There is no one true level of SEO for law firms. This means that there are some basic principles that can help a firm achieve top rankings in the search results and for a successful law firm, the search visibility of your firm matters a great deal. There are certain ranking factors that are worth considering, but you should always keep in mind that there are some factors that can be out of the way in the interest of your firm’s growth and success.
SEO can be a lot of things. It can take a lot of time, money, and care to get it right. Google is one of the first search engines to implement a ranking algorithm that rates the importance of keywords. A term that is very heavily used in your industry (or a phrase that would be very relevant to your firm) will likely show up in the top search results.
Google uses a mathematical formula to determine the importance of your keyword, and the algorithm is updated weekly. The more frequently you update your website’s SEO ranking, the higher the chances of your business seeing your website show up on the first page of Google.
A lot of small law firms are starting to realize their SEO is not ranking well. It’s hard enough to find qualified legal talent, and for a small firm, it’s almost impossible to find someone with the knowledge to write about legal issues relevant to your practice. In the past, when a small firm would have a legal issue, they would go to their local newspaper or newsstand and buy the relevant issue.
It’s not just that they’re not getting a lot of news. They’re not getting the sort of SEO that makes it easy for them to find legal talent. In fact, a report in Search Engine Journal says that local SEO is one of the least practiced SEO activities in the United States.
You can get a lot of local SEO on the local newspaper or newsstand. But they are not going to be your go-to resources for finding lawyers. As a matter of fact, a recent study found that only 6% of lawyers were even aware that local SEO was happening (other than what Google finds).
This is not just because of the cost of hiring a local SEO, but it is also because local SEO can be a real mess. It is very hard to figure out the best way to get a page ranking for a given term or keyword. If you dont know the best SEO tactics to use, then you will end up with a page that is very hard to find. As a result, local SEO is not a profitable venture.
I’ve talked to a number of law firms in my office about their SEO needs, and it is clear that only a few are really actively participating in local SEO. They are using Google’s “local segment” to figure out their own SEO needs, and are often using this information to craft their own individual “local SEO strategies”. Which is great, because it means they are not only using Google’s SEO tool, but they are actually doing something that they think Google is useful for.
I can’t say that I’ve really tried to do local SEO for law firms before, but I have tried to get my firm to use Googles local segment to figure out their own SEO needs. I’ve also asked my office what it would take to get them to do something more than just using Google’s local segment, and have gotten an even more enthusiastic response than I got when I asked for help with my firm’s SEO strategy.
The problem is that there are so many different SEO tools out there, and they are so good at their own things, that it can be hard to know what you need to do if you don’t know exactly what you are looking for. I’m not sure if Googles tool is the right one for local SEO for law firms, but I think it’s a good place to start.