In the ever changing world of Digital Marketing you never know what the next advancement in technology will be or how it will affect your business. To keep our clients ahead of their competitors we closely follow the test SEO trends and examine how they could affect your business. We have made some predictions about how we think internet marketing for lawyers, solicitors and accountants will change over the coming year.
With more and more people using their phone, tablets, and even watches to surf the web, having a website that is compatible with these devices is crucial to ensuring you get the most clients possible. Mobile searches have soared over the last few years and we expect this to increase further. Desktop searches have decreased slightly over this period but interestingly this huge increase in mobile usage has largely been in addition to desktop usage, not instead of it.
Furthermore, Google’s latest update ensured that websites that are mobile-friendly will receive a boost to their ranking in the search results on devices. Many firms went mobile-friendly during 2015 and we expect that in 2022 having a website optimised for mobile will become the norm rather than something for a handful of elite businesses.
Legal SEO will be changed by long tail keywords
With the rise of devices being used to search for services, this brings about its own changes in the way the google algorithm decides how to rank a website, and how we chose to rank your site.
There has been an increase in consumers searching on Google in a different way. Many consumers have started using “long tail keywords”. This refers to searching with a phrase or question rather than individual words. This comes as a direct result from the rise of mobile phone usage and using siri when searching on Google. Google has responded by adapting the way in which it ranks a website to make it more intuitive rather than just keyword based.
As a result we don’t just focus on ranking for “city+solicitor”, we focus on a broader reach so that you are targeting a wider range of consumers. You need to have great content strategy and a website optimised for mobiles to be able to achieve this and we pride ourselves on keeping up do date on doing what’s necessary to ensure you get the most clients.
Local SEO will become more competitive
Over the last year we saw an increase in focus towards local SEO from search engines. In August Google decided that results for local searches in the “Snack Pack” (list of companies with map location and pin), would be reduced from seven results to three. However, these results would be now placed at the top of the page, above the organic listings.
Google tried to push the importance of Google+ by making it so you need to have a local listing to get in the Snack Pack and there are rumours about developments to the Google maps software to make it further integrated with search results and local businesses. 2019 also saw new geolocation technologies being released such as iBeacon, geo-fencing, etc which specifically look to target consumers based on their location.
These again are largely a reaction to the increase of consumers using mobiles when searching for services. We predict that the reduction in size of the snack pack, its positioning on Google, combined with the increased use of mobiles with location services will make firms become much more competitive for the top results on Google.