How Does SEO Marketing for Law Firms Work?

As today’s legal clients become more tech-savvy, it’s crucial for lawyers to give their marketing strategies a makeover. While word of mouth remains an effective way to attract new clients, SEO marketing for law firms has emerged as a fool-proof way to get your name out there and obtain your prospect’s attention. 

But what exactly is search engine optimisation, and how does it work for law firms? 

How Lawyers Can Benefit from SEO

SEO is the process of optimising the different elements of your website to rank high on search engine result pages. The higher you rank and the more visible you are on search results, the better your chances of convincing potential clients to visit your law firm’s website. 

The last few years saw how people become more reliant on the Internet when finding the products and services they require. And with the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more of them realise how easy and convenient it is to use Google and other search engines to find what they need. 

If you are keen on ensuring the growth and success of your legal practice, you should include SEO in your overall marketing strategy. Optimising your site for Google and other major search engines is an effective and inexpensive way to promote your legal services and attract new clients. Also, at 2.4%, SEO has a better conversion rate than traditional advertising methods, such as billboards and TV and radio ads. 

Furthermore, SEO helps you build your credibility. For instance, your web content allows you to showcase your legal expertise, making your target audience trust you more. This enables you to create an excellent impression, which helps encourage them to enlist your legal services. 

Give Google What It Wants

With thousands of evidence and success stories, there is no doubt that SEO works for lawyers. However, SEO is not as simple as researching the most relevant keywords and adding them to your web content. You need to implement various strategies to enjoy better visibility on major search engines such as Google and obtain the results you’re expecting. 

1. Create quality content

Quality content is a critical component of SEO. After all, if your website is empty, Google’s search bots won’t have anything to crawl and index. As a lawyer, you can create many types of content to pique your audience’s attention and boost your search rankings. They include: 

• Blog articles
• Service area pages
• FAQs
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Infographics 

To get the best results, see that your web content contains relevant keywords and is topically relevant, highly readable, and easy to share. 

2. Build quality backlinks

Google uses an algorithm called PageRank to calculate a web page’s perceived value, and one way to increase your site’s value is to build quality backlinks. When many authority websites link to yours, this signals Google that your site is legitimate and a reliable source of information. 

When building backlinks, always consider these three factors: 

• Quality – ensure your backlinks are from authority sites or those with a high PageRank.
• Relevance – sites linking to yours should be related to your industry, particularly the areas of law you specialise in.
• Quantity – the more quality links pointing to your site, the better your chances of ranking high on search result pages. 

3. Provide excellent user experience

Besides accurate search results, Google aims to provide users with a better web experience. Therefore, to make the most of SEO marketing for law firms and enjoy a higher search ranking, ensure that your site has robust technical SEO. You can do this by: 

• Improving page loading times – ensure that it won’t take more than three seconds for your web pages to load to keep your bounce rates low.
• Providing better web navigation – make it easier for your web visitors to explore your site by delivering better web navigation and linking related pages together.
• Keeping your site secure – ensure that your site is free from malware, particularly if you collect visitors’ information. Also, switch from HTTP to HTTPS to ensure a safe browsing experience for your visitors.
• Ensuring your site is mobile-friendly – with a growing number of people browsing the Internet through their mobile devices, ensure that your site is rendered correctly regardless of screen size.
• Removing intrusive pop-ups – eliminate excessively intrusive pop-ups as they distract web visitors from doing what they need to do on your site. 

4. Optimise your site’s on-page elements

Ensure that every onsite element of your law firm’s website is optimised for search engines. This can help boost your pages’ relevancy, which in turn increases your site’s SEO ranking. Here are some pointers to consider: 

• Add your focus keywords to your page titles and meta descriptions.
• Incorporate relevant keywords into your page URLs.
• Add relevant images with optimised alt texts to your web pages.
• Create compelling and optimised headlines.
• Include secondary keywords in your subheadings or H2 tags.
• Make your pages more shareable by adding a share button. 

Start Optimising your Law Firm’s Website Today

With a growing number of legal clients finding the services they need through the Internet, appearing prominently on search result pages increases your chances of finding new clients. Therefore, you should optimise your law firm’s website for SEO to improve your search ranking and online visibility. Consider the pointers discussed above to make the most of SEO. 

If you neither have the time nor knowledge to develop and implement an effective SEO strategy for your site, we at Kinetic Traffic can help. With a team of highly skilled and experienced law firm SEO specialists, we have the knowledge and expertise to provide you with the results you’re looking for. Please get in touch with us today!