Why Hire an SEO Agency for your Law Firm?
Ranking well in Google is often a HUGE boon to new client acquisition and, therefore, revenue for a law firm.
However, it is unlikely that your firm can be both excellent at law and excellent at SEO.
So, it makes complete sense to contract out SEO work if the organic search market is there for your law firm…
…and, based upon my 10+ years experience doing SEO, it is there for most law firms.
Similar to being a good lawyer, search engine optimization is a complex skill set that typically requires a lot of experience to do well.
Furthermore, all of the best SEO professionals are constantly testing new ideas, strategies, and techniques.
The Top 3 Things You Should You Know Before Hiring a Law Firm SEO Company?
There are 3 areas of focus that you, as a non-SEO expert, can do to help you understand whether your SEO agency is working with outdated or cookie cutter strategies…
…or, if their SEO strategy & planning fit with what makes sense.
In other words, the following concepts are something any lawyer who understands his or her target clients will be able to understand and apply to their decision making process for hiring a lawyer SEO company.
#1) Localization of Your Searches
The first and most important consideration is the localization level of the searches you want to rank for.
Localization levels checking is critical because it directly affects your main SEO Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).
If localization is high, then Google Maps SEO (AKA Local SEO) should be a primary focus of any SEO project and, therefore, the KPI’s should be centered around Local SEO. Local SEO KPI’s are different vs non-local SEO.
Most of the keywords that most lawyers want to rank for are highly localized. Therefore, high localization in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) is the most likely situation for a law firm.
If localization is low, then Local SEO can be a minor part of the SEO strategy…or even missing altogether. However, most firms that have non-local SEO opportunities also have local SEO, so not having to consider Maps SEO is rare.
Let’s look at Personal Injury Law vs Immigration Law…
…Car accident cases are ALL about local. Not only are virtually all these keywords going to have Google’s maps listings at the top of the organic results, but these types of clients are difficult to capture any other way.
Immigration, on the other hand, could involve international cases, so some of their keyword targets will be non-localized. They may still have local client work. For example, a local company looking to bring in an employee from another country might look for a local immigration lawyer to talk to.
There are other distinctions among other legal specialties.
#2) What Does it Really Mean to Rank a Law Firm Well in Google?
This might seem like a trivial question, but, if you have localized searches in your target keywords, then it is not a simple answer.
For non-local SEO, the KPI’s are much more commonly understood. Organic rankings and traffic can be looked at far easier than when localization is present.
For Local SEO, where you rank in Google’s Maps results can vary greatly across a geographic area. For example, someone across the street is much more likely to get your firm as a result vs someone 12 miles away doing the same exact search.
Therefore, you can’t just say, “I rank [X] for [Y keyword]” — that would most likely be nonsense.
Local SEO rankings are represented best by geogrids. Geogrids look like heat maps, but are actually a distribution of rankings for a keyword across a geographic area.
Below are 4 different example geogrids:
Sometimes your firm only ranks well within a 1 mile radius, but there are ways to get it to rank well over a much larger geographic area.
If you are not tracking geogrids as part of your KPI’s right now, then you’re missing out on key data.
#3) SEO Strategy Paths for Law Firms
There are a limited amount of viable strategies and a lot of strategies I come across that are…lacking.
First of all, if your searches are localized, and your firm hasn’t talked about ranking your Google business listing (GMB or GBP) better, then they are probably missing critical strategy. In other words, they don’t even know the game they should really be playing for your firm.
So, for most firms, having Local SEO be the primary focus is the correct strategy.
Local SEO actions will involve some similarities to completely non-local projects, but with some additional opportunities for rankings growth.
On Page SEO & Off Page SEO do affect Maps rankings, but there is more to be done…MUCH more to help your listing rank better.
If your target keywords are mostly non-local, then classic Keyword Research, On Site Optimization, and Link Building all done congruently is the way.
Beware of SEO offerings that only offer 1 piece of the puzzle.
The most common offering from people who know little about SEO for lawyers is doing just content marketing (like just blogging “for SEO”). This is a form of On Site Optimization. But, often it involves only a tiny bit of Keyword Research and zero Link Building and, therefore, is an incomplete plan that indicates a poor strategy.
Would you like to know more about hiring an SEO agency? Let’s discuss. Click the link below to contact me.