The Keys to Keywords
Getting the right keywords is a huge part of a good SEO strategy for any business, but for law firms, it’s especially fraught. Law-related keywords tend to be in high demand, and thus more expensive. Getting a nice cross-section of the expensive as well as useful but lower-cost long tail keywords is vital. You need to do your research to get the right ones and take your SEO game to its highest level.
1. Practice, Practice, Practice
What are the areas of your firm’s legal practice? The keywords a personal injury firm needs are going to be different than those useful for a divorce attorney. This calculus gets even more complex if your firm has multiple areas of specialty.
Start by listing every area of practice to give yourself the lay of the land. Think about not just what you do, but how a prospective client might understand what you do. You are trying to predict the words that person will enter into Google to find you.
2. The Right Tool for the Job
Tools exist to help you get started. Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and SEMrush are all designed to help you identify relevant keywords as well as their search volume. Familiarize yourself with one or all.
Remember, you’re trying to determine what your ideal client would type into a search engine to find you. Tailoring your keywords around that reality will go a long way to selecting the right ones.
3. Intent Matters
What is the intent behind each keyword? Think about the traffic you want on your site, and tailor your keywords to the hypothetical client you want walking through your doors. When building leads, think about what prospective clients are looking for that should lead to you.
This also matters in your content creation. In other articles, I’ve written about the importance of a robust library of content for your overall SEO strategy. Think about what sorts of keywords someone might use to inquire about a legal matter, create content for it, and use relevant keywords that point to it.
4. Long-tail Keywords Tell the Tale
While it can be tempting to just go for the short and sweet keywords, the reality is that those are ridiculously expensive and dominated by the big firms whose billboards border every major highway. A smaller firm can’t compete. But here’s the important thing: you don’t have to.
Long-tail keywords are longer phrases that are specific and targeted. While their overall search volume is low, they can be far more effective at driving traffic to you. This is an area where research can save you a ton of money and bolster your traffic. In some cases it’s as simple as, instead of using “personal injury lawyer,” you select “car accident lawyer in [your city].”
5. Look at the Competition
Your competitors are trying to do the same thing you are, so it can be useful to see how they’re going about it. Checking what keywords they’re using, either to outbid them or to avoid going after hotly contested ones, is a great use of your time. You’re trying to maximize the power of your keyword budget.
Tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush can show you the keywords in other firms’ content. Look at their overall presence, and how their content relates to their firm’s mission. Their use of keywords can teach you about more than just the keywords themselves.
6. Local Search Terms
Almost all of your clients are going to be local. It makes sense to then target your immediate area. Using location-specific terms to drive local traffic to your site is a cornerstone of local SEO. This means using the name of your city, state, region, or even neighborhood in your keywords.
7. Use Your Keywords Well
By this point in the process, you should have a solid list of keywords. Now you need to use them. It’s not enough to throw them around willy nilly. You need to be strategic in their use. Spamming them in your content is the kind of thing search engines are programmed to recognize and can hurt your SEO.
You want to incorporate them into page titles, headings, meta descriptions, and of course in the content itself. The important part is that they must be related to the content in which they appear. They should also feel natural. Try to force keywords where they don’t belong and expect search engines to figure that out and penalize you accordingly.
The Lead Science Solution
Keyword research can be challenging in the beginning, but these 7 tips can get you started on the right foot. The best thing you can do is turn to the experts. Schedule your Discovery Call today and we’ll show you how we can get your law firm to the top of search rankings, and keep it there. Our decades of experience will supercharge your keyword strategy from selection to use and you can rest assured your ideal clients will find you when they search.
