Have you been stuck at the same revenue level for months, despite doing everything you can think of to draw in new clients? If so, you’re not alone. Many lawyers find that their digital marketing efforts stop bearing fruit after a certain point. However, there is a way to level up your digital marketing strategy: SEO for lawyers, especially local SEO.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is a technique that makes your website more visible to potential clients who are searching online for legal services. Here’s how this crucial marketing strategy can elevate your firm to new heights.
How SEO for Lawyers Can Level Up Your Digital Marketing
Drive More Traffic to Your Firm’s Website
As any lawyer knows, visibility is essential for attracting new leads, and potential clients are increasingly turning to the internet to find the legal services they need. As a result, it is essential for lawyers to ensure that their websites are easily found by those seeking legal aid.
The best way to do this is to optimize your website content for relevant keywords related to your location and area of expertise. When done right, you can improve your firm’s visibility on Google’s search engine results pages, which generates more traffic and clients. If you offer remote consultation services, you can even secure clients from across the globe!
Local SEO Helps You Reach New Clients in Your Area
Local SEO is a strategy that specifically targets prospects in your business’s vicinity. This tactic boosts your visibility in the search results by optimizing your website and online presence for locally relevant keywords. For example, if you are a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles, you would want to use keywords like “criminal defense lawyer LA” or “Los Angeles criminal defense attorney.”
By optimizing your website content for these relevant phrases, you can improve your rankings on the search engine results pages (SERPs), for those potential clients who are in your area. You’ll also come up on Google Maps, which users sometimes prefer over the search results page because then they can visually gauge how close they are to your business.
Provides an Edge Over the Competition
SEO is a crucial tool for any lawyer looking to stay ahead of the competition. When you implement SEO techniques properly, you can ensure that your site appears higher on the search engine results pages than your competitors, making it more likely that potential clients will seek your services instead of theirs.
For example, if you are a personal injury lawyer competing for clients in New Jersey, and your competitor has not optimized their website for relevant long-tail keyword phrases, you will have a better chance of appearing first in the SERPs when potential clients search for terms like, “best personal injury lawyer New Jersey.” You can also include information about your business on Google’s Business directory that helps users confirm you’re the best lawyer to contact.
Establishes Your Law Firm as a Specialist in the Field
A major component of a strong SEO strategy has a thriving blog. Blogging is not only an excellent way to increase site traffic, but it also establishes your firm as an expert in your area of law. By providing informative, well-written content on a regular basis, you can build trust and credibility with your readers. As a result, they will view you as a valuable resource and are more likely to contact your firm when they need legal assistance.
Quality, helpful content is also more likely to garner backlinks from other authoritative sites, which both strengthens your SEO and further builds your reputation as an expert. For example, if you’re a criminal defense lawyer, and you write a blog post about the history of California’s three-strikes law, other websites that link to your post will help improve your ranking for relevant keywords, and readers will see you as a go-to source for information on that topic.
Delivers High ROI and Long-Term Results
Unlike expensive digital marketing tactics like social media marketing or pay-per-click advertising, organic SEO is comparatively cost-effective and offers a very high return on your investment. In fact, many SEO services are one-time costs.
For example, you could invest in having your website optimized for better page speed, which is an important ranking metric that will improve your site’s overall organic rankings. Clicks from organic rankings are free and make up the vast majority of global traffic. Better still, once you achieve those high rankings in the search results, you can typically maintain them for months or even years with minimal effort.
Provides Vistors with a Better User Experience
User experience is another critical ranking factor for Google. Optimizing your site for search engine users also ensures that your visitors have a seamless experience from the moment they land on your page. This starts with making sure that your content is relevant to their needs and easy to find.
But it also includes providing an engaging and user-friendly experience once they start reading. This means using clear and concise language, formatting your text in an easy-to-read manner, and including images, infographics, or videos to break up blocks of text. By following the best on-page SEO practices, you can improve the overall user experience on your site and make it more likely that visitors will stick around. In turn, this can help you more effectively turn visitors into leads.
Grows Online Reviews
One of the first things many people do when considering a new business is read online reviews. This means that if you want to convert prospects into paying clients, you will greatly benefit from having a lot of positive reviews from past clients. With some basic local SEO, you can enable Google reviews for your business.
Maintaining that review section as a verified business can help build trust with potential clients as well as boost rankings. For example, if you search for “family law attorney Los Angeles” on Google, you’ll see the firms that appear at the top of the results typically have the highest ratings and reviews.
Gain New Insights into Your Clients and Their Needs
Law firms can also use search engine data to understand their clients better. By tracking the keywords that potential clients are using to find legal services, you can identify trends and patterns in search behavior. This information can be used to tailor marketing campaigns and improve the overall visibility of your law firm.
In addition, by analyzing the competition, you can learn more about what potential clients are looking for and how best to position yourself to attract new business. For instance, if you’re a personal injury lawyer and you notice that users are searching for “workplace injury lawyer,” you could benefit from creating content around accidents in the workplace.
From increasing your client base and income to establishing authority in your area of expertise, SEO is a must-have for any law firm looking to grow. Are you ready to break through your business’s revenue plateau? We specialize in SEO for lawyers! Contact us today at LBMS, and let us show you how we can help you take your law firm to the next level with our SEO services.