SEO Tips For Law Firms: Top SEO Guide For Lawyers

With many years of experience helping law firms improve their websites’ search ranking and organic web traffic, LawFirmSEOExpert.com has established itself as a reputable SEO agency for new and established attorneys looking to get more clients online. 

By implementing effective SEO strategies, law firms can establish a solid online presence and become well-known online. Unfortunately, many law firms aren’t implementing the right strategy. 

It is not the fault of most attorneys. They hire SEO agencies that promise results but deliver excuses. 

In this post, we will discuss 17 SEO tips for law firms. These are tips that’ll help you succeed online. Keep reading for more details. 

Must-Know SEO Tips For Law Firms Looking To Get More Clients Online

SEO is an essential digital marketing strategy every law firm should implement. It doesn’t matter your firm’s size, popularity, or whether you’re running paid adverts. With SEO, you can achieve greater success online. 

The reason for implementing SEO strategies is to make a law firm’s website appear in search results pages so legal consumers can easily find and contact the lawyer. 

So, if you’re a lawyer, the tips below will help improve your law firm website’s ranking, organic traffic, and conversion rate.

Follow the steps below:

1: Check your law firm website’s performance:

Your law firm’s website performance is a big deal. It affects your site’s conversion rate, ranking, web traffic, and online reputation.

What is the primary focus on website performance? Check how fast your website loads. In other words, how long does it take for visitors to access your website’s content? Or, what’s your site’s load speed?

People want to gain access to your website as quickly as possible. So, improve your website’s load speed. The recommended load time is 1-2 seconds. But Google wants your law firm website to load faster (under half a second), if possible.

Use the following tools to check website load speed:

• WebPageTest
• Pingdom
• GTmetrix
• Uptrends
• SEO Site Checkup
• PageSpeed Insights
• WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools

A Handy Tip: Check website load speed from different server locations worldwide. Try other browsers and devices to have a holistic idea of your website’s performance.

2: Choose local keywords relevant to your legal practice:

Google operates around keywords. In plain terms, legal consumers will find your law firm online when you optimize your page for the right keywords. 

Use keywords related to the legal services you’re rendering and the region you’re practicing in. For instance, if you’re a “personal injury lawyer,” examples of keywords you need to use are:

• Personal injury lawyer in [city]
• Personal injury attorney in [city]
• [city] personal injury law firm

These are just examples. You’ll need more details about each keyword to make an informed decision. For instance, you’ll require details like keyword’s search volume, etc.

Here are keyword research tools you can use. Note that some of these tools are free, while others are paid. 

• Ahrefs
• Semrush
• Google Trends
• AnswerThePublic
• Keyword Surfer
• Google Search Console
• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Google Keyword Planner

So get to work right away! Find the right keywords and use them strategically in your content and entire website. 

A Handy Tip: Endeavor to target location-based keywords. 

Another tip I would like to share is the keywords to target. There are long-tail and short-tail keywords, with the latter having a higher search volume. 

Short-tail keywords are highly competitive. Thus, ranking for such keywords will take time, effort, and revenue. In most cases, you may waste time and not rank for the short-tailed keywords at the end of the day. 

An example of a short-tail keyword is “law firms” or “SEO tips.” As you can see, both phrases contain a few words and are generic. 

Long-tail keywords are usually more location-specific and have a higher conversion rate than short-tail keywords. They help people locate the content they seek.

For instance, a person looking for a divorce lawyer who operates in Michigan will use the long-tail keyword “Divorce lawyer in Michigan.” They can even break the search phrase down to “divorce lawyer in [city] Michigan.” 

3: Create linkable content:

The smell of a great meal can restore people’s appetite and make them request a portion of the meal. The same can happen when you publish high-quality content. 

Three positive things can happen to your law firm’s website when you populate it with high-quality content: 

• Your visitors will start seeing you as a trustworthy attorney and will be convinced about your ability to handle their cases satisfactorily. Furthermore, they’ll spend more time consuming your content, lowering your bounce rate.
• Google views web pages with lower bounce rates as valuable. They know people won’t be spending more time on a page if the content isn’t useful and high-quality.    
• The third positive thing that can happen is that Google’s algorithm may consider ranking your website to give more internet users a chance to find your page. 

Populating your website with quality content can boost your conversion rate. Most visitors can tell from your write-up if you’re an expert in your field. 

A Handy Tip: If you plan to outsource your content, endeavor to use a legal writer with experience and expertise in writing articles for law firms. 

Furthermore, only publish articles you have ruthlessly proof-read and corrected. You’re a professional and must ensure your professionalism and eye for detail are reflected in your content. Potential clients will judge you based on the quality of your content. 

4: Use keywords strategically in your content: 

Another vital tip lawyers should take seriously is keyword placement. Place your keywords strategically in your content for proper optimization. 

Quickly, here are the areas and ways to use keywords in your content:

• Add your keyword in the title. You can incorporate your primary keyword in your article’s title if possible.  
• Add keywords to your meta description. You can use primary and secondary keywords if possible, as this increases your website’s ranking probability. 
• Incorporate your keyword in your content’s first 200 words (the introduction).
• Add your keyword in your content’s last 200 words (conclusion). If you can incorporate your primary keyword in your CTA, get it done!
• Place your keywords in your headings. These include your article’s H1, H2, and H3.
• Incorporate your keywords throughout the body of your content. Strategically incorporate your keywords in sentences, but ensure they flow naturally. 
• Include your primary keyword in your URL.   

5: Reference your law firm’s location in critical areas of your website:

People search and hire law firms based on location. It is only on rare occasions that you’ll find someone from Alabama, for instance, hiring a lawyer from Texas. Such events don’t happen often. 

In most cases, a person living in Houston will search for a lawyer in Houston. Some individuals may even use a more specific search term to ensure they find a lawyer that’s close by. 

So, mention your business location on your website’s homepage and other vital pages. Here are five essential areas to indicate your location or area of operation. 

• Meta description
• Headings
• Body of content
• Indicate the location in the title tag 
• The last but not the least is your URL.

A Handy Tip: If your law firm operates in three different locations, indicate all three locations on different pages. 

Ensure the content on each page is unique. Google hates duplicate content and won’t hesitate to penalize a website that does such. 

6: Avoid keyword stuffing;

Keyword stuffing implies loading a webpage with the exact keywords or placing the same keywords in the content multiple times to manipulate the website’s ranking in SERPs. You can land in trouble with Google for this act. 

Keyword stuffing damages brand image. Unnatural keyword usage makes content appear spammy and poor quality.

Visitors struggle to read content stuffed with keywords. It will become apparent to them that the writer wrote the content for search engines, not humans, which is a turn-off. 

A Handy Tip: Understand that Google treasures person-first and high-quality content. So, you can’t please Google and visitors if you stuff your content with keywords. 

 7: Embrace internal linking:

An internal link means placing a link from a page on your website on another page on the same website (or domain). It is a vital SEO strategy that can impact your website positively. 

Here are the impacts internal links can have on your website’s SEO. 

• Boost engagement metrics
• Improve user experience
• Enhance crawl efficiency
• Help build your site’s architecture
• Drive visitors toward the point of conversion  
• Increases page views
• Establishes information hierarchy  
• Develop your website’s link equity
• Let Google know the exact search phrases (keywords) you want to rank for. 

A Handy Tip: Avoid repeatedly placing internal links on the exact keywords or content. If done, it can make Google crawlers to flag your content as “spam.”

To ensure Google crawlers don’t flag your content as spam, use varied but related content to build your internal links. Besides content, avoid using the exact keywords to build internal links. 

Ensure your content is high-quality. High-quality content will increase your website’s chance of ranking higher in SERPs and offer value to your visitors. 

Another critical step in internal linking is to link high-authority pages in your website to new ones within the same website. 

8: Make your website’s about us page location-specific and well-optimized:

Your “About Us” page is a special place to insert keywords and provide information to help potential clients understand your business. 

Ensure your “About Us” page includes the below key elements to enjoy the best SEO opportunities. 

• Incorporate your law firm’s location, legal services you render, and keywords highlighting the outcomes and objectives clients will get if they hire you. 
• Add your primary keyword in your content naturally and share your company’s story, including core values and what you do for clients.
• Include relevant information about your company, such as name, address, and phone number.
• Optimize your title tag and meta description.
• Add descriptive image alt tags to describe what each image is about. 

9: Optimize your web content for voice search:

Voice search is gaining popularity on a daily basis. Though voice search isn’t as popular as manual search, its convenience will elevate it above manual search in no distant time. 

Voice search is fast, and users can multitask while searching for products, services, or information online. 

A Handy Tip: In voice search, shorthand isn’t popular. Instead, voice search utilizes the five Ws (who, when, what, where, why) and how. 

 Another thing you should remember is that people using voice search always use long-tail keywords and ask questions. 

For example, “is there a divorce attorney in Houston?” 

Optimizing your website for voice search will open up more channels for you to get more organic web traffic. 

10: Build a well-optimized Google My Business Profile:

Do you have a Google My Business (GMB) profile? If your answer is no, you need to create one right away. 

Your GMB profile is your local listing in Google search engine result pages and Google Maps. You’ll also find it on the right side of the knowledge panel in a Google search. 

A Handy Tip: A well-optimized and high-quality GMB profile will rank higher in your location’s Google search and local map packs. Google uses keywords and information on your GMB profile to rank it. 

Here are some simple tips you should note when creating a Google My Business profile. 

• Avoid using keywords in your business name. Write your business name as it is. 
• You can incorporate your target keywords in your GMB description.  
• Use your correct address, phone number, name, and other information. 

11: Hunt for more reviews online:

Reviews will help your law firm build robust social proof, making it easier to convince prospective legal clients that you’re the real deal. So, solicit positive reviews. 

You shouldn’t be afraid to request reviews from your satisfied clients. If you have a GMB profile, you can respectfully direct your previous clients to give you reviews there. 

 A Handy Tip: If any client gives you a negative review, respond to them professionally and respectfully. Show them you care and are ready to make it up to them. 

By doing so, you’re convincing others that you’re custom-centered and a genuine professional. This can convince prospective legal clients to consider hiring you for their cases.  

12: Create and use schema markup:

Schema markup allows search engines to understand a website’s page content and context. It makes web pages a breeze to index. 

With schema markup, search engines can easily understand a website’s location-based structured information and get richer search results. 

Brief highlights on how to create schema markup

• Visit Google’s structured data markup helper.
• Choose the data type you want to markup.
• Paste the URL in the article or web page you want to markup.
• Highlight and choose the type of element you want to markup.
• Keep adding markup items.
• Start creating HTML
• After adding markup items, test your page to see what it will look like. You can test with the “Structured Data Testing Tool.”
• Incorporate the schema markup generated to your web page.

13: Build a healthy backlink profile;

Backlinks are a significant ranking factor. Besides improving search ranking, backlinks can help you build online credibility and improve web traffic. 

You can build a healthy backlink profile by obtaining links from reputable and trustworthy websites. Use a website that follows SEO best practices and is relevant to your niche. 

Here are ways to build backlinks:

• Create free tools
• Publish ultimate guides that are linkable
• Build backlinks via guest posting
• Turn your website into a source for other publishers
• Keep in touch with journalists
• Reclaim unlinked mentions

14: Make your website mobile-friendly:

Is your website mobile-friendly? In other words, does its content display on mobile phones the same way it does on desktops? 

A mobile-friendly website will display all its content the same way it does on desktops and other devices. Visitors don’t have to zoom in to view your CTA or read the content. 

 Most of the web traffic to your law firm will come from mobile searches. So, make your website mobile-friendly. People are more comfortable searching for information, products and services online with their mobile phones than waiting until they get home to use their laptops or desktops. 

Another thing you must understand is that mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor. So, no matter the SEO effort you invest into your website, you won’t get a massive impact if the website isn’t mobile-friendly. 

A Handy Tip: You can learn if your website is mobile-friendly by using Google’s Mobile-friendly Test Tool.

But if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, follow the steps below to make it mobile-friendly: 

• Use a mobile-responsive template or theme
• Get rid of flash
• Have your links spaced out
• Get rid of pop-ups
• Optimize your site’s load speed
• Test your website consistently to ensure it stays mobile-friendly
• Compress images. In other words, make CSS and images as light as possible

15: Ensure content is 100% unique and easy to read:

The uniqueness and readability of your articles are essential. Google only promotes valuable content to the first page. 

Invest more time and effort into your research and write valuable content. Valuable means your content is unique, information-packed and offers satisfactory solutions to your visitors’ problems. 

Google knows content that is high-quality and valuable. Your web page’s bounce rate shows how valuable your content is to visitors. A higher bounce rate signals that the content is poor quality and irrelevant. And Google may decide against promoting such web pages to the front page. 

A Handy Tip: Edit your articles ruthlessly and ensure they are 100% unique, not duplicate or plagiarized. 

16: Add your website to reputable business directories: 

Many businesses are creating Google My Business profiles because of the ease of doing so. Additionally, GMB is free. 

Google owns the Google My Business platform, but it is not the only directory available. You can boost your chances of landing legal consumers in your locality by adding your business to multiple directories. 

Most of the directories are free, while some offer a paid option, which gives access to premium features. You can try them and see how such a move will impact your business’s growth. 

Here are some online directories for local listings:

• Yelp
• Angi
• LinkedIn
• CitySearch
• Bing Places
• Apple Maps
• Yellow Pages
• Better Business Bureau

17: Manage your reviews online:

It is okay to solicit reviews from your satisfied clients. But keep in mind that unsatisfied ones will also give you reviews. 

When you get negative reviews, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, respond to the reviews like a professional and offer further assistance to the clients. 

Sometimes, a response from a service provider can help calm the nerves of an angry and unsatisfied client, preventing them from further tarnishing the business’ name. 

Conclusion 

These SEO tips for law firms are vital. You can take your law firm to the next level by implementing the tips mentioned in this post. 

Search engine optimization can help improve your website ranking, traffic, online reputation, and revenue. So, implement an effective website optimization plan. 

You can combine various strategies to improve your chances of enhancing your search ranking and appearing in search engine result pages. Make your law firm successful with these effective SEO tips for lawyers.