How Does SEO Help Law Firms?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective marketing strategies for law firms. Think about it: what better way to reach leads than with Google?
After all, people use Google to search for lawyers and legal service providers in their area, more than any other platform. SEO allows law firms to rank high in search results and attract clients who are already looking for services like theirs.
But SEO doesn’t just help law firms attract new clients. Adopting an SEO strategy for a law firm has many advantages.
1. Organic traffic
SEO is all about improving a website’s Google ranking and generating organic traffic. More often than not, the goal is to rank high, consistently, in search and gain organic visitors over the long term.
Lawyers can optimize their websites for search terms (“keywords”) that people use to search for their services. For example, if you are a family lawyer in Denver, you can try to rank for “denver family lawyer”, “Denver family lawyer”, “denver family lawyer” and others.
Organic (unpaid) marketing is great because it doesn’t require significant ad spend to deliver results. You can adopt your own SEO strategies to rank your website or choose to hire an SEO professional to help you with the process.
2. Improved user experience
Believe it or not, SEO isn’t just about pleasing the gods of Google. In reality, your goal should be to deliver the best website experience, the best content, and the best information to your potential visitors. Google’s algorithm is used to rank the content that best matches what users are looking for.
SEO necessarily improves User Experience (UX) because UX is included in Google’s known ranking factors. The speed, interactivity, and accessibility of your website are all important to keeping visitors happy and letting Google know your website is optimized.
A great user experience keeps users on your website longer and encourages them to “sign up” (contact you) rather than going to your competition.
3. Faster website speed
Google rates a website Essential elements of the web to determine that a website is fast and that its content is easily rendered to users. In other words, it wants to make sure that when users arrive at your site, it doesn’t take decades for your content to load.
Slow website speed can be a big deterrent to potential customers. If your website is taking too long, they might go somewhere else. Additionally, the slow website speed often means that you have “heavy” images and code on your site, which can essentially crash or fail to load when users interact with them.
An effective SEO strategy aims to improve the web essentials of your website on every level so that you are sure to provide a fast and user-friendly website experience for your visitors.
4. Better content marketing
Much of your SEO success relies on content. The content of your web pages and blog posts helps attract the right types of users to your site, improve your site’s authority, and more.
When you care about SEO, you care about your content and, in turn, create better content for users and search engines. Better content not only ranks higher in search, it is also more easily shared by users. Plus, your written content is often what ultimately convinces people to hire you.
5. Gained Links and Authority
Backlinks (links from other websites) are basically confidence votes from outside sites that your website is informative, factual, and valuable to users. Every SEO strategy aims to gain those authority-building links to show Google that your website is legitimate.
The authority gained can improve the appearance of your website in searches. At the same time, links from other websites can drive additional traffic to your website. Blogging, content marketing, and outreach are just a few of the ways law firms can gain backlinks for SEO.
6. Reference traffic
Reference traffic is the traffic that comes in through external links or other websites. SEO can help drive referral traffic to your site as other sites start to notice your content and want to link to it.
At the same time, most law firms adopt a localized SEO strategy of submitting their business information to local directories. These directories can then send more visitors (and leads) to your website.
Additionally, posting expert-level content may attract the attention of other blogs and posts, which may then choose to feature you. Then you can get that referral traffic through interviews, podcasts, and guest posts.
7. No more phone calls
SEO for law firms often requires a localized strategy in order to target users in a specific service area. To accomplish this, law firms can produce geo-specific content on their websites, submit it to local directories, and even build a Google My Business listing.
Local SEO helps law firms get noticed in local search. With local listings, law firms can share their business contact details to generate more phone calls and leads.
In short, visitors don’t even have to visit your website if they can find your phone number right from Google!
8. Improving customer reception
Website optimization makes it much easier to collect lead information and rank it for better customer care. By including contact forms and contact information on your website, you can generate more digital leads and save this information in your customer management system.
If you’re relying solely on phone calls, you’re probably missing out on a ton of potential leads. Contact forms, chatbots and opt-ins make it easier than ever to collect lead information in real time. You can even automate text or email tracking to reach potential customers faster.
9. Local and pedestrian traffic
Local SEO also makes it easier for potential customers to find your physical office. You can post your address and other business information so that people can visit you in person, without ever having to visit your website.
Location also sends geo-specific “clues” to Google to tell them where your business is located and the areas it serves. If you have this information, you are more likely to appear in the right local search results for the right audience. This is especially true if you are working in a competitive market, but your competition has not implemented SEO.
10. Notices and Notes
Reviews and SEO present a ‘chicken and egg’ situation; Good reviews influence SEO, and SEO helps law firms get reviews. There is no way to go wrong!
Positive client reviews tell Google (and users) that your law firm is trustworthy, real (important!), And highly revered. SEO, in turn, encourages law firms to reach out and generate more positive reviews so they can improve their rankings.
Think those 5-star ratings don’t matter for research? Think again ! Not only do potential customers want to see these rave reviews, Google values your business reputation as well. So don’t forget the reviews when it comes to your SEO.
SEO helps put your law firm on the map
SEO helps law firms beyond just generating traffic and leads; it provides a comprehensive marketing strategy that improves the overall digital presence of your business. And a better digital presence means more opportunities to attract new legal clients!
Every law firm should embrace SEO to improve user experience, website speed, content, and local visibility. This is one of the best ways to drive sustainable organic traffic and put your website on the (Google) map.