Peter Boyd is a lawyer, paper streetHe has successfully assisted 1,500 law firms with their websites and marketing.
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A search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is very important for law firms. This is because so many prospective clients enter terms into a search engine and start looking for a lawyer considering only the first few results that appear. If your company doesn’t rank highly on search engines, even the best company is far less likely to get noticed.
Potential clients are looking not only to find the right attorney, but also the right one nearby, so law firms need to pay attention to local SEO strategies. People may be willing to travel while on vacation. When ordering products online, it doesn’t matter how close the seller is. However, potential clients prefer local options when services are based on local laws and customs and are likely to involve a visit to an office. That means your company should invest in local SEO efforts.
About Local SEO
A local SEO strategy can help you optimize your online presence and improve your performance in local search results. Local SEO efforts require multiple approaches. Don’t just make one adjustment based on the analytics report.
One of the most important elements of local search results is the local pack. Local packs are usually displayed with the top 3 organic search results (images, customer ratings, shop address, business hours). A map appears next to each of these three listings, identifying their location. Businesses listed in the local pack are very hard for searchers to miss, and other businesses seem to fade to the bottom. however,[その他の場所]Clicking takes the user to a list of local finders.
Google Business Profile
Many law firms are ready to focus on their website to improve their performance in local searches, but they neglect one of the most important steps: building a complete Google business profile. Formerly known as Google My Business, this feature allows you to list your business information and rank it on Google Maps. Businesses selected to appear in the Local Pack and Local Finder are selected based on their Google Business Profile, not their website.
By investing a little time in creating a complete Google Business Profile, your company will have the opportunity to increase its visibility. Competitors may miss it. You can also collect and view reviews from past clients with your Google Business Profile. This can have a big impact. People tend to choose law firms the same way they choose restaurants. They look for law firms with a high number of positive reviews.
localized content
Many potential clients only seek out law firms when faced with issues they wish to ignore. They often wait until the last minute to address a problem, and when they finally start searching, they want to find help nearby.
Those who are separated from their spouses may know that custody and financial agreements are necessary. Or maybe someone who goes to court for reckless driving decides they really need to bring in an attorney. They might search for ‘divorce lawyers near me’ or ‘traffic lawyers in X town’. By simply incorporating local place names into your law firm’s content, you can boost your rankings in localized searches. However, this is not an entirely new strategy, so it’s important not to overuse geographic references. Not only does the text look clunky and unnatural, it can also make your site less valuable to search engines.
A great way to add local content to a law firm’s website is to create practice area pages and blogs dedicated to topics of particular local interest. Are there new city or county ordinances affecting the areas where your company operates? New interpretations of the rules? A local case with interesting implications? What local ordinances are often overlooked? Loading informative content over a local connection shows search engines that your site is a reliable source. This makes your site useful to your users and helps your site rank higher in search results.
Local SEO should be part of your overarching SEO strategy
All the local keywords in the world can be useless if law firms don’t think about the basics when it comes to SEO. Your site should load fast, links should work, and everything should be optimized for performance on mobile devices.
SEO maintenance is an ongoing effort. As such, law firms often outsource much of the work to legal marketing firms that specialize in SEO strategies. Whether your website efforts are managed in-house or by an external company, be sure to include a local SEO strategy to improve your visibility to potential local clients.
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