When it comes to SEO, most lawyers shouldn’t be focusing on ranking with the largest possible audience – they need to hone in on the right audience. Meaning, of course, those people who live and work in the same area that the legal professionals themselves do.
That, in essence, is why local rankings are so important – they allow your site and your content to rank highly for those people who are most likely to become one of your clients in the first place.
Having said that, improving your ranking in local searches as a lawyer isn’t something that will happen automatically. If you want to leverage effective fresh content SEO tips for lawyers to gain as much visibility as possible, there are a number of important things you’ll need to keep in mind.
Local Ranking Factors to Be Aware Of
If you want to improve your local rankings as a lawyer, you first need to understand how those rankings are actually influenced.
One of the major elements that Google in particular looks at is recency. A page that has been updated more recently (say, in the last two weeks) will always have more weight than one that hasn’t (like a page that hasn’t been updated in two years).
Relevancy is a second major factor – the content you post should tie directly into not just the legal world in general, but into topics that are related to the services you offer. If you’re a lawyer who handles traffic accidents, you should try to post content that is relevant to this vertical.
Distance is a third element that Google considers. Meaning that if yours is a law firm that operates in Cleveland, Ohio, you can’t expect to rank very highly for a local search being conducted in Seattle, Washington. You want to target potential clients in the area where you actually work.
Prominence is a fourth contributing factor to your local rankings, which refers to how well known your firm already is. Backlinks from other, reputable sites are a great way to show this. Then a fifth factor, Availability, is also paramount – you want to show that people can actually get in touch with you when you’re needed.
Of the above, recency is the one that contributes the most to the concept of “fresh content.”
What is “Fresh Content” and How Does it Make You Easier to Find Online?
In order to determine whether or not content is fresh, Google will look at a few key factors. First, they’ll analyze when the content was published – meaning when it was first uploaded to your website. Then, they’ll check to see when their crawlers (also sometimes called spiders) first discovered the page and added it to the Google Search results. These won’t necessarily be the same day, mind you.
That will all be compared against the date when the page was last checked by those crawlers. Finally, the date when the last change was made will also be identified. All of this information will automatically be taken together to determine whether your legal content is fresh or whether it isn’t.
How Does Google Measure Content Freshness?
For the types of high-value, relevant legal content that you’re publishing on your website, Google will look at a number of core factors automatically to determine whether or not something is fresh.
Chief among these is the page inception date, which is the date when something like a blog post was first indexed by Google. If the page has recently been updated, Google will look at the number of adjustments that have been made. Changes to the body signal more freshness than changes to something like a page title or meta description.
The rate of page change will also be a determining factor when it comes to where you rank locally. If a page is updated all the time (like if you have a testimonials page that you continuously add more content to with each new successful case), that signals more freshness than a page that has remained stagnant for months at a time.
From the perspective of your larger domain, the rate of new page creation will also impact your local rankings – so adding new pages on a frequent basis can help improve them. As you finish new cases, create a new page writing about your experiences. Always add new blog posts to give insight into important legal topics that you feel your audience may find relevant. Things like that show that your domain is updated more frequently, which can absolutely lead to a higher freshness score.
Finally, the freshness of any backlinks that you’re able to earn will also impact your local rankings. Try to get other, reputable sites to link to the content you’re creating. You can do this by reaching out and writing a guest blog post for a legal industry site, for example, which will likely earn a new backlink back to your primary URL. Or, get people to share your blog posts on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. All of this helps to show Google that your site is an active one with fresh, relevant content people actually want to read.
How Are Your Local Rankings as a Lawyer Affected by Content Freshness?
Fresh content helps your local rankings, in part, by showing search engines like Google that your law firm is as active as possible. When a person conducts a local search for a lawyer, it is in Google’s best interest to serve them up with the most relevant results possible. If they’re looking for someone who can handle a product’s liability case, they want a legal professional who A) has that exact type of experience, and who B) can be contacted immediately.
If your content isn’t fresh, it could be a sign that your firm can’t handle this level of volume (or that it may not be in operation at all) – thus making it an irrelevant result that Google wouldn’t want to show to someone. On the other hand, if your site is filled with fresh content it’s a clear sign that you’re very active and thus a link to your site is likely to be very relevant to what someone is searching for.
Improving Your Freshness Score, One Step at a Time
In an effort to improve your freshness score and your overall local rankings as a lawyer, one of the biggest steps you’ll want to take involves publishing new content regularly. The legal world is a confusing one for most people, so write blog posts breaking down complicated topics in a way that is easy for people to understand. Give your unique insight into current legal events to establish yourself as a thought leader. Never overlook the chance to write a new blog post, even a short one, to keep your site updated on a consistent basis.
Along the same lines, you should also make an effort to refresh older content whenever possible. Did you write a blog post last year on a legal topic that has since seen more developments? Go back and add to that page. Did you write about a law that has been changed or repealed? Update the blog to give your thoughts as to what that means moving forward. As you do this, be sure to change the publication date after any updates are made to the content in question.
One of the best fresh content SEO tips for lawyers involves prioritizing that content that is receiving high traffic. Not every blog post you publish will be overwhelmingly popular with your audience, for example. Some may attract a lot of attention, while other topics may come and go very quietly. Once you begin to see what is working and what isn’t, prioritize those topics that your legal audience is actually interested in.
Finally, manually submit your content to Google through the Search Console to make sure it is crawled and indexed immediately. Don’t wait for those crawlers to come to you – go directly to them to get the proverbial ball rolling.
Request a Demo of Our Business Intelligence Marketing Software
The life of a legal professional is certainly a busy one, and improving your local SEO rankings can be nothing if not time-consuming. That’s why we’ve designed our own innovative business intelligence marketing software in an effort to make the process as easy and as straightforward as possible.
Our business intelligence marketing software allows you to view analytics from one easy screen, uncovering the type of insight you need to easily identify high-performing content. You can also use it to publish new content on a regular basis and even edit and update those blog articles that have already gone live – all without having to bounce from application to application in order to do so.
If you’d like to find out more information about all of the best fresh content SEO tips for lawyers that you can use to improve your local rankings, or if you’d just like to talk to someone about your own needs in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – schedule your demo today.