Want more clients knocking on your door (well, virtually)?

Search engine optimization (SEO) can help your law firm rank higher in online searches. That means when people search for a lawyer in your area, your firm is one of the first they see!

Our law firm SEO guide will show you easy steps to use SEO and attract new clients without any confusing jargon.

What Is Law Firm SEO?

Law firm SEO is the strategic optimization of your website and online presence to attract potential clients actively searching for legal services. This optimization targets specific keywords to increase organic traffic.

Implementing a law firm SEO strategy can improve your search engine ranking, build trust and authority online, and ultimately convert website visitors into paying clients.

Does SEO Work for Law Firms?

Yes, SEO works for law firms just like it works for other businesses. By using a custom SEO strategy specifically for your law firm, you can enjoy benefits. For example,

Reach Potential Clients: By creating content and ranking for specific search queries, you can target potential clients who are actively searching for your legal expertise.
Build Your Brand: High rankings also build trust and establish your firm as a brand.
Increased ROI: SEO has the highest ROI compared to any other marketing channels. You pay less and get more.
Attract Leads: You get “warm leads” already interested in your legal services.
Crush the competition: With a solid strategy, you can easily outrank competitors who are spending more than you.

SEO is an organic marketing strategy that is cheaper than other digital marketing channels and definitely works if implemented properly.

Law Firm SEO Guide: How to Boost SEO for Law Firm

Although the basic SEO is almost the same for every industry, SEO for law firms is special. That’s because it falls under the “YMYL” category.

“YMYL” stands for “Your Money Your Life,” which basically means important search queries about finance, health, law, etc. Google prioritizes high-quality, original content from authoritative websites for these niches because incorrect information about these topics can have severe consequences.

That’s why ranking as a law firm is much harder than other regular niches and needs more effort.

Here’s how you can implement an effective SEO strategy that works for a law firm.

Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is a free tool that helps businesses list their businesses in Google Search and Maps.

When people search for a law firm near your business location or specifically search for your business, the GBP listing will appear on the SERP. By optimizing your GBP, you display important information about your business for potential clients, just like a product listing.

As a demonstration, let’s Google “law firm in nyc.”

You can see that there’s a list of law firms that operate in New York City.

When you click on one of these businesses, you can see more information about their services, location, reviews, and more.

That’s why having a well-optimized Google Business Profile can help your local customers know about your business. If you are just starting your business, you will have to create a Google Business Profile first, then optimize it.

How to Optimize Google Business Profile for a Law Firm

Here are the steps you can follow to optimize GBP listings for your law firm:

Add Detailed Information: Provide detailed information about-

Your business name,
Address,
Phone number,
Category,
Hours,
Location
Description

Place Relevant Keywords: When providing information about your business, you should include relevant keywords that you are trying to rank for. There are many places where you can place keywords, such as business descriptions, service listings, etc.

While placing keywords, you have to make sure to place them naturally and not overdo it.

For example, if you are trying to rank for a keyword like “best law firm in new york”, your business description could be like this:

“Welcome to [your law firm’s name], the best law firm in New York and your trusted partner for a comprehensive legal services. Our experienced attorneys specialize in corporate law, family law, criminal defense, immigration, and personal injury. With a proven track record and a commitment to excellence, we provide personalized, strategic legal solutions to meet your unique needs. Conveniently located in New York City, we offer flexible scheduling, including virtual consultations. Contact us today for reliable, top-tier legal representation.”

Use Images and Videos: Upload images to your GBP listing to inform potential customers about your law firm. Images are also a major GBP ranking factor.

While uploading images, you can use images of your office interior, exterior, legal team, etc. But these images must be relevant and high-quality.

Also, uploading a cover photo and the business logo of your law firm is a necessity.

Just like images, videos are also a ranking factor. Uploading videos will increase your visibility. Client testimonials and attorney introductions can be good topics for videos.

Here are some images uploaded by an actual law firm in New York.

Reviews: Your law firm’s review section is one of the most important attributes of your Google Business profile. However, you shouldn’t forge fake reviews.

Instead, encourage your clients to leave original and honest reviews.

Social Media Links: You can link your social media profiles to your Google Business Profile, which is another important ranking factor. By adding social media profiles to your GBP listing, your customers can easily reach you, and it also sends a positive signal to Google about your law firm’s credibility.

Other than social media links, you can also link important blog posts from your website.

Services List: When your potential clients discover your GBP profile, they will most likely want to know about the specific services you offer. That’s why it’s crucial that you create separate listings for your services.

Here’s how an optimized services list should look like:

These are the most important and major optimization factors when it comes to GBP optimization for law firms.

02. Analyze Your Competitors

Analyzing your competitors is important to find out what is trending in the SEO industry for law first. It can give you a clear roadmap of what to do, what not to do, and how to do it.

How to Do Competitor Analysis

Here’s how you can conduct a thorough competitor analysis for your law firm:

Identify Competitors: Find direct competitors (in the same area, services) and indirect competitors (national firms, niche specialists). Use directories, legal listings, and Google search to identify them.

Find Keyword Gap: Use SEO tools and SERPs to see what keywords your competitors rank for in relevant legal searches and what keywords they are not ranking for. This will help you find the potential keywords to target.

Find Content Gap: Analyze competitor websites – what type of content do they create (blogs, articles) and how often (content frequency)? How do they format content (text, video) and engage users? You have to match that and also create better content than them.

Find Backlink Gap: Use SEO tools to understand the quality and quantity of backlinks your competitors have. Try to find out which websites gave them links and why. Also, how you can convince them to give links too.

Reviews & Social Media: Explore how your competitors manage online reviews and their social media presence. Also, observe how they respond to both positive and negative reviews.

With a proper competitor analysis, you have a viable strategy that you can implement to outrank them.

03. Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you identify the specific search terms your potential clients use to look for legal services in your area of expertise. This allows you to personalize your website content and marketing efforts to target the right audience.

How to Keyword Research for a Law Firm

Follow these steps to efficiently find out keywords that you can rank for:

Brainstorm Keyword Ideas: Start by listing words and phrases related to your practice areas (e.g., “DUI attorney NYC,” “personal injury lawyer”). Then use Google related search and autocomplete to find related keywords.

You can also use Wikipedia and forums like Reddit and Quora to find keyword topics.

Use Keyword Research Tools: You can search with the topics or keywords you find in SEO tools such as SEMRush or Ahrefs and find more information about these keywords, including search volume, keyword difficulty, etc.

Select Keywords: Find and list all the keywords that go with your services. If you are just starting your law firm, prioritize keywords with low keyword difficulty and search volume.

Also, you should focus more on long-tail keywords because they are more specific and easier to rank.

Create a Topic Cluster: Based on the list of keywords you prepared, cluster them based on their topics.

By clustering and creating content on these topics, you can build topical authority. With a topical authority, it will be easier for you to rank keywords on that topic.

04. Create and Optimize Content

With a list of topics and keywords, you are now ready to start creating helpful and original content that will bring you traffic and leads.

However, informative content doesn’t mean helpful to Google. Content must meet specific criteria for being helpful.

How to Create Helpful Content for a Law Firm Website

Here are the best practices to follow while creating content for your law website:

Fulfill Search Intent: Search intent is the reason why your potential client types a query into a search engine. You must fulfill the search intent clearly in your content and as soon as possible.

For example, if you create content for the keyword “how much does a dui lawyer cost” the answer should be clearly stated and placed at the beginning of your content.

Place Keywords and Answer Related Queries: For content to be helpful, you must send certain signals to the crawl bot so that it classifies your content as helpful. That’s why you need to naturally place keywords throughout your content.

Your user may also have additional questions regarding the search query. To rank at the top of the SERP, you need to end all of your users’ queries in your content.

Internal Links: Internal linking is connecting different relevant pages within your website for user experience and sending page authority.

When internal linking, you need to make sure that you are linking to relevant content, and the anchor text should partially match the linking content.

Optimizing Title, Meta, and URL: Writing an engaging title and meta description can increase the click-through rate of your content. The title and meta should also include the content’s primary keyword.

The URL should be short and concise while also including the primary keyword.

Write an Engaging Intro: The introduction to your content creates a strong impression and hooks the reader. A good introduction will reduce your bounce rate and increase your dwell time.

Your intro should start with a fact or a stat that piques the reader’s interest and previews the rest of your content.

Use Images and Infographics: A great way to make your content stand out is to use relevant and value-adding images throughout the content.

While an image can speak a thousand words, it can also provide a necessary break for the reader, allowing them to process information and return to the text with fresh eyes.

When using images, make sure that they provide value to the user, are not blurry, and have an appropriate format.

Update Content Regularly: Search engines prefer fresh content over old ones. That’s why you should update your content every six months.

When updating your content, you should prioritize updating information and correct any mistakes. Also, if you find any irrelevant content, you should delete it instead of updating it.

Promote Your Content: Apart from creating content, you should also promote your content on different social media platforms. Also, if possible, create different versions of your content for different social media platforms.

05. Build Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites that work as a vote of confidence or recommendation that builds credibility and domain authority. You need to build high domain authority as search engines trust sites with higher domain authority and send more traffic their way.

How to Build Backlinks for Your Law Firm

To build an effective backlink profile, you have to have a versatile link-building strategy. Here’s a sneak peek of how to approach link-building:

Prioritize Quality Over Quantity: Focus on getting backlinks from high-authority, relevant websites in the legal field. A link from a prestigious legal blog is more valuable than ten links from random websites.

Use Guest Posting: Write informative articles for other legal websites or blogs. Include a link back to your law firm’s website in your author bio or within the article.

Use HARO: HARO or Help A Reporter Out is a platform that connects journalists with sources. Sign up as a source for legal topics and respond to journalist queries seeking expert opinions. If your response is used, the journalist will include a link to your website.

Build Relationships With Niche Leaders: Network with other legal professionals, journalists, and bloggers in your niche. Offer your expertise, collaborate on content, and build genuine relationships. These connections can lead to natural backlinks.

Directory Citation: Make sure your law firm’s information is listed accurately and consistently across relevant online legal directories and business directories.

Although these links are usually no-follow (they don’t contribute to domain authority), they build a reputation that helps with local SEO.

Digital PR: Generate positive online press coverage about your law firm’s achievements, awards, or community involvement. This can attract backlinks from news websites and legal publications.

By following these strategies, you can build a strong backlink profile for your law firm’s website.

06. Optimize Your Website

Since you are looking to increase traffic and potential customers through SEO, we assume that you already have a functional website with all the must-have pages.

But is your website optimized?

The potential clients you will attract through your SEO efforts will land on your website one way or another. When they do, if they find a slow website without proper information, will that create a good impression?

That’s why optimizing your website is always a great idea.

How to Optimize Your Website

Here’s how you can optimize your law firm website for the best results:

Speed Optimization: Website speed is an important ranking factor that also greatly impacts user experience. Your website should load under two seconds, and for every extra second it takes to load, you will lose traffic and have an increased bounce rate.

Mobile-friendliness: Most website visitors will browse your site from their smartphones. Also, Google gives priority to websites with an optimized mobile version when it comes to indexing.

Website Structure: A smooth website structure will benefit both your potential clients and Google bot. Your potential clients will be able to easily find the information they are looking for, and Google bot will be able to crawl your website easily.

Engaging Visuals and Design: You should invest in re-designing your website and using engaging visuals. Having an interactive website can increase your chances of landing clients.

About Us Page: Having an “About Us” page builds your credibility and contributes to your website’s authority. So, make sure your “About Us” page is detailed and gives a glimpse of your business.

07. Monitor and Track Progress

Once you set up and implement all these SEO tactics for the best results, you should check back once in a while to see how your website is doing. By monitoring your site’s progress, you can identify what’s working and what’s not.

Based on your data, you can devise a new strategy to fix what’s not working, which will increase your website traffic even more.

You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, etc., to monitor your website’s progress.

FAQs about Law Firm SEO

Is law firm SEO worth it?

Yes, law firm SEO is worth it because it leads to higher search engine rankings and attracts the right kind of traffic. By using SEO, you can target potential clients searching for legal services.

Do law firms use SEO agencies?

Yes, law firms use SEO agencies to improve their online presence and establish their firms as brands. There are SEO agencies that specialize in helping law firms, as it requires extra effort to be effective.

How much does the typical law firm spend on SEO?

The typical law firm spends between $2,500 and $10,000 per month on SEO services. The exact amount can vary depending on the firm’s size, location, competition, and specific SEO needs.

Get VizibleSEO for a No-Hassle Law Firm SEO Solution

With our law firm SEO guide, you have a basic understanding of how it can be implemented for your website. But it is easier said than done.

To effectively implement an SEO strategy, you must have enough manpower, resources, and time. It’s really hard to do it all by yourself while maintaining a timeframe.

That’s where VizibleSEO swoops in to save the day.

Our agency excels in different aspects of SEO and we have specialized SEO experts for different niches. You will have nothing to worry about with our law firm SEO specialists.

So, if you need a top-notch SEO service, call us for a free consultation!

Law Firm SEO Guide: SEO Tips for Lawyers and Law Firms