Co-authored by paralegal intern Maureen T. Oldenburg.
It’s the 21st century. Everyone has a website—from state government to the local café. Your law firm has a website too, but it’s not generating leads. Should you give up and delete it? Of course not! Here are some methods for building a more effective law firm website.
How to Build a More Effective Law Firm Website
The first place most people go when they have a question is a search engine, such as Google or Bing. One study shows that 93% of searchers never go beyond the first page of search engine results. There are literally millions of active websites on the Internet. Many of those are law firms, and they may specialize in the same practice areas—and geographical areas—as you do. So how do you develop legal content for websites and optimize a law firm website to get it to the first search engine results page (SERP)?
Search Engine Optimization
Google, and all other search engines, use algorithms to rank search results. You can use search engine optimization (SEO) to help these algorithms rank your page higher. Basic SEO is ever-changing, but here are a few steps to optimize a law firm website.
1. Keywords
Search engines use keywords or (key phrases) to match sites to a user’s query. The more specific the query, the more specific the keywords needed to match it. For example, a search for “law firms” would be overly broad for most users, so a user might narrow the query to “law firms California,” “personal injury law firms,” or “property law firms.”
To make sure your website matches as many user queries as possible, add legal keywords with your specialty, location, and other pertinent information to your content. Make sure your use of keywords is natural, to avoid penalties from Google for “keyword stuffing.”
You can use a reputable keyword research tool such as Moz.com, KWFinder, or SEMRush to find the best legal keywords for your site. Some provide free trials so you can decide if the service is right for you before subscribing.
2. Tags
Once you’ve figured out what keywords to add to your content, you can add tags as well. Tags are synonyms and terms related to your legal keywords. These words and phrases help legal content for websites appear in relevant search queries. Again, make sure the tags are naturally placed. A good rule of thumb is one tag per 150 words of content.
3. Other Things to Consider for Law Firm SEO
Both Google and Bing have options to make your website more visible to potential clients. With Google My Business, you can get a free business profile to start interacting with customers via reviews. You can add information to your profile such as address, hours of operation, and phone number.
Bing also has a free tool, Bing Places for Business that allows you to register and verify your business to help potential clients see it on Bing Search and Bing Maps. Bing Places offers additional resources, such as tracking the number of times your business appears in search results, comparing your website’s performance with those of competitors, and optimizing your site using webmaster tools.
What Else Can I Do to Build a More Effective Law Firm Website?
Regularly-posted legal content for websites also helps your site move higher in the rankings. Posting articles with helpful, reliable content will give people a reason to stay longer on your site, rather than returning to the search page immediately. This improves your bounce rate and session duration, two additional factors in law firm SEO.
Developing higher quality legal content for websites also increases the chance that other sites will backlink to your site, which will help your site move higher in the rankings.
This All Sounds Like a Ton of Work!
It’s true; if you want to optimize a law firm website, it takes a lot of time and effort. If no one on your team has the time or expertise to maintain a more effective law firm website, contact TOPDOG Legal Marketing, LLC online or by calling (844) HEY-TDOG (439-8364) or (480) 744-7331. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, TOPDOG offers law firm SEO and legal content for websites nationwide.
