SEO is a massive source of revenue for industries across the B2C and B2B markets. But can it be just as effective for the legal industry?
Anyone who has done even the most cursory research on digital marketing has heard about SEO. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your site more appealing to search engines so as to place highly in relevant searches. Many lawyers, steeped in traditional advertising, wonder if SEO can work for you as well as it does for other businesses.
Legal SEO Statistics
While some firms remain unsure about this relatively new arena, many have taken the plunge. 79% of law firms consider SEO their most effective marketing channel. This is overall, meaning contained within that remaining 21% are those who haven’t even started their SEO journey. It’s a stunning endorsement for any firm still on the fence.
According to the National Law Review, 96% of people who need a lawyer will do an online search. With approximately 3.5 billion Google searches every day and Google representing 93% of all searches in the USA, two things are clear. The first is that to reach the vast majority of your potential clients, SEO needs to be part of your digital marketing strategy. The second is that your SEO strategy should concentrate on Google. The good news is that specific tweaks in the algorithm aside, SEO strategies that work for Google will work to other search engines as well.
As for how your clients will find you, Milestone Research states that organic searches make up 46.5% of all online traffic and local searches make up another 22.6%. Not only is SEO important, but local SEO, which focuses on winning local searches first, is a cornerstone of your overall marketing strategy. The good news is that in a 2021 analysis by Ruler Analytics, they found that organic search generates two-thirds of all phone calls for law firms.
The numbers don’t lie; a comprehensive SEO strategy is one of the best ways to reach your target market and achieve long-term growth for your law firm’s website.
The overall #1 result in a Google search has an average click-through rate (CTR) of 31.7% on desktop and 25.68% on mobile. Only 2-3% of users ever visit the second page of a Google result, and once there, only 0.78% click on a link. This is a cause and consequence of the brevity of your average Google search: most users spend under a minute looking at results before making a selection. Half all users will pick a link in the top-3 organic results, and the page ranking #1 is 35 times more likely to be clicked than one ranking 10th.
Every figure says the same thing: to connect with your modern client base, you need to invest time and resources into SEO.
The Benefits of SEO for Law Firms
It’s one thing to say that you need SEO; it’s another to run down the concrete benefits it will have for your firm. The above data can point to outcomes, but it’s important to know exactly what you’re getting when you choose to invest in a robust SEO strategy.
Build your local audience: Your client base will primarily come from your local area. This is what makes local SEO so important. Local SEO allows you to precisely target the audience likely to sign on as clients. Whenever an individual in your community needs an attorney and 96% of them do an online search, appearing high on their search results will bring you traffic.
Download our free guide: Supercharged SEO for Law Firms for in-depth tips and strategies on how to make sure your website shows up at the top of local searches.
Increase your sales potential: Traffic is only the first step. A well-designed site built for lead generation will naturally convert a good percentage of overall traffic into leads, but even the best-designed site isn’t going to do a single thing unless it’s seen.
Quality SEO means attracting visitors so that your site can do what it’s designed to: convert them into phone calls, emails, and so on. In other words, turning a contact into a lead.
Generate online referrals: In the old days, the most common way to find an attorney was via a referral. In the modern marketplace, online reviews serve much the same purpose. The difference is primarily one of volume: a single referral generally goes to one person. Many people, on the other hand, can read a review long after the review is posted. Reviews act as universal referrals.
Additionally, reviews are a key part of an overall SEO strategy. Reviews provide authority, legitimacy, and trust, all of which are factors in search algorithms. A search engine wants to match a search with a good match, and plentiful reviews means that a firm is here to stay.
Leveraged correctly, reviews can have a snowball effect. Reviews generate traffic, traffic generates reviews, and so forth. Because a good SEO strategy means more people will be finding your page, dazzled by your skill, and end up providing you with reviews. The challenge is getting that ball rolling.
Optimized website experience: Think of your website as a digital office. The internet is the largest marketplace in human history, and your site is your shopfront. The website experience should be of paramount importance to your greater digital marketing plan.
The good news is that your website is another place you can benefit from a solid feedback loop. Quality SEO helps lead to a better website experience, and a better website experience is part of SEO. Always remember that your site should be designed from the point of view of a visitor coming through your digital doors and with the goal of signing that individual up as a client.
Search engines love a high-quality user experience in a website, so when you optimize for search, you also optimize the entire website experience for your visitors.
Connect your marketing channels: While it’s useful to separate areas of your online presence into discrete groups, it’s an inherently artificial distinction. Ideally, every place you are represented online should feed into every other place, providing visitors with a seamless user experience that takes multiple paths to the same goal: converting leads.
Your email mailing lists, and your social media presence are two such openings in the funnel. Much like the previous two factors, both assist your SEO, as they increase your legitimacy and train search engines to think of you as a natural destination, as well as grow thanks to your SEO.
Lead Science: The Legal SEO Experts
SEO is not only effective for law firms; it is among the most effective places you can spend your marketing dollars. To compete in the modern marketplace, you need a robust and agile SEO strategy ready to adapt to changes in the algorithm while steadily building authority and trust.
The SEO engineers at Lead Science have two decades of experience navigating these waters. Our comprehensive SEO packages include:
- Full SEO Audits: Our team will analyze your website and quickly identify any issues affecting your search performance.
- Keyword Research & Optimization: We research the optimal keywords for your website and implement them in custom website content and blog articles created just for you.
- Link-building: Lead Science SEO experts strategically develop and implement internal and external link-building programs to maximize the search signals and usability of your website.
- Social & Reputation Management: We work closely with your business to ensure that your social presence and online reputation is as sterling as possible.
- Advanced Analytics: Lead Science Beacon Website Reporting (Powered by Google Analytics) provides clear, concise reporting on the performance of your website on a 24×7 basis.
- And many more unparalleled SEO features and services to grow your search traffic.
Schedule your Lead Science Discovery Call today. Our team of SEO experts can help your law firm’s website climb search rankings and attract more clients.
