How to Conduct an SEO Competitor Keyword Analysis on Law Firm Websites

In the digital realm, knowing your adversaries is crucial for success, and this holds true for law firm websites, as well. By conducting an SEO competitor keyword analysis, you can uncover the strategies employed by your rivals, gain a competitive edge, and position your law firm as the go-to authority in your field. 

But how do you learn from your competitors’ online marketing strategies? And is it ethical to essentially spy on your so-called enemies so you can replicate or even exceed their results?

Why an SEO Competitor Analysis is Vital to Your Success 

Have you ever wondered how some legal practices manage to consistently dominate the top search results while others struggle to be noticed? The answer lies in understanding your competitors. 

A competitive keyword analysis is a valuable tool that enables you to examine the search landscape for crucial search terms, providing you with an understanding of the level of competition you’ll face. By conducting this analysis, you can gauge the difficulty of surpassing your competitors and devise effective strategies to outperform them. 

Furthermore, it uncovers hidden gems such as new keywords, content concepts, and link building opportunities that may have eluded your attention. The insights gained from an SEO competitor analysis hold the power to enhance your website’s rankings and drive more web traffic, ultimately helping boost your online presence and ensure success. 

As for the ethical implications of “spying” on the competition, there’s nothing wrong with learning from or even replicating your competitors’ SEO tactics. In fact, it is a common strategy not just amongst law firms but also amongst businesses across various industries. After all, there is no better way to learn effective law firm SEO than from those already excelling in it.

Steps to Conducting Competitor Keyword Analysis 

To conduct SEO competitor analysis on other law firm websites, consider the following steps.

1. Identify what your prospects want

One prevalent mistake many law firms make with SEO is prioritising high-volume keywords. This approach can be detrimental since ranking for a popular keyword does not guarantee leads and conversions. 

Consider the keyword “lawyer”. While achieving a high ranking for this keyword may attract numerous visitors to your site, it is unlikely that these visitors will convert into customers. This is because many individuals searching for this term merely look for information about what a lawyer does or how they can become one rather than actively seeking to obtain their services. 

It is crucial to prioritise keywords that align with your target audience’s intent and are more likely to drive meaningful conversions rather than solely focusing on search volume. This is why you need to understand what your prospects are looking for before diving into the SEO process to ensure substantial traffic and meaningful conversions.

2. Determine your top 3 competitors 

Once you thoroughly understand what your potential clients are searching on Google, the next step is to identify your top competitors. While there may be numerous law firms offering legal services similar to yours, you should focus on identifying your main three competitors. We recommend this strategy for two important reasons: 

• Performing competitor keyword research on a large number of competitors is time-consuming.
• Your closest competitors are more likely to provide valuable insights into keywords with the highest search intent within your market. 

This streamlined approach to SEO competitor keyword analysis follows the 80/20 rule, where you can make significant keyword discoveries by simply studying your top three competitors. To identify your top three competitors, look for those that: 

• Target the same customer base
• Offer similar legal services
• Constantly occupy your thoughts 

These law firm websites are the ones that hold the most relevance for uncovering valuable keywords and gaining a competitive advantage. 

3. Identify their strengths and weaknesses

Every website has weaknesses, even the massively popular ones, such as Facebook and Wikipedia. To determine your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, grab their URLs and examine their websites using these essential factors:

a. Domain authority

Site owners often use keyword difficulty metrics to measure the link strength of top-ranking URLs for a specific keyword. However, these metrics may not fully reflect how difficult achieving a high search ranking is. It would be best to also consider a website’s domain authority for more accurate insights. 

Domain authority measures a website’s overall quality and SEO performance based on various factors. It runs from 0 to 100, with 100 being the highest. The higher the score, the better chance of a website ranking for relevant keywords. 

If one of your top competitors has a higher domain authority than you, it will be more challenging to outrank them. However, the good news is that you can improve your authority by building high-quality backlinks.

b. Content

Analysing your competitors’ content marketing strategy can help you gain insights on how to improve yours. Besides helping you identify keywords to target, it can help you determine if they: 

• Publish relevant and high-quality content
• Post substantial content rather than thin articles
• Focus on promoting their services rather than publish guides that provide value to web visitors
• Create different content types or only publish one kind 

Make a list of the strengths and weaknesses you notice. Try to replicate the areas they are good at while capitalising on their weaknesses. This will help you identify keywords and produce content better than theirs. 

c. New keywords

It is also worth knowing if your competitors are targeting new keywords, and you might want to target these search terms, too. Using your preferred analytics tool, analyse these new keywords and determine if you need to create new pages for them. 

Then, consider your business goal and the content/web pages you have that are currently ranking well. This will clue you in on the type of content your visitors find interesting, whether it is a blog post or a service/speciality page. 

Remember, after conducting an SEO competitor keyword analysis, you should create the right type of content for every new keyword you want to target. This would allow you to serve your audience’s search intent best.

Make Competitor Keyword Analysis an Essential Part of Your SEO Campaign 

Understanding your competitors is paramount to achieving success for your law firm’s website. Through competitor keyword analysis, you can gain invaluable insights into the strategies employed by your rivals, giving you a competitive edge and positioning your firm as a trusted legal authority. By following the steps discussed in this guide, you can unlock valuable opportunities to optimise your website’s rankings, drive meaningful traffic, and boost your online presence. 

If you neither have the time nor expertise, we at Kinetic Traffic are happy to perform an SEO competitor analysis on your behalf. Get in touch with our team, and we’ll provide you with the expert SEO solutions you need.