If you are try­ing to get your law firm onto the front page of search­es, you are not only com­pet­ing with oth­er local lawyers in your field but also large lawyer refer­ral plat­forms and lawyers across the coun­try with sim­i­lar­ly com­pet­i­tive content.

SEO is one of the most crit­i­cal mar­ket­ing tac­tics you can uti­lize to draw in new clients search­ing online for a lawyer. This guide will give you a crash course in the dif­fer­ent aspects of SEO that can assist your law firm in opti­miz­ing your web­site to rank organ­i­cal­ly for the ser­vices you are pro­vid­ing to the public.

Identify The Right Keywords

The first step is iden­ti­fy­ing the key­words you want to rank for on Google. Are you look­ing for clients cop­ing with a traf­fic acci­dent? Some­one deal­ing with a divorce, or seek­ing a bank­rupt­cy? What­ev­er area of law you spe­cial­ize in, the key­words you choose should relate to your core services.

There are three types of key­words you will want to focus on:

• Com­pet­i­tive Indus­try Key­words: Indus­try key­words (e.g., “per­son­al injury,” “divorce” and “crim­i­nal defense”) are most com­mon­ly used by clients search­ing for lawyer ser­vices in var­i­ous prac­tice areas. These key­words are the ones searched for most fre­quent­ly and are most com­pet­i­tive. They’re also very pow­er­ful when it comes to bring­ing in the most traffic.

• Com­pa­ny-Spe­cif­ic Key­words: Com­pa­ny-spe­cif­ic key­words or brand­ed key­words are essen­tial. Opti­mize your NAP (name, address, phone) on Google. Make sure your Google My Busi­ness pro­file is filled out com­plete­ly and reflects the key­word strat­e­gy you’ve decid­ed to implement.

• LSI-Backed Key­word Syn­onyms: LSI, or latent seman­tic index­ing, is a fan­cy term for key­word syn­onyms. You’ll see them when Google makes search sug­ges­tions after you type in a key­word, or by scrolling to the bot­tom of the search page to view the sug­gest­ed alter­nate search­es. It’s a great way to under­stand what your com­peti­tors are doing.

Optimize Your Content

Now let’s talk about the strat­e­gy around plac­ing those key­words with­in your con­tent and in the back end of your website.

• Key­word-Dri­ven URLs And Page Titles: In both your page URLs and page titles, make sure to use your best, most rel­e­vant key­words, as well as your geo­graph­ic focus area.

• Help­ful Key­word Head­lines And Sub­head­ings: For every page head­line or sub­head­ing, try to embed a key­word or two.

• Organ­ic SEO Con­tent: Inte­grate your key­words into a con­tent strat­e­gy. You should fre­quent­ly be post­ing on your news sec­tion or blog. Keep it organ­ic. Avoid key­word stuff­ing and write con­tent nat­u­ral­ly with your focus key­words and geo­graph­ic area in mind.

• Social Media Key­words And Hash­tags: When you write social media blurbs and cam­paigns, be sure to use key­words and any rel­e­vant hashtags.

Optimize Your Content

Create A Great Experience For Your Potential Client

The more val­ue your con­tent con­veys, the more SEO pow­er it’s going to have. Not only will you rank high­er on search results but you’ll also be able to posi­tion your­self as an expert in your indus­try and community.

• Post Fre­quent­ly: Post a new blog arti­cle at least once a week and work to reg­u­lar­ly add new detailed prac­tice or ser­vice pages to your site.

• Com­pelling Titles And Hooks: Think hard about the first two sen­tences, known as the “hook.” Use your hook as the meta descrip­tion (what appears below the link in a search result) for bonus results.

• Scannable Con­tent: Orga­nize your con­tent with clear sub­head­ings and short para­graphs to make it super scannable and easy to read.

• Friend­ly And Approach­able Para­graphs: Do not fill your con­tent with com­pli­cat­ed legal con­cepts. Write for the com­mon per­son who doesn’t have a law degree, the very cus­tomers you’re try­ing to attract. Demon­strate that you under­stand what the read­er is going through and let them know how you can help. Whichev­er area of law you focus on, write con­tent that the aver­age read­er will find inter­est­ing, infor­ma­tive and help­ful to their case or situation.

• Answer Ques­tions: Build your con­tent around answer­ing ques­tions that your typ­i­cal client would ask.

Optimize Imagery

When you use images, rec­og­nize that they’re pow­er­ful. And make sure they’re prop­er­ly for­mat­ted for the best results.

• Attract Your Read­er: Do not set­tle for bland stock images. If you spe­cial­ize in a par­tic­u­lar area of the law, ensure your pho­tos tell your read­ers a sto­ry they can relate to in one sim­ple image. If you can, use orig­i­nal images that show­case your office and team.

• Name And Alt-Tag Your Images: For every image, make sure to opti­mize the meta­da­ta. Give the image a name and use an alt-tag. Alt-tags are what appears when the mouse hov­ers over that par­tic­u­lar image.

• Com­press Your Images: A faster load time leads to a bet­ter expe­ri­ence for the customer.

Add Authority To Your Website

Use these tac­tics to boost your SEO results by adding author­i­ty and rel­e­vance to your fir­m’s website.

• Speedy Web Pages: Make sure your site is opti­mized, your images are com­pressed, and you’re run­ning on a fast serv­er or CDN.

• Inter­nal And Exter­nal Embed­ded Links: Pro­vide help­ful links to your oth­er blog posts when rel­e­vant, and link to oth­er sites to ref­er­ence sub­jects or laws you haven’t writ­ten about.

• Col­lect And Link To Reviews: Ask clients for AVVO and Google Reviews and show­case those reviews on your web­site. There is a direct cor­re­la­tion to pos­i­tive reviews and rankings.

• Get Active On Blogs, Forums And Ques­tion Sites: Lend your exper­tise on the inter­net by reach­ing out to oth­er sites, and then link back to your law fir­m’s website.

It’s essen­tial to have a plan when imple­ment­ing an SEO strat­e­gy. With­out a plan, you’ll be wast­ing time and ener­gy post­ing con­tent that no one will read and opti­miz­ing a site that won’t rank.

SOURCE: Forbes