Search Engine Optimization and Digital Marketing Tips for Law Firms
You don’t have to be a marketing professional to optimize your website to be user and search engine-friendly and to develop a Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing strategy that works for your law firm. However, if you want to be able to successfully use these high-value techniques to your advantage, you first need to understand exactly what they are. We’re going to break down three key concepts – Search Engine Optimization (SEO), PPC Marketing, and Organic Search – and how you can apply these to your law website in order to improve the number of valuable users (and potential clients!) who come to your site.
Marketing 101: The Basics
Understanding basic marketing concepts and being able to implement them on your website is going to help set your law firm apart from the pack. While website design can play a big role – let’s face it, even in today’s age of technology, there are still many law firms out there relying on outdated websites and practices for reaching their audience base – design is certainly not make-or-break for a law website. There are plenty of improvements you can make in order to attract new users, and learning the basic concepts is where you start.
What is SEO?
If you have any kind of professional web presence, you’ve probably heard people refer to the benefits (and, quite frankly, necessity) of SEO. This stands for Search Engine Optimization, and describes the techniques used to make your website approachable to not only people, but search engines as well. Search engines such as Google and Bing send out tools known as “bots” or “spiders” to crawl websites and gather data; this is how you’re able to see updates on a website after they’re made as well as read blurbs about a website in search engine results.
When search engines crawl your website, you want to make sure that the information is easy to find in a clear, concise layout, and that the user experience is good enough that the search engine will crawl the entire site. Just like with humans, if a search engine is having trouble using a website, it will stop. SEO ensures this does not happen. We’ll talk about this in more detail shortly.
What is organic search?
This a term that sounds exactly like what it is. It is the “natural,” unpaid method of drawing users to your site. Tied closely to SEO, you are able to utilize search engine-approved techniques to make your site friendlier to users. This can include (but is in no means limited to) incorporating new content and keywords, optimizing for SEO, and more.
What is PPC marketing?
PPC marketing, also frequently referred to as “paid marketing” or “paid search” is another term that is exactly what it sounds like: you pay to advertise your website to users. These digital marketing efforts create ads that will appear throughout the internet – from mobile apps to desktop webpages – and advertise for your firm. For every click your ad receives, you pay a portion of money. This is a great way to quickly build brand awareness but can get highly expensive if not used correctly.
Search Engine Optimization for Lawyers
So now you know the basics of what SEO is, but how can you use it to improve your website? As we mentioned, making improvements to SEO helps you add value to your website. One of the key ways to do this is through the development of valuable content.
When search engine bots crawl your website, they scan content in order to identify keywords which can be used to categorize your website. For example, in the field of law, they might search for your specific type of practice – terms like “criminal law” or “intellectual property law.” The more keywords you’re able to utilize in your content (without keyword stuffing!), the easier users will be able to discover your content when searching. Developing quality content, meaning that it’s highly relevant to any user who might come to your site, also gives you the secondary benefit of establishing your authority in your field of expertise.
At the end of the day, improving your website’s SEO goes hand-in-hand with improving the user’s experience. In order for your website to rank successfully in terms of SEO, the user experience should be smooth and information easy to find. Some of the SEO best practices in which to do this include:
- Writing website metadata (titles, descriptions, and alternative text for images)
- Making sure your URLs are friendly
- URLs should explain what a page is about and follow a clear categorization order (www.examplewebsite.com/about/our-team)
- Utilizing (and labeling in the HTML) clear H1 and H2 headers
Optimizing Your Website for Organic Search
Organic search follows a lot of the same patterns as SEO. Focusing on content and keyword improvements – as well as ensuring you have the proper SEO best practices in place – will help you organically develop website credibility.
Varying your content formats is another great way to do this. Utilize headings, bullet lists, and graphics to help break up large chunks of text. This will improve the user’s ability to skim for the information they’re looking for – a very important feature in a world where much of the information we consume comes in small, bite-sized forms, like that of social media posts.
Images are another great way to break up text and provide a more immediately engaging form of content for the user to consume. It is recommended to balance custom imagery and stock imagery on your website, so users can get a clearer understanding of who your company is; keep in mind that any images you use are part of your overall messaging.
Adding new, quality content on a regular basis will entice search engines to crawl your website more frequently. This will help keep your website relevant and boost you higher in the search engine results.
Pay Per Click Marketing for Lawyers
It may come as no surprise, but SEO and organic search best practices will ALSO help you when it comes to paid marketing. If you’re considering digital marketing campaigns, making sure your website is optimized for search engines will go a long way in helping keep costs down.
Choosing the right platform.
Choosing the right platform when advertising for your law firm is also incredibly important when it comes to paid marketing; this will ensure that you’re not wasting money on clicks that have little-to-no value to you (after all, if you’re a criminal law attorney, someone search for “sister-in-law gifts” is not going to be a valuable lead).
Google Ads, Microsoft/Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads are four of the most-used platforms for paid marketing. Depending on your already-existing web presence, you may be interested in other social media ad programs such as Instagram or Pinterest; however, these are largely seen as more “informal” platforms. For law firms specifically, we recommend Google, Bing, and LinkedIn. Some firms choose to incorporate Facebook ads as well, especially if they already have a large following there. Like some other social media platforms, Facebook can often be rather informal, so you’ll want to consider this when choosing where to advertise.
Setting a budget.
Especially for beginners, it is highly important to set a budget for your paid marketing and stick to it. When you really begin diving into PPC marketing and everything it involves, you might find yourself spending money very quickly. Continuously optimizing your campaigns and adjusting spend as you go based on what approaches are working best and what ones aren’t can really help you stay on budget and ensure value.
Beginners and experts alike can utilize these techniques to improve their website and spread brand awareness through organic and paid marketing efforts. Have questions about how SEO, organic search, and PPC marketing might apply to your law website? Our team of experts is happy to help. Reach out with your questions!