Want to grow your law firm? Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best solutions to achieve that goal. According to the National Law Review, 96% of people seek legal advice by using a search engine, and 74% visit a law firm’s website first before taking action.
By implementing the basic principles of SEO, you can get more leads and conversions for your law firm. Aside from that, it’s usually a lot cheaper than advertising through ads and other traditional marketing strategies.
But since you’re a lawyer, it’s not surprising that you don’t have enough time to spare to learn more about SEO and implement it on your website. So, you need to find a law firm SEO expert who will do the legwork for you.
Things To Keep In Mind When Using Law Firm SEO Services
While you do not have to be the one to do the optimization for your site, there are things that you should work on with your agency to ensure the strategy you create will truly work for your firm.
1. Target Keywords Are Important For Your Law Firm
Finding the right keywords is the first step to properly optimize your website. If you get more targeted and specific keywords, you can gain more website traffic and potential leads for your practice.
You need to decide which terms and phrases your law firm should rank for. To do this, you should focus on your main areas of practice. For each area, list down potential keywords that are associated with it. You also need to do some research on these words by looking them up on Google and taking a look at the search results. Are the results related to your field of expertise? How will you stand out from other similar websites?
Look at the “searches related to” section that is usually found at the bottom of each search results page if you want to find more relevant keywords. Your SEO partner should be able to employ specialized law firm SEO strategies to tailor keywords that fit your requirements.
You can also use keyword research tools that are readily available online. These tools show you a keyword’s popularity, rate of competition, and more suggestions. Some of the best free tools that you can use are:
- Keyword.IO: Use this if you want to find more keywords that are related to the ones you thought of.
- Google Trends: You can see a keyword’s popularity and related keywords by using this tool.
- WMS Everywhere: This is a free browser extension for Chrome that shows the search volume (more commonly known as “hits”) and competition for each keyword.
2. Optimizing Your Home Page By Using Keywords Is Key
You need to make sure that all of the most important elements of your home page, such as the headline, subheadings (used to sort topics by using H2s and H3s), call to action (CTA), and content, utilize your keywords. The headline should include your primary keyword or the search terms that you want to rank the highest for, like your area of practice (e.g. L.A. contract lawyer). Your subheadings should also be optimized by using other keywords that you want your content to be seen.
Aside from your keywords, your title tag, meta description, and alt-texts for images can also affect your website’s ranking. These elements can be further optimized by using your keywords.
But if you have an existing website that’s unoptimized, this can take a lot of your time if you do it yourself. So, you should hire agencies that offer law firm SEO services.
3. Check Your Competition
Once you have your list of target keywords, you need to look them up on different search engines to see where your site ranks compared to other law firms. This will give you a better perspective on who your competition is and how much your site needs to improve.
You can check the top results and look for similarities and differences between your website and theirs. Check their home page, read their blogs, and visit other sections of their website to see how they’re using keywords, what the structure of their website is, and which type of content they’re publishing. This will help you formulate a better strategy to have high rankings on search results too.
With the help of a law firm SEO expert, you can look into the following:
- Does the law firm website that got the top ranking also have a blog with regularly updated articles talking about their field of expertise?
- Do they use keywords on every page, headline, and subheading?
- Does their site load fast (both on mobile and desktop)?
The last question is important because page load speeds matter. In fact, the first few seconds can significantly affect your conversion rate, which drops with every extra second of loading time.
4. Customize Your Metadata
Every page of your website should include metadata or information about your website that users can read on the search results. These pieces of data tell users and web crawlers what a certain page is for. There are two main components that you should customize:
- Title Tags: These HTML elements tell both Google bots and users what your page is talking about. You must use your keywords and your location here.
- Meta Descriptions: These are summaries of what your page is about and should also contain your target keywords.
5. Make Sure That Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly
More and more people use smartphones to find a lawyer. So, if you want to have more conversions, your site should also work well and load fast on the smaller screens.
As previously implied, each second counts when it comes to reducing your site’s bounce rate. Remember, most search engines rank sites with a responsive design.
Finding The Right Law Firm SEO Expert
You should consider working with an agency that has experience in delivering specific services— such as SEO for criminal defense law firms—because they can build the right strategy for your practice. You might have some colleagues who have worked with certain agencies in the past, so you can ask about how these agencies improved their conversions. And, you should go for a popular lawyer SEO agency with a proven track record and a solid portfolio to ensure you get the results you are looking for.
Conclusion
SEO for attorneys is akin to running in a marathon while looking for a law firm SEO expert is like finding a needle in a haystack. So, don’t expect that you’ll get instant results, and be careful with the choices that you make.
You need to be patient and create quality content that caters to your target audience, as this will increase your website’s rankings over time. By working with the professionals, you will increase your chances of staying ahead of the competition.
If you want to learn more about SEO and other topics that you can use to grow your business, check out our blog page!
