Despite the availability of modern web technology, social media and blogging platforms, there are still some law firms that have poor or, in extreme cases, non-existent brand awareness. Contrastingly, some are doing exceptionally well and winning business from well-structured web presence.
I was part of a team recently pitching to a law firm to help with its online business generation activities. They had 6 other digital marketing agencies competing for the same work – and it was baffling to learn that each had proposed a completely different way they would help with the firm’s SEO. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been so baffling given the amount of misinformation presented on the web on this subject too.
So, to help clarify things, below are seven top tips for law firms looking to improve their search engine optimisation (SEO):-
1. Choose targeted keywords for which your firm’s clients or prospective clients would search (use Google’s Keyword Planner to get technical);
2. Include targeted keywords in the meta data (mainly meta titles), heading tags, body text and image alt text etc of all pages of firm website, especially home page and key landing pages, but don’t stuff keywords – the key is to write first for people, and then for search engines;
3. Create or integrate a blog ideally using an open source CMS and publish content regularly using targeted keywords;
4. Write expert articles and submit them to authoritative sites or guest blog on legal blogs (but don’t do it just for links – do it to to enhance your brand);
5. Utilise several social media platforms like twitter or linkedin to send social signals to your firm’s website. It can be good to use an autoposting facility from blog to social channels, like twitterfeed or dlvr.it or hootsuite (but don’t just self-promote on social media – the more generous you are in connecting and sharing with others the better your social media strategy will work);
6. Get your local SEO perfected by getting listed for your firm’s locations on Google Maps and get citation building. Don’t forget a consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) and integrate with your website with appropriate Schema.org data (Be careful though with your link building work – using any hint of a black-hat provider can be fatal for your online presence); and
7. Last but certainly not least, keep your firm’s website and blog updated with high quality legal/practical content – content really is king. Today, 1000+ words per landing page of really useful content well-structured and shared with your social networks will work wonders.
If you have a tip you’d like to share or even a question you’d like to ask, please do get in touch below or on Twitter.
I’ve leave you with a couple of great SEO quotes from Rand Fishkin of Moz that apply equally to law firms as they do other businesses (as published on Hubspot):-
“It’s not the secrecy of the algorithm, it’s the challenge of execution that makes SEO (and all of marketing hard).”
“The SEO I knew and loved 8 years ago still works sometimes, but increasingly, you’ll get beat by those who may do less hardcore SEO and more on the content/branding/social elements.”
WardBlawg is run by Gavin Ward, Operations Director with law firm websites experts Moore Legal Technology, delivering a first-class online business generation service to law firms across the UK. Contact Gavin Ward for further information.
