SEO for Business Lawyers

Key takeaways:

• Search engine optimization (SEO) helps Google find your law firm website among all of the other sites present.
• Over 50% of all website traffic for successful law firms comes from organic search.
• SEO will be beneficial for certain business lawyers, depending on the behavior of the target audience prior to investing in marketing.Array Digital offers comprehensive SEO for business lawyers that incorporates effective strategies designed to create highly targeted results, leading to increased leads for a law firm.

Much like business law, which is an umbrella term for a vast array of legal services offered to companies, search engine optimization (SEO) is an umbrella term for a wide range of digital marketing services. At Array Digital, we pride ourselves on our dedication to helping lawyers and law firms improve their online presence and expand their clientele.

Learn about what SEO is, why your firm should be engaging in it, and how we can help you grow your business law firm to new heights.

SEO is a process of driving visitors to a law firm’s website by increasing its visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The closer the business law firm’s website is to the top of the listings, the more people may click on it and visit the website. SEO is related to organic search and does not rely on ads for placement in search engines.

Over 50% of website visitors come from organic searches, making SEO for lawyers a critical component of any marketing strategy.

To get potential clients to your business lawyer website, you must develop a customized marketing strategy based on the specific goals of your campaign, the practice area, and your target audience.

When you work with Array Digital, while we cannot provide guarantees on how many leads you will get, our assessment will determine the individual plan best suited to those needs. Among the types of SEO business lawyers may benefit from are the following:

• Contract law: Contract law attorneys typically see the most benefit from pay-per-click (PPC) type of paid ads, thought leadership content development, and website optimization. SEO is more beneficial to firms targeting small businesses or individuals.
• IP/trademark law: These attorneys best benefit from PPC, thought leadership, web optimization, and, in some cases, content marketing. It’s most beneficial for firms targeting small businesses and individuals.
• Employment law: Employment law attorneys will see the most impact from SEO if they represent individual employees. For employment lawyers targeting larger businesses or corporations, content marketing is less effective.
• Mergers and acquisition law: Typically, merger and acquisition lawyers may not benefit as much from content marketing but can benefit from PPC, web optimization, or thought leadership, as well as link building from other respected websites.
• Corporate law: Typically, the clientele for a corporate lawyer isn’t likely to search on Google for an attorney. However, website optimization, link building, and thought leadership content can be valuable.
• Tax law: Tax attorneys do not benefit as much from content marketing but will see the best results from PPC and web optimization, especially if they are targeting small businesses and individuals.

If you need help understanding how SEO can benefit your business law firm, schedule an assessment with our strategists.

Law firm SEO is a necessary type of legal marketing for some business attorneys, especially contract attorneys, trademark law, and corporate law, though all attorneys can benefit from some lawyer SEO best practices simply because it creates a presence for your law firm online.

A strategic online presence enables attorneys to be found in local searches when a prospective new client seeks out a legal service your firm offers. However, the best organic search results come from a strategic approach designed to attract a very specific searcher, not just anyone looking for the topic of corporate law or tax law.

• Over 50% of all website traffic comes from organic search, which is a legal strategy specifically designed to position law firm websites in the SERPS without using paid methods.
• Only 37% of law firms have a blog, and only 1 in 4 of those with a blog have retained a client through the blog. With the right strategy and high-quality content, this creates an incredible opportunity to stand out in organic search from competitors offering the same services.

The top 3 search engine results receive over half of all clicks, and less than 1% of users click any results page in the top 10. Without a tailored, well-designed SEO strategy, your firm could get lost in the competition even if it ranks #11.

The development of law firm SEO to land high in Google search is a customized process, depending on numerous factors:

• Location: How much competition is within the local area? The more attorneys offering the same type of law services within your area can influence the amount of work that goes into developing first-page results.
• Law firm’s previous SEO work: If you are starting from scratch with little to no organic traffic, it will take longer and require more work to build a foundation. This impacts your SEO strategy and execution.
• Practice area: Some types of business law are less competitive than others, requiring an adjustment of the strategy and impacting the amount and type of work needed.

To learn the exact cost of your SEO plan, schedule a free assessment with Array Digital’s strategy team.

Comparing Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads to SEO for business lawyers

PPC is a type of paid advertising in which law firms pay a specific fee each time a searcher clicks on their ad. The cost of PPC ads varies based on how competitive the keywords used in the ad are. PPC ads targeting major cities cost more than smaller suburbs or towns. Some practice areas tend to be more well-advertised.

For example, if you want to create an ad for “business lawyer in NYC,” you will pay about $6 per click, while “business lawyer in Omaha” costs about $3.50 per click. Some of the most competitive keywords cost over $100 per click.

The most important factor to consider about PPC is that you pay per click, no matter if that click becomes a lead and client or not. More so, to pull in these prospective clients, your business law firm must be able to compete against much larger competitors who use PPC heavily.

Typically, PPC has a much lower conversion rate, and once you stop using PPC campaigns, it’s over you have nothing to show for the work you’ve done. By contrast, all of the work you do with legal SEO continues to remain on your site, working for you over time to draw in prospective clients.

Array Digital does not believe in a one-size-fits-all strategy. Every client needs a unique plan, which is why you need to speak to our team for a free assessment to see which services are best for your particular firm.

Social media advertising

Social media advertising typically costs less than PPC but requires more effort to see a positive ROI. Again, the conversation rate is low compared to an effective SEO campaign. It’s also not an effective option for many business law firms who wish to connect with other businesses and corporations. If, however, your law firm is targeting individual clients, this medium should be a consideration. Once you stop social media advertising, it can possibly slow lead generation.

Organic search

Organic search aims to position your law firm website high in the search engine rankings for specific search terms. It has a lower upfront cost than any method of paid advertising. However, an SEO campaign is more of a slow process that builds on itself over time. It continues to improve gradually, even if you do not continue to invest directly in your website content.

Array Digital recommends a combination of PPC and organic SEO for most business lawyers so that you can rank for specific search terms found on your web pages over the long term but get some initial impact from low-competition keywords through PPC.

Traditional marketing techniques, such as billboards, bus ads, TV commercials, and radio commercials, are still somewhat viable marketing techniques for attorneys. However, people are moving away from traditional forms of media, with radio and TV seeing significant declines in viewership while Google’s active users increase annually.

More so, as a business attorney attracting small to large companies, unless you have a method of zeroing in on these specific groups of target employees through traditional marketing, these local methods of advertising are limited.

To achieve high-quality clients, your digital marketing strategy must be tailored specifically to the type of business lawyer you are, as some see a bigger ROI than others from using SEO. A corporate law attorney is less likely to get many of its clients through SEO since these clients are not searching on Google for an attorney but may have in-house attorneys to support their needs. This type of attorney does best with thought leadership. A trademark attorney helping a small business is likely to benefit from law firm SEO services.

Consider why law firms that target consumers tend to have a better ROI through the use of attorney SEO practices. A personal injury lawyer, family law attorney, or criminal defense attorney, for example, benefits highly from SEO because consumers use Google searches to find answers to their questions. B2B law firms, comparatively, often rely on referrals. It is critical, then, to understand how your prospective clients are looking for your services, which is something Array Digital can help you navigate.

Build your online presence

All attorneys benefit from having an online presence. Searchers want to know who they are speaking with and learning from before they call.

Create useful content for current clients

A component of your SEO ranking will be creating content that incorporates relevant keywords. However, it also must be content that is relevant to your readers. Useful content helps demonstrate expertise and creates confidence in your law firm’s abilities.

Engage in thought leadership

Thought leadership is the goal of creating highly insightful, valuable content that breaks down complex topics or provides a view on specific factors. It can help with website rank and also help establish your law firm as an industry leader.

Increase brand awareness

Design a brand that is present across every marketing channel you use. Work with a marketing agency to clearly outline who your brand is, what it represents, what its visual appearance is, and what its differentiator is versus other law firms in the same sector.

If your business law firm follows more of a B2C approach or works with other small businesses, consider the following steps.

1. Site auditing and optimization

Work with an SEO company like Array Digital to complete an audit, which will pinpoint any issues within your site. That includes technical factors like page speed limitations and broken internal links. This is critical for web optimization. If the search engines cannot move through your site quickly, that impacts both user experience and how well the search engine can rank your site. For SEO success, you need to ensure Google can easily move through your site.

2. Website design

Good website design helps build a law firm’s brand, identity, and reputation. It should be a component of your law firm SEO strategy, not just an afterthought. Factors that improve your site’s SEO include loading speed, how easy it is to navigate the site, having a clean, aesthetically pleasing site, accurate headers, and a focused site. Ultimately, your website must be able to capture people from your landing page and convert them into clients. The layout and navigation can help you with this.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO includes creating a sitemap and schema markup. It’s the back-end work, like title tags, headings, and meta descriptions, that helps with communicating with the search engines about your site.

4. Link building

Link building is the process of using both on-page and off-page links to direct people to move throughout your website. With internal links, you’re guiding people throughout your website so they can move from the landing page to the contact form in no time. Backlinks are those on other websites that point to yours, which can be helpful for ranking factors and metrics – Google likes to see your site linked to other valuable websites. Using business listings and legal directories like AVVO can help with this.

Keep in mind that blackhat SEO strategies, which include the use of low-quality link building, are not recommended. These can lead to a drop in rankings.

5. Content marketing

Content marketing is the production of high-quality website content to draw in visitors to your site. For some business attorneys, content marketing is beneficial if your target clients are using the internet to find information about the services you offer. Business law firms typically hired by defendants are not likely to see as much benefit from content marketing as a personal injury attorney helping plaintiffs, for example.

If your business targets medium to large businesses, use thought leadership as a medium for drawing in clients. This form of content marketing can help with brand building, a substantial component of your overall law firm marketing.

6. Local SEO

Local SEO is typically a cost-effective way of targeting prospective clients within your local area. It allows you to incorporate target keywords to attract a person looking for services within a designated area.

A core component of this is ranking in Google Maps and optimizing your Google Business Profile. Setting up your Google Business Profile with your attorney contact information, including website and phone number, target keywords, practice area explanations, and other content, can help to draw in a searcher within that specific area.

Follow these tools to rank in the search engines.

Make your site mobile-friendly

It’s estimated that 63% of all searches occur using a mobile device, and Google prioritizes sites optimized for mobile devices.

Measure your results and adjust accordingly

Once you begin the process of ranking in the algorithms, keep track of your key performance indicators (KPIs), which show how effective your strategy is and provide a way for you to adjust your efforts to achieve better results. Some KPIs important to business lawyers include:

• Keyword rankings
• Click-through rates
• Website conversion rates
• Conversion time
• Bounce rates

Utilize resources that help you track these KPIs, including AHrefs, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and SEMrush.

Prioritize your clients over search algorithms

Many components of Google’s algorithms are not publicly accessible, and those strategies that we do know can receive updates over time. For this reason, it’s critical to design your website and build quality content for your prospective clients. Ultimately, the changes Google makes are directly related to improving user experience. If you want to rank in the search engines, then develop relevant content to your likely target audience and use on-page SEO strategies that deliver an exceptional experience for every person who visits your site.

Hire law firm SEO experts

SEO takes time and finesse, and working with a legal digital marketing agency can help you make every investment to create the best possible results. More so, your SEO agency will monitor Google Analytics and all other data for you, handle any updates to Google algorithm that impact your website performance, and aid in content creation that’s specific to your target audience.

You don’t need to invest time in learning SEO and web design. Instead, let professionals handle the SEO strategy appropriate for your type of business law firm, along with the research and execution process.

To determine the ROI of law firm SEO, consider the KPIs most impactful to your firm. This varies based on your practice area, but typically, these areas are often the most important factors.

• Keyword ranking: Quality keyword research engines help you understand which keywords are most appropriate for your website. When your website ranks for specific keywords, that can help increase leads substantially, especially with local search results.
• Organic traffic: How much traffic are you getting to your site from any search query related to your law firm practice? While quality traffic matters, an increase in the number of people visiting is important to see.
• Click-through rates: Ultimately, you need more than visitors. You need someone that is going to click through and become a lead. That starts with the search engine results – how many are clicking through to your site?
• Average time on page: The longer searchers spend on your website, the higher the engagement is. This is a critical metric for content creation. It helps you know if your content is actually valuable to your target audience.
• Web conversions: How many people visiting your site become actual leads?

A law firm digital marketing agency can perform several key functions for your business law firm:

• Complete site audits
• Develop SEO strategies for each aspect of your marketing
• Research and write content
• Create ads
• Design websites
• Build quality backlinks

To get more information about how a digital marketing firm actually contributes to the success of law firm sites and ranking, watch the Managing Partners podcast.

How to choose the right digital marketing agency for your law firm SEO

Don’t select just any digital marketing agency. Instead, follow these tips:

Find a firm that specializes in marketing for law firms

This is critical since ABA guidelines on advertising place numerous restrictions on what and how lawyers can communicate on their website. On-site content mistakes can lead to fines. More so, you need an attorney who understands the industry and how to differentiate your firm from others.

Case studies and reviews

Learn as much as you can about the organization’s previous work. Case studies can help with this. They show what the company’s success rate has been with other firms.

Transparent practices

Seek out an agency that explains its processes and provides insight into how they may impact your account.

Red flags to avoid

• Spelling and grammar errors: That shows a lack of quality control.
• Black hat SEO practices: This indicates they are only focused on short-term results and don’t mind putting your practice on the line with Google. It’s unethical and will be penalized by Google.
• Guaranteed results: There’s no way to guarantee the growth or client conversions any law firm has.
• Technical-only SEO: While technical SEO is important, it is not the only component of success online. For most firms, content marketing is a core component of the process.
• Performance-based pricing models: This encourages shady practices that focus on ranking over user experience.
• Lack of transparency: If they do not show you how and why their strategies work, that should be a concern.

The initial step is to go over current marketing practices for your site and discuss what’s working for you. Then, a full site audit is the next best step to determine the current online presence and health of your site. From there, a strategist will work to develop a game plan on how to improve your SEO. We provide transparency in every component of the process.

Why law firms work with Array Digital

There are numerous reasons law firms work with us for something so important as their digital marketing, brand building, and online presence. Here’s what some of our testimonials say:

“Kevin and the Array Digital team are exceptional at what they do! If you are looking to grow your law firm, look no further. Array is the expert team that you need to take the complexities of digital marketing off of your plate and bring customers that need you to your doorstep.” — Greg T.

“Kevin and his team at Array Digital are the proverbial Pros from Dover… His digital marketing team is top-notch — they’re growing firms by leaps and bounds. In the digital age, digital marketing is no longer optional, particularly in certain fields like PI law, criminal/traffic law, and family law, which are volume practices. Kevin and Array Digital are in a unique position to help firms practice in the 21st century of tech.” — Rob B.

Array Digital is one of the top legal SEO agencies available today. Our team is extremely knowledgeable about attorney marketing guidelines and strategies, including those set by the American Bar Association.

You’re in good hands with our team. Set up a free consultation now to discuss how we can help you. Call 757-333-3021 or fill out our contact form for help.