When a potential client searches for the services you offer on search engines like Google, does your family law firm's website appear on the first search results page? If it doesn't, that prospective client will likely choose your competitors who have invested in search engine optimization (SEO).
The underlying reasoning behind SEO is simple: You can implement tested legal marketing strategies and make your website appear higher in search results. So, if you want your website to rank high enough on search engines for potential leads and clients to notice, you need to care about SEO for family law.
Why Is SEO Important for Family Law Firms?
Family law SEO may not bring immediate results in the same way paid ads can, but its many long-term benefits can help you meet your law firm's goals.
Reach Clients Actively Searching for Your Services
With SEO for family law, you can position your law firm to appear at the top of the search engine result page (SERP) when people search for terms or keywords relating to your practice area in the locality you serve. For example, if you’re a divorce lawyer in Orlando, Florida, you can work to rank for the keyword "Orlando divorce attorney" instead of "Florida divorce attorney."
Build Credibility and Authority
A winning SEO strategy will have you create high-value content that answers your potential clients' likely questions. You can also break down complex legal terms and principles. When people see your law firm as a reputable source of legal information, they will view you as an expert and be more likely to contact you when they need legal services.
Increase Your Law Firm’s Visibility
Family law SEO makes it easier for a potential client to discover and learn about your law firm. The average consumer automatically goes to search engines to find legal information or even legal services. So, if your website ranks high on SERPs, a chunk of that traffic can come to you.
Getting more traffic to your law firm website helps you generate more leads and clients to meet your practice goals. The fantastic thing about SEO is that a piece of content can keep generating free traffic months and even years down the line.
Improve User Experience
Part of a robust SEO strategy involves enhancing the user experience. Some SEO aspects, such as technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO, are about improving your website's performance. These tactics ensure your website loads quickly, displays well on mobile devices and makes it easy for users to find the information they need.
The Aspects of SEO for Family Law You Should Focus On
Local SEO
Local SEO aims to help your law firm appear in Google searches when people within your locality look for the types of services you offer. Your family law practice likely serves people in specific locations. As a result, your SEO strategy should focus on appearing in local searches.
This will involve creating a Google Business Profile for your family law firm. You will also need to create service area pages covering the different cities you serve and the various legal services you provide.
For example, suppose you have a family law practice offering divorce, child custody, and alimony services in Florida, covering Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami. In that case, you should create practice pages for the different locations and services: divorce attorney Palm Beach, child custody attorney Palm Beach, alimony attorney Palm Beach, and so on for the other locations.
Content Marketing
With content marketing, you can generate organic traffic by creating helpful content that answers client questions and covers topics they are interested in. Your content can be in different formats, including:
- Blog posts covering different keywords where you answer specific questions, discuss new developments or showcase your firm’s big wins.
- Practice pages covering the different services your family law firm provides.
- Videos explaining complex legal topics or trends you can share on your website or social media pages.
- Social media posts showcasing your law firm's expertise and humanity to connect with current and potential clients.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO may sound boring, but it’s vital if you want your other SEO efforts to pay off. Technical SEO focuses on providing a great user experience and making your website easy for search engines to discover and categorize (crawl and index). This includes the various things that help search engines discover the different pages on your site, including:
- Improving your website’s speed.
- Making your website mobile-friendly.
- Building an SEO-friendly site structure.
- Submitting your sitemap to Google.
Link Building
Link building means getting other websites to link to pages on your website. This is vital because it helps your site get more traffic and shows search engines that others consider your website's content useful. Think of these links, which are called backlinks, as a vote of confidence from other websites. It's one of Google's ranking factors.
However, not all backlinks are equal, as Google prioritizes those from reputable, high-authority domains and related pages. So, while you want to get as many backlinks as possible, prioritize those from reputable sources.
How To Implement a Comprehensive SEO Strategy
As part of your digital marketing efforts to grow your family law practice, your law firm's SEO strategy is your roadmap to improved website ranking. Here are some strategies to get you started:
Perform Competitor and Keyword Research
One of the easiest ways to identify SEO opportunities is by analyzing your competitor's websites to discover what’s working for them and implement it on your website. And you don’t have to do it manually, as many free and paid SEO tools make it easy.
There are three things to research about your competitors:
- Research their top keywords. Tools like BuzzSumo and Semrush can show you the keywords your competitors rank for, including their search volume and difficulty level. You can discover new keywords with high-ranking potential.
- Review their top-performing content. Scrutinize the top pages driving traffic to your competitors' sites and note the key features.
- Analyze their backlink profile. View their content-generating backlinks and where those links come from to get an idea of the kind of content that can do the same for you.
Also, perform keyword research using tools like Google's Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to discover more keyword opportunities, search volume, and difficulty. Ideally, aim to rank for long-tail keywords with a moderate to low difficulty level.
Create Great Content
After you discover the keywords you have a high chance of ranking for, the next step is to create quality content around them. A good rule of thumb is to create content of higher quality than the top pages currently ranking for the keyword.
Some more tips on creating SEO content include:
- Make your content easy to consume with short paragraphs, bullet points, and subheadings.
- Add keyword variations and related keywords.
- Add internal links where possible.
- Implement on-page SEO tactics, such as compelling title tags, meta descriptions, and alt tags.
- Add quality images.
Build Backlinks
Building backlinks may be one of the most challenging law firm SEO strategies. But there are some tips that can help.
The best way to attract links from reputable sources is to create in-depth, authoritative resources on complex legal topics. When journalists and other website owners find your content useful, they will naturally link to it.
Guest blogging is another effective way to get links automatically. When you publish posts on other websites, they will link back to your website. Consider websites related to your practice area and pitch them. For example, a website supporting women going through a divorce will likely welcome a pitch on “Top Legal Mistakes to Avoid When Getting a Divorce.”
Monitor Technical SEO Elements
Continually monitor your website’s technical SEO elements to discover areas for improvement. This includes tracking your site's speed, checking for broken links, and updating your site architecture and site map.
Also, ensure your website is mobile responsive and will display well on every screen size.
Track and Measure Results
SEO delivers measurable results, and you need to continually track its results to find out what's working and what you can improve upon.
Some of the metrics you may want to track include:
- Organic traffic
- Keyword ranking
- Click-through rates
- Most visited pages
You can also track your conversion rate to discover how much of your organic traffic converts to leads and clients.
How a Law Firm SEO Agency Can Help
SEO for family law is a proven strategy to generate family law leads and clients on autopilot. And you can start where you are and scale with time.
A law firm SEO company like Scorpion can help you implement family law SEO best practices on your website so you can focus on your clients. Schedule a consultation today to discuss your goals and how Scorpion can help.
