See why law firm SEO is increasingly important for law firms – and where most fail in delivering the SEO results they need
Making every effort in the world to lift your law firm SEO efforts is pointless if you remain on Page 2 of Google – the dreaded no-man’s land of search. Instead, you need to ensure your search engine optimization efforts are rewarded by a decent ranking that will drive new clients to your law firm.
There are any number of ‘strategies’ and tactics that experts will tell you need to be followed to achieve great rankings for your firm, but there are some major ‘fails’ that you need to avoid, which many businesses and law firms and others make consistently. These are key, law firm marketing steps that will make the difference between success or failure.
And yet for law firms, SEO is a challenge because it is one of the most competitive areas in terms of search engine optimization competition, as was demonstrated in a 2017 survey of the legal sector.
And yet a good search engine optimization strategy for attorneys is one of the very best ways they can drive new clients and business to their law firms. It should be a center-piece of their online activity.
Here are 5 key reasons why your present law firm marketing strategy so far as SEO is concerned is failing to deliver the results you want or need. Yet they are ‘correctible’ mistakes
1. Not Using Great ‘Content Clusters’
A content cluster is – as the title suggests – a clustering of related content so that you develop key content related to particular keyword phrases or words.
The clusters relate to those areas or subjects that you want to focus upon. For instance, if you’re principal focus is on divorce law or related areas, you would want to build your cluster around the appropriate keywords. In the current case here, we have some pillar content on LawFuel related to law firm SEO and it is that area of ‘law firm SEO‘ and ‘law firm marketing’ that is the current cluster.
The Key to Cluster SEO
There a a couple of key objectives with this marketing strategy – one is to drive users or viewers back to your key ‘pillar post’ – the major resource or article on divorce law, bankruptcy law or whatever your focus may be. This post may also have details that help drive those visitors to make enquiries of your law firm, leading to new clients.
As the search engines’ algorithms have become more efficient, searchers are more inclined to pose often quite complex questions as a search and to expect a fast and relevant answer. The search engines like Google are smart enough to also recognize connections over various queries and can understand the context behind the ‘search intent’, linking them to previous searchs and to then deliver the website pages that best answer that question.
However, the wider SEO marketing advantage of such posts is also to rank for more appropriate, relevant keywords that will lift your law firm rankings. When you have visitors who read your post and then click on the pillar post on divorce or the related legal post the search engines know that your post is loved and will help lift your overall rankings.
So your objective here is to have your major, pillar post or article or resource, followed or surrounded by supporting content that points back to your major post, just as we have with our law firm marketing or law firm SEO pillar post, so that you are providing quality content related to your principal post.
2. Law Firms Not Putting In A Compelling Call to Action
If you’re looking to drive new client enquiries to your website you need to have an unambiguous call to action in your content.
Too many lawyers looking for client enquiry fail to simply ask – directly, but without being overly aggressive or ‘forward’ – to make their enquiry now. Don’t hesitate, don’t delay, don’t hedge bets – just ask for the enquiry. Invite it.Is it too general vs. specific to the question that led them to this article?
What do you need to consider when you put in a ‘call to action’?
The Law Firm Marketing SEO ‘CTA’ Factors
Consider these factors:
>> Does your CTA relate specifically to the article and its content. If you’re writing about ‘how to handle custody issues’ in a divorce, then don’t make your CTA one about ‘what does a divorce cost?’ or similar?
>> Is it placed at the foot or middle of the article where it will be seen – or are you relying upon a popup or sidebar invitation to call?
>> Have you tested different CTAs on your site to see what actually works? This may require some additional involvement from your website developer but it is extremely easy to test something like this in terms of what you are asking, where you ask it etc. A good test program can result in vastly improved reactions to your CTA.
Consider a ‘Call to Value’, rather than a call to action.
The worst thing many marketers online do is seek to sell their service or product with a rather hard-sell approach – ‘Buy Here’, ‘Order Here’, ‘Get Your Book/Product/Service’ Here, etc.
But if you offer an additional service, report, podcast or other assistance that is non sales-related and rather focuses on providing some additional value to your potential, or current clients, then you are providing the value that will build trust, authority, respect and – ultimately – new clients.
Check these ‘call to value’ strategies here.
3. Provide GREAT Content for Top Lawyer SEO Results
It is no longer enough to simply provide content with the right keywords. We’ve written about this and pushed this law marketing strategy before emphasizing the need for law firms to actually really focus upon providing top quality content – working to create good content and then elevating it to GREAT content.
You can also see some of our law firm SEO advice relating to doing this here.
That does not mean saying how great you are (the rest of your website can talk about your law firm’s successes and wins), but rather to provide real, authentic content about issues facing clients and potential law firm clients where you help them, support them, provide them with information and content that puts a major stamp of authority onto your law firm’s services.
Remember that the search engines are looking for a key goal in what they rank your content for – does it provide the answer to a question that is being asked?
If you answer the questions properly and well you will achieve ranking success, so place particular emphasis upon providing content about the legal question(s) being asked and answer them as well as you can.
4. The Virtue of Patience with SEO
Remember that SEO marketing is not an overnight-success situation – patience is the virtue you need. You are playing a long game here, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait forever, rather that you need to plan your search engine strategy so that you achieve the results you want over time.
The search engines will be looking for the time spent on your site, the click through rate, the relevance of content, the authority ranking they attribute and the host of other measures used to assess the value of your content and its relevance to the questions being asked by their audience.
Putting all that together takes some time and is something that will occur over a period, not immediately.
Give SEO Time To ‘Set’
So do not expect instant results and become disillusioned with the process when you are not getting them.
You need to let your law firm marketing strategy run for a few months. Any law firm’s SEO needs the time to ‘set’, rather like baking a cake.
Do not pull the plug in some intemperate manner and switch to paid ads or some other strategy that will give you instant gratification.
The name of the game is having quality content + a great SEO strategy + patience.
5. Smart Use of Other Platforms
If you’re using the right SEO marketing strategy you can boost your engagement using the right platforms for paid ads as well, if you wish. (You can check some key tips on social media marketing for your law firm here), but you can also use the information collected by the advertising platforms to enhance your own SEO efforts.
When a platform like Facebook runs your ad they will suggest a short period to check factors, like –
- Engagement with your posts
- Clicks through to your firm profile
- Additional click throughs on your website
The reason for this information-gathering for the platform is to see who your post is best suited for so they can run ads that will generate the highest returns.
Working with SEO on your law firm site is very similar. You need to push content via your organic search and ‘reach’ (ie without paying) and looking for the sort of factors that Facebook, Google Ads or other platforms for paid advertisements would also be seeking to do.
I It is this approach, where you serve up what your audience want to read, that will achieve the best SEO results. It is some of the best lawyers’ SEO you can provide. Focus on the engagement, which will flow from the value of your content, and the law marketing efforts will pay off handsomely.
You will generate content as an attorney that your audience will feed off if you provide it with true value and focus on providing a service, rather than a simple lead in to a sale. The sale will come, but the quality, attorney-written content providing true value and insight will help propel your content and website ranking as it does its SEO work.
Don’t Get Lost In The Page 2 Wasteland
Getting your law firm content noticed in the search engines is something you can do with the right mindset and application.
You should focus on the effort to provide the very best value you can and then enhance it, use the content clusters to build further content around it and to also build the engagement and click throughs that will follow.
These tactics will ensure your law firm SEO is paying off with good client enquiry and higher search engine rankings.
But let us know your thoughts or queries at any time – we’d love to hear more about your own law firm SEO efforts and lessons.
