Law firms need a website because the modern consumer is far more likely to find them online. No matter what type of law firm you’re in, be it litigation, tax, or intellectual property, a website is a foundation for everything you do online to help you attract new clients and promote your firm.
Having a website, however, won’t mean that potential clients can find you with ease. That’s where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes in. The aim of SEO is simple. To increase the number of clients inquiring about your legal services.
How Does SEO For Lawyers Help Them Gain Clients?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a set of techniques to get your website ranked highly in search results for relevant keywords. While many things contribute to search engine rankings, Google receives nearly 93% of all search traffic, so SEO is essential for all law firm websites.
Nearly half of your potential clients search for a law firm online. What do they do when they come across a web page with a law firm’s contact information? They pick the first five answers that are displayed on the page. Why the first five and not the first three or the fifth one? No one can say, but the reality is this: the top five organic results that come up on any search query get 65% of all clicks.
SEO will help your website land in this prime location. So, what’s holding you back from ranking high with Google?
Tips to Get Your SEO Strategy Right If You’re A Lawyer
These are the questions you should be asking the individual responsible for implementing your SEO strategy and why it counts:
1. Is Our Law Website Fast Enough?
Your site loading time is a significant factor in garnering new clients. Prospective customers searching for a lawyer may not be willing to wait on your website to load before they jump back onto the web to find a faster site.
You should contact your IT department, which will work with your web developer to increase the speed of your website. Web design and layout are the two main factors that affect the time it takes to load a website. If you can reduce the size of the multimedia files on your site or reduce the number of pages on your site, you can improve page load times.
2. Is Our Website Mobile-Friendly?
Google wants to ensure that users have the best possible experience when searching for legal information. They are constantly working on making the search engine better and more efficient. Your law firm website should be mobile-friendly, which means it can be viewed on both a desktop and a mobile device. Since so many people use their smartphones to find legal information, you don’t want to miss out on potential clients by not having a mobile website.
3. Do We Know What Our Clients Are Searching For?
Keywords are one of the most important parts of any website’s SEO strategy. Keywords should be used on every page on your website, so make sure you incorporate them in all your content. You will be able to research what potential clients in your niche are looking for when they type in a search into Google, and you can use the words or phrases in your website copy so Google can match you.
Help your keyword strategy along by investing in articles on your website. To keep a blog site relevant to the interests of its readers, an attorney should always publish new content, particularly in-depth articles. Adding content regularly is one of the greatest things a law firm can do to drive traffic to their website.
4. Can Our Clients Find Us Easily?
Google My Business is a web page that tells Google about the state of your local business. When users search for your law firm, they will see your listing. The more website information you add and the better your website looks, the better chance you have of showing up in the results.
5. Do We Have a Call To Action?
Sometimes, something as simple as adding a call to action button to your website can drive more clicks. If your potential clients are coming to your site, you need to be sure that they have a contact box on your page so they can quickly and easily get in touch with you. This will increase their likelihood of becoming clients.
Finally, take a look at your website. As a potential customer, would it work for you? Directing traffic to your site is great, but it’s not the end goal – it’s the first step. The goal is to convert visitors into clients. And that won’t happen unless your site is professionally designed, thorough and easy to navigate. See what SEO expert are saying about effective SEO for Legal Firms.
