Six Questions to Ask Your Next Legal SEO Agency

In today’s digitally-driven environment, more law firms are using digital marketing to their advantage. However, most law firms do not use their resources on an in-house digital marketing company. Some may choose to hire a single expert, while others hire an agency to help boost their rankings. You want to be thorough with your decision when you hire an agency. Nobody wants to be stuck with an agency that does not know what it’s doing, is lazy, or lacks communication. You want an agency that actually helps you, and that can be challenging to research.

To help with your research, we have provided a list of questions to guide your choice of an SEO agency. If you enjoy the idea of transparency and excellent communication skills paired with expertise in the field, consider scheduling a free consultation with us!

Narrowing down a legal agency to use

As an attorney, you know the law, but maybe not how to draw in legal clients through your website. No matter your knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO), you may find that choosing an SEO agency can quickly become complex and overwhelming. At the same time, you understand that the success of your website may depend on who you choose to help you. Finding a good SEO agency for your growing law firm is critical.

Just like your clients do when interviewing your law firm, you need to ask some pointed questions to understand what a specific SEO company or digital marketing specialist can do for you. Make sure you ask every question that matters to you, even those not on our list. Any agency that does not make time to answer your questions now may not have time for your later.

Understanding the agency’s history of success

When looking for an SEO expert, you want to determine if that person has been successful in the past. One of the first questions to ask is, “What do your successes look like?” If they do not have many successful examples to provide to you, you may need to move on to someone else. It’s best to ask questions about their success flat out. As a professional, you may believe that anyone providing SEO services will provide a quality product. However, that is not always the case.

Here are some questions to ask about the agency’s successes.

Question 1: Have you previously been able to help law firms grow their clientele?

Is there any other question that is more important to you right now? As a business owner, this is the bottom line. When partnering with an SEO provider, asking them if they have deep experience specifically with law firm marketing is incredibly important. Choosing an agency that has helped other businesses gain success and sales, like within the SaaS or eCommerce world, may be good for your firm. However, success outside the legal industry does not mean the SEO firm can succeed with a law firm.

You may know that legal keywords are becoming more challenging to rank in search engines. Array Digital understands this and has proven methods to get law firms ranking. At Array Digital, we focus SOLELY on legal marketing. See the difference we offer by looking at one of the case studies from our clients.

Finding out how an agency plans to communicate with you is essential

When you hire an SEO agency, you want to ensure they are responsive to you. You do not want to work with a company that ignores its clients or does not have time to answer an email. A good judge of their ability to meet your needs is finding out how they respond to you during these initial conversations. You also want to ask some questions about their communication practices.

Question 2: What does your communication and collaboration with clients look like?

Communication with clients needs to be consistent and streamlined. It should be easy for you to reach the company — and even a specific person within the company — when you have concerns. At the same time, you do not want your law firm marketing to be on autopilot, where you do not hear from the firm for months.

That is not how Array Digital operates. Rather, we provide frequent, consistent communication with our clients. We do not operate in the dark because it wastes your time and ours. We want to be sure everyone is on the same page consistently. You have direct access to your account manager and SEO strategist to ask questions via phone and email whenever you need.

We also collaborate closely with our clients. For example, we send website content to your law firm for approval before posting it to your website. That gives you peace of mind about the accuracy of the content attached to your name and what is happening on your site.

When you partner with Array Digital, we begin your onboarding with clear communication. Depending on the SEO services you select, you will meet members of each of our teams. That way, you know who you will work with and who is responsible for communicating with you. We also start this process with a comprehensive questionnaire that helps our team establish the direction for your content and goals.

Also, note that we value communication across the board. That is why you can always request ad hoc meetings if needed.

Questions to ask about your SEO campaign

After getting some information about the prospective agency’s communication style, the next step is to find out what they plan to do for your SEO campaigns. You may not be an expert on topics like link building and algorithm upgrades, but you should agree with their suggestions. You also want to be sure you understand the marketing strategy. Asking the right questions here can help ensure that their goals match your own, whether related to pricing, search rankings, or something else.

Question 3: What do you recommend for my SEO campaign?

When you first book a consultation with a digital marketing agency, asking this question is crucial. How they answer it informs you how much individual attention they will give your account. For example, if they immediately provide you with general answers and a basic SEO campaign strategy that would apply to anyone and any website, that is the low quality you don’t want. Rather, you want an agency that’s done its research on your website and can make personalized recommendations for you.

An SEO agency’s recommended SEO campaign strategy should depend on your firm’s goals, your timeline, and your budget. SEO consultants should be upfront and open with you about these areas. You don’t want to hear a basic sales pitch. You should get real information about what they will do for you.

At Array Digital, each strategy we create is designed to fit individual client needs. Every law firm we serve has a unique SEO strategy tailored specifically to them. During our onboarding process, your strategist will create a plan to implement for your site that considers all of your goals. That means that the SEO work we do will address your distinct needs.

To help you see why our SEO team does what it does, continue reading.

Technical SEO

When you work with our team, we always provide you with SEO tactics designed to rank your website in search engines. However, technical SEO, a more behind-the-scenes strategy, is also important. Technical SEO works to improve user experience, including ensuring that search engines can crawl and index your site effectively. Ultimately, this helps to improve organic rankings in the search engines.

Content

Content creation is a big part of your efforts. We help you with on-page content marketing for SEO as well as off-page tactics to help that content perform. That includes building your website’s pages and practice areas and helping to create backlinks to your website from other sites.

Also, note that we use only white hat strategies. These are high-quality techniques based on Google-approved strategies. We avoid black hat strategies. If any company promises that their best SEO package will get you to the top-ranking position, they are not being honest with you, and that should be a red flag.

Local SEO

Another component of our methodology is to incorporate local SEO strategies. These zero in on prospective clients located within your desired geographical area. We use a series of different methods for this form of outreach to ensure that people who are within your local area can find your law firm when they search for help.

Question 4: What metrics will you use to measure success, and how will they be reported?

It’s not about just putting some marketing efforts into effect and waiting for results. Rather, a good SEO company is working to track what’s happening with each update they make. Metrics, often measured with various tools, including Google Analytics, provide insight into what’s working for your site.

At Array Digital, our team understands the importance of measuring your success during the process. What’s more, we don’t hide what we are doing, how we are doing it, or the actual results. We measure your law firm’s success and report it to you transparently and frequently.

Metrics we track

The key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics we look at consistently to look for changes and see how well your site is improving with our marketing efforts.

The biggest metrics we track are the most important for showing your website’s improvement and success. That includes your conversions. That’s the number of people who come to your website and contact you. We also track your:

• Keyword progression: This focuses our keyword research efforts, allowing you to rank against other websites that are competing for the same keywords as you do. We watch as Google indexes you for those highly desirable keywords.
• Time spent on page: The longer visitors from your organic traffic stay on your page, the better. That means they are finding the information they need and want. It also means they are more likely to go from a searcher to a client.
• Organic traffic: We look at both new and returning users. We want to know how people are getting to your website so we can keep your site performing in the Google algorithm.

How we relay those metrics

We hold frequent meetings with our clients. During these meetings, your SEO will explain their progress toward your goals, so you always know where you stand. We also provide frequent phone calls and monthly reports as needed, all in our effort to keep you highly updated. Transparency is one of our core values.

Question 5: How long will it take to see results from our SEO campaigns?

Legal keywords are more challenging to rank for in search engines because there is significant competition. If your law firm is just getting started with SEO, it will take longer than law firms that already have a base in place and are moving to a new agency.

In all cases, we do not overpromise anything to our clients. We are upfront as your SEO partner about what you can expect. The answer to how long it will take to rank or see improvement in your ranking depends on several factors, including:

• The amount of content you want per month
• Your current domain ranking (how high your website is ranking in the search engine)
• Your backlinks (links on other websites that point to yours)

If any agency guarantees results in a certain period of time, this is a red flag. Your website is unique and will not have the same journey as other law firms. Agencies should recognize that and convey it to their clients.

Further collaboration efforts

Question 6: What can our law firm continue to work on in-house?

Every agency will likely have a different answer to this question. However, once you hire an agency, your legal team may find it hard to stop producing marketing materials and in-house work on the website, which could cause issues if both sides are writing. You should ask what you can do while the SEO agency works on your strategy.

You don’t have to continue in-house work on your site and content — if you want to take the backseat, that is also okay. However, if you are looking for every avenue to help boost your website and increase your organic traffic, this is a good question for you to ask.

As you talk to agencies about what you can and cannot do, remember that this is your website. While we encourage you to participate in a way that works for you, you’ll get results when you outsource to our team.

If you decide to get optimized content from an SEO agency, it’s advisable not to try to write content that emulates what content strategists will do for your firm. Even if you believe you understand every component of what we are doing, this type of action leads to keyword cannibalization, where multiple pages on your site compete to rank for the same keywords on Google.
Instead, we recommend you write articles that show what your firm has been up to, such as new hires, new laws, and new case successes. Original research and thought leadership can also be helpful.

Our content strategists know that attorneys generally like to write their own content. We understand, and at Array Digital, we provide 1-on-1 guidance to help you figure out what you should write to complement the optimized content we write for you.

This is an excellent time for an ad hoc meeting between you and our content team. It allows you to get the most out of your time with us and can help us tackle algorithm changes or topics you want to include on social media to boost your brand.

Red flag SEO agency tactics to avoid

Every SEO agency will try to sell themselves to you. It’s what makes them great at marketing! However, while they are working to make themselves look great, they may oversell to you. Then, you sign a contract, and they under-deliver. We have seen this so many times.

There are a few warning signs that can indicate bad tactics for SEO or simply inaccurate statements.

Black-hat link building

There are disreputable strategies for getting links placed on other websites to boost your rank. Google recognizes this. Any minimal boost to your site from such an approach could also lead to the search engine penalizing your site. If you are paying for low-quality links or spamming other sites, that’s not good.

Timespan of SEO working

As noted, any organization that states it can get you ranking fast is not telling the truth. It takes time, usually several months, and significant work to see improvement. It’s not simple, it’s not fast, and there’s no magic trick to speeding it up.

Keyword stuffing

It used to be common to stuff as many keywords into the pages of your website as you could in the hopes that Google would rank you for all of them. Thanks to Google’s algorithm updates, we know this is not ideal and could hurt your efforts.

Publishing ineffective content

The content on your website should prioritize educating your searcher and getting them to connect with your law firm. If the content on your website is sparse or unhelpful, that reflects on your law firm. More so, there are rules you must follow as a legal practice to avoid any ABA compliance violations. Our team knows this and will not put you at risk.

How is Array Digital different than other legal SEO agencies?

There are many companies out there with big promises and limited results. We aim to be different. We are a small but growing company. We have a loyal clientele that has seen significant results and consistent improvement from using our services. We meet with our clients routinely and ad hoc as they need us to.

We get results and do not over-promise on anything we do. We are a transparent company regarding telling our clients:

• What we are doing
• How it’s working based on metrics
• What needs to be changed

We also provide clear expectations from the start and work with our legal clients to optimize their results. If your keywords are dropping or your site is continuously not converting, we look into it, check every avenue, and create a solution. You can count on it.

Ready to see our expertise in action?

Ask us every question. Let’s talk about your needs and goals and create a plan for improving your website’s ranking and success. Contact Array Digital at 757-333-3021 or fill out our contact form to schedule a free SEO assessment.