It’s easy to assume that clients will turn up in droves once you train to become a lawyer and enter a law firm. However, the reality is that you likely won’t be the only lawyer specializing in your area, which means you will have to find a way to stand out.
Your experience and reputation can count for a great deal, but standing out in the online world often requires marketing techniques and search engine optimization (SEO). If you’re unfamiliar with the best marketing practices for lawyers and law firms, this guide may provide some insight to help you get started.
What Is SEO?
SEO involves optimizing your website and its content to drive customers to your site from search engines. SEO for law firms requires you to work on content, backlinks, page speed, site structure, and more to result in increased organic traffic gradually. We’ll cover the most critical components of SEO below.
Content
The words and imagery on your site contribute to a much better user experience for page visitors, but they may also lead to improved search engine rankings. The more relevant, searchable content you have that people are looking for, the more likely search engines may be to show your content when people are looking for specific answers to their questions.
Backlinks
Backlinks are often what give your site authority and credibility in the online space and help your law firm stand out from others. They generally involve a link from one site to another, which may ultimately help you with search engine rankings.
Backlinking is now no longer considered one of the gold standards of SEO, with the content being much more critical. However, it’s still something to consider when you begin taking your site’s SEO seriously.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO incorporates features that website viewers may not see when they visit your site but contribute to a positive visiting experience. These are features like site structure, page speed, and title tags.
How to Improve Your Law Firm’s SEO
SEO can be daunting, especially if you have no idea what it is, let alone how it works. Thankfully, there are methods to improve your site’s SEO on your own or through the help of a professional.
Hire Law Marketing Experts
Learning how to master SEO can take the time you may not have, especially if you’re a busy lawyer working 80 hours a week. This is why many law firms decide to outsource SEO to law marketing experts.
An SEO professional can put together a marketing plan with your input and ensure that your website is user-friendly and set up for ranking. You may also be able to request help for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, email marketing, reputation management, website design, and more.
Do It Yourself
If you’d like to try improving your law firm website’s SEO on your own, you can begin with keyword research and content writing. There are plenty of online tools to assist with keyword research, and you can start with your law firm’s services and locations.
Publishing regular content is also crucial, which should have a title, heading, meta description, and some previously researched keywords.
SEO is not something you generally master overnight, and the rules are changing all the time. If you want your law firm to stand out from the crowd, consider hiring SEO and law firm marketing experts to lead the way.
