Law Firm SEO

What is Law Firm SEO?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the practice of aligning your law firm’s website with Google’s best practices in order to increase the quantity and quality of website visitors. The goal of any good law firm SEO strategy will help position your firm in front of prospective clients in your market, so they can locate you and learn more about your services. Law Firm SEO is a low-cost method of bringing in continuing business to your practice because you are targeting people who are in the market for your services. This also improves the return on investment compared to other forms of marketing because of the natural lower cost per lead.

Providing SEO services to companies is a competitive business, especially for law firms. Attorneys were among the first to utilize SEO practices to attract clients, and many have been doing it for years. The longer a law firm has been doing SEO, the better chances they have at success and keeping the competition at bay. However, as SEO best practices and Google algorithms change over time, so, too, must your digital presence, if you are to continue attracting clients via the internet.

Why is Law Firm SEO Important?

When your website ranks high in Google searches for relevant topics, this establishes instant credibility for your law firm. Many internet searchers understand a high ranking to mean that Google is referring you as a recommended attorney for your area of practice. While this is not exactly why Google ranks some websites higher than others, it does place your law practice top of mind among prospective clients.

This is more important than you may realize. According to an article in the National Law Review, a 2014 US Consumer Legal Needs Survey indicated that 87% of people who contact an attorney go on to hire that same attorney. Moreover, of those searching for an attorney, 72% only contact one. In other words, if your website ranks first in Google searches for relevant topics, people will contact you and likely hire you to handle their legal needs.

Price is not always a deciding factor in purchasing decisions when searching for a competent attorney. People searching for a lawyer want someone they can trust and work with to help them with their legal situation and get them the best result possible. The initial law firm SEO that ranks your website at the top of relevant searches and your overall website appearance and functionality are key factors for choosing you over a competitor. So, a combination of Google’s ranking recommendation and your website’s look and navigation are the major factors that gain you clients. Improving your website visitors experience will also help improve your ability to stay on top of relevant searches, which causes a snow-ball effect when it comes to generating leads from your website. These factors make search engine optimization one of the most cost-effective marketing mediums to help improve your brand awareness, without the huge up-front expenses that are often accompanied by other advertising channels.

How is Your Law Firm’s Current Internet Presence Performing?

Is your current law firm website measuring up to current SEO standards? Are you seeing the number of leads, contacts, and clients from your site? There are some key indicators you should examine to determine if your website is serving your practice as it should.

Case leads is the top indicator that your website is driving you enough business. If you are receiving a steady and growing number of contacts through your website, you know it is ranking high in searches for keywords that are relevant to your law practice. Steady and increasing business is the main goal of having a website for your law firm.

You can also track contacts, shares, likes, and page views on your website to determine how much traffic is being driven, and from where. Typically, SEO companies do this for you and provide a periodic report to show how well your site is performing, or what changes should be made to increase the level of performance. You can also use call tracking numbers to differentiate the leads from other marketing efforts, in order to determine the success of your website’s ability to bring you new business.

You can do some of this yourself by using resources like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Set up a free account and connect your law firm website to see analytics on various aspects of your website, including SEO errors, broken links, and more. Other resources include:

Open Web Analytics
OWA provides information much like the kind you’ll see on its competitors’ platforms, such as views, unique visits, referral sites, and visitor location. Additionally, OWA can measure the click-stream of each visitor, pinpointing exactly where they click on your page.

SEMrush
Users can see a website or keyword’s traffic breakdown by organic search, paid search, backlinks, and display ads. Below that data, you can see live updates of top organic keywords and organic competitors, paid keywords and paid competitors, and sample ads. There are also lists of backlinks and indexed pages to browse through.

Quantcast Measure
Understand your total reach by looking at traffic metrics across your web properties. View your audience by platform (web and mobile web), country, time period, and more.

How Can I Improve My Law Firm’s Search Visibility in Google? 

If your law firm website is outdated or in need of an overhaul, there are some things you can do right away to improve its performance. Optimizing your website pages with relevant keywords is a great place to begin. Research and discover what search terms people are using to find information on legal services that you provide, and be sure those terms are used throughout your website pages.

Another proven strategy to drive traffic to your website is developing and using a content strategy for your area(s) of practice. Internet searchers are seeking information about the legal services you provide. The more relevant, quality content you can provide on your website about these topics, the more people may find your site.

Of course, this is all quite a bit of work for busy attorneys. You also want to do your research before trying to implement your own lawyer SEO tactics on your website. Search engines look at a variety of factors in order to display websites in search results. Simply adding keywords to your website without a strategy can negatively impact a search engine’s overall assessment of your website, and lead to regression of your visibility. You would be much better served by researching reputable law firm SEO companies that can get the best performance out of your website – generating the most leads – for the best price.

eProphet Media Specializes in Law Firm SEO

At eProphet Media, we are masters of law firm SEO. We know what it takes to design and implement a website SEO strategy that puts your law firm website in front of potential clients. Typical law firm websites focus on providing dry data and sales pitches. Our law firm SEO experts develop your site with an emphasis on search visibility in your market first, creating an appealing website built to generate client leads.

This unique design philosophy, coupled with a proven industry content strategy that compliments your law practice area of focus, results in more qualified visitors to your website. This means your law firm is easily found by internet searchers, and relevant legal information is easily found on your website. The statistics prove that when you achieve high search visibility, prospective clients choose your firm most of the time.

Contact eProphet Media for more information about Law Firm SEO and how we can help your law firm website generate a steady and growing number of qualified case leads.