Did you know that almost half (46%) of all internet searches are local ones?
That means that of the 13 billion search inquiries that Google gets per day, six and a half are looking for local businesses that can help them.
Generally speaking, a law firm will help potential clientele within a specific geographical area; this could be in their local city or as far as the whole state. For example, law firms specializing in IP, divorce, PI, criminal, or family matters, to name a few, would most likely operate within the 10-mile area. Still, with a strong SEO, the profile could attract cases as far as 200+ miles. Larger area optimized profiles benefit from a larger volume of cases and potential refer out of low-quality cases, which drive additional revenue or symbiotic referral relationships. It all starts with traffic; the law firm with traffic sets the tone of the conversations and where they want to drive those leads.
When it comes to crucial law firm marketing, what other things do you absolutely need to know? Keep reading our essential guide to understanding what really matters for law firm marketing to drive traffic, calls, clients, cases, and revenue.
Law Firm Marketing: What REALLY Matters
When it comes to law firm marketing, certain factors matter more than others. Yes, the entire marketing machine should work well with all its moving parts, but sometimes, the engine has important pieces that it should and cannot function without.
1. Optimize For Mobile
One of your main priorities when performing online marketing for law firms should be to ensure that your website is optimized for viewing on any device. 60-80% of online traffic now comes through mobile. Your website should be responsive depending on who is viewing it and where.
Mobile traffic counts a lot these days; you don’t want to miss out.
2. Prioritize Security On Your Site
With cybercrime on the rise and internet users becoming more aware, you need to ensure your website is secure. Search engines will also not allow websites with low security to rank high.
Make sure SSL certificates are up to date and your security is top-level.
3. Focus On Small Parts
Things like meta tags, H1 headings, keyword descriptions, and custom URL names are super important to help your law firm rank. Ensure that your keyword strategy sprinkles appropriately throughout your site without being overstuffed.
Overstuffing keywords will ultimately count against you and your law firm’s digital marketing efforts.
Here is a list of a few small tweaks that can be executed quickly for better onsite grading, performance & ranking:
- Title tag optimization with solid research (Time needed:1-2 days for a 10-page site, when done right)
- Meta tag optimization (Description, keyword, etc.) (Time needed:1-2 days for a 10-page site)
- Heading tags optimization (Time needed:1 day for a 10-page site)
- Targeted keywords are not placed into tags (Time needed:1 day for a 10-page site)
- Alt / Image tags Optimization (Time needed:2-3 day for a 10-page site)
- Google publisher information (Time needed: 0.25 days for a 10-page site)
- Custom 404 Page. (Time needed: 0.25 days)
- Products & services need to be following a structured markup data format (Time needed:2-3 days for a 10-page site)
- Website Speed Development (Both Mobile and Desktop ) (Time needed:2-3 days for a 10-page site)
- Off-Page 600+ SEO citations signal built out to establish footprint (Time needed: 2 weeks, when manually done for a 10-page site. Google prefers manual work as each site has its own requirements, bots can leave out many fields empty, making it seem spammy to Google)
4. Regularly Update Content As Content Is King
New and fresh content published regularly will help Google and other search engines crawl your new content and help you rank better.
Ensure that your content marketing strategy aligns well with your SEO and law firm marketing strategy for a seamless content experience for your visitors. Any law firm marketing agency will tell you how important content is to your success.
5. Linkbuilding Is A Real Thing To Get Referrals & Traffic.
We’ve all heard time and time again how important links can be to how your website performs in search results.
This is true when you focus on high-quality links that connect to quality, reputable outside sources. Make sure links are contextual and pertinent to your law firm and your content.
Law Firm Marketing Magic
Ultimately, there is no magic formula to help your law firm marketing strat perform overnight, successfully. More keywords with more optimization mean more traffic, calls, consults, and clients booked.
As with any form of advertising, branding, and marketing, it is a constant effort with Google and other platform requirements changing. This will help enable your law firm to start seeing optimum results driving a solid 5-100x+ ROI. But don’t wait too long; ensure that you have measurement metrics in place so that you can adapt and mold your plan as you move along.
But, having a law firm website that performs is nothing without a full digital marketing strategy; we’ve got you covered here.