Law Firm Website SEO
Search engines are a major source of traffic to law firm websites (as well as law firm blogs). Generally, the higher up a link to a law firm website is displayed in relevant search engine results (i.e., the higher the site “ranks”), the more prospective clients will visit the site. And the more prospects visit a site, the more leads will be generated. Therefore, a law firm seeking to maximize the number of leads generated by its website should follow “best practices” when it comes to search engine optimization, or SEO.
After reviewing the services below, we also invite you to visit our blog to learn more about law firm SEO best practices.
eLawMarketing offers several law firm SEO services:
- SEO audits (for existing law firm websites)
- Pre-Launch SEO Consulting (for new law firm websites under development)
- Post-Launch SEO Consulting (typically coupled with either an SEO audit for existing sites or pre-launch SEO consulting services for a new site)
- Online Reputation Management (to address "negative" results on Google)
- Search-Engine Optimized Press Releases
I. SEO Audit (Back to top)
A critical first step towards improving the search engine visibility of an existing law firm website is an SEO audit. The purpose of the audit is to determine the site’s “status quo” in the SEO performance categories listed below, and to assess compliance with SEO “best practices." Once a site’s status quo and compliance is determined, we can implement appropriate strategies to address any weaknesses and improve search engine visibility.
i. SEO Performance Categories:
Referral Traffic
- Identifying links from other websites and blogs (a/k/a “referral sources”) back to your site
- Determining what “anchor” text these referral sources are using to link back to your site
- Measuring the volume of traffic being driven by various “referral sources”
Search Engine Traffic
- Determining the keywords for which your site is ranking highly in search engine results
- Measuring the volume of traffic driven by particular search engine queries
- Determining which of your site pages are included in Google’s index
- Identify any pages on your site that Google has had trouble crawling
ii. “Best Practices”
- Confirming compliance with “best practices” in terms of composition of title, meta description, ALT and other tags, and visible site content
- Confirming compliance with “best practices” in terms of internal linking structure
- Measuring ability to update site frequently with fresh content
II. Pre-Launch SEO Consulting (Back to top)
The purpose of pre-launch SEO consulting is to ensure that a new law firm website is designed and coded in accordance with SEO "best practices," and that a firm will have the tools to monitor, maintain and maximize search engine visibility after launch. Indeed, given how critical search engine optimization can be to the ROI on a new law firm website, it is important to grade potential website developers on their SEO capabilities before a developer is selected.
Pre-launch SEO consulting services include:
- Using the KEI (Keyword Efficiency Index) metric to research optimal keywords with which to seed visible site content, and title, description and other tags
- Composing title and description meta tags
- Reviewing proposed homepage and secondary page design, link structure and content
- Reviewing content sharing strategies
- Reviewing vendor content management system capabilities (ideally, prior to vendor selection)
- Submission of site (and any blogs) to quality law-related and nonlegal directories
III. Post-Launch SEO Consulting (Back to top)
Once the status quo of the firm’s website is determined as a result of an SEO audit, or after a new law firm website launches, we offer ongoing services designed to monitor, maintain and maximize a site's search engine visibility. The primary strategy here is to aggressively seek quality inbound links to the website (and any firm blogs) from topically related third party websites and blogs with high Google “PageRank” (i.e., the metric by which Google measures the importance of a website or blog). In seeking inbound links, a key emphasis is striving, as much as possible, to ensure that the links from the third party websites and blogs are “anchored” with keywords relevant to the firm’s practice areas.
The range of monthly post-launch SEO consulting services include:
- Deconstruction and analysis of competing websites and blogs that rank highly for keywords that the firm is targeting
- Directing ongoing content creation strategies
- Sourcing accomplished writers to deliver high quality written content (note: copywriting is extra)
- Seeking reciprocal links with third party websites and blogs with related content and high PageRank (including high ranked sites owned by eLawMarketing and partners)
- Publicizing specialized content on the firm’s website and any blogs using online PR services such as PR Web
- Facilitating sharing of the firm’s content via social media & social bookmarking tools such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Furl and Delicious
- Ongoing monitoring of Google Analytics and Diagnostics to check progress towards goal of increased inbound links and search engine and referral traffic
IV. Online Reputation Management (Back
to top)
Today,
law firms are operating in an increasingly connected and conversational web
environment. Sources of information about a firm and its attorneys are no
longer limited to the firm’s website or press releases. Instead, casual dialogue
or references on social networks, blogs, directories, job boards and other websites
all contribute to the reputation of a firm in the legal marketplace. In just
a few hours, a single negative reference about a firm on a well-trafficked blog
can easily mushroom into hostility or ridicule across the Internet!
A major force behind the changed online environment is Google, which as Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss explain in their book, Radically Transparent, is no longer just a search engine; it’s a reputation engine that stores links to every single reference - positive or negative - about a company anywhere on the Web, and displays them to anyone who inquires.
So are you helplessly at the mercy of Google? Not at all. Through a program of regular and ongoing publication of positive online content – e.g., articles, blog posts, press releases, seminar announcements – on your own and third party websites, your firm can maximize the likelihood that positive references will dominate references to your firm on Google, and push down negative references, if any, to later pages.
To help law firms and individual attorneys monitor and manage their online reputations, we offer the following services:
- Advise on mechanisms to monitor legal industry blogs, traditional media websites, and miscellaneous “feedback” sites like Vault.com
- Advise on content creation strategies (e.g., articles, white papers) designed to build positive search engine references
- Compose and distribute online press releases optimized for search engine visibility
- Design and launch “niche” blogs designed to maximize search engine visibility of individual attorneys in specialized practice areas
- Advise on distribution of firm content to third party resource websites and directories (e.g., JD Supra)
- Advise on marketing through Wikipedia
- Advise on marketing using Twitter and social bookmarking sites (e.g., Digg)
V. Search-Engine Optimized Press Releases (Back
to top)
A survey of 1,900 business technology marketers by MarketingSherpa rated the search-engine optimized press release as one of the most effective emerging market tools.
Search-engine optimized online press releases provide value by:
- Adding new inbound links to your website
- Driving increased traffic to your website
- Generating new leads.
eLawMarketing offers a suite of services to help law firms write, distribute and track search-engine optimized online press releases, including:
- Identifying newsworthy announcements
- Identifying appropriate keywords to incorporate into a release
- Writing optimized press releases incorporating your most important keywords
- Designing high-conversion “landing pages” to which to link from the release (e.g., a landing page offering a white paper)
- Submitting the press release for distribution through PR Web)
