To ensure the continued success of your law firm, it’s essential to have a consistent flow of new clients. There are various ways you can choose to market your law firm. One of the most effective ways is through search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO helps your firm better reach potential clients as they are searching for legal services. This type of marketing has many benefits compared to traditional marketing and is necessary for law firms to remain competitive.
In this guide, you’ll learn how your law firm can use SEO to grow its business and why it can be even more effective than traditional marketing.
Why Is Law Firm SEO Important?
The way consumers are finding law firms is changing. Online search is now the primary method through which people look for lawyers. Research shows that 96% of people seeking legal advice start by using a search engine. It also shows that 38% of people find their attorneys online.
Lawyers today can no longer rely solely on the traditional means of marketing to bring new clients to their business.
SEO Basics For Law Firms
The SEO strategies for law firms are similar to those of any other type of website. The objective is to have your firm website rank highly for specific keywords and terms in search engine results pages. Generally speaking, the higher your pages rank the more visitors will land on your site.
It’s important to outrank your competitors for important search terms. This can lead to more qualified leads, inquiries, and clients as all these searchers will see your business before the competition.
An SEO strategy involves finding the right keywords to target, optimizing your website for those keywords, and setting up your website to appear at the top of local search results.
Why Is SEO Better Than Traditional Marketing?
With a better understanding of the basics of SEO for law firms, you can compare SEO to traditional methods of marketing and see why the former is a better investment of your time and resources.
With traditional marketing, you rely on business cards, newspaper ads, direct mail, cold calling, networking, and other marketing strategies to find new leads.
While these methods can yield some results, there are many drawbacks:
- You have little control over who sees your ads and it’s difficult to accurately measure the results of your ads, making it hard to calculate your return on investment (ROI).
- A heavy focus is placed on reaching out to potential clients who may not need your services at that particular moment. Oftentimes these potential clients won’t remember your business when they actually need your services.
- Traditional marketing is dependent on monetary investment. To see consistent results you’ll need to continually re-invest into ads, mailings, networking events, and other methods that will impact your bottom line.
With SEO marketing, your law firm can enjoy many benefits not available with traditional marketing. These include:
- Helping you create interest in your services and attracting relevant traffic that is more likely to book an appointment because they’re reaching your business at the time of an immediate need.
- Once set up, SEO requires minimal upkeep and can bring a passive flow of visitors to your website. After you optimize your site for specific keywords and search terms your website will continue to show up at the top of rankings so long as your content is fresh and high-quality.
- It provides more value to your clients as it focuses on educating them about your services and provides other valuable information.
- SEO marketing is easier to track, allowing you to see what is working and what is not so you can make any necessary adjustments to maximize your results.
How To Drive SEO Traffic To Your Law Firm
SEO is a long-term investment and it may take some time to see results. However, it’s certainly worth the effort as it allows you to bring a consistent stream of potential customers to your business. Here are some steps you can take to begin improving your site’s SEO:
1. Claim Your Google My Business Listing
Adding your law firm to Google My Business will help you show up for local search results. You’ll need to provide basic information such as your address, contact information, and business information. There is also a verification process that involves using your phone number or getting a postcard from Google.
2. Use A Responsive Web Design
There are many technical factors that impact how Google and other search engines rank web pages. Sites that load faster and offer a high-quality user experience tend to rank higher. You want a website that loads quickly and performs well on all devices. This means optimizing your website for mobile devices as more than half of all web traffic comes from smartphones and that 69% of people researching lawyers use both a smartphone and a PC.
Using a responsive web design allows your website to automatically adapt based on the device of the user. This will ensure that you are always providing visitors the best possible experience.
3. Start A Legal Blog
Law firms who regularly blog receive much more organic traffic from search engines. Legal blogs also help you establish your expertise and authority, allowing you to build trust with potential clients.
4. Focus On Your Specialization
Law firms that specialize or focus on a single area of law tend to outrank general practice or full-service firms. If you have a boutique firm choosing to hone in on your specialty can help you get better rankings even though your firm may be smaller.
Grow Your Law Firm With SEO Traffic
Fletcher Digital helps you bring more visitors to your law firm’s website with our expert SEO services catered to your practice. We enable you to make the most out of your search traffic with thoughtful web design and lead capture methods designed specifically for law firms.
Contact us today and let our award-winning design chops elevate your game and bring out your best.
