How Powerful is SEO for Law Firm Marketing?

The answer to that question is a resounding “Very Powerful.”  SEO – search engine optimization – is the fundamental component you need to ensure that your website will be seen by potential clients.  Here are few statistics to reinforce that important point.

According to some studies, 55 percent of all clicks go to the first three organic search results in a Google or Bing search.  Further, adding a blog containing SEO terms to your website can increase your website’s search engine ranking by a whopping 434 percent .

Digital marketing for your law firm is now vital to your law firm’s success.  97 percent of consumers go online to find and research local businesses.  Moreover, 48 percent of people say that the look and design of a firm or company’s website is a primary factor in determining the credibility of that firm or company.

Finally, based on a law firm case study, the impact of SEO integration into a website leads to amazing results. Compared to the number of visits to a law firm’s website received in one month with no SEO content, adding SEO content helped a law firm:

1. Increase visits to the firm’s website by 439 percent in the first 12 months, and
2. Increase visits to the firm’s website by a total of 869 percent over an 18-month period.

With numbers like that, you and your firm cannot afford to ignore the power of SEO in your digital marketing efforts.

The best way to boost your website and get SEO working for you is to find a professional third party to help you. Why deal with the learning curve of digital marketing when you can save some marketing money by simply hiring a professional to do the job?  In that way, Oamii is the digital marketing agency that can help you succeed.

Oamii focuses on helping law firms improve their digital marketing so your firm can be on the cutting edge of digital marketing trends, and so that you can find your place in those coveted “top three” spots in any search engine ranking.

For more information, and to schedule, a meeting with Oamii professionals, consider calling us today at 561-228-4111 or filling out our online contact form .

What Is SEO?

SEO is the process of using certain keywords in the content of your website so that your website will show up higher in search engines like Google and Bing.  Thus, when people are searching for legal services in a practice area you cover, SEO will increase the chances that those prospective clients will see your website first, or at least high, on the list of search results.

As noted above, 55 percent of all clicks go to the top three results that appear on page one of a Google or Bing search.  So, your firm needs to be on page one when someone pulls out their smartphone or tablet and searches for lawyers in the area.

Before even thinking about adding more content or blogs to your website, your first order of business should be to make sure that your website is “up to par.”

What that means is that your website needs to be

1. Fast, and
2. Mobile Friendly

1. Fast

With regard to speed, about half of all users online expect a website to load in three seconds or less .  That means that if your website takes too long to load up, you have lost half of the people who might have reviewed what you have to offer.

Because legal representation is particularly of the “I need it now” type of service, making sure that your website loads quickly will increase your chances of being the firm a potential client selects.

How do you know if your website is running fast enough?  There are some sites out there that can help you determine the speed of your page.  One example is Google’s PageSpeed Insights .  Try it out if you are curious about how fast your website is or should be.

2. Mobile Friendly

With regard to mobile-friendliness, we have discussed this topic in other blogs on this site, but it is worth repeating again and again.  About 63 percent of searches in the United States occur on smartphones or tablets. That means that less than half of any internet searches are done on a desktop computer.

Given that statistic, it is clear that your firm’s website must look good and be functional for the user on a small, mobile device. Optimizing your website for mobile devices can be tricky, and may require some massaging of the website by your IT professional, or a third-party digital marketing agency.

To improve your SEO, beyond the first steps of having a fast and mobile-friendly site, you now need to start thinking of content that will draw in your audience of potential clients.  Here are some ways to do that:

1. Create landing pages that have keywords that are both common internet searches, and are action-related. For example, “Legal Advice for Personal Injury Victims” is a page title that will directly tap into those who search for terms like “legal advice” and “personal injury.”
2. Putting important SEO keywords in the titles and subtitles of your blog and landing page content.
3. Including photos on your website that have image (file) names that are keyword-rich descriptions.  In other words, assume that you have a conference meeting image on your site.  Rather than having that image titled “firm 1.jpg,” use a keyword-rich description like “conference-meeting-lawyers-in-personal-injury-firm.jpg.”  Believe it or not, those image descriptions improve your SEO ranking.

Here is a way to test whether your firm is getting the clicks it deserves.  Open up a new internet window.  Run a search using the terms “legal service +” and the city in which you are located.  Then do that for the top five key phrases for which you want your firm to be found.

If your firm does not show up on the first page for every one of those top search phrases, then you need to contact a professional digital marketing agency to help you.

Oamii provides attorney marketing in West Palm Beach, FL, and the surrounding region.  We are able to capture the power of SEO and build that into your law firm’s website.  For more information please fill out our online contact form , or call us at 561-228-4111 today.