SEO For Lawyers: The Ultimate Guide To Law Firm SEO In 2023

This guide is for lawyers who want to learn how SEO can help them grow their law practice. SEO is a great way to get more visitors and case leads.

You will learn how to rank your law firm website on Google, what keywords to target, how to write compelling content that will boost your rankings, along with much more.

Chapter 1: What Is SEO For Lawyers?

What Is SEO?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to the process of increasing website traffic by improving organic search engine rankings in search engines such as: Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Types Of SEO Strategies

In SEO, there are many different strategies and ways to raise your ranking. Yet, some of them are better than others. Because of this, you should understand the difference between White-Hat, Gray-Hat, and Black-Hat SEO.

White-Hat

To achieve real, long-term SEO results, you should focus on white-hat SEO. The purpose of white-hat SEO is to rank your website higher in the search engines by using ethical and Google-approved strategies.

Common White-Hat SEO Techniques:

• Website Speed Optimizations
• Unique Content Creation
• Proper Website URL Structure
• Internal Linking To Useful Content
• Outbound Links To Related Content
• UX Improvements
• Keyword Research
• Schema Implementation
• Organic Link Building

Gray-Hat

Grey-hat lies on the fine line between good and bad tactics. If you use these techniques now, you might be fine. But there’s a possibility that one day Google will update to stop these kinds of tactics to improve SEO.

Common Gray-Hat SEO Techniques

• Expired Domains
• Purchasing Links
• Spun or Duplicate Content

Black-Hat

Black-hat SEO is frowned upon by Google and other search engines. It is likely that your website will be penalized if you try and put in place these techniques to get a quick SEO win. That is exactly what you don’t want to do if you want to succeed with SEO for the long term.

Common Black-Hat SEO Techniques

• PBN (Private Blog Networks)
• Paid Links
• Spam Comments
• Duplicate or Stolen Content
• Cloaking
• Doorway Pages
• Keyword Stuffing
• Invisible Text
• Hacked Websites

Chapter 2: Why Is SEO Important For Lawyers

The Importance Of SEO For Law Firms

As we all know, word of mouth is the best way to get new case leads or clients. Online leads are the next best thing to it. For this reason, SEO is so important.

Chances are your potential leads are searching on Google for terms such as “personal injury lawyer los angeles”. But, if you don’t appear on the first page of Google, they aren’t going to call you. Why?

Because they can’t find you!

But who are they calling instead? Your competitor who is investing into SEO and is on the first page of Google.

For this reason, many lawyers are investing in SEO their law firm websites.

Chapter 3: SEO Vs. Other Forms Of Law Firm Marketing

As we all know, SEO is one of many marketing tactics that you can use to promote your law firm. In this section, we will compare SEO against each of these marketing methods.

SEO vs. PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

If you have ever invested time in marketing your website, you have  heard of PPC advertising. Omit PPC ads, the most popular two are Google AdWords and Bing Ads. These two ad platforms work the same way. You set up your ads to appear for a specific search term and if someone clicks on it, you will be charged.

While this may sound great in theory, it does have some major disadvantages. One disadvantage is the high average cost per click ($5-$300 per click) in the law industry. Also, once you’ve spent your monthly budget, your ads will stop appearing. This means that no one will be able to find you online anymore.

How does this differ from SEO? SEO differs from PPC in that you invest in your website to achieve organic first page rankings. While with PPC you pay for them.

You’ll never lose your top ranking in organic SEO because of budget constraints. Plus, traffic compounds over time. This means that you can build up the number of visitors landing on your website over time. This isn’t possible with PPC because your traffic is always limited by the budget you set.

Please do not get us wrong – both marketing channels should be a part of every law firm’s marketing strategy.

SEO vs. Facebook Ads

When it comes to getting in front of your potential customers, SEO and Facebook ads are two very different strategies. This is because when we do SEO, we show up for a term we know they are searching for.

While with Facebook Ads, we pay to display ads to people who could be potential clients.

Can you see the difference? It is subtle, but it is different. On Facebook, we don’t know they are looking for a law firm and we have to pay per impression. As with SEO, we are showing to people we know are searching for that term, but we are not paying per impression or click.

While Facebook Ads still have a place in your law firm’s marketing strategy, they should work along with SEO. Yet, as you can see, SEO still has some major advantages over Facebook ads.

SEO vs. Social Media Marketing

We all know social media is important in today’s world of smartphones and viral videos. But what is the difference between social media and SEO?

Social media marketing differs from SEO because you cannot be found for search terms. Yes, you can through hashtags, but as you know it isn’t that easy.

Additionally, with most social media platforms, once a post has been up for 24 hours, it is dead and won’t get viewed. The advantage of SEO is that a page or post can rank for years, sometimes improving in the rankings over time.

SEO vs. Email Marketing

There aren’t many similarities between SEO and email marketing. The reason is with email marketing, you send your email to a list. While with SEO, you are found through a search engine.

Thus, with email marketing you have already interacted with them before. When you use SEO, the majority of your traffic will come from new users. SEO should works in tandem with email marketing. This is so that you can communicate with both new and returning customers.

Chapter 4: What Are The Google SERPS?

The Different Areas Of The Google SERPS?

Local Service Ads

When someone searches for an attorney on Google, the first section they see contains listings of attorneys across the top of the page.

This section is known as the Local Service Ads. Those are a type of Google Ads and are not related to SEO in any way. These lawyers being shown are charged per click for these ads.

Google Search Ads

The Local Service Ads are not always visible and, in those cases, the first thing you notice on the page are these listing texts that contain the “Ad” symbol.

These are known as Google Search Ads. These ads are pay per click ads, like local service ads. But they still do a good job of mimicking what organic search results look like, so they are effective.

Map 3 Pack

After you scroll down past the local service ads or google search ads, you will see a large map with three listings. There are various names for this section, but we like to call it Google Map 3 Pack. There are only three listings displayed without having to click to see more.

Listed here are organic and appear as a result of local SEO. So, this is different from local service ads and Google search ads, since you are not charged per click to show up in this section. Instead, you need to improve your local SEO.

Organic Search Results

You can think of organic search results as your old-fashioned Google listings. This section is very important because here all the listings are organic. In other words, people can’t pay for their business to be there, which is why this is so powerful.

If you are able to get your business listed on the first page for relevant keywords through SEO, you are likely to dominate your competition.

People Also Ask

Not all Google searches will show this section. But when it does, it is usually when you search for a question. In this section you can find other related questions to your search.

Featured Snippets

Like People Also Ask, this section doesn’t always appear for every single search query. Instead, it usually appears when a question is asked and Google believes they have a simple and concise answer for it.

Having said that, there is a way to increase your chances of showing up in this section more than your competitors, and we know it… completely answering the question in the first paragraph and making it bold can help.

Google My Business (Google Business Profile)

Google My Business profiles are important for all businesses. If you do not have one, you are missing out on a lot of business. To get one set up you can register at https://www.google.com/business/. With this profile, you will have the opportunity to appear in Google Maps and Search. Also, it allows you to get reviews, add pictures, and display other important information about your law firm.

If you haven’t already set one up for your law firm, stop reading this now and do so. If you have many offices, you can set up these profiles for each one.

Chapter 5: What Are SEO Ranking Factors?

What Are The Google Ranking Factors?

To improve the ranking of your website on Google or any of the other search engines, you need to consider a variety of factors. In this section, we will discuss each of these factors in detail. So you can get a clear idea of what you need to be doing to make Google happy and improve your law firms rankings.

Content

For ranking and SEO, content is going to be any form of written, video, or image content. Yet, the majority of the content on your website will be written, such as blogs or pages.

It is important to have unique and quality content if you want your website to rank well. Your content should not be copied from other websites and it should provide value to the reader.

When you produce high-quality content, your readers will see you as an industry leader. Which will lead them to trust you more than your competition.

Backlinks

The term backlink may be unfamiliar to some of you, but if you are familiar with SEO, you have heard the term at least once. Backlinks are links from another website to yours.

The reason why these are so important is because they pass authority to your website – what is known as “Link Juice”. As a result of the authority that is passed from one webpage to another through a backlink. Your website will be able to rank higher and faster than ever before.

What Makes A Good Backlink?

Omit backlinks, not all are created equal. Some links carry more authority than others. To choose a quality backlink, consider these factors:

• Relevance: When you get backlinks to your website, you want to have them be from sites in your industry. This because it will carry more link juice than a site from another industry.
• Quality: because a link belongs to your industry does not mean that it will pass a lot of authority. So, make sure the site you are getting a link from has a good domain authority.
• Quantity: When it comes to backlinks, the more the better. But as we stated earlier quality and relevance are also very important.

Website Optimizations

Core Web Vitals

According to Google’s definition, Core Web Vitals is a fancy name for page experience. Google announced that your page experience has become a more important ranking factor.

But what is Google looking for in your Core Web Vitals? Their primary concern is that your website is fast. This means that your site doesn’t have a lot of layout changes, and is easy to interact with. The end result is that your website will provide a more enjoyable experience for the users.

Also to this, Google also wants some other basic elements to be present on your site, such as having an SSL certificate, being mobile-friendly, and not spamming your users with pop-ups and ads.

Content Structure

Having established the importance of site speed and page experience, Google wants you to structure your content properly, so it can figure out what your post or page is about .

To do so, you need to ensure that you use the right headings when writing your content.

Permalink Structure (URLs)

As part of setting up your website, you need to make sure that it has an effective permalink structure. In layman’s terms, this means your URLs are organized in a way that Google can easily crawl and will let you grow your business along with your site.

Chapter 6: How To Do SEO Keyword Research For Lawyers

What Is SEO Keyword Research?

Keyword Research is finding search terms that you would like to rank for on the search engines. It is important that you do keyword research before you begin writing your content. But we will get more into the why in the next section.

Why Is Keyword Research Important?

Omit importance, keyword research is only second to content in SEO. The main reason behind this is that you need to figure out what keywords are important to your business. But also, what ones are possible for you to rank for.

Research matters because if you don’t do any, then it is like shooting a gun blindfolded. Once in a blue moon you’re going to hit a target. But if you can aim with your eyes staring at the target it is going to be much easier to hit.

What Is Search Intent?

Google is smart enough to understand that people who are searching on Google have some intent behind what they are looking for. As a result, search terms have varying intentions.

Content creation requires figuring out the user’s intent to provide the user with the right content. When doing this you have a better chance that the content will rank for that keyword.

Types Of Keyword Search Intent

• Informational: When a user wants to know an answer to a question.
• Navigational: When a user is looking for a specific page on a site.
• Commercial: When a user is looking for a specific brand or service.
• Transactional: When a user wants to take an action.

Best Keyword Research Tools

Ubersuggest

Our first recommendation to anyone is Ubersuggest. The reason for this is that you can do a few free searches every day without paying for the tool.

So, if you want to check a few terms, it’s a good tool to use. Additionally, we like to recommend this tool because it is the least expensive of the all-in-one SEO and keyword research tools.

SEMrush

Here at LawTurbo, SEMrush is our personal favorite tool and the backbone of our business. In terms of functionality, SEMrush is similar to Ubersuggest in that it offers all-in-one SEO features, but the main difference is that it offers a lot more functionality and is a bit more complicated. This is the perfect tool for keywords research, backlink audits, competitor analysis, and much more.

Ahrefs

Known as the main competitor to SEMrush, Ahrefs has gained a lot of popularity over the years. There is no right or wrong choice between the two tools, it is much like picking between Coke or Pepsi, both are great, but everyone has a preference.

Keywords Everywhere

There are many tools we have talked about so far, but Keywords Everywhere is completely different.

This is due to the fact that it is a Google Chrome Plugin. This tool shows you basic keyword volume information for keyword research.

When it was free, this tool was one of our favorites. But, now that it is paid, SEMrush has become our new favorite. However, it is still a lot cheaper than the other tools mentioned.

Answer The Public

Answer The Public is awesome for content ideas. With this tool, you simply enter a keyword and it will find hundreds frequently asked questions about that keyword. And with the paid version it will give you search volume and other great metrics.

Google Keyword Planner

Before we had SEMrush or Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner was the original SEO tool. Within your Google Ads account, you can access Google Keyword Planner. The purpose of this tool is to estimate search volumes for specific keywords in order to bid on them in Google Ads. This information can also be valuable to SEO.

Keep in mind that when this tool shows competition, it is talking about paid advertising not organic search engine optimization, which is completely different.

How To Find Law Industry Keywords To Rank For

Having discussed why keywords are important and which tools to use, now let’s talk about how to use these tools to find the relevant law-related keywords that we need to rank for.

Our preferred strategy for keywords is The Keyword Golden Ratio. We won’t use this for all keywords we want to target, but it does help us identify low hanging fruit that we can target with blogs or other pages on your site.

To start off, we need to use a tool like SEMrush to identify keywords with a low search volume and difficulty.

We do this by entering a base keyword such as “workers compensation”. Once that has been done, we will sort the results to appear under 250 monthly searches.

The next step is to create a Google Sheet with these keywords and check the search results manually on Google to see what our competition looks like and if we believe we can rank for these terms.

We should then have 100+ keywords ready to go after once we have done this.

Chapter 7: How To Create Content for Lawyers

What Types Of Content Should Lawyers Be Creating?

Blog Articles

The majority of the content that you create for your law firm’s website will be blog articles. By creating these blog posts you will be able to target different keywords and expand the reach of your blog.

Videos

Due to the amount of time required to create a quality video, videos are not likely to be created too often, but this type of content is very popular, especially on YouTube and social media. Regardless, it can be a great complement to your site.

Service Pages

The service pages are the core of your website, and they are the pages that most visitors will seek out. It is best to have each page focus on a specific service and go into great detail about it.

Location Pages

When your law firm has multiple locations or you want to appear in organic search results for different cities, we always recommend creating lots of location pages. Typically, these pages will target a specific term in a specific area, such as “Personal Injury Lawyer Los Angeles”.

Content on these pages must be specific to each city and should include unique information. For this, utilize images of that city or mention that city in the text.

A common mistake is to copy the content and paste it into a new page and change the name/url. This will result in Google seeing it as duplicate content and removing the page from its rankings.

FAQ Pages

As a law firm, we know that leads ask the same questions over and over again. This is why you should always have an FAQ page or FAQ section on your service pages. As a result, you will prevent getting the same questions asked to you all the time, and you will be able to rank higher in Google for these common questions.

How To Create Quality Content

Even though each type of content is going to be different, there are a few things that all types of content must possess in order to be considered quality content.

Unique Content

It may seem obvious, but your content should always be unique. Simply put, you should never copy the content of someone else word for word. The structure and the topic of your content can be similar but the content should never be copied and pasted.

Provide Value

Many people seem to have trouble understanding this one for some reason. You should not be in “sales mode” when creating content. Instead, you should be trying to help the user, whether it is answering a question or teaching them something.

What is the fastest way to lose prospective clients? Try to sell right away and provide no value.

How Can You Write Your Content To Be Optimized For SEO?

SEO writing is actually easier than it seems. The only thing you need to do is organize your content in a way that’s easy for users to read and understand while also ensuring Google knows what each section is about. Here’s how to do it.

1. Choose One Main Keyword To Target

Many people make this simple mistake. In a blog post that answers the question “What is workers’ compensation”, talk about all that you know about workers’ compensation. You should also avoid engaging in things that are unrelated to the topic such as divorce law or even personal injury law.

2. Use The Correct Headings

Headings help Google understand what each section of your content is about.

H1s, for example, should be the title of your blog post and let Google know what the post is about in general. The H2s, on the other hand, will tell Google what that specific section is about. Similarly, H3s will be sections within H2, and so on.

In addition to being used by Google, the headings are also designed to help users quickly skim a page to find the information that they are looking for.

3. Make Your Content Easily Readable

The truth is, you would be surprised at how many people write articles that are utterly horrible to read.

To make the content more readable, we recommend writing short sentences and short paragraphs. This will make the content more visually appealing and easier to read.

4. Use Alt Tags On Images

Since Google is a machine, it cannot physically see the images on the page. To help Google understand what an image is, we use something called an Alt Tag. It is a small bit of code in the image that tells Google what the image is.

We recommend adding alt tags to all images on your site and using text that contains a keyword or describes the image.

Chapter 8: What Are On-Page SEO Optimizations?

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-Page SEO or On-Site SEO are optimizations that can be made on your website such as a URL structure, page speed, schema, and more to improve your organic rankings.

What Is URL Structure?

Your choice of URL structure is determined by whether or not you have an existing website or if the site is brand new. In most cases, following the same structure will be the best option if your site is already ranking for some terms. Otherwise, you risk losing rankings.

However, if a new site is being built, we typically recommend keeping the URL structure flat because it makes updating the site easier and Google doesn’t lose the urls when crawling the site.

Types Of URL Structures

There are two ways to set up your URLs: Flat or sub categories. Throughout this section, we will discuss both types and what is best for your law firm.

Flat URL Structure

A flat url structure is when your URL does not have any category or sub directory.

Sub-Directory Structure

Unlike the flat structure, the sub-directory structure is organized by directories. Typically these directories will be organized into categories that make sense for your website. Each of these directories and categories will be unique to you, so not every site will have the same structure.

Tips For Having A Good URL Structure

You should keep the following in mind whether you use a flat structure or a sub-directory structure:

URL Path

URL paths indicate how deeply nested a post or page is. If your site is large, it can take quite some time for Google’s crawl bots to find your post nested deep in your site. This is important since it has been shown that pages closer to the home directory rank better.

URL Length

We see this mistake every day even though it should be common sense. Make sure your URLs are short. This is because they are more visually appealing, and they also make it easier for people to remember your URL when sharing it with others. If possible, keep useless information out of your URLs.

Domain

Domain names can play a role in your rankings, but as Google’s search results have improved, domain names are less important.

Ten years ago, you could choose a domain name like “lawyersnearme.com” and rank on the first page just by having those keywords in your domain name.

In today’s world, it still plays a role, but it’s not as important as it once was. Now we recommend picking a name that is brandable and not too long in order to make it easier to remember.

What Are Meta Titles And Meta Descriptions?

Despite the fact that you might not know what a Meta Title or Description is, you actually see them every single day. They are the titles and descriptions of pages that appear in a Google search. By changing your titles, you can improve your rankings.

What Are Internal Links?

An internal link is a link that connects one page to another on your website. They can include things like a link in a blog post that links to another blog or a link on your site’s main navigation menu.

In addition to helping users find other relevant pages on your website, internal links help Google bots crawl and index your website. By making internal links, you will improve the user experience and how fast your site will rank.

What Is Schema?

Schema is just additional data added to a post or page. Data can range from reviews to location data and almost anything in between. Google uses this data to understand what the page is about and can display reviews in the search engine results.

What Is Website Speed?

Your website’s speed is exactly as it sounds, the speed at which it loads. Since people have short attention spans, your website needs to load fast to ensure that users will be able to stay on your site longer.

Chapter 9: What Is Local SEO And Why Do You Need It?

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO simply means ranking locally for specific keywords. The process is different from regular SEO in that we have to apply a few different tactics and the ranking factors vary slightly.

What Are The Local SEO Ranking Factors?

Unlike regular SEO, local SEO focuses not only on the Google organic section, but also on the Google maps section. As a result, we have a few different ranking factors.

Distance

It simply means how far the searcher is from your business. Despite the fact that it cannot be completely controlled, there are a few ways to get around it. Two ways to do this are to create location pages, which will not show up on maps but will help organically and to add more Google My Business accounts.

Relevance

Relevance can be measured by how closely your GMB profile and site relate to the searcher’s query and intent. By optimizing your Google My Business page and website correctly, local SEO can help you improve this.

Prominence

Finally, we have prominence. The level of your business’s popularity online and offline will affect the overall Local SEO of your site.

What Is A Google My Business Profile (Google Business Profile)?

Previously known as Google My Business, Google Business Profile is a business profile that you can create on Google for free which allows you to be seen in the Google Maps section on Google for free.

Why Does Your Law Firm Need A Google My Business Profile?

In addition to being listed in the map section on Google, your law firm’s Google My Business profile will allow you to get reviews, have a click to call, click to directions, and link to your website that can be easily found on Google. In addition, you will be able to run Local Campaigns and Smart Campaigns.

Why Are Citations Important For Lawyers’ SEO?

Citations are important for lawyers SEO because they help confirm with Google that your Google My Business information is correct and that you are a real physical business.

Furthermore, you will receive a lot of low domain authority links, which can be very useful for new websites.

How To Build Citations For Lawyers

In order to build citations for your business, you can sign up on all of the websites and fill out the information manually, or you can use a tool to do it for you.

We recommend the second option. Tools like BrightLocal and Yext allow you to pay a few dollars and enter your information once and the tools will automatically add it to all the different directories online.

Remember to keep your information the same as it is listed on your Google My Business profile.

How Many Citations Do Lawyers Need?

With a tool like BrightLocal or Yext, you will have an option to specify how many sites your business should be listed on. It is recommended that you list your business on as many sites as possible. In general, the more places you submit your information, the better.

Are Reviews Important For Local SEO?

Reviews are important for SEO. It has been shown that reviews boost your local rankings, increase your conversion rates, and protect you from losing those inevitable bad reviews.

How To Get More Reviews On Google My Business (Google Business Profile)

Asking your friends and family to leave you reviews on Google My Business is the easiest way to gain reviews.

As soon as you have done that, reach out to your most loyal clients. As soon as you’ve exhausted those options, consider offering a gift card or something else in exchange for a review.

You should only ask clients who are satisfied because a negative review will harm your business.

You should use a reputation management tool such as Birdeye if you’re worried that you’ll get negative reviews.

Chapter 10: What Is Link Building For Lawyers?

What Is A Backlink (Hyperlink)?

Backlinks, also known as hyperlinks, are clickable links back to your law firm’s website from another website. Your website’s SEO benefits from these links because they tell Google that another site likes your content. Ultimately, this lets Google know that you are an authority on the topic and makes your website rank higher.

What Is Link Building?

Link building is the process of obtaining links from other sites. You can do this naturally if your content is really useful to your readers. However, most of the time people spend a lot of time and resources on campaigns designed to build links.

What should you do? Both of them, ideally. Your ranking will improve much faster if you can get links naturally and build some links yourself instead of relying on natural links alone.

What Makes Backlinks Good?

Not just any backlink is good for your website so here are some things to look for when trying to build good links:

• Content on the site is of high quality

• There are not many links to other websites on the site

• They have a high DA

• Their business is related to yours

• Visitors and traffic to their site are real

What Is Anchor Text?

Anchor text is text that links to your website and that can be clicked on. A search engine like Google will check this text to see if this link makes sense.

When linking to a law firm’s website, the anchor text should be something like “John’s Law Firm” or “Personal Injury Lawyer”, rather than something unrelated such as “hotdogs” or “washer machines”.

Types Of Backlinks

After learning a bit more about backlinks, let’s examine the different types of backlinks.

Dofollow

Backlinks that are dofollow pass authority (also known as link juice) to your website.

Nofollow

Although nofollow links may appear the same as do follow links, they tell Google to ignore the link and will not pass any authority (link juice).

How Does Link Building Work?

Link building entails actively obtaining links from other sites, whether directly or through the creation of shareable content.

Popular Link Building Strategies

As mentioned in the previous section, link building is a pretty broad term, and there are several ways to build links to your site. To help you generate quality links, we will talk about some of the more popular strategies in this section.

Guest Posting

First, let’s take a look at guest posting, which is probably the most popular form of link building. This strategy simply involves reaching out to other websites in your industry or sites with a high domain authority and asking if they would be willing to let you write a guest post for them.

Due to the popularity of this strategy, most websites charge a fee for guest posts. There is no hard and fast rule here because sometimes great sites will charge you $10 while a small blog might charge you $300.

You can always negotiate a little bit to bring the price down a little bit. In general, we suggest offering half of what they ask and they will at least reduce the price by a little bit.

Reclaim Unlinked Mentions

There is no cost to this strategy, but it does take some time. In essence, all you’re doing is looking for websites that mention your law firm. Then you just email them asking if they are willing to link to your site since they have already written about you somewhere on their website.

Statistic Pages

Statistic Pages might not always bring in a lot of links, but they are a great way to build links without actively approaching other websites.

This is because you are going to write an awesome article with lots of statistics about something in your industry. If it ranks high, there is a good chance that a journalist will use a statistic from it and link to your website.

Use Images To Build Links

People steal images all the time from other websites, so it can be an easy way to get some links back to yours.

You simply need to do a reverse image search to find sites using your image, and contact them to request a link if they want to use the image.

Shareable Content

You should create shareable content because this ensures that you are not only creating backlinks, but also content your readers will enjoy.

This shareable content can be made in a number of ways, and we will examine some of the more popular forms in this section.

Infographics

Infographics are among the best types of shareable content because they are visually appealing and contain a lot of useful information that one can reshare on the site or other platforms.

Blogging

Blogging is usually the best way to create shareable content since if you write a compelling post, all someone has to do is copy and paste the link.

Go On Podcasts

Being a guest on someone else’s podcast is one of the easiest ways to build high quality links.

Basically, when you appear on someone’s show, they feel obligated to reciprocate in some way, such as by creating a link to your website. Additionally, podcasters tend to have good websites and a high domain authority because of this exact reason.

Help A Reporter Out (HARO)

In the past few years, this strategy has been all the rage, and with good reason! You sign up for HARO’s email list, and twice a day they provide a list of reporters looking for a quote from an expert in a specific field.

Therefore, if you respond to enough of these reporters, you can get some high-quality backlinks from sites like CNN, NBC, and Forbes.

Directories

The Local SEO section will discuss directories in greater detail, but directories are a great way to get lower domain authority links to your website. These are very useful for local SEO.

Scholarships

You can get a high domain authority backlink from a reputable website by giving money to a school for a scholarship. This is because normally when you donate or award a scholarship, they link back to your website.

Nonetheless, these links can be worthless if they remove the link after the scholarship ends.

Purchasing Links

You need to be careful when trying this strategy. It is because if people are sending you emails or messaging you on LinkedIn selling links, these sites are likely to be bad and have fake metrics.

Most of the people who sell links create these sites purely for the purpose of selling links, which is not what you want. Consider using one of the other strategies listed to obtain links from real sites.

Broken Link Campaigns

An old strategy might be nearing its end. By using this strategy, you identify sites with links that do your work and suggest that they fix that link by linking to yours. This can be an effective way to build links, but there are more efficient ways to do so.

Influencer Outreach

Backlinks built this way are similar to guest posting in that you would contact influencers who would link to you and maybe even mention you on their social media platforms.

While it is less relevant to law firms, there can be angles to this where it makes sense.

Link Exchanges

By exchanging links with another website, both sites are able to work together and improve their SEO. However, we do not suggest using this as a long-term strategy since Google will notice when you reciprocate every link you receive.

Asking For Links From Business You Work With

A great way to quickly score some good links is to request links from other businesses or vendors that you work with.

If you have been working with a copy service for a long time, you can ask them to link to you on their website and it would be surprising if they said no.

Chapter 11: How To Track SEO Results

Why Do You Need To Track SEO Results?

The purpose of tracking SEO results is to see how well your SEO efforts are doing and how you can improve them in the future. Particularly if you are working with an In-House or SEO Agency, so that you can verify that you are improving the overall performance of your website.

Best Tools To Use For SEO Result Tracking

Here are some tools that can help you track your SEO results:

Bright Local

Bright Local is a site that allows you to update your listings online, but it also offers many awesome keywords tracking tools. You can use these tools to track keyword rankings month over month and see whether they are going up or down.

SEMrush

SEMrush was already mentioned earlier in the guide so you probably have an idea of what it is, but for those who just skimmed over it, it is an all-encompassing SEO tool. With SEMrush, you can examine your Domain Authority, Backlinks, Traffic, Keywords, and more to see how well you’re doing.

What SEO Metrics Are Important To Track?

To be honest, the SEO metrics you want to track depend on what you want from your SEO campaign. Those who want to see themselves above their competitors will be satisfied with just tracking local keywords.

But if you really want to grow, you should pay attention to: Local Keywords, Domain Authority, Page Authority, Website Traffic, Keywords, Backlinks, and most importantly, conversions.

Chapter 12: How To Implement SEO For Lawyers

Implement The SEO Yourself

When it comes to SEO, you might want to implement it yourself if you’re a DIY type. By following these steps, you can improve the SEO of your site significantly. However, unless you have a background in content creation and web development, your business growth will be much slower.

The Pros And Cons Of Implementing Your Own SEO

Before you jump into implementing these tips to your website here are some pros and cons:

Pros

• Less expensive
• Expand your SEO & digital marketing knowledge

Cons

• Certain tasks will need developers
• Learning SEO will be time-consuming
• Implementation will take even longer
• Pay for SEO tools

Hire An In-House SEO Specialist

Having someone working on your website and SEO full time is ideal especially if they are extremely knowledgeable and well versed in all aspects of SEO and Web Development. But in reality that is pretty hard to find nowadays without a very enticing salary, benefits, and more.

But what an In-House expert offers is SEO that is only limited by their time and ability.

The Pros And Cons Of Hiring An In-House SEO

In-House SEOs can be fantastic but there are some things you should consider before putting out a job description online:

Pros

• You will have full control over your SEO
• With the right person, can produce great results
• Has the ability to create a lot of great content

Cons

• Very expensive salary
• Pay benefits
• Manage another employee
• Pay for SEO tools
• Limited by their knowledge
• Still might need a developer for changes
• Might not be knowledgeable about law

Hire An SEO Agency For Lawyers

The last option is to hire an SEO agency for Lawyers such as LawTurbo to help you with your law firm’s SEO. Having an agency will allow you to focus on helping clients and running your business while still growing your online presence.

The Pros And Cons Of Hiring An SEO Agency For Lawyers

As with everything, agencies have their pros and cons, here are our list of the pros and cons of hiring an SEO agency for lawyers.

Pros

• Specialized in Law and knows the industry
• Great results (If you are with a good agency)
• Has the insider information on what competitors are doing
• Cheaper than In-House SEO
• Work with many law firm specialized SEO experts rather than just one person
• Paying for SEO tools is not necessary
• You don’t have to learn SEO yourself
• Will not have to hire developers to implement changes in most cases
• Get monthly reports
• Have an account manager
• Directly managing a team is not necessary
• Do not have to pay benefits

Cons

• Things will not be done last minute. Since agencies manage several clients, changes must be discussed in advance.
• There’s a good chance they don’t know your law firm as well as an in-house SEO specialist
• Have office hours that may differ from yours
• The content created for you will be less personal than that created by you or an in-house SEO who understands your brand.

Conclusion

As we’ve navigated the high-speed lanes of SEO together in this blog, one thing should be clear – no one is better equipped to turbocharge your law firm’s online presence than LawTurbo. Think of your website as a high-performance sports car. It’s got the horsepower, the sleek design, but without the right fuel, it won’t get to the finish line. In the digital world, SEO is that fuel.

We’ve shifted gears through every crucial aspect of law firm SEO, from the importance of keyword research and content optimization to the relevance of backlinks and local SEO. Just as a car’s engine brings together many components to create speed and power, so too does a comprehensive SEO strategy combine diverse elements to accelerate your site’s rankings.

But the race for SEO success isn’t a solo drive—it’s a team sport. At LawTurbo, we’re not just your pit crew, we’re your co-drivers, navigating the intricate SEO track with expertise, precision, and speed. And remember, it’s not just about crossing the finish line, it’s about staying ahead of the pack.

So, as we wave the checkered flag on this blog, we invite you to ignite your law firm’s SEO potential with LawTurbo. From managing technical SEO, crafting captivating content, to monitoring analytics and tweaking strategies for maximum results, we’re ready to put your firm in the fast lane.

So, are you ready to hit the gas on your SEO journey? Let’s race towards the first-page finish line together! Schedule a discovery call with us at LawTurbo and let’s discuss how we can turbocharge your law firm’s SEO. Because in the world of online visibility, speed is not just an advantage, it’s a necessity.

Remember, in the high-stakes race of SEO, LawTurbo is your ultimate pit stop for success. So, buckle up, rev your engines, and let’s speed into the future of SEO together!