Outbound marketing strategies are highly effective in building trust and driving new leads. But what if you want your clients to come to you? With SEO and website optimization techniques for law firms, you set your business up for inbound leads‌ — ‌people who are actively looking for a lawyer.

In this article, we’ll discuss what web optimization is and how you can implement it to build your rankings on Google so that your law firm is constantly generating new leads.

What is Website Optimization?

Website optimization for law firms is the process of tweaking and updating your site to improve its performance, create an engaging user experience (UX), and make it easy for search engines to understand its content.

When your law firm’s website performs well, is highly engaging, and is easily crawlable, it’s more likely to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Essentially, you’re optimizing your website so that search engines can determine what your site is about. Then, they can index it in a central database and, as a result, list it in the SERPs when a user searches a particular keyword.

But there’s a caveat: Only optimizing for search engines can actually be counterintuitive and lower your rankings.

You also need to optimize your website for people. That means no keyword stuffing or other black hat SEO tactics to “game” the search engines.

Your website and its content must be useful and offer a pleasant UX that makes it easy for people to find the answers and the help they need.

How your website appears in the SERPs depends on many ranking factors, including:

• Schema markup (the structured data you add to your website to help search engines better understand your content)
• Social signals (how often people like and share your website content)
• Your site’s domain age (your site’s trustworthiness and authority)
• Technical SEO (site speed, mobile-friendliness, crawlability, etc.)
• The user experience (how easy your site is to navigate)
• Backlinks (sites linking to your pages/posts)
• The quality of your content
• Keyword optimization

Nolo, a legal directory, allows law firms to create a profile that includes their location, phone number, and website. This helps build reputable backlinks.

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Benefits of SEO for Law Firms

In today’s digital world, attorneys can’t afford to put website optimization for law firms on the back burner. When people need legal services, one-third of them often start their search online. 

You could miss out on potential clients without an online presence and an SEO strategy. Sure, your law firm may be known locally, and you might get a lot of clients from word of mouth.

But you can also attract more clients online. This is especially important for larger law firms that can handle a huge influx of clients.

So, some of the most rewarding benefits of SEO for law firms are:

• More phone calls through Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and other local listings
• Increased online visibility and rankings
• Lead generation on auto-pilot
• Improved online reputation
• Local traffic generation
• Positive client reviews
• More website traffic

10 Website Optimization Techniques for Law Firms

Search engine optimization is a broad term, meaning a lot goes into it. For example, there’s on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. Below, we discuss each of these strategies in detail.

On-Page SEO Strategies

On-page SEO strategies consist of techniques you use to optimize your website’s content and HTML source code to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic from search engines. This involves optimizing: 

• Webpage content
• Descriptions
• Images
• Alt text
• URLs
• Titles

On-page SEO also includes internal linking, implementing relevant keywords, and using headers and subheaders. 

Each of these strategies is key in helping search engines understand what your law firm’s website is about so that they can recommend your content to potential clients.

Research Relevant Keywords

Keywords are terms people use to find relevant content online. So, a user looking for a tax attorney might go on Google and enter the keyword “tax lawyer near me.”

Their search won’t only turn up financial planning and tax lawyers but also show law firms close to that person’s geographic location.

This scenario highlights the importance of researching the right keywords that prospective clients may be using so that you can drive relevant organic traffic. 

The first step is to perform comprehensive keyword research.

1. Identify what your target client is likely searching for. Think about the type of legal services you offer and the pain points your law firm aims to solve.
2. Use a keyword research tool like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Answer the Public. Type in a keyword related to the legal services you offer.
3. Then, look at the results to find related keywords. Look at ‌search volume and ranking difficulty. Choose keywords with low to medium ranking difficulty for a better chance at ranking.
4. Consider targeting low-hanging fruit, which are less competitive keywords but can still offer a lot of value.

For the term “financial planning attorney,” Answer the Public shows the monthly search volume and related keywords.

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Design for User Experience

Websites that offer a great user experience tend to rank higher in the SERPs. That’s because search engines want to make sure people quickly find the answers they’re looking for.

A user-friendly website design includes mobile responsiveness, intuitive navigation, clear calls to action (CTAs), and visually appealing layouts.

These factors ensure prospective clients stay on your site longer. And higher user engagement means higher conversion rates.

Optimize Content Quality and Formatting

You’ve probably heard the saying, “Content is king.” Well, it is. If a user has questions about how to write a will, they might look online for informative content that tells them everything they need to know.

To ensure they don’t leave with even more questions, create high-quality, informative, and engaging content that addresses their needs.

Use well-structured headers to make your content easily skimmable, bold, and italics to emphasize key points and keywords within your meta descriptions, title tags, and heading tags to improve SEO.

Need inspiration? Here’s a great example by Ramsey Solutions. 

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Use Meta Descriptions and Title Tags for Improved Rankings

Meta descriptions, title tags, and other metadata help search engines more easily determine the relevance of your content in relation to certain keywords.

For example, to optimize title tags, start with the target keyword, use a pipe (|) or hyphen (-) to separate elements, and include your law firm’s name.

Optimizing these on-page elements will increase website visibility and click-through rates.

Enhance Local Search Visibility

As a law firm, you likely have a physical location, so enhancing your local search visibility is critical.

• Use geographic-specific keywords. For example, if a potential client lives in Santa Monica, California, and needs a lawyer to help them do their taxes, they might use the search term “tax attorney Santa Monica.” 
• Implement Schema markup. This is the language search engines use to read and understand your webpage content, such as landing pages and blog posts. For a law firm, the “LocalBusiness,” “LegalService,” and “Attorney” are relevant schema types. Include these Schema markups on your homepage, contact page, and services page.
• Make your site mobile-friendly. Nearly 56% of all website traffic comes through mobile phones, so here’s a chance that people who need legal services are using the internet to find an attorney. Make sure the content on your site looks good and is easy to navigate on mobile devices. Implement a responsive design to adjust your site automatically to different screen sizes. Optimize your page speed and images, display local reviews, and implement local Schema markup.

Set Up and Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Set up a Google Business Profile for your law firm. This directory will show up when people search for legal services.

They’ll see your law firm’s name and phone number, address, website URL, and reviews.

1. Go to https://www.google.com/business.
2. Sign in using your desired email address.
3. Type in the name of your law firm.
4. Specify your business location.
5. Add contact information (e.g., phone number, URL). 
6. Verify your business.
7. Optimize your profile by adding high-quality photos, a detailed business description, hours of operation, etc.
8. Monitor and respond to reviews.
9. Use the Q&A feature to answer common questions.
10. Regularly update your contact information to ensure accuracy, and write regular posts to engage with your audience.
11. Track performance with Google My Business insights.

Leverage Positive Reviews and Ratings

Getting regular positive reviews and ratings signals to search engines that your services are legitimate and valuable. This means higher rankings.

Work on generating positive reviews through follow-up emails and using social media platforms to ask clients to rate and review your law firm.

Regularly monitor and respond to reviews, whether they’re positive or negative. This shows that you value client feedback and want to do everything you can to improve their experience.

Estate planning law firm Bequest Law responds to positive reviews to show clients how much they appreciate them.

Technical SEO Strategies

Implementing technical SEO strategies ensures your website meets the technical requirements of modern search engines. 

Follow Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) to ensure your site is search engine-friendly.

• Regularly monitor and fix crawl errors and broken links with Google Search Console
• Create a clean and SEO-friendly URL structure
• Create and submit an XML sitemap
• Ensure mobile-friendliness
• Improve site speed
• Add canonical tags
• Use a robots.txt file

Improve Site Speed & Performance

70% of consumers say that page speed impacts their willingness to buy. In other words, many potential law firm clients may not work with you if your site loads slowly. 

So, improve the UX by optimizing your site speed and performance. To do this:

• Minimize HTTP requests by enabling lazy load, minifying code, combining CSS and Javascript, and disabling unused plugins.
• Use a premium hosting solution.
• Install a caching plugin.
• Compress images.

Implement Structured Data Markup

Add structured data markup, such as Schema.org, to your website’s code to give search engines additional information about your law firm’s content.

Include information such as:

• The type of business you operate
• Payment methods accepted
• Frequently asked questions
• Hours of operation
• Reviews
• Location
• Awards

Off-Page SEO Strategies

Off-page SEO is any optimization that takes place away from your website.

For example, getting backlinks from other websites shows search engines that other people find your content valuable, which helps to build your domain authority and, ultimately, rankings.

Build Backlinks

Gain high-quality backlinks from relevant and trustworthy websites, such as law directories, bar associations, and reputable news outlets. You can also get backlinks from social media platforms when someone shares your content on social media. 

Creating great content on your website will help you naturally get backlinks as more people will want to share it with others. 

Guest posting on reputable websites and contacting industry influencers are other ways to gain quality backlinks.

You can also get backlinks by participating in sponsorship opportunities, events, and fundraisers, as well as getting mentions from educational institutions and organizations. 

Use tools and services that help build backlinks, like Outreach Monks.

Wrap Up

The main thing to take away from this article is optimizing your law firm’s website for search engines and people.

When you optimize for search engines, they’re more likely to understand what your content is about. As a result, they can decide how to display it to users.

• Is your content relevant enough?
• Is it helpful?
• Is it easy to navigate?

You want to consider those things as you implement these search engine optimization strategies for long-term success.

If you need help building backlinks, contact Outreach Monks for a free proposal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Joanne Camarce

Joanne Camarce grows and strategizes B2B marketing and PR efforts. She loves slaying outreach campaigns and connecting with brands like G2, Wordstream, Process Street, and others. When she’s not wearing her marketing hat, you’ll find Joanne admiring Japanese music and art or just being a dog mom.

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