Law firms creating a digital marketing strategy have many options available to them when it comes to reaching potential clients. There are two main buckets for marketing options: traditional offline methods (think billboards, TV commercials, and local events) and online marketing (SEO, paid ads, social media, paid lead services, and email newsletters.)
Most lawyers will use a mix of traditional and digital marketing. Some digital marketing strategies focus on pay-to-play, such as pay-per-click (PPC), local service ads, or paid lead generation services. These can bring in business quickly but only work if you keep fronting the expense.
On the other hand, organic strategies like lawyer SEO take longer to gain traction but also offer a long-term snowball effect. Over time, your website and brand can drive traffic and new clients your way in a more sustainable fashion. Showing up at the top of organic search results is a worthwhile goal for any real estate lawyer.
It's why many law firms must invest in paid ads and kickstart their local and organic search efforts simultaneously.
Local and organic searches make up nearly 70% of all online traffic. That means the more you can tailor your website for search engine optimization, the better the chances are that you wind up in front of your ideal client. A solid online presence allows you to bring in these searchers as new clients.
SEO involves a comprehensive strategy to send signals to Google and other search engines about:
- What you do
- Who you help
- Where you do it
Here's how to make that happen for your real estate law firm.
Developing a Strategic SEO Plan for Real Estate Attorneys
Most lawyers know that SEO starts with good keyword research, but there are also many other nuances to how you drive high-quality leads to your website. A complete strategic SEO plan includes:
- Clarity on your service region and practice areas
- Keyword research to determine what your prospective clients search
- Sorting relevant keywords into two categories: those for SEO and those better for paid ads
- Launching a website or verifying that your website meets best practices in SEO
- Creating your content marketing strategy and editorial calendar for publishing
- Analyzing and adjusting campaigns as needed
You need a targeted approach to succeed, so you need to sort that keyword research. Someone searching for something general to educate themselves may not be ready to hire a lawyer yet, so you'd waste money on paid ads. Those keywords, however, could be the perfect fit for website and blog content.
Narrowing down your focus to your primary practice areas and location will make the most of your content marketing strategy and budget, too.
Essential SEO Practices for Real Estate Lawyers
Before creating content, ensure your website functions well for a visitor. There's no point in driving traffic to your law firm website if it loads slowly on mobile or is too difficult to navigate. Your whole SEO strategy is built on the foundation of your website, so start strong and ensure your site is ready.
Step 1: Keyword Research
Look up keywords most appropriate for real estate lawyers or hire someone else to help you with this process. Look at the search volume for those keywords and try to understand the search intent or what the person is really looking for when typing that into Google. Search queries may vary in intent, so you might need to determine what other pages currently rank for those search terms.
Then, organize these keywords into your editorial calendar, which paces out when you'll create and publish various items.
Step 2: Publish Practice Area and Landing Pages
Your practice areas and landing pages should be created first since these will live on your website and most likely remain unchanged except for minor tweaks. You'll drive traffic to these pages from ads, blogs, and social media.
For example, you might develop real estate practice area pages for things like:
- New construction
- Residential purchases for homebuyers
- Commercial purchases
- Selling real estate
- 1031 exchanges
- Real estate contracts
- Real estate closings
You might also create city-specific landing pages for your most popular services or those you want to grow soon, such as "Chicago residential real estate closing lawyer."
Step 3: Publish Blogs and Analyze Performance
Once you draft and publish the initial material for your website content marketing strategy with practice area pages and landing pages, turn to blogs.
Within each blog, use the primary keyword multiple times but as naturally as possible and link to other high-authority content on your website. For example, in a blog post about common titling issues that can throw off a real estate closing, you might link to your primary practice area page about titles.
When you launch an SEO campaign, you won't see an overnight uptick in your website traffic. It can take a few months to start showing traction. But if you organize your editorial calendar properly, you'll be able to tackle subjects in a way that supports your efforts to establish your site as an authority in your practice area.
Local SEO: Maximizing Visibility in Your Area
Local search is extremely valuable for lawyers. This narrows your target audience to people most likely to hire you because they're in your area. Local SEO can include posting specific city landing pages or mentioning the cities and towns served throughout your website. It also involves posting your firm on local business directories and legal directories.
You can also leverage your Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) to increase your chances of being seen by the right clients. This is vital since you can immediately showcase authority and social proof on this profile.
Google uses distance, relevance, and prominence (positive reviews/number of reviews) to determine who shows up for general searches in a region. With a properly optimized website, Google profile, and directory listings, you establish your law firm clearly throughout your area. Throughout all these listings, the same key information should be included and should match, such as your firm's name, address, and phone number.
The Power of High-Quality Content in SEO
Posting blogs is an ongoing process, so continue to revisit your editorial calendar. Over time, you might also return to old blogs and update them to ensure they are top quality and most likely to attract traffic and new clients.
You can also use other forms of content marketing to highlight your expertise and background, such as:
- Case studies
- Legal how-to guides to processes
- Important law updates that impact your prospective clients
- Content posted on other sites that drive backlinks to your page
Leveraging Technical SEO for Law Firm Websites
Content marketing works hand-in-hand with technical SEO. Technical SEO includes website structure, mobile responsiveness and appeal, and page loading speed. Use an SEO checklist to help.
Building your law firm website with the help of an expert will set you off on the right foot with your page, but it's equally important to pay attention to performance over time as you try to get to the first page of Google results. Test your website's performance on desktop and mobile, and check how it looks on different web browsers.
