Do you know that the legal industry has the most expensive keywords in Google AdWords? The competition for legal clients these days is fierce. Just look at these numbers:
- 96% of customers use search engines to search for legal advice
- 74% of customers visit a law firm website to take the desired action
- 72% of customers searching for legal advice contact only one lawyer
Keeping in mind that, it is important to optimize your law firm website for appearing on the first page of Google and finding new clients. So, if you want to outperform the competition, the following five valuable techniques will help you get to number 1 on Google and stay there for long. Contact Inside Market Strategy today for more information.
- Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
Many law firms target clients in a particular area. Whether you have one office or different locations, you should create and optimize your landing pages for each location. To make the most of your local search, you need to create and optimize your Google My Business account that substituted Google Places, and Google Local. Ensure to verify your law firm’s ownership.
It is important to have your Google My Business account as Google use the information from your account to display in the local search results, Google Maps and Local Pack. Here is how the search term “injury lawyer Los Angeles” appears on Google:
If you want to show up in these results, you need to optimize your business information. Here are some great tips on how to do that:
- Enter the accurate business location on the map as it helps people find you easily online.
- Add the exact business name, working hours, address, phone number.
- Choose the right category for your law firm. Make sure that it displays in the search results.
- Enter the short description of your business. Use keywords and links there.
- Get a lot of positive reviews from your clients.
- Create a 360° virtual tour of your office.
- Add high-quality images and videos.
- Use new Google Posts for your law business.
2. Design a User-Centric Website
Want to succeed in in the legal industry? Ensure to create a law firm website for customers, not for search engines. Ask yourself whether it is easy for customers to find what they need in one click. If not, do the best to improve your website navigation. All key information should be visible on the homepage. Try to use no more than two clicks from any page.
Use simple and conversational language on your site. No complex legal meanings and explanations, no jargon. Make it easier to skim-read. Use short sentences, bullet points, and subtitles. Divide your content into paragraphs. Include high-quality and original images and graphics within your content. Highlight the most important terms in your posts.
Remove all zombie pages on your site. Create only valuable pages, such as Category pages, About, Resources, Blog, Services, and others. Use Google Webmasters to detect offending pages on your site.
If you run a law business for different locations, you need to create landing pages for each location. Make it easier for users to change locations in your site using menu navigation like here:
3. Turbocharge Your Law Firm Website
If your website loads slowly, Google will kick you lower down in the rankings. People hate slow loading websites and usually lose interest when it takes more than a few seconds to load. Website speed is one of the 200+ important ranking factors that affects your SEO.
To check your site speed, you can use a free tool from Google called PageSpeed Insights. In case something slows down your site, the tool will show all possible issues and recommendations on how to improve it.
Here are some tips to make your law firm site super-fast:
- Use a caching plugin to reduce website loading times.
- Reduce the file size and the number of your images.
- Choose a premium hosting platform like WP Engine.
- Minimize HTTP requests.
- Minify and combine files.
4. Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
The mobile internet usage is rapidly growing. Mobile makes up 84% of all “near me” and locally-targeted searches. If you don’t want to lose out mobile traffic, you need to make your site loved by mobile users. Google penalizes websites that are not mobile-friendly and responsive.
To figure out whether your site is optimized for mobile use, use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. The tool shows how your law firm site is set up for tablets and smartphones and provides with actionable tips on how to increase your mobile user experience.
Make sure that your website is available for all screen sizes and resolutions. All your call-to-action buttons must be easy to click with the thumb. Use multi-step forms as that makes it easier for users to complete the necessary information like name and e-mail. I recommend to use WordPress as many websites on this platform are mobile-friendly by default.
5. Optimize For Local SEO
Google tells that 50% of mobile users indicate the location to find a local business and result in offline purchases. Near me searches grew 136% yearly. Using location-based keywords within your law firm website is essential. Try to use landmarks, famous streets, historic buildings, and other local points of interest on your website to describe your location better. For example, “criminal defense lawyer near the White House” or “criminal defense lawyer near the Lincoln Memorial.”
Include these keywords into your page titles, headings of your content, and meta descriptions for all your web pages. Try to make them unique for each page. Add high-quality images and videos to your site. If you optimize them properly, you might increase your rankings in the local search results.
Make sure to create listings in local directors with the right category, name, address, and phone number. You can add your business to the top local directories, such as Yelp, Avvo, Justia, Findlaw and Lawyers. If you’ve already listed in these directories, check out whether your NAP (name, address, phone) is precise.
Ask your clients to write reviews about your law firms on Google or other local directories. People read reviews before hiring a lawyer. A lot of good reviews will create a better user experience. The more positive reviews you have, the better rankings and conversions you get.
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned earlier, SEO in the legal industry is competitive. So if you want to get high rankings, you should do SEO the right way. To create an effective long-term SEO strategy, you should regularly measure, analyze and improve your law firm website. I hope these five tips will work for your SEO needs and help to dominate the search pages.