The way consumers find, research, and choose a law firm has changed dramatically in recent years. Search is a primary channel that people use to find information online and since Google’s founding in 1998, it has grown to command more than 60%1 of market share in the search space.
That means if you run a law firm and want to generate new clients, much of your success hinges on whether or not you can be found in Google search.
Attorney Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves strategies, techniques, and tactics that help attract more prospective clients to a law firm’s website by obtaining first page ranking positions in search engines (such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo).
It’s already pretty clear that for most people, search is their go-to for finding legal services. Social and word of mouth certainly play a role, but online search almost always dominates the research phase.
Some elements of SEO also have the ability to compound or increase their benefits over time. Content, for example, presents two opportunities: the first is the potential to rank for more keywords and the second is that, through an exceptionally well-crafted piece of content, the potential exists for natural link building to occur.
Literally Everyone is Using the Internet to Search
The most recent data2 on search engine usage from the Pew Research Center states that 91% of online adults use search engines to find information on the web.
Granted, this data is from 2012 (six years on the internet might as well be a hundred), but it’s worth pointing out.
Search engines (especially Google) have only gotten better at understanding the meaning behind the phrases we type into them and are therefore used even more on the internet to cut through all the noise.
With so many people using search, it makes sense that lawyers marketing themselves online should ensure their websites are built and configured to be found easily using these tools.
No Rankings = Non-Existent
It’s already pretty clear that for most people, search is their go-to for finding legal services. Social and word of mouth certainly play a role, but online search almost always plays a role in the research phase.
Type in a phrase for which you think your firm should be ranking and see what comes up. The real estate in the local results, for example, is extremely limited. Other than paid lawyer ads, the rest of the results page only has 7 spots available and those are highly coveted.
Studies have shown3 that the percentage of traffic from searchers drops to around 2-3% on the second page of results and then peters out from there.
Why does my law firm need a website and SEO
Let’s take a look one at a time:
Why Attorneys Need A Website
Your website is the foundation of all the marketing activity you do online as an attorney. Yes, there are other platforms where you can showcase your services; however, in no other area of the Internet will you have more control and freedom in how you present yourself than you do on your own website.
This is where you can control your firm’s brand image, your content, and how you want visitors to your site to interact with you.
Of course, not all websites are well-suited for your goals and you have to be careful how you set one up. In the legal industry, there are many providers (such as FindLaw, Justia, and others) that can provide a website. However, there are important caveats to consider:
- Do you own the site (the actual files that make up the site)?
- Do you control back-end functionality like hosting, the makeup of files on the site, and the domain registrar?
- Can you have a third party developer make edits to your site if you decide you want to do a redesign or optimize for SEO in a unique way?
With many of the proprietary legal website platforms named above, you cannot.
This is why we recommend a self-hosted WordPress site: it’s the best possible option for control of your site, control of your content, and the ability to optimize for search.
Why Attorneys need SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
There are a number of ways you can drive traffic to a site and the unique thing about lawyer SEO is the long-term dividends it pays even after no further optimization work is being performed.
Leasing Visibility
By contrast, tactics like PPC (i.e. AdWords, Facebook ads, etc) are tantamount to leasing visibility for a law firm. Platforms like Findlaw or Justia are similar in that any promotional benefits law firms receive from those services disappear as soon as they go to another provider.
The Compounding Phenomenon of SEO
The optimization work done for search is long-lasting and will continue to drive traffic and leads, even after work has ceased. That’s not to say law firms only need to optimize a site once and never again, but rather that the impact of SEO leaves a more lasting impression.
Some elements of SEO also have the ability to compound or increase their benefits over time. Content, for example, is produced as a way to get links built to a site. That content remains, even if no one is adding new content, and people can still link to it.
Other elements like citations, local business profiles, links from guest posts on other sites, etc, all remain in place after they have been built. They continue to flow positive link equity to a site for the foreseeable future.