they want to see on your website once they find you? Your clients aren’t lawyers, so save the legal jargon for the next conference with fellow attorneys. Speak in the terms your clients would use and understand – because that’s precisely how they will search to find you.

The team here at SEO Inc. knows just how busy lawyers can be. Between appearing in court, filing paperwork, meeting with clients, and consulting with potential clients, there’s little time to handle your marketing and website tasks independently.

If you want help with your digital marketing needs to grow your firm, let’s talk and get in touch today! Or book a meeting directly with our CEO, Garry Grant. Click the following link to Schedule a call with Garry. We’ll handle your SEO and even give you a free website audit to show you where to make changes to get the most impact immediately.

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