Marketing Tips For Lawyers: Growing Your Firm With SEO

Let’s say you’re suddenly in need of a dentist, but don’t already have a dentist you trust. Where do you go for help? In the past you might have consulted with a phone operator or phone book to point you in the right direction, but these days you’ll most likely head directly over to a search engine like Google for help. From there you’ll search for something like “Suffolk County dentists” and then look through the websites, review, videos, and social media pages that appear on the first few results pages to help inform your next decision.

Today’s consumer will typically search for legal assistance in a similar fashion. In fact, data show that 76 percent of consumers now search online when looking for a lawyer. So if more than three out of every four people are searching online for their attorney, you better make sure your firm is visible in online search results if you want to attract new clients.

SEO will get you clients

Establishing an online presence in the right places is what search engine optimization, or SEO, is all about. One of the most important marketing tips for lawyers we can provide is to get fully engaged in search marketing and everything that comes with it. In this blog post we’ll go over what attorneys need to know about growing their firm through search.

Rise To The Top Of Search Results

Statistics show that websites on the first page of search engine results receive almost 95% of web traffic, leaving only 5% for results beyond the first page. So the goal here should be pretty clear. Get your pages to rank as high as possible in search results. Get on that first page!

Using SEO to increase organic traffic will

• Bring your website more visitors, leads, conversions, sales, and brand awareness
• Help your web pages gain sustainable high rankings in more relevant search results
• Help solidify your firm’s credibility by providing several prominent links to your web pages

The bottom line is that the top positions on search engine result pages receive a majority of the impressions and clicks, and ranking in these top spots can lead to significant traffic increases for your website.

Target The Right Keywords

Ranking high in search results will be part of your SEO mission. But, if you want to see any real results from your search marketing efforts, you’ll need to rank high for the right keywords.

Your keywords are the words and phrases in your web content that make it possible for people to find your site via search engines. Keywords are vital, because they bring together what people are searching for and the content you are publishing to fill that need. Before you can begin to mold your content to be more search friendly, you need to identify proper keyword targets.

One of the best ways to discover which keywords you firm needs to be going after, is by seeing what your competitors rank for. Most desirable keywords will have high competition, but when feasible go after phrases that have a high search volume and low to moderate competition.

SEMrush is a top research tool, when it comes to keeping tabs on your competitors’ online marketing strategies. The site will provide you with insights into your competitors’ strategies in display advertising, organic search, and link building. You’ll also be able to compare competitive domains and estimate keyword difficulty with just a few clicks.

SEO competitive analysis is a key, because it provides information about which tactics are working in your field of law and ideas on how to improve your own keyword rankings. According to a blog post by digital marketing consultant John Reinesch, “By seeing where our competitors are strongest and weakest, we can determine how difficult it will be to outperform them and the amount of resources that it will take to do so.”

One last thing to remember when it comes to keyword research, is that you’ll need to do it more than just once. Relevant keywords for your industry will change over time, so be sure to update your list of target keywords every month or so.

Give Your Web Pages An SEO Makeover

Once you know what keywords are worth going after, use those keywords to give your firm website and web content the best possible chance to be found by consumers. Work alongside your web developer to include relevant keywords in a number of high-attention areas on your website. This can include the titles and body text of your pages, as well as your h1s, URLs, meta tags, and image file names.

Don’t attempt to stuff too many keywords into one page, or you’ll risk search engines like Google penalizing your site. Use your keywords in moderation, and only put them in relevant places. Natural placement is key. Also use long-tail keywords (longer and more specific keyword phrases) to mix things up a bit.

You should aim to have your web pages be as Google-friendly as possible. Give Google reason to rank your pages higher by playing by their preferred rules. This includes doing things like providing high-quality content on your pages (especially your homepage), and building your site with a logical link structure.

The more you know about search marketing the better a chance you’ll have to reach today’s legal consumer. The above information should help you get started with developing an SEO plan of action, but there is still plenty more to learn. Keep an eye out for part two of this blog post, in which we’ll provide further marketing tips for lawyers on growing your firm through SEO tactics.