SEO Strategy for Law Firms: The Essential Guide

Proven Strategies For Generating Leads With SEO

Topics Covered In This Article

• Google Rankings
• Keys to SEO Growth
• Content Strategy
• Link Building
• Technical SEO
• Security
• SEO Pitfalls to Avoid

Google Rankings

How Google ranks your website (what matters):

• Do you publish high-quality content regularly?
• Does the website load quickly (under 3 seconds)?
• Is the information relevant (satisfies the searcher’s intent)?
• Is the website safe and secure (no malware or technical issues)?
• Is the design fast and user-friendly on mobile and desktop?
• Do the keywords appear in the body, URL, and title tags?
• Is the page from a high-quality, trusted source?
• How old is the domain? Will it expire soon?
• How many links go to and from the page?
• How much time do visitors spend on the page?

Everything on your website matters (if it affects the user experience, it matters to Google)

• Content quality
• Update frequency
• Technical aspects
• Design
• User experience
• Internal and external links

Google ranks websites by these three categories (a good website must score high for all three):

1. Relevancy (addresses the user’s intent for a specific keyword or phrase)

• How many times a keyword appears on the page (keyword density)
• How many relevant websites link to the page
• Keywords in the anchor text of links
• Time spent on page (more time on page = more relevant)

2. Popularity (determined by how many links point to the page)

• Google values one-way links more than reciprocal links (frowns upon ‘’link trading’’
• How to get outside links:

→Get mentioned in the press
→Contribute content to other publications
→List your law firm in attorney directories and business directories
→Create social media profiles and link to your website

3. Integrity (no technical problems)

• • Website loads fast
  • Good on-page SEO
  • No broken links
  • No duplicate content
  • No redirects
  • No mobile issues

Keys To SEO Growth

1. Getting more backlinks (outside links) to your site (increasing popularity)
2. Publishing more relevant, high-quality content
3. Keep up with site maintenance and technical fixes

Things that harm your Google rankings:

1. Duplicate content

• Plagiarism = duplicate content from an external source (check for plagiarism with Grammarly)
• Cannibalism = duplicate content from one of your own pages (check for cannibalism with Siteliner)

2. Technical problems

• Broken links
• Links to pages that no longer exist
• Large, uncompressed images that slow down the site

3. Too many apps or plugins (such as chat features) that slow down the site and result in penalties

Content Strategy

• Focus your content on the types of cases you want more of
• Don’t cannibalize (duplicate) content from your other web pages

→Instead, consolidate the content onto a single page

• Always provide internal links to related pages

→Internal links on your website are very important and create a valuable competitive edge

• Use the Skyscraper Technique: if the article ranking #1 for your keyword has 3,000 words, then write one with 5,000 words

→The goal is to make something better and more comprehensive than what already exists
→Then contact the pages that link to your competitor’s page and ask them to link to your (better) skyscraper instead

• Don’t overcomplicate it. There are three main goals:

1. Become a subject matter expert
2. Develop a presence in your target market
3. Create better content than your competitors

• Where to start?

1. Update your practice area pages first. These are your pillar content.
2. Use your blogs to branch out into topics related to practice area pages (be sure to add internal links!)
3. Use local keywords in your text, headings, and URL (i.e. ‘’San Diego personal injury lawyer’’)

• Only have one page optimized for each keyword (+ related keywords)

→Don’t have a separate page for each related keyword. Compile all the information into one document.
→You don’t want multiple blog posts optimized for the same keyword. It’s damaging to your SEO.

Link Building

• Getting outside links to your website is essential for good SEO
• You don’t just want links; you want links from RELEVANT websites
• Links from websites with high domain authority are better
• The number of domains that link to your website is more important than the number of links you have

→It’s better to get 10 links from 10 different domains than 10 links from the same domain

• One-way links are better than two-way links (reciprocal links are frowned upon)
• Use descriptive anchor text for your links

→Google analyzes the anchor text of links
→Make sure the anchor text is relevant
→Don’t use the same anchor text to link to two different pages (this confuses Google)

• Regularly check your backlinks on Google Search Console

→Eliminate (disavow) spam backlinks

• Use Backlinko or Semrush to identify competitor’s backlinks

→Reach out directly and ask them to link to you instead of your competitors

• Passive link-building is wishful thinking (unless you are publishing cutting edge, original research and statistics that are of the highest value)
• Build links proactively:

→Set up profiles on attorney directories and business directories and link to your website
→Set up social media profiles (including YouTube) and link to your website
→Do interviews and podcasts
→Send out press releases for events you’re hosting/attending/sponsoring
→Form relationships with government agencies and higher education institutions
→Post job opportunities on job websites
→Steal links from your competitors
→Guest blog on related, high-ranking websites

• To outrank your competitors, you must have as many or more trusted links as them

Technical SEO

• Technical SEO = the overall functionality of your website
• Use Google Search Console to identify problems
• URL Structure

→Use ‘’https’’ in your URLs rather than ‘’http’’
→Choose whether to use www or not
→Whether you use it or not doesn’t matter, but stay consistent
→Example: https://yourwebsite.com

• Check PageSpeed Insights for page speed and mobile functionality

→Goal = all webpages load in 2 seconds or less
→If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 50% of people leave
→If your scores are not in the ‘’green,’’ then your site needs to be updated (contact your developer or hire us)
→Google rewards mobile-friendly sites and punishes those that aren’t
→Google uses mobile-first indexing, which prioritizes the mobile experience (think ‘’mobile first’’)
→Key features to make your site mobile-friendly:

1. Large, accessible text, buttons, and links
2. Correct formatting and layout (centered, well-organized)
3. Fast loading times

• Address duplicate content issues immediately
• Check for cannibalism using Siteliner
• Check for plagiarism using Grammarly

→File a DMCA takedown notice if you catch people plagiarizing

• Use Screaming Frog SEO Spider to check for crawling errors:

→Internal and external links
→HTTP response codes
→URL structure
→Page titles
→Meta descriptions
→Header tags
→Image file sizes
→Pagination issues

• Your technical SEO check should include:

→Crawl depth (the number of clicks it takes for a user to land on the page)
→Duplicative content (plagiarism and cannibalization)
→Broken links
→Crawl/indexing errors (404 errors, blocked pages, server errors, broken links, etc.)
→Slow page speed
→Mobile accessibility
→URL Structure

Security

• Use two-factor authentication to access your website and hosting service (prevents hacks)
• Make sure your hosting company has automated and manual backups to protect your data and restore your site if it becomes compromised
• Check Google Search Console regularly for evidence of hacks or cyber attacks
• Use a cyber security program like Wordfence (free) to further protect from hacks

SEO Pitfalls To Avoid

Treating SEO as a one-and-done

• SEO requires regular content publishing, link building, and technical maintenance
• It’s an ongoing process (forever)

Abrupt Starts and Stops

• If you start and then stop, you lose momentum
• Be consistent (no start and stops)

Outsourcing to Poor SEOs

• A good SEO provider will handle:

→Content strategy
→URL structure
→Header tags
→Meta descriptions
→Internal and external links
→On-page SEO
→Off-page SEO
→Link building
→And more

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