There are around 1.3 million active attorneys in the United States.
Whether you’re a solo practitioner or a part of the biggest firm in your state, a big part of success as a lawyer is finding clients. In this regard, traditional advertising methods are increasingly giving way to more modern tools.
One of the fastest-growing ways to bag clients in the legal world is SEO marketing through blogs.
Read on as we look at the benefits of SEO for lawyers, and how your firm can make its way to the first page on Google.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which webpages can generate more traffic by ranking higher on search engines. The closer your page is to the first page on major search engines, the more clicks it will get.
In order to preserve the integrity of their business, companies like Google don’t release the specific elements of their SEO algorithm. Therefore, nobody knows precisely everything that will or won’t work.
However, careful study by many SEO experts has given us a pretty good idea of what will improve your performance. Some of the most important considerations are:
- Keywords
- Links
- Readability
- Page quality
We look at these in more detail in the context of law practices below.
How Does SEO for Lawyers Work?
SEO for legal practices has its own distinct features. To maximize your firm’s potential through SEO, you’ll need to consider SEO in a legal context, as well as in the context of your local area.
Keywords
A keyword is the most important word or phrase in a blog post. For example, if you’re writing a post about how to escape a drunk driving charge in New York, your keyword might be “DUI in NY.”
To use keywords to your advantage, you’ll need to think carefully about what people type into search engines when they want to find the service you’re providing. In the above example, for instance, “DUI in NY” is something someone facing a DUI charge might well search for.
You’ll need to use this phrase strategically in your document. Introductions, conclusions, and headers are particularly important.
Links
Having outbound links creates an air of authority around your website, which search engines like. As a law firm, however, you won’t want to link to your competitors.
In most cases, the best outbound links are those that go to reputable statistics on the topic you’re writing about. You don’t have to use too many, just enough that the algorithm knows your site is trustworthy.
Readability
Search engines direct readers to sites that they won’t have any trouble reading. Therefore, avoid too many long sentences, difficult words, or paragraphs with more than three sentences.
Growing Your Law Firm in 2020
In these difficult economic times, lawyers need to do everything possible to attract new business. If you don’t have a blog, or you haven’t put much thought into how to make the most of your online presence to attract business, now is the time to make this your focus.
If you’d like to learn more about SEO for lawyers and how we can help to grow your business, contact us today.
