Having good SEO for your law firm’s website means it’s generating a consistent stream of qualified leads. These leads are people who are in the market you serve and who are actively looking for the legal services your law practice provides.
But how is SEO supposed to work? And how do you know if it’s working optimally?
eProphet Media has been helping law firms like yours perfect their website SEO for over 15 years. Let us explain what law firm SEO is, why it’s important, and how your law firm can achieve it.
What is Law Firm SEO?
Law firm search engine optimization,
or SEO, is the practice of aligning
your law firm’s website to be visible
at the top of the results in
search engines like Google.
Law firm search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of aligning your law firm’s website to be visible at the top of the results in search engines like Google.
When a law firm’s website has good SEO, search engines put it at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) for relevant searches, resulting in an increase in the quantity and quality of website-generated leads.
However, SEO best practices and search engine algorithms change over time. Not only that, but your competition can also grow. That means a law firm’s web presence needs to adapt in order to continue attracting potential clients from search engines.
This updating and maintenance is part of search engine optimization. The plan to align your web presence with your law firm’s goals is called a digital marketing strategy or SEO strategy.
Not only is SEO important to remain at the top of the search engine results, but it can also be built upon to reach more markets or be optimized for those looking for specific legal services. Here are two examples that show how firms can do this:
EXAMPLE 1:
An estate planning law firm’s website is highly visible for “estate planning” in Google. But they may also have a specific interest in finding clients looking for help with contested trusts. An expanded SEO strategy centered around “contested trusts” would allow them to have search visibility for that term and help them to be found by potential clients interested in that particular legal service.
EXAMPLE 2:
A family law practice wants to pursue child support clients. They would center their SEO strategy around the search terms that generate qualified leads for child support cases, seeking to be highly visible in their market for these keywords or search terms.
eProphet Media has excelled at driving growth for law offices by developing a digital presence for our clients via SEO and other digital marketing tactics.
By continuously expanding our clients’ search visibility to help them reach more people looking for their services, we have helped attorneys generate qualified leads from a nearby city or even from all over their state, depending on what their goals are.
Contact us today if you’re ready to increase qualified leads by growing your digital presence.
72% of consumers only contact one
attorney after searching online.
Why is Law Firm SEO Important?
A law firm website at the top of the SERP is 10x more likely to receive a visit compared to the #10 spot. Not only that, but the #1 result on Google gets 27.6% of all clicks.
What does that mean for your law office? Basically, if your law office website doesn’t appear at the top of the SERP in the markets you serve for your area(s) of practice, you are losing out a major source of qualified leads who are searching for the exact legal services you provide.
Pages need to be at the top of the search results to create leads for two reasons:
1) People won’t spend time paging through the search results to find your law office
2) Websites that have higher search visibility (aka high rankings) in Google convey greater credibility and authority in searcher’s minds since searchers trust Google’s results.
These facts are often more important than many attorneys realize, since a survey published in the National Law Review showed 72% of consumers only contact one attorney after searching online. Of those people, 87% who contacted an attorney hired that same attorney.
Search engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective marketing mediums for law offices.
Search engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective marketing mediums for law offices.
In other words, if your website is highly visible in Google searches for terms matching the intent of searchers looking to hire an attorney in your area of practice, people are more likely to find your law firm and hire you to represent them.
These factors make search engine optimization one of the most cost-effective marketing mediums for law offices. This is due to it being the form of marketing that generates leads at the lowest cost per lead.
Think about it: The money a law practice spends improving their SEO and web presence isn’t spent on one click like other marketing efforts such as pay-per-click ads that are a one-time advertisement (and which only get clicked on by less than 15% of searchers). Nor is it spent on a TV ad or something similar that reaches a large group of people who likely do not have an immediate need for your services.
Instead, a law practice with good SEO will see costs per lead go down as their SEO efforts continue to reach more and more people as they rise to the top of the SERPs.
Not only that, but the people being reached by effective SEO will be the exact customers they are trying to contact: people who have an immediate need for their services in a practice area they handle.
In fact, eProphet Media found that our average SEO cost per lead for all our legal clients in 2022 was only $33.45, with some firms generating leads for as low as $9.45 per lead.
The value of SEO is even more apparent when you compare it with pay-per-click ads, where the cost for a single click in Google Ads can be between $5 and $300 for a law practice. Plus, only about 4% of those who click the ad will contact the firm, and they may not even be a qualified lead.
Statistics like these reveal the incredible value that search engine optimization provides as a cost-effective marketing tool for law offices.
Stop guessing and start using data to budget
your marketing dollars in the most effective way.
How is Your Law Firm’s
Current Internet Presence Performing?
Is your current law firm’s website measuring up to the latest SEO standards? There are some key indicators that will help you determine if your website is serving your law practice as it should.
The best indicator of a properly optimized and maximized web presence is a consistent or growing number of qualified leads, month after month.
This shows your law firm is highly visible in search results for your practice areas and for keywords that are relevant to your legal services.
If you are not sure if the number of leads from your website is growing or shrinking, you need to make sure you have tracking set up. You can track sources of website traffic to determine what delivers the most website email form submissions and phone calls and generates the most qualified leads. This lets law firms stop guessing and start using data to budget their marketing dollars in the most effective way.
However, some SEO companies provide large reports filled with statistics that are useless to the average attorney, like bounce rates. Avoid this mess by insisting on helpful reports showing leads generated by marketing source and take the extra time to review them each month and compare data from this year to last year.
To see examples of what effective lawyer SEO looks like, take a look at the third-party data reporting below that eProphet Media uses with each one of our clients.
An optimized and maximized web presence will have a consistent or growing number of qualified leads, month after month.
An optimized and maximized web presence will have a consistent or growing number of qualified leads, month after month.
- Each Goal Completion is a conversion. That means someone found our client on the internet and contacted them by phone or web form.
- The orange line shows Goal Completions for an earlier time period.
- The blue line shows Goal Completions for a later time period, after implementing our latest strategy.
- Notice the year-over-year or month-over-month increases in Goal Completions for each client.
Continuous Growth
This law firm, which has been with us for over 10 years, is enjoying an 81.25% increase in leads in 2022 over 2021 with no increase in spending. Why? Because at eProphet Media, we are always working to increase the number of leads we generate for our clients, and our efforts consistently produce sustainable, continuous growth. Best of all, our clients report that 85-90% of the leads we generate are qualified, which means they are contacted by a person in the market they serve looking to hire an attorney for their areas of practice. If this is what you want for your law practice, give us a call.
Growth During COVID
With courts closed and fewer people meeting in person during COVID-19, many attorneys couldn’t generate revenue. But while other attorneys slashed their paid ad budgets, our client grew his business. People were still searching online for legal services. The demand was still great. And thanks to our client’s solid organic search presence, his potential clients found him easily. By investing in search engine optimization (SEO), our client generated 84.55% more new client leads in 2020 than in 2019.
First Month ROI
This law practice previously had a website and digital marketing plan developed by a popular law directory company, but the client reported it generated absolutely no leads. Not only did we generate leads for this client during the first month of launch, but we also expanded on that in the second month by over 20%. We continue growing that number of leads to this day.
Reinvestment Produces Outstanding ROI
After several years as a client, this firm accepted our recommendation that a more robust digital marketing strategy would bear more fruit. It did, resulting in an over 500% increase in leads generated year over year. The client reinvested only 50% more to achieve these results.
Did you see the increasing numbers of qualified leads? Not only did they continue to grow, but were also at a lower cost per lead as time went on.
This is the result of our proven approach that lets us maximize the search visibility of our law firm clients.
How Can I Improve My Law Firm’s Search Visibility in Google?
By now, you recognize that either your law office’s website has good SEO or that something is wrong. If you don’t have good search visibility, there are some things you can do to improve your website performance.
(Note: eProphet Media has helped improve the search visibility and implement tracking for firms across the country. Contact us to for specialized law firm SEO guidance.)
A proven way to drive traffic to your website is by developing and implementing a content strategy for your areas of practice. Remember: internet searchers are seeking information about the legal services you provide. So the more relevant, quality content you can provide on your website about these topics, the more people may find your site.
Of course, content is only one of the many things that Google looks at when determining if your website matches a searcher’s intent. While many firms focus on copy and creating blog posts, that might not be the solution they need to put their firm’s website at the top of the SERPs and attract qualified leads.
As a part of our digital marketing strategies, eProphet Media determines the exact content that is needed to help our law firm clients achieve their goals and writes it for them. Our proven techniques consistently deliver the exact results our clients have been looking for, time and time again.
Not only that, but we also set up tracking tools to see exactly how your website is performing and where your leads are coming from. This lets us review the data together with you for further growth strategies.
Our clients see the fruits of their investment
in our services typically within a month.
Get the Law Firm SEO Help You Need
Optimizing a law firm’s digital presence to improve search visibility and drive qualified leads is a lot of work for any attorney. That’s why practices love how eProphet Media handles all of the lawyer SEO responsibilities for them, letting them focus on practicing law instead of worrying about their website and digital marketing.
With over 15 years of experience, there’s no law firm or practice too big or too small for us to help. We’ve empowered attorneys with highly-niche practice areas to reach their market, solo practitioners compete with the large firm down the street, and larger firms maximize their digital footprint to reach even more clients.
Our experience also lets us quickly assess what your law firm needs to get leads from the internet and rapidly implement marketing solutions.
So instead wasting time and money on marketing guesswork or on other agencies, our clients often see their investment in our services start to pay off within a month.
See how we helped a solo practitioner increase qualified leads each year for ten consecutive years
eProphet Media Focuses On Lawyer SEO
At eProphet Media, we know what it takes to design and implement a website SEO strategy that puts your law firm website in front of potential clients. We have helped lawyers receive 300% more leads and sign clients within the first month of working with us.
We know how to put you at the top of search engines as well as help your visitors become clients, all thanks to our proven methods and understanding of the best website and digital marketing practices.
Testimonial:
“It took just a few hours of my time to speak with them and review their work. Within a few weeks, I had a brand-new website and marketing that tripled the number of cases I would previously sign within the first month.”
– Wendy Alton,
Wendy Alton Family Law & Mediation
Get More Clients With Better Law Firm SEO Results
Our law firm SEO specialists develop your digital presence with an emphasis on search visibility in your market, creating a Google-friendly website that generates qualified client leads.
Contact eProphet Media today at (248) 923-4590 to speak to one of our law firm marketing professionals to get started.