SEO for Law Firms 101
By Next Level Pod on April 26th, 2022 in Uncategorized
SEO has become a bit of a buzzword in marketing lately. Many law firms are talking about it, but most don’t understand precisely what it means. We may not even all be talking about the same thing!
The day has finally come when we’re going to talk all about SEO. There are so many different aspects of it and deep dives we could do. Because of this, we decided to break it down over multiple episodes on the podcast.
Today, let’s just do an overview and get everyone on the same page regarding this complex topic.
SEO Broken Down
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the way search engines prioritize the best companies, products, and services on their results page.
Why SEO is Important
The goal of any company should be to get on that first page of a search engine. For example, when somebody in your area searches “divorce lawyer near me,” you want to be one of the first results they get on their search engine results page (if you’re a divorce lawyer, of course). This is called a SERP in SEO speak.
About half of all people looking for legal services and information will do so via a Google search. Referrals are important too, of course, as they make up the other 50% of ways people find lawyers. However, we can’t neglect the half that searches on Google.
Most of these people won’t look past the first page of their SERP. This is why it’s so important to get on the first page of Google’s SERP.
An Overview of Terms
Many specifics go into SEO which we will get into over the next few episodes of the podcast. However, as a quick overview, you’ll want to know about keyword research, site SEO, offsite SEO, and local SEO.
Keyword research is core to a lot of the components of SEO. It is your way of understanding the types of things your potential consumers are typing into Google. Once you know your ideal client, you must figure out what things they want to know about.
Onsite SEO is the search engine optimization that is done on your website. It includes technical things you can do in addition to your content such as the keywords you have targeted, the quality of your content, the technical markup and metadata of your content, and even the way your website is structured.
Offsite SEO is things you do off of your website to help Google understand more about your business. You want other websites to point to your website as a reference for different topics because that proves to Google that others consider you an authority. Offsite SEO includes building backlinks to your website as well.
Finally, local SEO is optimization done around directory listings. One of the biggest focuses of local SEO is the Google business profile. It includes setting up all of your profiles correctly and getting great reviews.
If you want to learn more about the basics of SEO, check out Episode 039: SEO Series Part 1.