Marketing for law firms may feel somewhat different compared to other niches. Yet, the truth is that it needs the same tactics that other businesses use. This could mean paid advertising, word-of-mouth marketing, and many other approaches. First and foremost, it includes search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing, which together can help your firm dominate search engine result pages (SERPs).
What Is Content Marketing and SEO Role for Law Firms?
Marketing for lawyers can leverage a wealth of different tactics and approaches. While each has a specific purpose and can bring benefits, content marketing, and search engine optimization are at the heart of everything in our digitized world.
Successful lawyer SEO can’t do without wise content marketing, and vice-versa. When used together, these two tactics can have an enormous effect on your business:
- Boosting your online visibility;
- Driving more traffic and, hence, more potential customers to your website;
- Building your trust and credibility in the industry.
To gain these and many other benefits, you need to start leveraging law firm SEO and content marketing ASAP. First, leverage a trusted website traffic checker to assess the current state of your SEO and the amount of traffic you drive. After this, use the tips we’ll share further to build a strategy that will help you boost your traffic and dominate SERPs.
Website Marketing for Law Firms: 8 Tips to Succeed
1. Get a Clear Image of Your Ideal Customer
You need to know who you’re targeting with your content marketing strategy. So before you move on, be sure to craft your ideal customer profiles that will let you put yourself in the shoes of your prospects and define how to speak to them effectively.
Your customer personas need to be enhanced with such data as:
- Age;
- Sex;
- Location;
- Career;
- Family status;
- Education;
- Hobbies/interests;
- Pain points, etc.
You can collect this information in three ways – 1) by analyzing the existing customer base, 2) by surveying your current customers, and 3) by assessing your competitors’ target audiences.
2. Research and Target High-Performing Keywords
Leverage reliable keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner to target the best search queries for your law firm’s SEO.
To find relevant keywords, first define your seed queries that best describe your business, for example, “Tax law firm.” Insert your seed query into a keyword research tool, specify the location, and start looking for related queries. Then, analyze the obtained list of terms based on their search volume and competition – keywords with the lower competition are easier to rank for, whereas volume indicates the number of searches (aka popularity) of the term.
Select keywords that are the most relevant to your business with mid/low competition and high volume. Choose both long and short queries. And then use them to optimize different on-page elements, including:
- URLs;
- Meta titles and descriptions;
- Headings and subheadings;
- Site content;
- Image alt texts and file names.
3. Craft High-Value Content That Drives Traffic and Conversions
Once you know who you will be appealing to and have the keywords you want to integrate into your copy, it’s time to start working on content generation. The truth is that marketing lawyers through content might be a little trickier compared to other fields, but you can handle it with a wise approach.
First of all, you need to understand different search intents:
- Informational: People with this intent seek answers to their questions or specific information relevant to their interests/problems.
- Transactional: People realize the need for a particular product/service and explore where to buy it.
- Commercial: People with this intent are ready to purchase and want to compare available brands to make a purchase decision.
To make the most out of your marketing, you need to nurture prospects with all these intentions through different forms of copy. For informational intent, you need to publish informative articles and guides that answer your prospects’ questions, such as “When should you call a [your field of operation] lawyer?” or “How to create an effective marriage contract”. For transactional intent, you need to create excellent landing pages that target queries like “order legal services” or “hire professional lawyers,” etc.
Learn to appeal to users with different search goals. Then, craft and publish high-quality articles that align with your prospect’s interests and needs, emphasizing your credibility and bringing readers real value.
4. Leverage the Power of Local SEO for Law Firms
For many law firms, their operations are restricted by a specific geographic area. Hence, local optimization is often an important part of marketing lawyers. Local SEO implies targeting location-specific keywords (such as “legal firms in NY”), creating dedicated local landing pages, and publishing localized content – all to help your site rank higher in local search and reach out to potential clients in your specific area.
Additionally, to maximize your local optimization, you need to create your Google Business Profile. Fill it out with the correct and up-to-date company name, hours of operation, phone number, website link, and office location. Also, write a compelling description of your business, targeting your primary local keywords.
Also, take time to create listings in various business directories, including general ones like Yelp or Yellow Pages and law-related ones like Avvo, FindLaw, Lawyer.com, and others. Ensure your listings look uniform everywhere you create them, and always include relevant and up-to-date info.
5. Build Trust and Authority Through Link Building
Links from other sites are kind of references that act as votes of trust and confidence, making your site and copy look worth trusting. One important thing about quality backlinks is that they signal credibility both to users and search engines, hence, they can boost your traffic, rankings, and conversions at the same time.
To handle link-building as a part of your lawyer SEO, use these tips:
- Create shareable content. Feel free to add your unique expertise to it so that other bloggers and webmasters can refer to it.
- Find reputable sites in your niche and offer to write guest articles for them.
- Leverage outreach techniques to build relationships with site owners, bloggers, and influencers and receive backlinks.
- Find broken links on the web and suggest site owners to replace them with your content.
- Remake relevant articles that potential donors feature, improve them, and suggest your improved version as a replacement (the skyscraper technique).
6. Use Social Media to Get Noticed
Leveraging social media platforms is one of the ways to improve law firm SEO. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and others offer you a great opportunity to expand your online visibility and get in front of a larger number of prospects. Besides, social media can play a significant role in your content marketing plan.
Get active on social media and publish lots of appealing, engaging, and helpful copy related to your niche. Feature a link to your site on your social media to drive more traffic and use your accounts to promote new publications you make on your site. Also, don’t hesitate to partner with influencers.
7. Boost Your Site’s Technical Performance
Though not everyone knows this, the technical performance of a website affects SEO and rankings no less than keywords or content. Moreover, the technical side of your site can affect not only how high you are in SERPs but also how much users enjoy using your site.
So apart from using traditional SEO best practices, be sure to leverage these tips as well:
- Implement responsive site design for mobile-friendliness.
- Get rid of duplicate articles.
- Create logical and intuitive navigation.
- Develop a network of internal links for a better user experience.
- Improve site loading speed.
- Add structured data.
8. Set Up for Continuous Results Monitoring and Refine Your Tactic
While the steps and tips described above should help you make the first steps in optimizing your site, it’s crucial to remember that SEO is never a one-off process, and neither is effective copy creation. Empower yourself with reliable analytical solutions, such as Google Search Console or Google Analytics, and keep a close eye on the results.
Start measuring pivotal performance indicators like:
- Keyword rankings;
- Click-through rate;
- Organic traffic;
- Conversion rate;
- Bounce rate, etc.
Feel free to complement this list with other metrics that align with your short-term and long-term goals and will help you see whether your SEO and content marketing plan bring the desired results and use the insights you receive to detect areas for strategic improvements.
Conclusion
SEO and content marketing for law firms may feel confusing and challenging. Yet, there is no way to do without them in today’s competitive landscape. You could also hire attorney marketing services to do the work for you and handle all your SEO needs.
After reading this article, you have a step-by-step guide to get your law firm to the top of SERPs. Use the tips we shared here to build your online presence and attract more clients!
