How to do SEO for Law Firm?

How to do SEO for Law Firm?

30-step guide to help you optimize your Law Firm’s website for better search engine visibility

1. Website Audit: Begin with a thorough audit of your website to identify current SEO strengths and weaknesses.

2. Keyword Research: Conduct detailed keyword research to find terms relevant to your legal services.

3. Competitive Analysis: Analyze your competitors’ websites to understand their SEO strategies.

4. Optimize URL Structure: Ensure URLs are concise, readable, and include relevant keywords.

5. Title Tags Optimization: Create unique and descriptive title tags for each page, including relevant keywords.

6. Meta Descriptions: Write compelling meta descriptions that include targeted keywords.

7. Header Tags: Use header tags (H1, H2, H3) effectively to structure content and include keywords.

8. Content Quality: Produce high-quality, informative content that addresses your target audience’s legal queries.

9. Keyword Optimization: Strategically place keywords in your content without overstuffing.

10. Internal Linking: Implement a robust internal linking structure to help users navigate your site.

11. External Linking: Link to authoritative external sources to enhance content credibility.

12. Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as most users access the internet via mobile devices.

13. Loading Speed: Improve your website’s loading speed, as slow sites rank lower in search results.

14. SSL Certificate: Secure your website with an SSL certificate for better rankings and user trust.

15. XML Sitemaps: Create and submit XML sitemaps to search engines for better indexing.

16. Robots.txt File: Use a robots.txt file to control which pages search engines can crawl.

17. Structured Data Markup: Implement structured data (schema) to help search engines understand your site’s content.

18. Image Optimization: Optimize images with descriptive file names and alt tags.

19. 404 Error Pages: Fix or redirect 404 error pages to improve user experience.

20. Canonical Tags: Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues.

21. Social Media Integration: Integrate social media on your website for better engagement.

22. Blog Regularly: Regularly publish blog posts on legal topics to attract more visitors.

23. Local SEO: Optimize for local SEO by listing your firm on Google My Business and local directories.

24. User Experience (UX): Improve the overall UX of your website for better engagement and lower bounce rates.

25. Backlink Strategy: Develop a strategy to acquire high-quality backlinks from reputable sites.

26. Monitor Analytics: Regularly monitor your site’s analytics to understand user behavior and make necessary adjustments.

27. Regular Updates: Keep your website’s content updated to remain relevant and authoritative.

28. Compliance with ADA: Ensure your website complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for accessibility.

29. Voice Search Optimization: Optimize for voice search as its usage is on the rise.

30. Continuous Learning: Stay updated with the latest SEO trends and algorithm updates.

Implementing these steps will help your law firm’s website rank higher in search engine results, ultimately leading to increased visibility and potential client engagement. Remember, SEO is an ongoing process, and staying updated with the latest practices is crucial for long-term success.

Let’s delve deeper into each of the 30 steps for optimizing a law firm’s website for SEO:

Website Audit: Start by evaluating your website’s current performance. Check for technical issues, broken links, loading speeds, mobile responsiveness, and existing search engine rankings. Tools like Google Analytics and SEMrush can be helpful.

Keyword Research: Identify keywords relevant to your legal services. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find terms your potential clients are searching for. Include both short-tail and long-tail keywords.

Competitive Analysis: Study the SEO strategies of competing law firms. Analyze their website structure, content, keyword usage, and backlink profile. Tools like Ahrefs or Moz can provide insights.

Optimize URL Structure: Ensure your URLs are simple and readable. Use hyphens to separate words and include primary keywords. Avoid long URLs and unnecessary parameters.

Title Tags Optimization: Create unique title tags for each page, using targeted keywords. Keep them under 60 characters to ensure they display properly in search results.

Meta Descriptions: Write meta descriptions that accurately summarize the page content and include keywords. Keep them under 160 characters.

Header Tags: Use H1 tags for main titles and H2, H3 for subheadings. Incorporate keywords naturally.

Content Quality: Create high-quality, informative content that addresses your audience’s needs. Focus on providing value and showcasing your expertise in law.

Keyword Optimization: Integrate keywords naturally into your content, including in the first 100 words of your pages. Avoid keyword stuffing.

Internal Linking: Use internal links to guide users to relevant pages within your site, which helps distribute page authority and improve user experience.

External Linking: Link to authoritative external sites to provide additional value to your readers and build credibility.

Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is responsive and provides a good user experience on mobile devices.

Loading Speed: Improve your website’s loading speed by optimizing images, leveraging browser caching, and minimizing redirects. Google’s PageSpeed Insights is a useful tool for this.

SSL Certificate: Secure your website with HTTPS. This is a ranking factor for Google and also builds trust with visitors.

XML Sitemaps: Create an XML sitemap and submit it to search engines to help them index your website more effectively.

Robots.txt File: Use the robots.txt file to guide search engine crawlers on which pages to index and which to ignore.

Structured Data Markup: Implement schema markup to help search engines understand the context of your content, potentially leading to rich snippets in search results.

Image Optimization: Compress images for faster loading and use descriptive file names and alt tags containing relevant keywords.

404 Error Pages: Fix or redirect broken links to improve user experience and maintain link equity.

Canonical Tags: Use canonical tags to prevent issues with duplicate content, especially if you have similar or identical content across multiple URLs.

Social Media Integration: Include social media sharing buttons and links to your profiles to enhance engagement and traffic.

Blog Regularly: Publish regular blog posts on legal topics, industry news, or case studies to attract and engage your audience.

Local SEO: Optimize for local searches by claiming your Google My Business listing, managing local citations, and including location-specific keywords in your content.

User Experience (UX): Focus on creating an intuitive navigation structure, using engaging visuals, and providing clear calls-to-action.

Backlink Strategy: Develop a plan to acquire quality backlinks through guest blogging, partnerships, and legal directories.

Monitor Analytics: Use Google Analytics to track visitor behavior, traffic sources, and engagement metrics. Use these insights to refine your SEO strategy.

Regular Updates: Regularly update your website’s content to keep it fresh and relevant. This could include updating blog posts, revising service pages, and posting new legal insights.

Compliance with ADA: Ensure your website is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities, by following ADA guidelines.

Voice Search Optimization: Optimize for voice search by including conversational keywords and FAQs on your website.

Continuous Learning: Stay updated with SEO trends and Google’s algorithm updates. Regularly educate yourself and adapt your strategies accordingly.

Implementing these steps requires time and effort, but it’s crucial for enhancing your law firm’s online visibility and attracting more potential clients.

Want an SEO expert to do the work for you? Call or text Top SEO Expert, Sandy Rowley at 775-870-0488.

Affordable Law Firm SEO Expert

Affordable SEO Lawyers

Sandy Rowley – Legal SEO Expert with 23+ years experience in ranking websites in competitive niches. She can be reached at

775-870-0488.  Listen to more Legal SEO advice on my podcast.

Average monthly investment for Law Firm SEO starts at $1900 pm.

 

Why does SEO out perform PPC ad budgets?

Law Firm SEO can be very competitive and expensive.

Most Pay Per Click or Adword marketing campaigns for attorneys start at $50 a click!

SEO Vs. PPC Ads

Although PPC (pay per click) advertising on Google is the best way to reach clients online, the budgets required to compete with larger law firms can be very cost prohibitive. Average PPC budgets for law firms ranking on the top spots in Google can start at $5,000 – $85,000 per month plus the 15 – 20% monthly fee to manage the PPC campaign.

Why would these law firms spend so much on PPC campaigns?

Because, they work! Google search is the fastest way to reach new clients online. This search engine is heads and tails above directories, social networks and other search engines and should be your law firms #1 focus for online leads.

If your law firm needs a more affordable SEO solution, continue reading.

Whats a small and/or new law firm to do?

Organic SEO or search engine optimization is the art and science of ranking a page on  your law firms website, at the top of the Google SERPS (search engine results page).

Ranking a page from your website for a relevant keyword can send qualified leads to your business every week.

These webpages that rank for a keyword or key phrase in the Google SERPS, will be your best bet to gain quality leads for your website. Organic ‘clicks’ are free. Google does not charge per click like they do for their paid ads like these below:

cheap seo for lawyers

In order to rank for ‘affordable lawyer’ in Google, you can expect to pay well over $40 per click. By ranking your website for this keyword phrase, you can get those clicks for free (minus my flat monthly SEO Fee).

These unlimited free clicks are how small law firms catch up to the big guys and gals in their city or area of practice.

Most large law firms focus on the shot gun approach when ranking their online websites and profiles. With huge marketing budgets, they aim to rank for everything in site. This is a waste of valuable resources especially when your law firm could laser focus in on the keywords that will bring in the best clients suited for your law practice.

Local SEO for law firms can range in price from $2000 a month and up.  This organic SEO service will rank your websites for the free click sections of Google search. Having a set monthly fee helps small law firms keep a close watch on their marketing spend each month. Pairing this with easy to read monthly keyword ranking reports, your law firm can quickly assess the value of your ongoing SEO marketing efforts.

For about $65 a day, your online SEO campaigns can bring in thousands of dollars worth of client work.

The return on investment is very high for law firms use affordable seo services.

The simplest way to estimate lifetime value of a client for a law firm:

Plug actual or estimated (if you’re in the planning stages or just starting out) numbers into the following equation:

(Average Value of a Sale) X (Number of Repeat Transactions) X (Average Retention Time in Months or Years for a Typical Customer)

The lifetime value (LTV) of a customer for a small law firm, given your parameters, would be $525,000. This is calculated as follows:

$35,000(Average Value of a Sale)×3(Number of Repeat Transactions)×5years(Average Retention Time)=$525,000

A valuable SEO campaign takes time and constant upgrades, changes and testing. Clients who work with me often see rankings within the first month of solid SEO work.

After 3 – 6 months of SEO ranking work, my law firm clients are already ranking for top keywords and seeing quality leads calling into the firm.

Most legal SEO clients opt for a PPC and Organic SEO campaign to optimize the amount of qualified leads coming through their website and/or phone line.

All N One Bail Bonds in Memphis Tn uses my SEO and PPC services to totally dominate Google search for their most profitable keywords. Their bail bonding company ranks #2, #3, #4 and #10 on a consistent basis!

Pay Per Click is only one of the spots taken on the front page of Google search for this bail company.

The rest of the rankings are in the ‘free clicks’ sections of the search engine results page.

 

SEO & PPC can really increase your bottom line if done correctly.  I know there are thousands of SEO companies and experts to choose from. I only need a handful of law firms to work with. My small businesses success depends on providing great results for my clients. I cannot hide behind thousands of paid fake reviews like the large law firm SEO companies can.

Each law firm client I take on, is added to my daily list of research, strategy updates, missed opportunities and ranking positions work. My monthly reports are easy to read and easy for you to track your live results in Google search.

All of my PPC and SEO services include website design, updates, email marketing and social media work that needs to work seamlessly in order to provide the top ranking results I provide.

Although I can work with your existing web designer, I prefer to have my own user/pass to login and track who updated what and when.

Ethical SEO includes on site SEO work as well as off site promotional tactics and strategies.

I am easy to work with and very responsive to answering the phone, text and emails. YOUR law firm is MY TOP PRIORITY. My 26+ years experience in working in the online marketing industry has been one of constant change and learning. I have the knowledge and expertise to rank almost any website in your niche as well as the proven track record of my work.

Lets start by reviewing your existing website, social sites and online directory profiles against your local competitors and their PPC / SEO campaigns. Come up with a marketing strategy that is reasonable and affordable… then implement our strategy asap.

I look forward to learning more about your law practice and how best I can help grow your business.

Call, text or email anytime,

Legal SEO Q & A Expert

Sandy Rowley

Legal SEO Expert

775-870-0488

 

Make sure to ‘Follow’ me on LinkedIn to keep up to date on SEO and Web Design Advice, Tips and Free Website Design Reviews to increase your sales!

Legal SEO

Legal SEO


Time is ticking away. Each day that you waste by not gaining control of your online rankings, helps your competitors to out rank your website online, reaching legal clients you would not otherwise have access too. 
Stop the bleeding now. Start a white hat Legal SEO campaign with a trusted SEO expert to catch up to your competitors. *My SEO and PPC rates on average are : PPC x 20% monthly budget and SEO starts at $500 – $15,000 a month depending on existing ranking factors and previous history.

SEO for legal terms are one of the most competitive SEO keywords in the industry. For example. Best 18 Wheeler Accident Attorneys” keyword phrase has slose to 50k searches per month and an average PPC cost of $1100 per click! 

legal seo experts

 


Call Sandy @   +1 (775) 870-0488  for a free consultation of your website, social sites and marketing. 
 Read more on her Lawyer Marketing Company here.

How to rank my legal website in Google local search?

download this Legal SEO Article as a PDF

Legal Services, attorneys, bail bondsmen and lawyer searches are one of the most expensive cost per click (Google Adword PPC) keywords in the industry. Tens of thousands of searches are done every day in these competitive areas. These active searchers are looking for specific legal terms like ‘workman compensation Reno’ or ‘divorce attorney Chicago.’ Although the top keywords in legal niche are ‘City Name + Divorce’ or ‘City Name + Accident’, a fair amount of search terms are more specific. Users who search with modifiers are often in research mode and ready to select a law firm to work with. These more specific keyword searches are ripe opportunities for law firms to rank in a crowded market.

Most lawyers and attorneys, can expect to pay well over $20 – $50 a click to buy an ad on Google Adwords and other large search engines like Yahoo and Bing to rank at the top of the search engines using Pay Per Click/Adwords bidding services. The most expensive legal AdWords bid for CPC in the country is currently at $670.44 a click for the keyword phrase “San Antonio car wreck attorney.”

 

Google’s Top 100 Most Expensive Keywords in 2015 [Infographic]

The average monthly PPC (pay per click) budget is well over $10,000 a month if you were to keep your PPC campaign competitively at the top of the Google search results. And this is for just one keyword!

Last month the legal search phrase ‘car accident attorney in Reno’ hit an all-time high in Google search with over 3500 searches performed. Multiply those numbers with the average $20 per click. With the average CTR (click through rate) for ad position #1 being a little over 33%, an attorney firm could expect to pay over $23,000 a month to rank for this keyword in Reno.

View top Lawyer Marketing Company services here.

“When it comes to PPC management, law firms have their work cut out for them. Keyword terms associated with attorneys and lawyers are among the most expensive keywords in Google AdWords. Law firms “can easily spend $50,000 to $100,000 per month on PPC,” according to Robert Ramirez, a senior SEO analyst at BCI who specialized in legal marketing for six years.”     Source: https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/ppc-management-lawyers/

How is a small legal firm to out compete some of the larger Lawyers and Attorney firms online?

Organic SEO (search engine optimization) is the art and science of ranking a webpage from your website on the “free clicks” area of Google search results.

Focusing on easier to rank keywords at the beginning of your marketing efforts helps to build the foundation needed to go after the more sought after search terms.

Google SEO companies focus on ranking your website for LTK (long tail keywords). These are usually specific keywords that people use in the search box when they are specifically looking for something. These searchers are closest to a positive conversion than those generally searching for the keyword ‘attorney’.

These LTK (long tail keywords) are the low hanging fruit of the SEO world. Most LTK have less than 500 searches per month, and some are not as competitive at the big fish keywords like ‘divorce attorneys in Reno’.

Capturing the attention of a searcher who is searching for ‘how to file for divorce in Reno’ is a great opportunity for a small legal firm to really show their expertise in that area of the law. This Long Tail Keyword search is a great example of someone who is actively looking for a local attorney who can answer who question and ready to schedule their first consultation with a local law firm.

A good SEO company or expert can help rank a small legal firm’s website within a few months or less for long tail keywords. Some law firm websites could rank as soon as 30 days, depending on the amount of local searches performed for your keywords and other on site SEO factors that pertain to your existing website, past marketing efforts and reputation on Google, FaceBook, Yelp and larger legal directory websites. Although we will laser focus in on ranking your website for the top local keywords for your city, the goal is to rank webpages within your website for hundreds if not thousands of relevant keywords.

“By targeting LTK, we can rank a website more than once on the first page of Google. Also positioning a legal website as a local authority on multiple networks, blogs and directories.” Sandy Rowley Legal SEO pro @ RenoWebDesigner.com.

Bail Bonds Unlimited is a Reno Bail Bond company that specializes in treating their clients like family.

 

Although they were a busy bond company in Reno, their SEO rankings were lacking. The hired Sandy Rowley with RenoWebDesigner.com to provide organic Legal SEO services and within one month of work, was ranking their website multiple times on the first page of Google. They are currently ranking for over 103 long tail keywords bringing in an average of $24,000 a month in new leads.

legal seo pro

bail-bond-seo-reno

With the money saved on straight PPC marketing, most attorneys or legal service providers choose to position their company website on a limited PPC, a set fee SEO organic plan and Google business maps listing optimization for optimum coverage of a given city and/or area.

A quality built website is critical for organic and PPC rankings. Google and other large search engines are giving mobile friendly websites more visibility than those sites who are outdated and un responsive.

Correct coding and design affect a websites ability to be indexed by the large search engines.  RenoWebDesigner.com has over 17 years’ experience in creating highly optimized websites and mobile webpages for higher indexing in search engines.

Ranking for your ideal keywords is the first step in a successful internet marketing campaign. Converting those clicks into actual customers takes a little hard work and follow through.

Download Google.com’s guide to good SEO here.

Top 10 SEO Tactics that help convert a website visitor into a client:

  1. Create and Publish regular press releases. Example ideas are: new hires, client wins, client testimonials, charity work, events and on site workshops.
  2. Regular 5 star reviews in Google, Yelp and FaceBook.com
  3. Video F.A.Q’s.
  4. Professional and friendly photos of all staff and detailed profiles.
  5. Helpful resource areas within your website that are on topic and up to date.
  6. Instant chat features to capture viewers’ attention and answer questions immediately on site.
  7. Show membership status of local groups and organizations.
  8. Mobile friendly website.
  9. Fast loading website.
  10. Offer events, classes and workshops.

Internet Marketing is an ongoing necessity for a successful legal practice. It is the life blood of all leading companies on and offline. If your legal business is slowing down, SEO is a quick way to drive quality leads in a relatively short amount of time. Most SEO work will show an increase in leads within the first month of work. Although no SEO company can or should guarantee rankings, an experienced SEO expert is expected to show positive R.O.I within a few months of work.

google seo reno

Google.com shared a great blog post on how to find a quality SEO company or expert to work with.
Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=en

 A good SEO expert will help your firm with the following:

  • Review of your site content or structure
  • Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
  • Content development
  • Management of online business development campaigns
  • Keyword research
  • SEO training
  • Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

Be mindful of get rich quick schemes. Any marketing company advertising that they can get your law firm rankings over night are not reputable agencies. This is to good to be true. There are hundreds of thousands of SEO services that available all over the internet selling those types of services. I am not one of them. The marketing work I perform is based off of safe SEO practices and guidelines published on Google’s own forums and blogs.

“While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways.” Google.com Admin

SEO legal

Any SEO company that offers to sell you back links or any of these items, is a clear warning not to engage in their services.


These are a few examples of the common pitfalls that some legal SEO companies deploy for fast but deadly SEO results.

  1. Send thousands or millions of visitors to your website in a very short amount of time.
  2. Order thousands of fake back links to your website in one day, month or year.
  3. Buy fake reviews for your business on Yelp, Google or Facebook.
  4. Buy fake Likes for your social media accounts.

 

“In the 17 plus years working in the SEO industry, one statement has held true throughout all the countless Google updates. Slow and steady wins the race.” Sandy Rowley RenoWebDesigner.com

Google’s latest algorithm update, Rank Brain, is all about websites providing useful and relevant content to their website viewers. Thin content will now become a waste of marketing dollars and time, as long post content with high user engagement will boost websites higher in Google search.

What are the highest engaged content pieces for attorney websites?

When a person searches for a keyword and clicks on your website link, they should find helpful and interesting content immediately on your website. If they click the back button more often than not, your website will start to drop in rankings.

Great examples of engaging content are:

  1. Infographics that break down difficult content into easily digested information that is understood quickly with images.
  2. Videos that share interesting stories, news and answer the top questions from your F.A.Q page.
  3. Online quizzes and games.
  4. Instant search bar asking “How can I help?” or “What are you looking for search bar?”
  5. Pop up window with an irresistible offer.
  6. Free Ask The Lawyer Page.
  7.  Weekly or Monthly audio podcast on Sound Cloud.
  8.  Local resource guide.

The best practices in Lawyer SEO marketing is to instantly provide content that the searcher is looking for and then keep them on the website for an average of 3 – 10 minutes each visit.

Videos are a great way to keep users on your website longer. Integrating a user generated response at the end of the video is a nice way to get conversions as well as feedback from your future client. Asking for them to post a question below, share on social media or book mark the page can all be counted as conversions if set up correctly on site.

Google tracks how many conversions your website has in a day, week or month.

Some examples of possible conversions to increase Google rankings:

  1. End User signs up for your email newsletter.
  2. If they click contact us page.
  3. If a website visitor buys something from your website.
  4. Share your website on social media.
  5. Bookmark your website for future use.

Setting up Google Analytics correctly to measure these conversions is an important part of on site optimization work.

Set up conversion tracking for your website

Conversion tracking can help you see how effectively your ad clicks lead to valuable customer activity on your website, such as purchases, sign-ups, and form submissions.
This article explains how to create a conversion action to track customer actions on your website. You’ll set up the conversion action in your AdWords account and get a piece of code called a “tag.” To finish setting up conversion tracking, you’ll add the conversion tag to your website.

Search Engine Optimization attracts a great deal of characters. Knowing whom to trust with your company website is enough to give you a migraine…I get it. Lets hop on the phone and review your website together and determine if we are a good fit. I would be happy to review your website and provide an SEO audit of work needed to increase your website rankings.

You can learn more about Google standards and requirements for organic SEO best practices in this detailed PDF report here:

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Google is currently the leader in the online searches, so I prefer to focus most of my SEO efforts following their algorithm updates and requirements, but can work to increase rankings in Bing, Yahoo and other large networks. Often having an authority website that ranks well for your keywords will rank you in these secondary search engines.

I welcome your questions and/or comments. I prefer to work one on one with my clients, becoming part of your extended team. I am a down to earth and kind person, who likes to joke around and have fun…but I promise you, my SEO services have helped hundreds of companies rank consistently online for many years and have the guts of steel needed to be successful in such a shark eat shark industry such as SEO. Hope to chat soon, Sandy.

Listen to Legal SEO advice audio files here:

 

 

Reno Web Designer

 

Sandy Rowley

Legal SEO Expert

RenoWebDesigner.com

Call Sandy @   +1 (775) 870-0488  for a free consultation of your website, social sites and marketing.