What Is Law Firm SEO?

There’s a meeting in the conference room among attorneys and paralegals. The topic of the conversation turns to how to gain clientele. You all know that you need to build your online presence. Then, someone suggests SEO. What is law firm SEO, and why is it important? If you work in the legal field, these are some questions you might have.

Maybe you’ve heard of search engine optimization, or SEO for short. But you might not know what it is. Is it something you need? How do you go about it? Let’s talk about what law firm SEO is, why it’s important and you can implement it to gain new clients.

What Is SEO for Law Firms?

Law firm SEO is the process of making sure that the law firm’s online presence is available to search engines. It’s making sure that users can find your online information, including your website, when your target audience searches for a lawyer in your field. Ultimately, it helps potential customers find you and your law firm before they find someone else.

Potential clients have two ways to find your website. If they know the exact address, they can type it into their internet browser’s address bar. That’s great for people who already know who you are from word-of-mouth referrals. But how do you reach people who don’t know that you exist, let alone know your website URL? What about people who know they need a specific type of lawyer, but they don’t know who you are? This is where SEO comes into play.

SEO Is Modern Legal Marketing

A couple of decades ago, the answer was to take out an advertisement in the yellow pages. There was probably a lively discussion among law firm employees of who to feature in the ad and how big the ad should be. Fast-forward to today and most shoppers don’t look in the yellow pages anymore. In fact, you probably couldn’t even find the yellow pages right now, even if you looked for one.

To attract new clients, you need to appear in search results. If someone searches for lawyers in your area, you need to be on the list. Ideally, you would be on the top of the list. Plus, the information that appears needs to be accurate and complete. The higher your page ranks compared to others, the more people are going to see it. While you can pay for paid advertisement placement on the internet, you can’t directly pay for a search result. It must be earned by creating the best answer to an internet search, as decided by the search engines that evaluate millions of web pages every day.

The process of creating web content that is attractive to search engines is called search engine optimization. It is making web content that search engines are likely to rank well regarding the kinds of searches you’re targeting. Through the calculated process of SEO, you create web content that search engines will potentially present to people as answers to their questions.

Why Is Law Firm SEO Important?

Once you understand what law firm SEO is, the question is why it’s important. Ultimately, law firm SEO is marketing. It draws potential customers to your brand. It creates a link between your customers and you.

In addition to drawing customers to view your law firm information, search engine optimization also builds brand loyalty and identification. It establishes your law firm as a reliable expert on topics that your customers are looking for. SEO is essential to attract new customers and drive business development for lawyers.

How Do You Do SEO for a Law Firm?

Several different elements go into search engine optimization. A crucial step of SEO is creating great web pages with outstanding and unique written content and images. Other aspects are ensuring that your site runs technically well, including having pages that work properly that are visible to search engines for indexing in results.

Beginning the process of search engine optimization starts with thinking backward. Ask yourself what potential clients will search for when they look for attorneys in your area of practice. The answer should include your main practice area as well as the location of your city or region. For example, “personal injury attorneys in Las Vegas” is something a user might type into a web browser if they were in a car accident and are looking for a lawyer. 

You can brainstorm various practice areas that someone might enter into a search engine when looking for the legal services you offer. Then, you create content around those key phrases.

Creating Informed Law Firm Web Pages

Build out pages that address these topics. The exact words of the search terms, for example, the words “car accident attorneys in Las Vegas” need to appear on the page rather than just the name of your law firm. Each major topic should have its own page. Besides talking about practice areas, you can also earn search results by addressing detailed legal topics in those areas. These informational pages build your brand’s authority and attract searchers who are looking for legal topics. These potential clients may decide they need your services over a competitor because you offered the information they were looking for.

Technical SEO for Law Firms

There are also technical elements to creating a great webpage and a great website in general. Great writing needs to be formatted correctly in a webpage. Also, technical aspects of your website’s programming should instruct the search engines about what’s on each page and what is the most important on a page. The most crucial search terms need to be distinguished with headlines. Images should be accompanied by text that describes the content of the picture. Even the page’s website address can make a difference.

It’s also essential to make sure the pages load quickly. There are a few things that can make a web page slow to load, including large files. These things should be avoided.

Law Firm SEO and Mobile Searches

Search engines rely on mobile content more than ever before, so it’s important to be sure that pages look good when viewed on a phone. Long content should be broken into smaller sections that are easier to read, for example. Also, keep mobile users in mind when designing your website.

These are just some of the technical elements of good SEO. Ultimately, SEO begins with creating excellent written and visual content that answers user’s questions. Then, you need to make sure that no technical issues are standing in the way of the search engines finding and ranking your content in search results.

Getting Results Through Search Engine Optimization

SEO ensures that your future clients can find you. It allows you to compete for their attention and their business. Ultimately, it is free advertising that’s earned, and it can give potential clients confidence in your law firm and your services before that all-important initial consultation.

Author’s Bio

Attorney Adam S. Kutner has spent more than 29 years fighting for fair compensation for victims of personal injury in Nevada. With more than 40,000 settlement cases behind him, Mr. Kutner knows his way around the court system. As a former insurance defense attorney he knows how to get clients the maximum settlement promptly and trouble-free. Adam S. Kutner, Injury Attorneys has also been recognized by the Las Vegas Review-Journal to be Las Vegas’ Best Accident Lawyer of 2020.

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Christophe Rude
Christophe Rude
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