The process of getting your Law Firm to the top of search engines is a bit of a mystery to many solicitors. The most common question we receive is “How do you do it?”.
In response to this, I have written a guide explaining the steps of our proven system that gets law firms to the top of search engines.
If you want us to help implement this strategy don’t hesitate to get in touch via email at shamborinio@gmail.com or phone at 0873306282
Guide to Search Engine Optimisation for Legal Firms.
1. Keyword analytics are vital for lawyer SEO
Keywords are the words or phrases people use when searching for your services on Google. We research which keywords are best to rank in order for you to get the highest return on investment possible. We use special software to find out the volume of people searching for different search terms relating to your business and location. We then identify which keywords will direct the highest number of the right kind of consumers to your website.
If you don’t already have a website setup we will register a domain, setup hosting, and create a website.
2. A top website is vital for lawyer SEO
If you already have a website set up we take over this site so we can implement our strategy.
Most law firm websites have approximately 6 different pages: Home, About, 2-3 pages for their services and a Contact page. This is not enough if you want to get ahead of your competitors in search engines.
We create individual pages for each of your services. This will grow the authority of your site and the increased level of content will help google identify your site for a wider range of keyword combinations.
e.g.1 – If you are a specialist in Employment law don’t just have two pages “For Employees” and “For Employers”. You need to have pages for:
- Employment Contracts
- Sick Pay
- Discrimination and Harrassment
- Redundancy
- Unfair Dismissal
- etc.
e.g.2 – If your firm deals with accident claims. Don’t have one page for “Road Traffic Accidents”. Have separate pages for:
- Motorcycle Accidents
- Cycling Accidents
- Pedestrians
- Taxi Passenger Claims
- Whiplash compensation
- Uninsured drivers
- etc.
If you are targetting different towns or cities we will also optimise your website for your geographic area. We build pages for each geographic location.
All of your pages on your website must have unique content. Duplicating content has a strong negative effect on your search engine positioning. This also applies to having pages for different geographical locations. You can’t have the same text on a page for “Law Firm in Town 1” as “Law Firm in Town 2” with the only difference being the city name, the whole body of text must be different to ensure the best possible ranking.
In addition to this we make sure all of the text on your website is optimised for the keywords you are trying to rank. This will not only include the main body text but also adding the appropriate Title Tags and H1 Tags for the keywords you are ranking for. If you want to do this yourself it is important that you don’t over optimise your content. Firstly because you want the content to look natural to potential clients, and secondly because Google punishes over optimised pages.
Typical Law Firm Title Tag:
John’s Solicitors
SEO Optimised Law Firm Title Tag:
John’s Solicitors | Employment Lawyer London | Employment Solicitors
3. Link building is vital for lawyer SEO
The single most important and time consuming aspect of SEO for a law firm is getting inbound links to your home page.
The number of high quality backlinks (links that direct to your site) is the biggest determining factor in your search engine positioning.
The other elements are largely laying the groundwork, whilst obtaining these backlinks is approximately 75% of the work.
We make sure that we don’t just invest in getting links from any domain, but that these links are high quality and trusted by Google.
Part of our strategy for building links includes:
- Competition analysis. This is a method of using software to analyse the backlinks of your highest ranking competitors to find out specifically which websites are linking to them and then emulate these links as well as adding additional links in order to gain more authority with Google and a higher ranking.
- Create quality content. We create quality articles and blog posts to be used by other sites that will link to your site.
- Blog commenting. We post helpful feedback and insightful comments on blogs that link to your site.
In addition to this we work on improving your authority by making sure you are registered on the Google map and by citation development. We make sure you have directory listings on Yell, Google Places, Yahoo and over 50 other important online directories.
4. Social media is vital for lawyer SEO
One of the ways Google judges the authority of your site is your company’s presence on social media. We create and build social media profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google + and more. These will all link back to your website and not only will they help increase your rankings, but it will increase your exposure and contribute towards the growth of your client base.
Directories don’t affect your rankings much compared to backlinks from high quality domains, but if you are registered to a huge volume of directories then it can make a difference and help push you towards the top. It’s really important that all your listings in directories are exactly the same. Any minor permutations in the description, opening hours, or address format of your company will reduce the possible impact that directories can have on your ranking.
5. Publishing new content is another key lawyer SEO tactic
Publishing new content to your website in the form of blog posts/news updates will help improve you website’s credibility.
Create contents that references:
- Educational posts relating to the practice of law.
- The law’s relevance to certain current affairs.
- Your company’s involvement in any local public cases or events.
Want to start landing more clients and improve your legal marketing strategy?
We can implement this strategy for you and get your Law Firm or Accountancy firm to the top of Google for a number of keywords in your area. If you have any questions or would like to book a free consultation, call us at 0873306282 or email us shamborinio@gmail.com
Check out local SEO for lawyers