SEO for Lawyers: The Ultimate Guide to Law Firm SEO
Upscale Digital
Without a strong online presence, a law firm simply cannot consistently acquire new clients. Search engines like Google steer people in the direction of the businesses they ultimately patronize. Because of that, SEO for lawyers has never been so important.
Law firm SEO focuses on outstanding site design and keywords to craft well-written posts that rank well. Low-competition keywords, positive reviews, and authority links show Google that your site is trustworthy. Trustworthiness and expertise are the most important parts of SEO for lawyers as Google uses these criteria to index websites.
You can establish authority with accreditations and positive reviews on your Google Business Profile. The days of knocking on doors and paying exorbitant prices for billboards are over. Follow along as we explore how SEO for lawyers is the best way to make your law firm stand out and consistently acquire clients.
Do Lawyers Really Need SEO?
Lawyers used to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations and traditional marketing techniques. However, digital marketing has largely replaced the need for expensive billboards and TV commercials. A small investment, search engine optimization (SEO) lets law firms acquire clients through the biggest platform; Google.
SEO focuses on well-written, keyword-driven content to rank well on search engines. Outstanding content paired with a fast website that runs well can ensure your law firm ranks well. There’s no shortage of law firms to choose from, so you want yours to rank as high as possible for local searches.
That is only possible if you utilize several SEO tactics so you can index for several searches. Digital marketing is all about converting site visitors into clients who will in turn review and recommend your law firm. Whether your law firm is well-established or new, there is no better way to grow than SEO for lawyers.
How to Grow Your Law Firm With SEO
1. Audit Your Site for Weaknesses
The best way to start your law firm SEO campaign is to see where your website is lacking. An SEO audit provides comprehensive information about your site’s integrity and strength. It can reveal problems like broken links, structural heading problems, and weak use of keywords.
The results of the SEO audit show where you must direct your attention and change course. For example, you may need to revisit old posts to change and add headings or rewrite the content. From there, you can use the results to craft new keyword-focused content that ranks well on Google.
2. Redesign Your Site
Without a strong website, none of your SEO marketing efforts will have great results. Excellent site design is just as important as strong content, so you want your site to turn heads. Your site’s layout should be clear and steer the reader toward the pages you want them to see.
If the reader struggles to find the navigation menu, they won’t find your blog posts or contact information. Make sure your contact information is easy to find on each page of the site. For example, it helps to include a contact bar at the top of the page so you can access it from any page.
You must also include a contact tab so visitors can email you from your site. Not everyone wants to call, and this will help you acquire clients more easily. Flashy designs aren’t necessary for law firms, but make sure your site is at least visually appealing and distinct.
3. Conduct Local Keyword Research
Keyword research is the backbone of outstanding content that ranks well. Your best chance of ranking well is to use local keywords to acquire new clients locally. However, you must focus on low-competition keywords as they are easier to rank for.
At Upscale Digital, we can identify low-competition local keywords that will help your law firm rank well. We also work hard to structure content around these keywords and their variations. That’s how we make sure your site ranks well for several related searches to boost your discoverability.
If the keyword is “Morrisville lawyers”, you can use variations in headings like “average price for Morrisville lawyers”. Our content team has lots of experience weaving keywords through content, headings, and titles for the best results. SEO for lawyers is all about acquiring clients, and you can’t do that without boosting discoverability with keywords.
4. Hire Outstanding Writers
If your site is well-designed but you don’t rank well, it may be because your content isn’t outstanding. The only way to rank well with outstanding content is to hire great writers. Lawyers are often great at writing legal documents and presenting their cases.
However, most lawyers aren’t likely versed in the nuances of law firm SEO. Professional content writers know how to conduct keyword research and use SEO practices to ensure your site ranks well. A strong writer can write 6 or more posts per month about legal services that promote your firm and demonstrate your expertise.
5. List Your Law Firm on Google
Google accounts for over 81% of all searches. Because of that, people are most likely to discover your site via Google. The addition of Google Business Profiles in 2005 lets people discover your business even if you don’t get the first ranking for a specific search.
When someone searches “lawyers near me”, a list of all local lawyers with Business Profiles will appear. Google ranks the firms based on location, relevance, and prominence. SEO for lawyers is still vital, however, as prominence is largely determined by SEO practices.
Make sure to include your hours, address, phone number, and a link to your site on your profile. This will increase your chances of ranking well on the list of profiles. It also helps if your profile has a high rating based on customer reviews.
6. Acquire Backlinks Via Excellent Content
The “skyscraper technique” is one of the most nuanced and effective aspects of SEO for lawyers. This technique relies on creating excellent content that acquires backlinks from competitors and other online resources. Your competitors and other sites will only link to posts that they view as authoritative and well-written.
Include authority links to respected sites, statistics, graphs, and even videos to establish authority. Look at articles that link to your competitors and outdo them. Once you surpass their content, you can either send it to the site that linked to your competitor or simply wait for other sites to link to you.
Eventually, you will organically acquire backlinks as your site ranks higher and higher. This will direct traffic to your site and make you look much better in the eyes of your future clients.
7. Optimize Your Site for Speed and Mobile Users
As previously mentioned, site design is a vital part of SEO for law firms. However, your site design efforts will go to waste if you don’t cater to mobile users. Today, 55% of people online use mobile phones to browse the Internet.
You must consider how everything from the navigation menu and font size to the pop-up ads will affect the mobile user. If you’ve ever browsed sites on a smartphone, you’ve probably come across sites with excessive pop-ups that are hard to close. That’s enough to make someone exit from your site, and it’s unacceptable when it comes to digital marketing.
Make sure to include easy-to-tap links so visitors can easily click your internal and outgoing links. A huge chunk of your site’s traffic will come from smartphones, so it should work as well for iPhone users as it does for PC browsers.
8. Prove Your Expertise and Trustworthiness
Google uses several factors to rate and index websites. Four factors particularly affect how well you’ll rank and be perceived: experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. These factors may not always directly affect your ranking per se, but Google takes them into account and they’re important.
Of these factors, expertise and trustworthiness are the most likely to affect your ranking. That’s especially true when it comes to SEO for lawyers where trust is essential. You can demonstrate these factors on your site with first-hand knowledge and language that establishes authority within the legal world.
Another way to do this is to list your accreditations, such as what law schools the lawyers in your practice went to. It also helps to list your track record, as much as the law permits, that is. Include authority links to legal resources to back up the facts on your blogs as well. Each of these efforts will show Google and other search engines that your site and law firm is trustworthy.
9. Request Client Testimonials
Law firm SEO is nothing if your readers don’t trust your reputation. Reputation management for lawyers largely relies on online reviews and testimonials from clients. Graciously ask your clients for testimonials that you post on your site to show your future clients what to expect.
It’s also a great idea to ask them to post reviews on your Google Business Profile. Positive reviews help your Google Business Profile rank higher which will boost traffic to your site. Reputation management is an often neglected aspect of SEO for lawyers that establishes trust and helps you index on Google.
10. Take Advantage of Online Legal Directories
Today, there are countless online directories for every industry, and that includes law firms. Legal directories like Lawyers.com and Legal Shield let you list your law firm so you people can find it. This is vital to SEO as it increases the chances that people will find your site through other outlets.
After all, you don’t just want your site to be discoverable from a few Google searches. Listing your law firm on appropriate directories makes it hard for people to not stumble across it at some point. The more well-known your law firm is, the higher it will rank on many directories.
11. Hire a Digital Marketing Agency
As a digital marketing agency, we work hard to aggressively generate leads and acquire clients for you. At Upscale Digital, we understand that law firm SEO is the modern standard in marketing. Our founders have over 15 years of experience with SEO and digital marketing that goes into each of our strategies.
Through intensive keyword research and content creation, we cater to Google’s criteria for high-ranking websites. Our SEO, keyword research, reputation management, and site design services all focus on one thing: acquiring clients. These proven digital marketing strategies are meant to boost your conversion rate, so site visitors become happy clients.
Why is SEO Important for Law Firms?
The results of SEO for lawyers are undeniable. Law firm SEO is a long-term commitment that pays off in countless worthwhile ways, such as:
- Your law firm will rank high on search engines. Today, you can’t generate leads unless it’s easy for people to find your site. SEO tactics make this possible, and you can rank well for many related searches.
- SEO is cheaper than many other marketing strategies. It costs between $750 and $14,000 to rent a billboard for a month alone. The cost of billboards, commercials, and radio ads doesn’t provide results nearly as great as indexing well on search engines.
- Your law firm’s reputation will speak for itself. People view Google search results as an unspoken ranking of the best options. Because of that, your ranking in the search results is as important as your local reputation.
- You will get more clients. A law firm is only as strong as its client base. SEO is the best way to acquire more clients without a huge marketing overhead. The conversion rate with SEO is incomparable to any other marketing strategy.
Does SEO Actually Work for Law Firms?
SEO is arguably the most effective marketing strategy for law firms. Previously, law firms relied on billboards, commercials, radio ads, and other traditional strategies. The competition amongst lawyers means that you must make sure people can discover your law firm in several ways.
SEO lets you do this as you will rank well for several searches if you launch a successful campaign. Once you acquire backlinks from competitors, you will even earn clients from competitors and other online resources.
Should Law Firms Use Social Media?
Social media is a valuable tool that lawyers can use to acquire more clients for their law firms. Both organic and paid social media advertising can increase your reach and let you reach more people daily. By 2025, it’s expected that there will be 1.4 billion Instagram users alone.
That doesn’t even include other platforms like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) which also have huge followings. Today, Instagram reels are even more popular than standard posts and get 22% more engagement. As a law firm, you can easily make 15-to 30-second reels that use trending songs and sound effects to go viral.
Social media platforms let you link to your website, and this can boost traffic. SEO and social media go hand-in-hand as platforms like Instagram can help your Google ranking. Social media marketing can raise awareness for your law firm and even help acquire backlinks.
How Do You Find Keywords for Law Firms?
Today, you can easily find keywords for law firm SEO with third-party tools like Ahrefs. Keyword finder tools let you examine important data such as search volume. This will let you know which keywords are worth using so you can structure your content around them.
How Long Before I See Results if I Hire an SEO Agency?
You can see results in as little as 3 months if you hire an SEO agency. At Upscale Digital, we craft unique SEO campaigns for our clients designed to aggressively acquire leads. Naturally, ranking well on search engines takes a few months as Google indexes countless pages each week.
Each page on your site has the potential to reach hundreds of people. Even a low conversion rate can help you acquire 10 or more clients per month from just a single page. However, the best results come from posting 3 or more pages per month with consistently strong content.
It’s ultimately up to you to determine how many pages you want per month and how aggressively you want your law firm to grow.
Attorney SEO is the Best Way to Grow Your Law Firm
A law firm can only grow if it keeps up the modern, effective marketing strategies. The purpose of SEO for lawyers is to widen your law firm’s reach and aggressively acquire clients. Through strong content, keyword research, and outstanding site design, you can ensure your firm ranks well on Google.
A law firm’s website is perfectly primed for a strong SEO campaign. You have plenty of opportunities to craft well-written posts that demonstrate your firm’s authority. Nobody will hire a lawyer that they don’t believe has the knowledge and skill to help them.
By earning positive reviews and backlinks, you will rank higher on Google and show you can be trusted. Most people need lawyers at one point or another, and there are many to choose from. At Upscale Digital, we use proven SEO practices to ensure your law firm doesn’t drown in the sea of competitors that rank better. Law firm SEO is the only way to put your firm where it belongs; at the top.
