What Is Law Firm SEO: Must-know Benefits Of SEO For Attorneys

Whenever I get questions like, “What is law firm SEO,” I like to answer them in detail. SEO (search engine optimization) can be an integral part of any law firm’s digital marketing strategy. 

Wait, don’t believe me?

A 2022 research BrandMuscle conducted shows that 79% of law firms consider SEO an effective marketing strategy. Are you surprised? Well, I am not. 

Internet searches, particularly for legal referrals, have increased over the years. While some older generations still depend on word-of-mouth referrals to find legal counsel, research shows that 18 to 24-year-olds rely on internet searches to find attorneys. 

Here, we will discuss the meaning of law firm SEO, how legal SEO works, how to choose a lawyer SEO agency and more. 

What Is Law Firm SEO

Another word for law firm SEO is lawyer SEO. The full meaning of SEO is “search engine optimization.” 

Law firm optimization is an online marketing strategy deployed to help websites belonging to law firms gain more visibility on search engines. 

So, lawyer optimization aims to make your law firm a breeze for internet users and potential clients to find online. With increased visibility, your legal business will enjoy more online and foot traffic, increased awareness, and patronage. Isn’t that what you want?

I understand you have a new website. It is well-designed and looks captivating. Unfortunately, having a new website won’t make Google rank your website ahead of your competitors who have optimized their law firm website and adhered to SEO best practices.  

You must optimize your website and keep putting more effort even when your law firm starts appearing in search engine result pages (SERPs). Remember, your competitors aren’t sleeping. They want your clients and want to keep popping up ahead of you in search engine results for targeted keywords.

SEO for law firms can be done using various strategies: 

• Optimize your website structure
• Populate your website with quality, well-optimized and information-packed legal content.
• Addressing website error and load speed (Search engines, e.g. Google, dislike sites that load slowly)
• Ensuring your legal website is mobile-friendly (Mobile search accounts for 63% of organic search visits, and it’s ahead of desktop)
• Link building (Getting relevant and niche-specific links to build authority, traffic and boost website ranking)
• And so much more! 

You can single-handedly manage your law firm optimization project, create SEO plans to help your website rank, boost traffic, and make it easier for potential clients seeking legal counsel to find you. However, outsourcing your SEO to a competent SEO expert for law firms will save you time and money. You’ll be able to focus on delivering quality services to your clients.

Warning: Assigning your SEO projects to incompetent SEO providers would cost you money and time. Your online reputation and ranking could also take a hit. 

I wrote this content to help law firm owners understand what SEO is and how their firms can benefit massively. Next, let’s discuss how SEO works for law firms. 

How Law Firm SEO Works

You may have used search engines to search for things online at some point. It could be information, a product or service. The internet has become an integral part of our lives, making it easier to find things from the comfort of our homes. 

The surge in mobile device users and portability of these devices has increased mobile searches. People no longer need to carry their laptops everywhere to have access to the internet. 

With a mobile phone, people can search for information, products or services online. They can do this from anywhere, provided they have an internet connection to browse. 

You can see the search results using the keyword “Law firm Miami.” Several law firms targeting the keyword popped up in the search results. These are the legal firms a potential client that searches the internet with the targeted keywords would find and contact.

Here’s what SEO does and how it works:

SEO makes it a breeze for Google algorithms to read your website. The algorithms scan your website content and try to make sense of the content. If the content is well-optimized and valuable, Google will ensure it pops up on internet users’ search result pages. 

So, that’s how legal SEO works. Again, bear in mind that this process could take weeks or months. You can’t publish fresh content and expect it to rank overnight. It could take days, weeks or months. 

A Handy Tip: I advise attorneys to avoid SEO agencies that promise to help them rank or get to the #1 position on Google overnight. It can’t happen overnight. In addition, no one can guarantee you the #1 spot on Google. They can’t decide that for Google. 

A trustworthy legal SEO expert who knows how things work and is genuine won’t guarantee you the #1 spot on Google, but that should be one of the results you can get by adhering to SEO best practices.

Another advice I give to law firms and businesses seeking SEO help is to understand that search engine optimization is a long-term project, not a one-off. Keep adhering to your SEO strategy so that your competitors won’t outrank you.  

What Is An Effective Legal SEO Strategy?

An effective lawyer SEO strategy yields results. The results could include increased search ranking, organic search traffic, brand awareness, and authority. When the SEO strategy is effective, you should receive more phone calls and sign more cases. 

Effective SEO for law firms consists of the use of various strategies. Let me walk you through some of them.   

• Keyword research. You must target the right keywords or search terms on your law firm’s website.  
• Optimize the website. This involves strategically placing keywords on the website to make it easier for search engine bots to crawl the site and make sense of the content. 
• Populate the site with high-quality, 100% original, information-packed, optimized content. Write content for potential visitors and search engines. 
• Optimize your website for mobile users. Your website’s content should display on users’ mobile devices the way it shows on desktops. 
• Build quality and niche-relevant backlinks to your law firm’s website. It can significantly impact your website ranking, traffic and authority. You can boost your law firm’s online reputation and make prospects trust you more through backlinks. How? The content used for the backlinks has to be high-quality.       
• Optimize your local listings to pop up in local searches. For example, when you optimize your local listings for “Florida personal injury lawyer,” any user that searches online with the keyword may find your law firm website and contact you. You can optimize your Google My Business profile and other business directories.    
• Get positive reviews for your firm so prospects can trust you well enough to hire you for their cases. 

Having a holistic SEO strategy will benefit your law firm. It will help sustain or boost your online visibility and organic traffic.

Is SEO Important To Law Firms

Yes, it is. I’ll say it over and over! Even the best law firms in the world need SEO unless they aren’t interested in getting more clients. 

By the way, the total number of lawyers and law firms in the United States of America has seen a substantial increase in recent years. In 2022, there were around 1.33 million lawyers.  

The competition is high and will keep increasing. That is the point I am trying to make. So, to save your legal practice and make it a breeze for prospects to find your website, you need to implement an effective SEO strategy. 

Search engine optimization can help you acquire more clients seeking legal representation than your competitors. What makes this interesting is that you can get more clients with SEO than your competitors using pay-per-click ads and with less long-term investment. 

So, SEO is essential to your law firm;

• Whether you’re new or an established law firm
• You want more clients to contact and hire you to represent them legally
• You want your law firm to appear in local search, increasing online and foot traffic.
• You want to build a robust online presence for your law firm.
• You want to be regarded as an authority in your line of legal practice and gain the trust of prospective clients.  
• You want to improve your website ranking.

How To Pick The Best SEO Expert For Law Firm

Do you want to dominate the top pages of search engines and outrank your competitors? If yes, your SEO strategy must be top-notch. 

You must make the right choice when hiring a lawyer SEO expert. Choose an SEO expert that can deliver the desired results, not excuses. 

Understanding your marketing goals before contacting a legal SEO expert is also crucial. This way, you can ask crucial questions and observe how the SEO expert would respond to them. From the response, you would know if you are dealing with the right person. 

Once you have a proper understanding of your marketing objectives, a reputable SEO Expert for a law firm should address the following inquiries:

• Does your law firm require a website (if you don’t already have one)? 
• If you have a website, what level of SEO has been done or can be done? An expert can provide an answer after a thorough website audit. 
• What keywords should your law firm be targeting? 
• What region are you looking to rank for?
• Are you interested in local SEO? 
• And many more!  

You would know if the legal SEO expert you’re interacting with is qualified for the job via the quality of answers you get. So, ask relevant questions before consulting the SEO expert you wish to hire for your project to know if you can proceed.  

When Should A Law Firm Get SEO Services?

SEO doesn’t just help to boost organic traffic and leads. It offers your legal business well-rounded benefits, increasing online presence and visibility.  

You should get SEO help for your law firm if you have a new website. It is not enough to create a professional-looking website. You must optimize it to improve online visibility.

Law firms looking for more clients, increased traffic, or website ranking must invest in SEO. Furthermore, hiring a law firm optimization expert is wise if you have a website with depreciating traffic or ranking.  

Types of SEO Services For Legal Firms

The three types of SEO for law firms include on-site, off-site and technical SEO. 

• On-site SEO – Another word is “on-page SEO.” It includes all that you do on your website to make it a breeze for search engines to find. These include content, photos, optimizing title tags, internal links and URLs.
• Off-site SEO – Another word is “Off-page SEO.” It refers to the optimization techniques deployed outside a website. These include link building, video marketing, content marketing, podcasting, guest posting, and social media marketing. 
• Technical SEO – This facilitates the site’s indexing and crawling by Google crawlers. The optimization technique could involve lowering the sizes of image files to boost page loading speed or making the website mobile-friendly.

Conclusion

What is law firm SEO? It implies strategies (on-page, off-page, and technical SEO) deployed to improve a law firm’s website’s online visibility. In other words, it is the technique used to improve traffic and ranking, helping law firms to sign more cases. 

Having an SEO strategy mapped out and an expert capable of executing it can help you achieve your marketing goals. Your website will start popping up in potential clients’ search engine result pages (SERPs) when they use your targeted keywords to search online. 

SEO’s customer acquisition cost (CAC) is lower than pay-per-click ads in the long run. In addition, with SEO, you will keep reaping the benefits even after the project ends, but that isn’t the case with PPC. With pay-per-click ads, once the money in your ads account runs out, you’ll stop getting clicks and traffic.