Don’t Compete With Google, Get Google To Compete For You: SEO For Legal Firms

That thick yellow pages telephone book sitting in a dusty box in the loft is a thing of the past. Ancient history. In today’s digital age the internet is everything. The internet is fast, it’s free, it’s accessible, and it’s immensely convenient. There’s no point trying to compete with it, so you might as well learn how to get it to compete for you.

Almost 96% of people use the internet to find legal services, and of that 96%, about 72% of those people only contact one person. One person. That means if you’re not remotely near the top of any search queries, you’re missing out on at least 72% of leads before you’ve even got your foot in the door. Optimising and fine tuning your SEO, in a nutshell, is how you’re going to get to the top of Google. It opens the door to that remaining 72% of leads. If you’re looking to see quick-fire changes to your overall lead generation, then SEO is the place to be.

Here’s a look at why SEO for legal firms is so important, and how you can look at improving it yourself!

Lead generation

Naturally the main one, but SEO will improve your overall lead generation. Professional service businesses generally get over 50% of their leads through organic traffic. If your organic traffic generation is currently way down on that number, then there is work to be done! 

ROI

As a business you are always looking for a return on investment. SEO is one of the most straightforward and cost effective ways to improve your returns for very little outbound spend. SEO does not need constant tinkering, it is more of a ‘1 and done’ type system. Once you’ve made your initial changes they will do the work for you. There can be quite a lot of technical changes required initially, but once you’re fully optimised, prospects and clients will start flooding in!

ROI

Targeted Traffic

Search engine queries can be anywhere from quite vague to extremely specific. In this instance we can choose to focus on the specific end of that spectrum and target people who likely know exactly what they’re searching for. Expertise or location specific keywords will allow you to have much more focused audience targeting. 

This allows you to bypass any leads that aren’t necessarily as valuable to you, and only focus on generating quality leads. Relevant traffic is far more beneficial to your business. SEO will also highlight areas where you can target the different stages of your sales funnel. You can optimise certain content and keywords for bottom funnel conversions and sales, whilst some content can be optimised for top funnel information and awareness.

Credibility and Visibility

Trust is a big factor in any buying decision. Especially one as important as legal services. Establishing yourself at the top of any given search query will boost your market position to any onlookers. By being at the top of Google your visibility is naturally enhanced, which will massively boost your organic traffic. Credibility, whilst not immediately obvious to a person on any search engine page, will be boosted too. Visitors generally assume the top pages on Google are trustworthy. The very fact they are there, is because Google thinks your content and site are credible. 

Improves User Experience

Your SEO ranking is determined by a huge number of factors. Some of these are somewhat unseen to a visitor, whilst some are hugely important to your overall site feel. Factors like page loading speed, duplicated copy, poor navigation and interlinking, etc. If changes are made to all of these factors, it will not only improve your SEO but also improve the user experience of any new visitors coming to the site. 

User Experience

How can you improve your SEO?

As highlighted then, the benefits are pretty incredible. But how and where exactly should you start? Some SEO can be incredibly technical, whilst some of it is almost just more common sense than anything else. There’s plenty of basics that you can nail with your SEO. These might include things like finding niche keywords queries, fixing site load speeds, improving navigation, image/URL/alt tags, adding meta descriptions, and using great headlines.

Behind those basics though, what more can you do? 

On-Site Content

One of the main overlooked things you can do is related to your on-site content. Try and look through your on-site content and landing pages that any search query leads too. Is that piece of content answering every question that you can think of. Adding and adjusting landing page copy is an excellent idea to determine your search rankings.

If someone is searching ‘criminal law firms London’ for example they might be thinking a variety of things. Some more obvious like

  • Are you a criminal law firm?
  • Are you in London? 
  • Is your law firm good?
  • Do you specialise in criminal law?

There might then be some that are slightly less obvious, these might be things like:

  • Can you provide this specific need of mine?
  • What is it going to cost me?
  • Are you a trustworthy law firm?
  • Can you provide me with any relevant experience?
  • Can I contact someone to ask some additional questions?

Managing your on-site content and ensuring every question has an answer is massively important!

Long-tail keywords

To the same degree that keyword intent is important, long tail keyword queries are too. People often ask questions in plain english, not staggered words. Someone might be searching on a smart speaker, or typing in full sentences asking ‘How much does a London criminal law firm cost’. Try to use long tail keywords that contain some extra specific words like ‘price’, ‘trustworthy’, ‘London’, ‘experience’ that someone might search for. Address a variety of keywords within that same category of ‘criminal law’.

Internal and external linking practices

Trust is everything to Google, and indeed to consumers too, so finding external sources who will link to your content goes a long way to demonstrating that trust. Try and dedicate some resources into finding the best and most authoritative domains and share your content with them. 

Linking

Guest posting often opens doors as you often share links for other sites, inviting backlinking. Legal directories are another option, bolstering your backlinking profile. Content marketing is one of the main ways to boost your link portfolio. Naturally, producing unique and relevant content means it will be shared more, but it also invites discussion, engagement, and reach which further bolsters that backlinking metric.

Final thoughts 

SEO has huge benefits to your overall lead generation strategy. Even with some basic changes your ROI could be massive, whilst your credibility, visibility, lead quality and overall user experience would also be improved. Try exploring some external and internal linking best practices to improve your domain authority, and explore longer tail and niche keywords to target your specific focused audience. Finally have a look at bulking out your content and strategy revolving that to include any and all landing pages that would be useful for your target audience.

If you are looking for any further help with an SEO strategy for your law firm, please contact us here for a free consultation.

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