Search engine optimization, or SEO, is critical for lawyers and law firms for several reasons. Search engine optimization helps you or your firm rank higher when people conduct online searches for relevant topics on Google, YouTube, and others. However, savvy SEO is about more than SERP (search engine results page) rankings when someone searches for a lawyer in your city. It can help you establish competence, trust, and a good reputation, and most importantly, sign on more clients who will become satisfied customers.
Help Your Reputation
You already know that your reputation is critical for law firms and lawyers. Higher rankings on SERPs are vital in forming assumptions about a business's competence and track record. Working on your SEO and making changes to improve it will naturally do a lot of the work of reputation-building, including creating a better user experience, creating relevant and authoritative content, and soliciting reviews and feedback.
Another aspect of SEO is user ratings. Even though we know it isn't easy to encapsulate a client's entire experience in a 1-5 star rating, Google uses ratings as a factor in their SEO algorithms for search engine results. The higher your SEO, the better the ratings you should have, and vice versa.
Boost Your Content Marketing With Authority and Referrals
You will need content that organically captures more search terms to drive website traffic. To do that, you'll need multiple pages that naturally incorporate common keywords, phrases, and search terms. Experts recommend that law firms maintain a blog or have robust pages with frequently asked questions or information guides about the type of law they practice. Not only does this direct more users to your site, but it also helps you become more authoritative in the eyes of the public. It also forces you to be very savvy about the content on your website and other platforms.
As your website garners more organic traffic, its SEO will improve. As that happens, your various pages will be used for reference and backlinks more often because they recognize you as an authority in your field of law. Backlinks are links to your page from a third-party website, and bloggers and reviewers often use them to provide more information in related articles and posts. It's another way to build rapport and drive more clicks to your website.
Have More Contact with Potential Clients
Many studies show that the more contacts you have with a potential client, the more likely they will sign a contract with you. Boosting your SEO involves creating relevant content that drives more traffic to your site. For example, a divorce attorney might have an information page explaining custody law in their state. By doing so, you're more likely to capture the same potential client when they conduct separate searches for "law firm [city name]" and "custody laws [state]."
The more times a potential client uses you as a resource, the more trust you build with them. Not only are they more likely to hire you, but you've already started building a healthy working relationship. To encourage this working relationship, though, it's important to note that if your website is cumbersome and hard to use, those potential clients might move on to your competitors. It also hurts many of the other factors of search engine optimization.
Improving your search engine optimization means investing in your website and overall online presence. Through that process, you will have a more robust and accessible user experience.
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