Law firm SEO is constantly evolving, and because of that, it is difficult to know if you’re using the latest best practices. With so many SEO techniques out there, how do you determine which ones are worth your time and which ones to ignore? According to search experts, here are 10 SEO tips that will help your site rank right now. Use these tactics to drive more organic traffic and improve your search rankings.
Law Firm SEO Tips
1. Get Rid of Anything That’s Slowing Your Site Down
Page speed is an essential ranking factor for law firm SEO. While once simply a contributor to poor user experience, poor page speed is now noticed by search engines and hurts your site in the ranking algorithms. 40% of people abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Start by decluttering your sidebar and deactivating plugins that you don’t use. You can use Google’s free tools to get tips for improving site speed, or other platforms like UberSuggest.
2. Have a Well-planned Link Strategy to Sites with Relevant Content
Link building is still a fundamental part of SEO. Search engines care more than ever about user experience and linking to high-quality and relevant sources assists your readers. Reference other trustworthy sites when it makes sense, and link out to content pages that offer a lot of value in order to start getting more inbound links. Remember when it comes to links, it’s all about quality over quantity.
3. Focus on Writing for Humans Over Search Engines
In previous years, lots of web marketers used keywords to drive search results instead of focusing on truly interesting or informative content. These days, successful SEO is based on engaging with people and is ROI-focused instead of simply ranking-focused. Remember that search spiders are not real people – trying to use tricks or manipulate them won’t do anything for your authentic audience. Instead, think about creating content that actually helps and informs people. When you put users first, you’ll create content that is more likely to be rewarded by search engines. Just as important, you’ll enhance your user’s experience and build trust over time.
4. Get Other Trustworthy Sites to Link to You
Inbound links are another element that’s still really important to law firm SEO. Having other content creators link to your material signals that your site is trustworthy and authoritative. However, encouraging those links is not an easy task. It takes a significant investment in developing information-rich, useful content. If you can develop such thought leadership, people will find and link to it naturally.
5. Use Web Analytics from the Start
Once you clearly understand your SEO goals, you need to determine which metrics you’ll monitor to know if your efforts are effective. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are powerful tools that can help you to track your success. You can also take advantage of platforms like CrazyEgg to see how visitors behave on your site. We suggest having your analytics account set up before you even begin driving traffic to your site or blog.
6. Create Relevant Meta Descriptions for Every Page
People sometimes neglect meta descriptions, but a well-written meta description is important for both search engines and users. The meta description is the first section that people see when a search engine serves up your result and can encourage people to click (or not). Generally speaking, Google doesn’t like duplicate content. That means duplicate meta descriptions can get you into trouble. Meta descriptions should communicate what is unique about each individual page. If you’re a WordPress user, you can fix duplicate meta descriptions by installing the Yoast plugin.
7. Keep Your URL Structure Simple and Readable
If users aren’t able to comprehend your URL structure, then search engines probably can’t either. Even if a URL needs to be long, you can make it easy to understand. Don’t use numbers or special characters; stick with words and dashes. Attempt to tell users what they can expect from the page. Another best practice is to limit page-specific parts of URLs to no more than four words.
8. Increase Social Signals
Google hasn’t officially added social signals into ranking factors, but they do make an impact. In fact, there are credible case studies that show social shares, likes, comments, and tweets can improve search engine rankings. To get more social signals, focus on creating share-worthy content. Make posts more visible by adding share buttons, and then ask people to comment or share. You can also try collaborating with influencers or mentioning power users and tagging them.
9. Use the Correct Keywords in Graphics
It might surprise you how much images matter to law firm SEO. When users are searching for a particular picture, they search with keywords. Because of that, there’s a lot of value in using keywords in image names and accompanying text. Relevance is more important than creativity or cleverness, so stick with accurate and relevant image descriptions.
To learn more about how to build a robust keyword strategy, check out this free eBook: SEO for Law Firm Websites.
10. Publish Quality Content Consistently
The fact is that producing great content is one of the best overall things you can do for SEO and other aspects of your digital strategy – but that’s easier said than done. Unique content affects something called the “freshness score”, which is related to overall search engine rankings. The best way to boost that score is to create new content regularly. Creating informative blog posts isn’t a “nice to have” – it’s a must in today’s SEO landscape.
Takeaway:
No matter where you are in your SEO journey, you can apply these tips for better performance. If you’re not sure where to start, try our free SEO Audit. This report will check your site’s overall health and help you to prioritize SEO issues and track optimization progress. With a proactive plan in place, you can drive more traffic and raise search engine rankings to generate more leads than ever.
We’ve helped many law firms and businesses implement an effective SEO strategy to improve their organic rankings. If you’re not satisfied with your search engine rankings, connect with us today and learn how our team can assist you in achieving your business development goals.
