Contrary to popular beliefs, SEO for law firms is not rocket science. It can be boiled down to a few simple steps. If repeated, they can lead to excellent results. While this post is about blogs, the same principles can be used on your practice area pages, homepage, etc.
If you’re like most lawyers, you want to focus your time on billable activities. You likely understand the importance of SEO for law firms, but carving out the time to write blog posts can be nearly impossible.
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. I’ve worked with countless law firms, solo practitioners, and legal marketing companies to help them create engaging and informative content that ranks. Listed below are a few of the tips I’ve learned in the process.
If you don’t have enough time or the desire to churn out a few thousand words per month, yourlegalcontentwriter.com has got you covered. Contact us today.
Learn about Law firm SEO tips below.
1. Set Your Goals
This may seem like an obvious step. However, I’ve heard from many lawyers who start writing their blogs without developing concrete goals for what they would like to achieve. For instance, do you want to build trust, inform potential clients, rank on google, just have an outlet, etc.?
The law firm SEO goal of most lawyers is to acquire new clients - which is a great goal. However, it’s essential to understand what your clients are searching for, how you can serve them with free and informative content, as well as how you can eventually convert them.
A great goal to start with is to choose a few relevant keywords and then set a goal to increase your local search engine rank for them. You can use tools like Google Search Console, Soovle, Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, etc.
When choosing keywords, it’s good to start on the macro level and then drill your way down. For example, you may begin with a phrase like “Immigration lawyer Miami” for your first post and then go more into the topic on subsequent legal blog posts. An example of “drilling down” might be “business visa immigration lawyer Little Havana Miami.”
2. Understand Your Customer and Their Search Habits
There are tons of technical tools you can use to accomplish this goal. However, here’s a secret; the search engine results page will tell you almost everything you need to know. For example, type something like “DUI Lawyer Atlanta” into the Google search bar.
When you do this, you will notice a few sections on the page. What we’re targeting here is the (a)“People also ask” and (b)“Searches related to” sections. Using these sections will help you to develop your H2 headers as well as intuitive keywords to incorporate.
Sometimes, these sections are populated with irrelevant topics or keywords. Discard the suggestions that don’t work for you. Check out a few screenshots below.
(a) People Also Ask
(b) Searches Related to
3. See What Other Law Firms Are Doing
Don’t spend hours trying to reinvent the wheel. Search engines provide you with many clues about what’s worthy of ranking on the first page and what’s not. Suppose you’re a family lawyer, and you want more divorce clients. It can help to type in a simple search like “How Much Does Divorce Cost in Minnesota.”
Take a look at the top three pages to learn what they’re doing that’s working. Likewise, check out the bottom three pages that appear on page one of the search results to see what gaps they have in their content.
Create your content based on providing a better blog post (more informative, more engaging, mobile-friendly, etc.).
5. Create an Easily Attainable Legal Blogging Schedule
One of the most prevalent issues lawyers across practice areas face is they don’t have enough time to do keyword research, create a blog post, edit, find relevant pictures, etc. That’s understandable.
However, if you’re determined to take care of your blogging and law firm website content (and not using law firm SEO services), it can help to set aside 90-minutes per week to write a relevant, informative, and engaging post.
That should give you enough time to write a 750 - 1000 word post as well as post it.
6. Know What Google & Other Search Engines Want
Search engines are funny. On the surface, they seem simple. However, once you peel back a few layers, you learn that the results you see are the product of a robust algorithm that’s “contemplating” all types of information to determine where your page should appear in the results.
While listing a comprehensive list would take a series of blog posts, we’ve provided you with a few important high-level things to consider when blogging.
Mobile-Friendly: Nearly 60 percent of all internet searches are conducted on a smartphone. The search engines know this and prioritize legal blog posts and law firm websites based on how well they perform on mobile. A few factors to keep in mind include website speed, appropriate line spacing (i.e., 1 - 4 lines of text per paragraph), bounce rate (how long visitors stay on your pages, etc.)
Alt Tags, Meta Data, Etc.: Remember, search engines don’t have eyes. They can only read. This means that all pictures should include Alt tags describing what’s in the picture. Be sure to include relevant keywords. Also, Meta tags aren’t used for ranking, but they help the search engine and potential customers to know what your page is about.
Structured Data: This is a bit technical, but not too much. Google uses a page's structured data to help it understand what’s on the page. For instance, if your legal blog topic is something like “10 steps to take when seeking custody in Phoenix,” then you can add the ten steps in the structured data section of your code. If you're uncomfortable learning JSON-LD syntax, it may be best to leave this to a professional. Check out an example provided by Google below.
7. Don’t Try to Do Everything At Once
All of this can seem like a lot. In some ways, it is. However, if you break it up into small, easily achievable steps, you can get there. The most important steps are to write (with keywords in mind), maintain law firm SEO best practices, post, and regularly review your results.
Remember, it can take 3-months to 1-year to achieve strong results on your search engine efforts. However, once you’ve developed a robust blog, homepage, and practice area pages, you can dramatically decrease your spending on pay per click legal leads.
Keep in mind; organic search engine traffic gets 10x more clicks than pay-per-click campaigns. So your efforts will pay off eventually.
Need Help With Your Legal Blog? - Contact Us Today
Whether you’re a solo lawyer, large law firm, or legal marketing company, yourlegalcontentwriters.com is here to help you with your legal SEO content.
Writing law firm SEO content on your own can take you away from other important matters concerning your law firm. We are a small, niche agency that focuses strictly on SEO for law firms and legal companies.
I personally train all writers on best law firm SEO practices, and we adhere to the guidelines in “ABA Rule 7.2: Communications Concerning a Lawyer’s Services.” Our content is original, SEO focused, engaging, and written to rank.
Are you tired of inaccurate, unoriginal, and uninformed legal content writers? Don’t waste your time or money with them anymore. Contact Your Legal Content Writers to schedule your initial consultation today.