As an attorney, you’re well aware that the legal market in the digital age is more competitive than ever before.
You’ve created what you thought was a strong website for your Charlotte-based law firm, but your traffic hasn’t increased — and neither has your client volume.
In this post, we’ll tell you why SEO for lawyers is something that your firm can no longer afford to do without.
We’ll also let you know where you can connect with attorney SEO services that will increase your conversions and give you the kind of results your firm deserves.
Poor SEO Will Cost You in the Rankings
One of the biggest reasons why you need to take legal SEO as seriously as your next client’s case, is because it directly affects where your website will land when it comes to the search engine result pages, or SERPs for short. About 75% of online consumers say they never bother to go past the first page of search engine results.
Even if you’ve worked hard to create a website that’s easy to navigate and informative, if it’s not designed with SEO in mind, all of your hard work will be for nothing. Additionally, SEO for law firms is all about outranking your competitors. You want to be certain that your law firm’s website shows up in the SERPs before your biggest competitor’s site does.
But it’s not just about choosing the right keywords and hacking your way to the top of the first page of Google. Remember that a strong SEO strategy is also influenced by your website’s loading speed and design.
It’s obvious that a user won’t bother to spend much time — less than three seconds, to be exact — on a website that’s slow to load. A potential client also won’t think much of a law firm website that’s full of spammy pop-ups, broken links, and aggressive, unprofessional graphics.
You won’t just lose a client — a poorly-designed website also impacts your site’s dwell time. This is the average length of time that a user stays on your site.
Sites with higher dwell times are recognized by Google and other search engines as providing useful, relevant information. So, they rank higher than those that have lower dwell times.
Remember, it’s not just your law firm’s reputation that’s on the line. It’s also about how SEO affects your site’s overall visibility.
The Right SEO Strategy Puts You in Front of Your Target Market
Another reason why SEO for lawyers directly affects your firm’s success?
Because the right keywords and link strategies can shorten the time it takes for your target market to find you online, and without a proper legal SEO strategy that target market might not be able to find you online.
There are currently more than 1.5 billion websites on the Internet — and that number is increasing every minute. And while all 1.5 billion of them might not be related to the legal industry, a good portion of them will be.
Keywords, or what people type into search engines to help them find what they’re looking for online, are an essential part of SEO for law firms.
First of all, your keywords should include references to the specific type of legal work that you do. For example, if you specialize in divorce law, you might choose a high-ranking keyword like “divorce attorney” or “hiring a divorce lawyer.”
But something is missing from those keywords — your location. Location-based keywords are the bread and butter of legal SEO. They don’t just help you find people who need your services. They ensure that the people who need your legal services and live within your practice area end up on your website.
Including location-based keywords like “Charlotte NC divorce attorney” or “Divorce attorney Myers Park” will get you exactly the kind of traffic you’re looking for.
SEO Establishes You as an Authority in the Legal Industry
As a legal professional, you’ve spent years earning your degrees, creating your network, and establishing a reputation in the courtroom.
Now, you need to make sure that your SEO strategy is working to effectively translate that reputation and work to the digital world. Superior legal SEO helps you to establish yourself as the go-to legal authority within your niche and service area.
It does this by allowing you to join the digital conversion, whether that conversation is taking place on your blog, your YouTube channel, or even on a third-party site.
Remember that an effective SEO strategy isn’t just about what’s on your website.
It also includes your social media profiles, any guest posts that you write for legal websites and online journals, and even third-party review sites where past clients can discuss their experience with you.
In other words, to get attorney SEO done right, you need seamless integration between all of your different online accounts and presences.
Looking for Professional Guidance on SEO for Lawyers?
We hope that this post has helped you to understand why SEO for lawyers is such an important part of your overall marketing strategy.
Remember that SEO doesn’t just help you to outrank your competitors and show up in front of the right people. It also creates a sense of authority and trust between your firm and your target market.
To get an even better understanding of how not just SEO, but our services can help your law firm to grow, check out our case study.
When you’re ready to put the right kind of legal SEO strategy into place for your firm, reach out to us to chat.
