SEO for Lawyers – An In-Depth Search Engine Optimization Guide for Law Firms

This is a comprehensive SEO for lawyers guide. In this guide, you’ll learn:

• the fundamentals of law firm search engine optimization
• how to do keyword research…the right way
• how to write legal content for your actual prospective clients
• how to optimize a law firm website without a degree in web development
• how to stand out in local search/maps and get the best cases
• how to build links without getting your site penalized
• how to measure SEO success without a background in statistics

What is attorney SEO?

It’s already pretty clear that for most people, search is their go-to for finding legal services. Social and word of mouth certainly play a role, but online search almost always dominates the research phase.

Some elements of search engine optimization also have the ability to compound or increase their benefits over time. Content, for example, presents two opportunities: the first is the potential to rank for more keywords and the second is that, through an exceptionally well-crafted piece of content, the potential exists for natural link building to occur.

Why is law firm SEO important?

The way consumers find, research, and choose a law firm has changed dramatically in recent years. Search is a primary channel that people use to find information online and since Google’s founding in 1998, it has grown to dominate the search space.

That means if you run a law firm and want to generate new clients, much of your success hinges on whether or not you can be found in Google search.

Why does my law firm need a website and SEO?

Why Attorneys Need A Website

Attorneys need a website because the way that consumers find businesses has changed.

This isn’t a new idea, obviously, as the Yellow Pages are not (and haven’t been for quite some time) the go-to source for research that they once were.

Businesses need a one-stop resource that answers searchers’ queries and intent and showcases the business’s expertise.

A website, no matter what business you’re in, is the central hub for your search engine optimization strategies. It’s the foundation of everything you’ll do to put yourself in front of your ideal prospective client, as well as create and promote your brand.

5 Big Reasons Why Attorneys Need SEO

1. Pay-per-click and sponsored ads essentially lease your visibility: that visibility disappears as soon as you stop paying for it. SEO is an investment. The content and backlinks that you acquire have a long-lasting and evergreen impact; in effect, they pay dividends long into the future.
2. 51 percent of all website traffic comes from organic search, 10 percent from paid search, 5 percent for social, and 34 percent from all other sources.
   

   

3. Data shows that 87% of smart phone owners use a search engine at least once a day.
   
4. Hubspot states that Google is responsible for 94% of all organic search traffic; the first position in Google search results carries a 34% click-through rate on desktop and 35% on mobile.
   
5. Studies have shownthat the percentage of traffic from searchers drops to around 2-3% on the second page of results and fades out from there.
   

Organic search is increasingly important

The most recent data on search engine usage from the Pew Research Center states that 91% of online adults use search engines to find information on the web.

Granted, this data is from 2012, but it’s worth pointing out.

Search engines (especially Google) have only gotten better at understanding the meaning behind the phrases we type into them and are therefore used even more on the internet to cut through all the noise.

With so many people using search, it makes sense that lawyers marketing themselves online should ensure their websites are built and configured to be found easily using these tools.

Why should attorneys care?

It’s already pretty clear that for most people, search is their go-to for finding legal services. According to the National Law Review, 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine in their research process and 74% of consumers visit a law firm’s website to take action.

Simply put, prospective clients use organic search to find and hire law firms.

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What are Google’s top three organic search ranking factors?

Google has one universal mission as it relates to their search engine: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

For years, SEOs and digital marketers pondered and debated what the most important ranking factors in Google’s algorithm were…and then in 2016, they came right out and told everyone: links, content, and RankBrain are the primary factors for how web pages are ranked in Google search results pages.

#1 – Links

Links have always been a part of Google’s algorithm from the very beginning and both the quality and quantity of them still matters today.

In the eyes of Google, each link pointing at a page is like a vote for that piece of content.

The more unique votes from reputable websites that a page has, the more authoritative it appears to Google, and hence the higher it ranks in search results (all else being equal).

We like to use the following analogy: If you’re trying to win an election, you want to get as many votes as possible. If you’re trying to “win” the first page of Google, you want as many high-quality links as possible.

What makes a high-quality link?

Here’s a great explanation by May Soon of Ahrefs:

“There are some common indicators of a backlink being high quality. Please note that no one can tell you for sure how search engines measure the quality of backlinks. The further information is our experience-based recommendation.

1. The most valuable backlinks are those editorially placed somewhere within the content (i.e. not in the footer or sidebar). Basically, if website owners refer to your page voluntarily, they give you a valuable vote of confidence.

   

2. Authority of the linking page/site. You can determine how much of “link juice” you’re getting from a given backlink by the authority of a particular page that links to you — its URL Rating (UR). (You can find more information about Ahrefs UR metric here.) As a general rule, a link from a high authority site will be more powerful than a link from a low authority one. We at Ahrefs use the Domain Rating (DR) metric to measure an overall website authority.
   

   

3. Besides DR and UR metrics, what also matters is a number of outgoing links a website has. A backlink from a website (domain) or from a web page that links to hundreds of other URLs will be less valuable than the one from a website with just a few outgoing links.
   

   

4. “Do-follow” links are preferable. At the same time, the search engine optimization community hasn’t come to an agreement if no-follow links help you rank or not. Basically, if you have a chance to get a no-follow link from a high-quality website, then go for it.
   

   

5. Our research has shown that an anchor text might have an influence on the quality and relevancy of a backlink. (You can find the full research here.) It’s essential for search engines to be able to choose the right keywords to rank your content for, that’s why the anchor text, as well as the text that surrounds it, should be topic-relevant.”

   Most links do provide a bit of additional context through their anchor text. At least they should, right‽

   — 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 23, 2017

#2 – Content

In order to get on the first page of search results, attorneys need to build content that is more than just topically relevant. Data shows that content which is longer and covers a topic more in-depth tends to rank higher overall in Google search results, so it needs to be more authoritative and in-depth than competing pieces of content in the same niche.

What makes good SEO content?

The structure and substance of content are key to making it rank well in Google search.

• Topically relevant: A web page or blog post needs to be appropriate for its audience (that is, it should matter to them).
• Target keyword placement: The target keyword phrase the page is meant to rank for needs to be placed in the title, the headings, the body, anchor text of internal and inbound links, and image alt tags of the page. This is an SEO tactic that will give your content the opportunity to be found.
  
• Authoritative resource: The content should be an authoritative resource that provides value to the reader and answers their intent.
• Supporting sources: The content should link out to other supporting resources (e.g., authoritative articles, supporting documents) that users may find valuable.
• Usability: Long-form content should be formatted in a way that makes it easy to consume (i.e., bulleted lists, headings and images that break up content, navigation, etc.)
• Shareability: The content needs to be useful and practical. It should be something that readers want to share with people they know.

#3 – RankBrain

What is RankBrain?

RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm used by Google. Based on information gleaned from analyzing search results, it helps weight certain ranking factors in an effort to deliver the most relevant results to searchers. Through RankBrain, Google is attempting to more accurately predict or interpret searcher intent, rather than organize web pages using signals like the core algorithm does.

How do I optimize for RankBrain?

• Parent topic: Look for parent keyword phrases and then include similar terms throughout the content on the same page, rather than creating a single page for each keyword phrase.
  
• Click-through rates: Write compelling titles and meta descriptions to capture a click-through.
• Contact info: Avoid using your contact info (phone number, email) in titles and meta descriptions: this can discourage a click-through, as the searcher already has the information that they need without ever visiting your site. If Google sees that searchers don’t click through to a given result, Google may serve it less frequently.
• Dwell time: Don’t neglect dwell time (i.e., the amount of time that a visitor spends on a given page). You can improve dwell time through long-form content, audio and video features, and user-friendly formatting.

What are Google’s top three local search ranking factors?

Google uses a relatively narrow set of categories to determine local rankings for law firms which consists of relevance, distance, and prominence.

#1 – Relevance

Google is looking for how well GMB listings match user search queries. There are many tactics attorneys can use to make sure their Google My Business listing is as relevant as possible.

• Accurate category: Choose the category most appropriate to your practice area. That is, don’t choose “attorney” for your primary category if there is a more specific option, like “personal injury attorney.”
  
• Thorough descriptions: If done carefully, you can incorporate keyword phrases in your law firm description and max out the character limit (750, including spaces) on the profile. Make sure the description is relevant to your law firm by following the guidelines in the Business Description Guidelines here.
  
• Liberal use of imagery/video: Add as many images as possible (and definitely more than competitors). In our experience, profiles with 50+ images tend to get a boost over profiles lacking images. In addition, add any videos you have of your firm to your GMB profile.
  
• Detailed service sections: Google provides sections in GMB profiles to describe your practice area. Use all 1,000 characters allowed, if possible, and remember to include your target keyword phrases.
  
• Comprehensive service areas: Include all areas that your offices serve. For example, if you serve cities surrounding where your home office is located, include those in your profile.
• Consistent information: Ensure that your name, address, and phone number information is consistent with other listings on the internet and what appears on your website. Fill in accurate operating hours, website and appointment URLs, and make sure all other fields have information in them.
  

#2 – Distance

Google uses proximity (the relationship between their location and that reported by a business’s IP address or other methods) to determine which local GMB directory results to show to searchers. Unlike organic search (where links are the #1 ranking factor), proximity is local search’s #1 factor.

Consider this: when you’re on vacation and you search for restaurants, what do you expect to see? Places nearby your resort, not establishments two states away. No matter how great the restaurant is, if it’s not in your immediate vicinity, it’s unlikely to appear in local Maps results.

#3 – Prominence

One of the most challenging aspects of local search engine optimization is improving a firm’s overall prominence. This is because the competition dictates the amount of prominence needed to appear in the three-pack. That is, there are a number of factors that need to be considered:

• Links: Having more authoritative backlinks than the competition is, like we analogized earlier, akin to having more “votes” for your placement in the three-pack.
• Articles: Publishing articles on external sites typically incorporates a link of some kind, so it’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
• Images: As we mentioned previously in organic search, having substantially more images than competitors has been shown to influence rankings in a positive manner. Unsurprisingly, the same is also true for local search.
• Directories: Similar to the Yellow Pages of the analog era, these are used to find a business, but they also help Google better understand how to categorize your business. They frequently include NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) citations and help dictate the specific coordinates (latitude and longitude) for your location.
• Reviews: Not only is the number of reviews important, but also the rating. By having a high rating, you have the opportunity to rank for superlative-based searches (e.g., “best car accident lawyer,” “top attorney,” etc.).

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This chapter covers keyword research for lawyers. We will explore:

• what keyword research is
• why keyword research is important
• how to find keywords from real search queries
• finding the right keyword research tool (both free and paid)
• how keyword intent shapes your selection process

What is keyword research?

Simply put, keyword research is the identification of those terms and queries that individuals are manually using in Google’s search engine.

What are people searching for?

For attorneys, keyword research works side-by-side with your efforts to provide awareness for your brand and give prospective clients an easy outlet to get in touch with you. Queries related to a particular legal situation (such as “what to do after a car accident”) or their specific purchase intent (“hire a car accident attorney”) are common and useful for personal injury law firms. Likewise, for a criminal defense attorney, examples of queries might be “should you take a field sobriety test” or “hire a DUI attorney.”

How many people are searching for it?

You can write the best content in the world, but if you aren’t targeting keywords properly (i.e., those with search volume), no one will see it…and that means no one will read it.

Why is keyword research important?

As mentioned above, keyword research (when done correctly) enables many other facets of search engine optimization. Investing in content creation can provide long-term benefits for your practice, both as a means of building awareness and conversions/case acquisitions…but again, that content creation won’t stand without the proper keyword research to serve as its foundation.

How do you do keyword research?

Keyword research is part art, part science. No matter how advanced tools are, they rarely can predict search volume impressions with precision. Surveying your clients can be a good starting point.

How to find keywords and keyword research tools

Manual competitor analysis

You’ve heard the saying “model the masters.” In this case, one of the best starting points is to create a mind-map based upon the top-ranking sites in your market. See what practice area pages and blogs they’re creating, then model them. This will give you a good pool of keywords to start with; then you can analyze those keywords in the future to see if they have search volume opportunity.

Avvo

Avvo is a leading legal directory. Their site includes an active Q&A forum, where real consumers/prospective clients air their legal queries, with responses from attorneys nationwide. If you look for trends in consumer questions, you can start to build a bank of keywords that you know prospective clients are actually using.

Lawyers.com

Similar to Avvo, laywers.com has an “Ask a Lawyer” section, where users contribute questions and lawyers are free to offer their advice.

“People Also Ask”/”Searches Related To”

Once you’ve identified a pool of keywords (through mind-mapping, manual competitor analysis, etc.), you can analyze these using Google Search. Drag them into Search one at a time, then scroll down to find related terms and queries. In this way, you can further expand your pool of keyword with ancillary terms and phrases. For example, see search results below:

And here’s searches related to that term (from the bottom of the results page):

Google Trends

Google Trends is a free tool that you can use to identify what is timely and current in terms of consumer interests. It shows you if a specific keyword is trending upwards or downwards, as well as if it’s grown in demand over time.

Keyword Planner

While not as full-featured as some of the other tools on this list, it is always worth considering that Google has more raw data in their hands than anyone else. Their Keyword Planner is a perfectly reasonable place to start, as you’ll be looking at a very broad subsection of the internet through their analytics.

Answer the Public

Answer the Public dives deeper into the zeitgeist through the use of interrogatives (who, what, when, where, why) and prepositions (for, of, with, etc.). The results that it generates by the keyword phrase are also visually interesting and can help prime the pump for weeks of content generation.

Sample Questions result:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is another free tool within the Google Suite. You can get some keyword data in Acquisition>Search Console>Queries (note that you will need to link Google Search Console with Google Analytics for data to appear in this report).

Ubersuggest

Neil Patel’s UberSuggest is one of the best free keyword research tools available. Not only does it provide information on the keyword itself (in regards to volume, competitive difficulty, etc.), it also generates ideas and suggestions for related keywords.

Google Search Console

“Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results.” – Google

Google Search Console provides more transparent query data than the related Google Analytics Suite, which gives you a better idea of where to optimize or what to target in the future. To take advantage, go to Performance>Queries.

SEMRush

While I don’t frequently use SEMRush for keyword research, it is a leading keyword research tool. In fact, Robbie Richards asked 133 SEO experts about their preferred research tool and SEMRush was the most widely used.

I think 132 of them are wrong, of course, but that’s just my opinion. 🙂

Ahrefs

Personally, this is my favorite keyword research tool. While Ahrefs is a paid tool, I think the power that it generates gives it an overwhelming advantage compared to most free tools. When you consider the fact that it’s not only a keyword research tool, but also one of the best tools for competitive analysis, the cost (which is moderate) is easy to justify.

I have no personal affiliation with Ahrefs and am receiving no consideration for expressing this viewpoint. I simply find it to be the best tool for keyword research. Here’s how we use it:

Keywords Explorer

I typically enter 1-3 keywords (that are semantically related) at a time. For example, this is how I would research keywords around “car accident lawyer”:

First, I would enter into Keywords Explorer three keywords related to “car accident lawyer,” such as “car accident lawyer,” “auto accident attorney,” and “automobile accident lawyers.”. You can enter more than three keywords at a time, but be sure that they’re thematically similar; this helps you create a better focus for topic clusters and aids internal linking strategies.

Next, analyze your results by reviewing the keyword volume for those terms that you’re researching. You’ll want to look for keywords that have not only a lot of search volume (100+), but also low keyword difficulty scores. It’s hard to give a ballpark target for keyword difficulty (as this has to be contextualized against the competition), but as a general rule, it’s fairly easy to rank for anything below 30.

From this analysis, you’ll have identified if your desired terms are worth pursuing.

Lastly, you can use the “Questions” section of “Keyword Ideas” (located on the upper left-hand side of the screen) to help generate mid- and top of funnel-based blogs. Here’s a sample result for the query “car accident lawyer.”

Top Pages

The second tactic is to type in the keywords for which you’re striving to rank in your location, find the top-ranking competitor, and insert their URL into Site Explorer>Top Pages. For example, if I were in St. Louis and trying to rank for “car accident lawyer” in the city, I would take a look at the top-ranking site’s page report:

This will allow you to analyze the quality of the content on your competitors’ pages, as well as the top keywords for which they rank.

What is the best keyword research tool?

In our opinion (as you might have guessed), it’s Ahrefs.

Keyword Intent

One last factor to consider when doing keyword research is intent. While many queries may have search volume, they don’t necessarily translate to signed cases. For example, the first result in “Questions” for “car accident lawyer” is a prime example of a query that has volume, but has very little value to you as a lawyer.

I understand that you could make a case for this keyword, because you could use this as an opportunity to educate consumers on the value of hiring a lawyer vs. going it alone. It could also serve as a potential linkable article for your editorial outreach.

However, when you consider the amount of keywords available with direct and obvious purchase intent, queries like this should be at the bottom of most editorial calendars. They simply aren’t worth the effort for such a small return.

Personal Injury Lawyers: Stop writing about highway accidents! Your SEO hates it.

Another frequent violation of intent that I see personal injury lawyers make is blogging about current events, such as recent vehicle accidents. You need to consider the intent of an individual who searches for “two individuals killed on highway 99.”

It’s very unlikely that they are looking to hire a lawyer; in most situations, it’s simply someone looking for local news, rather than seeking an attorney or legal counsel.

This type of article also has other negative consequences: because the article isn’t evergreen, it provides little value for the future. In fact, it also depletes the overall authority of your link equity. To expound, think of your inbound link equity as if it were a pitcher of water (where the pitcher represents all of the backlinks pointing to your site) and the content of your website as a receptacle. If that receptacle is a baking sheet, and you pour the contents of the pitcher onto it, the water will spread broadly, but the depth will be shallow. If the receptacle is a mixing bowl, the water will spread, but much of the depth can be maintained.

To put it differently, the fewer pages you have, the more link equity flows through them. Increasing the number of pages simply dilutes that equity, thus making it harder to rank.

Don’t just take our word for it: Gary Illyes (Google’s webmaster trends analyst) stated in 2016 that an expansive site (one with numerous pages and deep directories) can actually be a negative for search engine optimization purposes if it’s not managed properly. He said:

“Narrow it down as much as you can. Don’t create low quality and no value add pages. It’s just not worth it because one thing is that we don’t necessarily want to index those pages. We think that it’s a waste of resources. The other thing is that you just won’t get quality traffic. If you don’t get quality traffic then why are you burning resources on it?”

What form of intent should you target?

Generally, you’ll want to do keyword research for practice area pages, which function at the bottom of the funnel for conversion/sales. These showcase your expertise and include calls-to-action. Examples of conversion keywords include:

• Houston car accident lawyer
• Houston motorcycle accident lawyer
• Houston truck accident lawyer
• Houston wrongful death lawyer
• Houston slip and fall lawyer
• Houston medical malpractice lawyer
• Houston personal injury lawyer
  Etc.

The second type of articles that you should create falls into the middle to top of the funnel. These answer legal questions and provide awareness for prospective clients. Examples of awareness keywords include:

• What to do after a car accident
• How to hire a car accident lawyer
• When to hire a car accident lawyer
• What happens when you are at fault in a car accident
  Etc.

tl;dr: Keyword Research Step-by-Step

Step 1: Mind-map a keyword pool.
Step 2: Use a keyword research tool *cough cough Ahrefs cough* to evaluate the opportunities.
Step 3: Write content 10x better than the top results.
Step 4: Profit.

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In this chapter, we will discuss content development for law firms. It covers:

• law firm content archetypes (practice area pages and blogs)
• legal content topic clusters
• why lawyers should prioritize long-form content
• how to E-A-T nutritious legal content 😉

How Does Content for Lawyer Websites Work?

Virtually every page on an attorney’s site is designed to fulfill a specific purpose. Content is not just written for the sake of telling people about the firm or about the service, but rather, it should be crafted to drive people to perform specific actions (like getting the information they need for their legal situation) and ultimately hiring an attorney.

Law Firm Content Archetypes

Good content is built as much as it’s written. Content archetypes are used for constructing information in order to accomplish a specific goal (e.g., ranking well in search, converting a visitor to a client, achieving shareability, etc).

In the legal vertical, there are two basic content archetypes: practice area pages (which are effectively sales pages) and blogs (which are used to gain links and build top-of-mind awareness/social media engagement).

Practice Area Pages (Sales Archetype)

These are, effectively, the sales pages for a law firm; these bottom-of-the-funnel pages are where prospective clients are converting (i.e., hiring an attorney).

Your practice area pages should:

• Cover only one practice area at a time and be as specific as possible. For example, personal injury lawyers should have separate pages for car accidents (e.g., “Los Angeles Car Accident Lawyer”), truck accidents (e.g., “Los Angeles Truck Accident Lawyer”), motorcycle accidents (e.g., “Los Angeles Motorcycle Accident Lawyer”), etc., rather than one personal injury page including all of those sub-topics.
  
• Use the word “attorney” or “lawyer” somewhere in the title tag of the page in most cases.
  
• Include in-depth, lengthy, and useful content, including video. The goal is always for your content to be of value (i.e., it matches the reader’s intent), which keeps them on the page.
  
• Deliver multiple calls to action, so it’s clear to the visitor where to go when they are ready to contact the attorney. These could be contact forms in the sidebar, chat windows, contact info in the header of the page, etc.
  
• Be geographically relevant, if applicable (i.e., if you serve multiple cities, you should have a car accident lawyer page for each one and make each page location-specific).
  

Strength of this archetype:

• Consumers visiting these pages are more likely to be in a buying/hiring mindset.
• These pages are ideal for targeting multiple locations. For example, if your firm has multiple offices, you can create a page for each city (e.g., Los Angeles Car Accident Lawyer, Santa Anna Car Accident Lawyer, Riverside Car Accident Lawyer).

Weakness of this archetype: 

• These kinds of pages do not lend themselves naturally to editorial outreach. That is, few websites of quality are looking to link back to a firm’s sales page.

Blogs (Link Attraction/Awareness Archetype)

Blog content has long been a staple of successful search engine optimization campaigns. For attorney SEO campaigns, blog posts serve as “top of the funnel” content. That is, the visitors that it attracts to your site are those who are in a discovery mode.

Here are some tips for running an effective law blog:

• Be strategic about generating content by writing posts from queries people are actually using in search (e.g., “what to do after a car accident,” “how much does a car accident lawyer cost,” etc.).
  
• Generate informative content that is helpful to readers and is the best source of information of its kind available on the internet.
• Generally, if a blog is being used for editorial outreach, you should avoid including a specific geography. Why? This limits your ability to cast your outreach net widely and reach a broad audience (i.e., “What to do after a Philadelphia car accident” only appeals to individuals living in the Philadelphia metro and is of little value to a site in, say, Chicago).

Strength of this archetype:

• Can be used for link attraction efforts

Weakness of this archetype:

• Consumers are not typically in the hiring mode when they arrive on these pages.

When looking for examples of topics, here are some good resources:

• Avvo Free Legal Advice
• Lawyers.com and Understanding Your Legal Issue
• Answer the Public

Legal Content Topic Clusters

As Hubspot recently highlighted, content development in SEO is moving towards a new framework, what they call the “topic cluster model.” Essentially, one primary page acts as the lynchpin for the rest of your site’s related content: a single page is connected to multiple smaller, more specific pages, which feed authority back that singular primary “pillar page.”

In the legal vertical, practice area pages are ideal targets to act as pillar pages.

As webmasters continue to add thousands upon thousands of new pages to the web each hour, it’s essential that Google have a way to assess and categorize relevant topics. The pillar/cluster model assists in this from an architectural standpoint, treating all of those smaller pages as arrows pointing back to the pillar. Attorneys can benefit from using a similar methodology with their content.

Here’s an example of the pillar/cluster model for the topic “car accidents.”

Why You Should Write Long-Form Content for Attorney Websites

Google’s algorithm can measure many things, but it can’t track is the smile on a reader’s face. Consequently, there is no easy way to measure if a given piece of content is adequately answering a user’s intent. One element that Google does measure is the amount of time that a user remains on the site (known as dwell time).

One method of increasing dwell time is to naturally write longer content. Because it takes longer to read, your average dwell time is going to reliably increase. In that same capacity, it’s also why many individuals recommend video content.

The other benefit of long-form content is that you organically include related phrases and synonyms, which gives you the opportunity to rank for additional keywords.

Last, but not least, longer content is performing better in search. Brian Dean released a study in 2016 that showed the average first page search results was 1890 words (from a sample size of over one million queries). Every day, the index becomes larger, so it’s more important than ever to create high-quality, long-form content that answers consumer intent.

E-A-T Healthy

Your mom always told you to eat a healthy breakfast and start your day off right. Similarly, Google suggests that you focus content on qualities that they abbreviate as E-A-T: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Put simply, Google wants content from credible sources and emphasizes those three elements as being fundamental to credible content.

Here are best practices to make your content E-A-T-worthy:

• always include an author byline on all pages
• ensure author bios highlight expertise and experience
• link out to other credible sources (e.g., legal journals, bar associations)

Essentially, Google is asking you to treat your on-site content the same way your teachers in high school and professors in college taught you to write research papers: say what you mean, but back it up with independent sources.

Ultimately, Google wants consumers to view them as a trustworthy source of information. To that end, they may serve content written by an attorney (who is inherently authoritative) rather than commentary from a blog (which may have been written by anyone) when fulfilling a user’s search query for legal information. It’s incumbent on you, when writing content, to show your bona fides, as it were, and demonstrate that authority.

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This chapter covers on-site SEO for lawyers. In it, we will explore:

• how to create an optimal site structure for scaling your law firm
• how to optimize your title tags for maximum impact
• how to optimize your meta descriptions without pulling a fast one on Google
• how to speed up your site (so consumers don’t leave)
• how to properly utilize internal links to distribute link equity and improve dwell time
• what the heck is legal service schema and why should you care?
• how to optimize images and get more bang for your buck from top-performing content

How to Create an Optimal Site Structure for Your Law Firm

In previous chapters, we’ve talked about why it’s important to do keyword research and why it’s critical for you to have keyword-specific content on your website. However, before you go gangbusters on creating content for your website, you need to consider the overall structure of your website, as this has an impact on your ability to scale.

The first decision you have to make it which URL you want to utilize: flat or multiple sub-directory permalinks.

What is a flat URL structure?

A flat URL structure is one that does not use sub-directory folders. Here’s an example:

What is a multiple sub-directory structure?

Like it sounds, a multiple sub-directory structure uses a number of directory folders to organize website content. Here are some examples:

Which structure is better?

Most search engine optimization specialists will tell you to use a multiple sub-directory structure. This has some inherent problems:

• the permalink (similar to a title tag) has a character limit; if you want to emphasize a keyword, it’s important that it appears early in the URL structure
  • In fact, Backlinko’s Brian Dean did a study (analyzing more than one million search results) and concluded that shorter URLs rank better, all things being equal.
• this structure can also place emphasis on keywords that don’t have a relevant search volume (see above: no one searches for practice areas or locations)

This is not to say that there aren’t websites that rank using a sub-directory structure; obviously there are. However, in our experience (even with particularly large sites), a flatter structure yields better results. Here’s why:

• the keyword is emphasized earlier, so there’s no confusion on Google’s part about which keyword in the URL should rank; it’s pretty clear, as it’s the only one used

Last caveat – while the pros outweigh the cons when using a flat architecture, there is one important con that should be addressed: with a flat architecture, all pages must utilize internal linking best practices.

The reason is that a sub-directory structure has a natural hierarchy that promotes good internal linking among a websites pages. To achieve the same result using a flat structure, breadcrumbs must be utilized (shown below).

Why is it important?

If you want to rank in highly competitive metros, it’s imperative that you utilize all available advantages. A flat architecture is easier to implement and provides more opportunity to rank in search.

It’s the first item in this chapter for a reason.

Optimizing Title Tags for Maximum Impact

Optimizing a title tag is well-known as one of the most impactful tactics for on-page SEO. This is the first method for informing Google about a given page’s topic. Here are some dos and don’ts:

Do:

• use fewer than 60 characters
• start with keyword upfront
• always include a city or state, when optimizing for local search
• go with “lawyer” over “attorney,” as it has more search volume, typically
• use a modifier, such as “near me,” “hire,” “free consult”

Don’t:

• target multiple geographies; instead, have a state- and city-specific page
• include a phone number
• target multiple practice areas (e.g., car and truck accidents on the same)
• add the firm name at the beginning

Here’s the foundational formula that we use for practice area pages:

City + practice area + lawyer
That is, “Chicago Car Accident Lawyer”

Depending upon the length of the practice area keyword, you can then add modifiers to improve click-through rates (such as “Chicago Car Accident Lawyer | Free Consult”) or for additional search volume opportunity (such as “Chicago Car Accident Lawyer Near Me”).

How to Optimize Your Meta Descriptions Without Pulling a Fast One on Google

The goal of writing a good meta description is to create compelling content (albeit in an abbreviated form). By doing so, you create the opportunity to capture searchers as they browse search results. The richer and more enticing the meta description, the greater the chance that a prospective client on Google’s search results will visit your page. There’s no ironclad blueprint for writing good meta descriptions, but all effective ones need to include your geography and primary keyword, couched in a compelling reason to click through the result. Here’s an example of a quality meta description:

(Note: the above example uses the word “best,” which is frowned upon by most state bar associations, but this is otherwise a superb meta description; always be careful when using superlatives in your advertising)

However, one common mistake that I see many lawyers make: placing your office phone number in the meta description. Here’s why that’s a misstep:

By placing your contact info in the meta description, you are providing a prospective client with the opportunity to not click through to your site, but still reach you. Google has no way of knowing the success or failure of that call, or even that such a call took place. Consequently, Google may be less likely to serve your results to searchers, as they interpret the lack of clicks as a lack of confidence.

How and Why You Should Speed Up Your Website…Without a Degree in Web Development

Let’s cut right to the chase: 53% of all mobile users leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. With search increasingly being driven by mobile use, that’s a percentage of your prospective client base that you simply cannot afford to ignore or underserve.

How to Check Your Website Speed

First, head to PageSpeed Insights and run a diagnostic scan. Here’s an example of how the results might look:

(Please note: not our client 🐢)

Most of the time, the largest obstacle to a better website speed is the use of uncompressed, high-definition images. If you upload uncompressed images frequently, this tends to drag down the overall performance of your site. Remedy this by installing the Smush Image Compression and Optimization (formerly WPSmush.it) plugin.

This tool removes extraneous and hidden information from your images, reducing their file sizes (compressing them) and streamlining your load times. It also scans new images as you upload them, repeating the process of stripping away the unnecessary data.

How to Optimize Internal Links

What is an internal link?

It’s applying link anchor text to another page, found on the same website, with the intention of helping a consumer with navigation. For example, in future chapters, we’ll talk about effective link building techniques, such as utilizing legal directories.

Why does it matter?

Using links within the body of your content to bridge the gap between related articles is not only beneficial for the user experience, but it also helps to distribute link equity and improve important signals for Google. You can think of link equity (inbound backlinks) as being a measurable quantity, fluidly moving throughout the pages of your site. By using internal links, you can distribute the equity of those links to your most important pages. This has a side effect of allowing those pages a better opportunity for ranking.

Another significant benefit of internal linking is keeping a user engaged on your site for a longer period of time, thus lowering your bounce rates. In practical terms, if Google sees a consumer staying on one website longer than another, it may interpret this as the user having a better experience on the site where they stayed the longest.

Lastly, I want to point out that internal links also have a positive effect on conversion rates, as they direct a consumer towards the bottom of the funnel, to your conversion point (that is, the contact form).

What the Heck Is Legal Service Schema and Why Should You Care?

“Schema (schema.org) is a structured data vocabulary that defines entities, actions, and relationships on the Internet (webpages, emails, etc).” – Luke Harsel, SEMRush

For attorneys, legal service schema is the most important structured data to add to a website. Adding legal services schema to your site explicitly tells Google that the content is related to a law firm.

Legal service schema markups can make your page more relevant to users searching for legal information, which typically results in an increase to your click-through rate. In this way, having schema markup gives you an additional opportunity to rank over those sites that do not.

One final bonus tip (before I share an example): you can insert “free consultation” into the priceRange field, rather than fees (as shown below).

Here’s an example of a fully optimized legal service schema.

How to Optimize Images and Get Maximum Value from Your Top-Performing Pages

The first step, of course, is to determine precisely which pages on your site are performing well. You can do this through Google Search Console or our preferred method, Ahrefs’s Top Pages. After you’ve identified a page to be optimized, drill down into performance to look for keywords that aren’t ranking #1 (see example below of our client, Dolman Law Group).

Next, modify existing image alt text to include these phrases or add images with them. Google crawls alt text to determine what is shown in an image. This is an easy way to add low-hanging fruit keywords onto the page without having to include them in the body of the content. Sometimes it’s difficult to include phrases because they don’t make sense, organically speaking, within the body text; alt text optimization allows you to sidestep this, in a way.

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In this chapter, we’re going to explore local SEO for lawyers. You’ll learn:

• how to optimize your Google My Business profile 10x better than your competition
• how to get the best cases through review outreach
• how to disperse your address to thousands of sites
• how to submit to citations and directories for maximum impact
• how to nuke local spammers and stop them from stealing your business

Google My Business – Maximizing Rankings and Profits

It’s pretty clear that you need a Google My Business profile. It’s also obvious that you need one that’s optimized. I won’t spend time detailing step-by-step instructions on claiming your profile; others have already done a very nice job of that.

That said, there are a few common mistakes that I’d like to point out.

The largest mistake I see is in not claiming the proper primary category. If you’re a personal injury attorney, your category should be “personal injury attorney,” not “law firm.” Likewise, if you’re a criminal defense attorney, you should be claiming “criminal justice attorney.” Claiming the right category sets you up for success under the right umbrella.

Another mistake I see is placing minimal emphasis on image and video. Google is pretty smart, but sometimes they incorrectly interpret images. If you want your business to have the image of a trash can, go ahead and skip this step.

One of the main ranking factors for local is prominence. Adding more imagery than your competitors has a direct relationship with increased prominence. In fact, one reason we know this for certain is because Google specifically calls it out in Google My Business. In the image below, you can see how Google compares the amount of views your images have with those of “businesses like yours” (read: your local competition).

The above photo references a client of ours who ranks #1 for “Philadelphia car accident lawyer.” As you can see, their firm has nearly 10x the views as their competition. It would be natural to ask how many photos they have, so let’s take a look at that below:

We have a seen a direct correlation between the number of photos and local rankings, across the board for all of our clients. Most attorneys aren’t aware that Google can put you in touch with a Google Certified Photographer. Not only can they shoot a 360 tour of your office, but they can assist in maximizing the use of imagery on your Google My Business profile. If you’ve changed your hairstyle and considering deleting that outdated shot and replacing it with an updated one, keep in mind that it may be helping you rank in local search.

Reviews

As a quick reminder, here’s what Google says about reviews:

Let’s be real: there’s no “probably” about it. Reviews absolutely help your rankings.

Reviews Aren’t Only Important for Restaurants

Some of the common complaints I hear are that attorneys don’t want tire-kickers and the best cases go to their competitors. A big reason for this is having fewer total reviews and a lower overall rating from them. Consumers are more educated, particularly when it comes to making a difficult decision for an important case. A low-level traffic ticket might not motivate them to do a lot of research, but a personal injury case (which everyone knows might be quite lucrative) will send them searching for the absolute best attorney.

If you were on vacation in an unfamiliar place, you might do a search for “best restaurants near me.” Unless you’re on a food challenge, you’re not likely to choose the three-star restaurant, much less the one-star. You’re looking for not only an establishment with a five-star rating, but one based on a considerable quantity of reviews: you want to go somewhere that you expect to give you the same experience and treatment. Consumers do the same thing when looking for legal representation.

Of the attorneys listed in the reviews below, the firms with a greater quantity of reviews look more attractive than the one firm with only a handful despite having a higher average rating.

The secondary (and massive) benefit that isn’t always discussed is that if you have a high rating (5.0, for example), you can rank in the map pack for superlative-related queries, such as “best” or “top.” If you have a low review rating, Google simply won’t consider you for those type of searches. Again, back to the restaurant analogy: a search for “best restaurants near me” is unlikely to give you places with one- and two-star ratings in the map pack.

To summarize, reviews not only affect conversions through social proof, but they also impact your ranking position for some queries.

Why You Should Reply to All Reviews

A common misconception is that you need only reply to negative reviews. It’s understandable: you want to defend yourself and your practice, especially in public. However, there is absolutely value in replying to all reviews, positive, negative, and in-between. There are three main benefits to this:

• Think of reviews as content. We’ve all read the studies that longer form content tends to rank better. Likewise, when your local directories receive a review, it strengthens their position in search engines. Every review is an opportunity to create additional content for the page and make your overall web presence more robust.
  
• Responding to reviews makes you look like a human being. It’s difficult to convey empathy or establish a rapport digitally. However, saying please and thank you works just as well online as off and it goes a long way towards the customer experience. If someone had a great experience, they may be more likely to recommend you to others in the future.
  
• By responding to Google My Business reviews, you initiate a notification to the user who left the review. This further keeps you top-of-mind and it’s important to take advantage of every simple brand advancement strategy that you can.
  

What Are the Best Review Sites for Attorneys?

We’ve said it before, but prominence means being everywhere. It not only helps with your rankings, but also the overall perception of quality for your firm. It’s a psychological trigger.

Here are some of the most beneficial sites on which to get reviews:

• Google My Business
  • It can be difficult to get GMB reviews, because it requires a Google account. However, it’s the highest weighted site in regards to your local search engine optimization, so I always emphasize to attorneys to try and get a review here before the others. One caveat: even if you have a client who is an evangelist for your firm, make sure that they only leave a review for the location at which they had a client experience. If that individual leaves a review in multiple locations, all reviews could be filtered or trigger a manual review.
    
• Facebook
  • Facebook has the lightest TOS. They don’t mention anything about conflicts of interest, peer endorsements, etc. It’s also a very authoritative site and there’s a high likelihood of your consumer having a Facebook profile. They may not have a Gmail account, but they almost certainly have an account with Facebook, so that would always be my second recommendation.
    
• Yelp
  • Yelp is a beast as a review site. However, it has explicit policies against review solicitation, so here’s your warning: if you get caught, there’s a chance to be banned from Yelp or penalized (and show up at the bottom). Trust me on this, I know of a few firms who’ve had this happen to them. That said, Yelp reviews are incredibly important, so I wouldn’t send a direct link, but I would send a link to Yelp and allow them to navigate to your profile; this has a lower chance of being filtered. Yelp aggregates reviews to multiple sites, so it has a lot of impact and shouldn’t be ignored.
    
• Better Business Bureau (BBB.org)
  • The BBB is a great place for somewhat-anonymous reviews (first name, initial of last name). If you’re a criminal defense or bankruptcy attorney experiencing the added challenge of acquiring reviews, this can be a great resource for you. BBB is also referenced several times in Google’s content quality guidelines, so it’s reasonable to assume that Google views them as a trusted authority.
    
• Avvo
  • Avvo is important because it typically ranks well for your personal branded searches. You also have the option of making and receiving peer endorsements. If you’re struggling to obtain a 10.0 rating, even after thoroughly filling out and optimizing your profile, I highly recommend leaving peer endorsements to encourage reciprocity.
    
• Yellow Pages
  • Yellow Pages tends to rank well and the review rating shows up in search. It has a ton of indexed pages and high traffic count. It’s a site on which I would try to get at least one 5-star rating review. With one 5-star review, the star rating will display in search results.
    

Another important tactic is to Google your firm’s name, see which review sites appear on the first page of results, and try to receive 5-star ratings on as many of them as possible. Put yourself in the position of your prospective client: they’re going to look at the results on the first page and are likely to ignore any second-page (or later) results.

Aggregators

Local data aggregators are a method of dispersing your business information (name, address, phone number, images, etc.) to thousands of sites. There are four main data aggregators (Neustar Localeze, Factual, Acxiom, and Infogroup). In order to submit to them, you have a few options: Moz Local, BrightLocal, and Yext (although this last recommendation is conditional, subject to your agreement).

The key thing here is you need to submit to data aggregators. Because they disperse your information to so many sites, it’s important to the extra effort and time to thoroughly optimize your profile (tons of images, usage of video, accurate descriptions, operating hours, proper categories, etc.). Of the three, Yext has some inherent advantages, if you are utilizing their API effectively. From a cost standpoint, BrightLocal is the best.

There’s no question that this is all needed. The thing to ask yourself is if you have the time to perform a similar strategy manually or if you’d rather cut out the middleman and use one of the tools listed above for less than $100. Your mileage may vary, but I value my time too much not to use an aggregator, particularly when the cost is so low.

Citations

What is a citation?

It’s an online reference to your firm’s NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number). Similar to a backlink, they’re a ranking factor that Google considers when determining the authority of your site. The key difference is that a citation (unlike a backlink) does not need to be directly linked to your site for you to receive a benefit from it.

Top Citation Sites

Here is a top 10 list for local citations in the U.S. BrightLocal provides a nice listing that can be found here.

• Facebook
• Apple Maps
• Google My Business
• Bing
• Foursquare
• Mapquest
• Yelp
• Yellow Pages
• Superpages
• Merchant Circle

Here is a list of the top local citations, as sorted by city. These will, of course, differ from location to location, so be sure to check your specific geography.

Lastly, here’s a top 10 list for legal. If you’d like to see a full listing, it can be found here.

• Findlaw
• Justia (see our complete review of Justia here).
• Avvo
• Nolo
• lawyers.com
• hg.org
• martindale.com
• lawyer.com
• Law Guru
• Best Lawyers

How to Make the Maximum Impact

The same advice applies here as did above: make sure that your profile is optimized, complete, and accurate. You should also ensure that all attorneys at your firm have completed and optimized personal profiles. In some cases, your directory placement is determined by how well your profile is optimized; this is particularly important for legal directories, as they may be a source of leads.

Don’t Let Google My Business Spammers Take What Should Be Yours

Most individuals try to do the right thing and play by the rules when it comes to their Google My Business profile: they optimize their profile and abide by Google’s explicit terms of service (TOS). The problem with this approach is that it leaves them defenseless on a very important flank: they are not addressing the spammers who claim “real estate” (virtual though it may be) that should rightfully belong to the firm itself.

Here’s How to Fight Google My Business Spam

1. Monitor your primary keyword phrases in the local three-pack. This includes keeping an eye on your competitors’ rankings.
2. Identify and take action on those violating Google’s TOS (such as fake reviews/listings/photos, keyword stuffing, or using virtual offices without attorneys on-staff).
3. Submit a complaint directly to Google here.
4. Report frequent violators here.

Here’s what local SEO expert Joy Hawkins has to say on the matter:

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Links are perhaps one of the most important factors in ranking web pages. They are at the very foundation of Google’s algorithm and are the key method of navigation from website to website all over the globe.

In SEO, there are numerous different ways to acquire links. Some strategies do not involve a lot of effort, whereas others require significant amounts of time, effort, and ingenuity (although they offer big rewards).

This post is a compilation of sixteen proven attorney link building strategies, along with best practices and implementation tips for each one.

What is link-building?

At the most basic level, link-building is the practice of obtaining links from external websites that lead to a target website. A link (or hyperlink) is typically text wrapped in an HTML anchor tag with an “href” attribute.

Links can also be images, or entire block-level HTML elements.

Lawyers can place links manually on other sites they own, on social accounts, directories, forums, and other sites that allow for direct access to place links.

More sophisticated link-building involves generating content that compels other site owners to link to. It may also involve clever strategies for creating scenarios where other site owners must place a link to an attorney website.

Link Building Tools

It also helps to know which tools are helpful for link building campaigns.  If you’re at a loss as to where you should start, check out this post on the best link building tools by Wendy Dressler of Outreach Mama.

It gives a pretty good snapshot of all the link building tools worth knowing about on the internet.

For lawyers, blogs are positioned to attract inbound links, build a brand, and support social engagement/community-building. Attorney blog content is frequently supportive of the top of the funnel (e.g., “Steps to Take After a Car Accident,” “Car Accident Safety Tips,” etc.).

Further Reading

Podcast Link Building: Gain Links by Being a Guest on a Podcast

“If you were working with an attorney to improve a law firm’s search engine optimization, what would be your #1 tip to get results?”

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Conclusion & Acknowledgements

I want to extend my sincerest gratitude to the following professionals for their contribution to this guide.

Gareth Daine

Content Promotion Strategy Expert

Brian Dean

Founder at Backlinko

Joy Hawkins

Owner/Founder at Sterlingsky.ca

Robbie Richards

Marketing Director at Virayo

Nathan Gotch

Founder at Gotch SEO

Steve Pockross

CEO at BlogMutt

Steven Kang

Founder of SEO Signals Lab

Sujan Patel

Founder of Mailshake

Josh Fechter

Co-Founder at BAMF Media

Tim Soulo

Head of Marketing & Product Strategy at Ahrefs