Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), one of the most important aspects of online marketing, is how you improve your website to get free listings on Google searches. Good SEO makes your website more visible for important search terms or “keywords”, which ultimately turns into more clients and revenue. A law firm SEO expert can get your website and posts to rank on the first page of Google searches while using ethical ‘white-hat’ SEO strategies that will keep you in Google’s good books for long-term success. 

If people in your city or state are Googling for lawyers who do your type of work, we want to make sure you are showing at the top of the search results. Our team not only stays up-to-date on new algorithms, we teach SEO at the leading conferences and two colleges. Our search engine optimization team is laser-focused on how to enhance SEO for attorneys. This translates into more phone calls, more chats, and more contact forms completed on your website by potential new clients. 

Our Core SEO Philosophy

Our core philosophy for SEO content development and social media is centered on answering the questions that your customers are asking. A Google search is essentially a potential client asking a question that they want an answer to. This is especially true considering that a growing percentage of Google searches are done with a voice search and over 60% of searches are on a mobile device. If your website is built around answering the most common questions that your audience is asking, then you are optimizing your website for winning SEO.

Our super-charged attorney SEO strategy makes use of video marketing and YouTube. We work with our attorney clients to record their answers to Frequently Asked Questions and we optimize these videos for Youtube “Video SEO” which is especially valuable because Google owns YouTube and has built video SEO into their search engine algorithms. Next, we add these videos to your website and blog for advanced optimization of the website.

A successful website provides a range of content options to your customers because different people choose to consume content differently. Some people like to watch videos, while others prefer to read pages and blogs. Some people like to click links to find the precise section they are looking for to answer their legal questions. At Ten Golden Rules, we believe in utilizing the knowledge your team has and making the most of the time you’ve spent on your marketing efforts by converting blogs into videos or bite-sized social media content.

Our law firm SEO experts at Ten Golden Rules have 20 years of experience deciphering how search engines work and how SEO and content combine to generate first page search results. With our award-winning team, we will create a website that gets you ranked high in search results for keywords with high search intent.

The ABCs of SEO

Ten Golden Rules has developed an easy framework to understand and implement successful attorney SEO strategies. We call these the ABCs of SEO.

There are over 600 algorithmic factors in Google’s search engine algorithm that determine whether your website comes up on the first page for a search like “personal injury attorney near me.” Those factors are going to weigh into Google’s mathematical determination of who best answers a search query. The more we understand these factors, the better our attorney SEO strategy will be. 

While Google’s algorithm can be extremely complex, successful SEO only requires you to understand the most important ideas. Our law firm SEO experts at Ten Golden Rules have broken down this algorithm into three main factors – The ABCs of SEO: Architecture, Backlinks, and Content. We explore these ideas more below.

A = Architecture

Your site’s architecture involves how your website is structured. This includes all of your website’s pages and how users navigate between them. 

To ensure that your site’s architecture is optimized for SEO, there are a few key things we do. First, we make sure your site is Google-friendly and loads quickly. If your page takes a long time to load, you will be penalized in the search rankings. Next, for people viewing your website on their phones, we optimize your site to be mobile-friendly and mobile search engine friendly. This will not only improve your SEO but will also ensure you are generating leads from potential clients who are on their phones when they are researching your firm.

Your website’s code should be clean and error-free so it is easy for Google crawlers to read. Additionally, we will ensure that your sitemap indexes all of your pages properly and that your site is error-free. We will also optimize your site with advanced schema code, alt and meta tags and ensure that your site is ADA compliant (the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design).

We will incorporate the most advanced tools to optimize your site’s architecture. We will install Google Analytics and Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools) and develop a custom reporting dashboard so that our experts, and your team can easily see key information about how the search engines, and website users are interacting with your site.

The law firm SEO experts at Ten Golden Rules understand the details of creating an optimized architecture that brings potential clients to your site and navigates them towards a conversion. With our help, you’ll have the website architecture that organizes your content and improves it to rank high so you can benefit from long-term SEO success. And as a team that builds strategies based on performance measurement, we can help you devise a plan of action based on analytics and data tracking so you can continue to monitor your results and ROI.

B = Backlinks

A is Architecture, B is Backlinks. Backlinks are active links from other sites to your site. With authentic, high-quality links from reputable sites such as universities, legal authority websites and respected news outlets, you can improve your site’s traffic and authority (and your firm’s Google importance and reputation). 

Backlinks are important because they are essentially votes telling Google that another webmaster has found useful content on your website and taken the time to link to it. However, each backlink does not equal every other backlink. The reputation and authority of the sites linking to your website are key factors in Google’s algorithm. The goal with backlinks is to become a legal authority that everybody in the industry links to because you have the best content that answers all the important questions. We accomplish this by writing authoritative content, and through our proprietary video question and answer content format.

Increasing your firm’s backlinks isn’t an easy task, but with the right strategy and connections, you can succeed. One of the best ways of doing this is by writing informative articles or creating engaging videos or other content for trusted, non-competitor sites. For lawyers, this can include writing for sites that feature legal content and doing quality press releases. Another useful way of getting backlinks is from partners and vendors – leveraging the relationships with people you already know can be a great way of getting high-quality and relevant links, and traffic to your site.

In the era of social media, including your website in your law firm’s social profiles can also improve your attorney’s SEO rankings. Another option is to get listed in legal directories such as Avvo or FindLaw. These are directories that users seek out independently to find legal services. Note that these listings, which often come with a fee, is not the same as paying for backlinks, which is against Google’s terms of service, and can end up being costly to your SEO efforts. Indeed, as much as your website can be helped by backlinks, it can also be hurt by low quality, foreign and irrelevant links. Staying away from paid links and keeping your firm’s name away from spammy sources is key to building a quality backlink profile. 

As your successful partner for achieving attorney SEO goals, Ten Golden Rules can help you build the backlinks you need to increase your authority and get your site more traffic. A law firm SEO expert from our office will work with you to get quality over quantity links and help you build relationships that will serve your firm for years. For new clients, we will do an extensive audit looking for bad backlinks that may be harming your SEO, and will remove the negative and dangerous backlinks.

C = Content

Last but certainly not least is your website’s content. Content involves the words, pictures, and videos on your site. To improve your SEO rankings, your site’s content should be authoritative, valuable for your audience, and easy to read. 

Your content should be answering the questions that your potential clients are asking. By writing the best answers to commonly asked questions, Google will rank your website as the best answer to a question and often feature the best answer in the “People Also Ask” section of search results. Understanding the best questions to answer requires keyword research and analysis using our proprietary methods. We compile Google research and use a number of SEO tools such as SEMRush, SpyFu, and AHREFS to get information about how many people are searching for keywords, and which results are showing. Gaining a deep understanding of this data allows us to create quality content that engages users and ranks high on Google.

Another consideration to make regarding optimizing your content for search engines is the type of content you have available. Different types of content can fulfill different attorney SEO goals, and by using a variety of types of content on your website, you can appeal to a number of preferences within your audience. Practice area pages provide detailed authoritative content, blogs can answer current questions and provide a fresh cadence of up-to-date content for Google to credit your site for creating consistent new and valuable information. When writing web pages, longer is better – you should aim to write at least 500 words for each blog and up to 3,000 or more for high authority pages – if it serves a purpose! Other ideas for content include e-books, reports, infographics, videos, FAQ sections, and case studies to engage users and rank high on Google.

Creating good content, however, isn’t all you need to do to succeed in your SEO efforts. You will also want to provide multiple calls-to-action on your pages – after all, the point of search engine optimization is to increase leads and new client sign ups! When creating content, therefore, it’s important to include multiple suggestions for clients to take action “call us today for a free consultation” or “contact our expert attorneys for advice on this manner by calling or chatting with us now”.

To determine the effectiveness of your content and whether it’s getting your potential clients through the sales funnel, you should be tracking your website performance. By using Google Analytics and interpreting those numbers, you can understand how potential clients are finding you, what pages they visit and which pages are performing the best to generate leads.

Ten Golden Rules has been an expert in successful SEO and content marketing since 2003. With our 20 years of experience, we have helped countless attorneys create SEO-optimized content that reaches new potential clients and invites them to contact you for your legal services. Our expert content marketing team is here to drive and implement your online content strategy toward success.

Benefit from Ten Golden Rules’ Law Firm SEO Expertise

Most often, successful SEO comes down to common sense business practices. Create a great website with easy-to-use architecture, work to get as many quality backlinks as possible, and fill your website with engaging, strategic content that answers questions people ask about legal issues in your practice area. When we help you with your website and content development you’ll have a great attorney SEO profile that brings in new clients and increases your revenue. 

However, we know that getting those foundations covered isn’t always easy, especially for small firms without in-house technical teams that can understand your website’s code or content creators that know how to write SEO-optimized content and blogs. Luckily, Ten Golden Rules has everything you need to get your law practice immediate and long-term results from a successful attorney SEO strategy. 

We have proven experience in supporting our attorney clients from all practice areas to reach SEO success. Our search engine optimization services will get your website found in Google search queries and you will see a notable increase in leads. What’s more, a law firm SEO expert works with you to build the SEO plan to continually improve those results month after month. 

To learn more about how your firm can benefit from top search rankings, optimized architecture, authoritative backlinks and quality content that gets you more traffic and conversions, contact us today.