When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) for law firms, one of the most important things to understand is that improving visibility is only one of your goals. Equally essential will be your ability to reach not just the largest possible audience but the right audience – meaning the type of people who are most likely to become clients in the first place.
That’s why organic search and local SEO are so important. Drilling down your efforts and allowing your firm to focus on a specific geographic area, it’s a way to help raise awareness with and build trust among the type of people whom your firm has devoted itself to in the first place.
What is Organic Search/Local SEO?
At its core, the term “organic search” refers to those unpaid listings that appear on the results page for a query on a search engine like Google. They’re results that were able to rise to a prominent position naturally through publishing relevant content, keyword use, and other tactics.
Local SEO is an extension of that idea and is all about improving visibility for local businesses in particular. According to one recent study, approximately 97% of all Google users searched for a local business at some point in 2023. Those who find the local information they need aren’t just more likely to make contact with a business – they’re also dramatically more likely to make an in-person visit within just 24 hours.
This is because, if you live in Cleveland and are looking for a way to have the oil changed on your car, it doesn’t benefit you for Google to serve up results for a business that only operates in California just because they have a strong SEO strategy. You want to see businesses in your own backyard and local SEO exists in large part to help make that happen.
This is especially true for a law firm. If someone needs a lawyer, they want one in their own backyard. There are many notable, trustworthy lawyers all across the country, but that’s irrelevant to someone’s search intent. They need a local authority, and they need it now.
As is true with traditional SEO, there are a number of factors that help determine a business’s visibility in local organic search results. These include but are certainly not limited to ones like:
- Your Google Business Profile. This is a profile provided by Google that you can claim, allowing you to make your law firm’s contact information easily available and to improve integration with related services like Google Maps.
- Your participation in legal-centric business directories. This helps to build as many backlinks as possible to trusted, locally-focused sites across the web.
- Your social media profiles, including how active you are in terms of posting, how many followers you have, the level of engagement you have with each follower, and more.
- Your website design. The more locally-focused your website is (like by having unique service pages for each area you work in), the more likely you are to rank highly for local SEO queries.
Yes, this represents a bit of additional effort over conducting a more general search engine optimization strategy. As your site rises through the ranks, however, you’ll get to enjoy benefits like:
- Increased online visibility. The more prominently you rank in local SEO searches, the more likely it is that people will pay you a visit.
- The ability to outrank your competitors. Another study indicated that about 61% of people say they conduct local searches on a daily basis. Outranking your competitors means that the attention is likely to fall on you.
- Drive more traffic to your website. This in turn feeds into your larger SEO strategy. The more traffic you get, the more engagement you can create with your audience – meaning that your search rankings will naturally improve. Not only that, but more traffic gives you more opportunities to turn prospects into sales, too.
- You get to educate your customers by way of helpful, relevant content centered around who you are, what you do, and why it’s so important. The more educated they are, the more likely they are to buy from you.
Local SEO Tips
As stated, success in terms of local SEO will require you to slightly re-think your normal approach to search engine optimization. Truly, this is an effort where you cannot get too specific.
Perhaps the number one thing you can do to boost your local SEO involves improving your Google Business Profile. Google makes the majority of its own money on ad revenue, so once someone arrives at the main site or a Google-related service, it is in the company’s best interest to keep them there for as long as possible. Part of how they do this involves prominently featuring Google Business Profiles on search results pages. If people can find everything they need to know about your law firm without actually navigating away from the results page, both you and Google win.
To get to that point, you’ll want to make sure that you claim your Google Business Profile before anyone else can and update all information as often as possible. This is another one of the most pivotal organic search best practices for law firms. This includes not only contact information like your address and telephone number but your hours of operation as well. Include an overview of your products and services and make sure you take as many full-color, high-quality photos as possible.
Next, you’ll want to make sure that you are active on social media if you aren’t already. Think about where your audience is likely to spend the majority of its time online. If your business’ audience skews older, they likely spend a lot of time on Facebook – meaning that you should create the type of content that will get their attention there. If they’re younger, they might favor services like X or even Instagram.
Regardless, make sure you’re posting often and add those posts to your Google Business Profile. That way, people will be able to instantly see that your law firm is filled with legal professionals who are to be taken seriously.
Along the same lines, you’ll always want to maintain as much consistency as possible when it comes to your brand information. This is one of the tried-but-true organic search best practices for law firms. The way your name appears on your Google Business Profile should be identical to how it appears on your website, on Twitter/X, on your business cards, etc. Take the same approach with your address, phone number, and other crucial data. The more consistent you are, the more likely you are to rank locally.
Similarly, in concept to the Google Business Profile, you’ll also want to claim your business on any local business directories that you can find. This doesn’t need to focus exclusively on legal directories, although again that will help. You should optimize your presence there, too. Include high-quality photos, encourage customers to leave reviews, and include other essential information about your business.
This is important for two reasons. First, if you don’t claim those profiles, someone else might – meaning you’ll no longer be able to control what information appears on them. Second, it’s yet another opportunity to establish your business as a true local authority in your field.
Some of the other local SEO tips that you should follow include the following:
- Optimizing all elements of your business’s website for local SEO. This includes the URL, title tags, headers, and meta description.
- Add location pages to your website. If you operate in five different cities, you should have dedicated “services” or overview pages for each of them.
- Create as much local content as you possibly can. If you’re participating in a local event, write a post about it. If something happens in your area that you have a unique take on, write about it.
- Make your website as mobile-friendly as possible. According to Google itself, about 76% of the people who make local searches on a smartphone will visit that business within just 24 hours. Not only that, but 28% of those visits result in a purchase.
- Engage with your local community wherever you can. Try to get links from others to improve your business’ relevancy and authority search signals. Create content with local influencers in the legal world. Participate in local events that are likely to get news coverage. Do this as much as possible, and you will start to see your rankings improve as a result.
Attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform Demo
At Surefire Local, we understand that while things like organic search and local SEO are important, they’re not necessarily what you should be spending the majority of your time on as a legal professional. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean you can allow it all to become an afterthought, or you’ll run the risk of being left behind by your savvier competitors.
That’s why we pride ourselves on our ability to offer business intelligence marketing software at a fraction of the cost of other tools or agencies. Our platform helps you manage the most important online marketing activities for your firm, all within an easy-to-use platform that acts as a “single source of truth” for local SEO and more.
So if you’d like to find out more information about how to use organic search to propel your law firm to success, or if you’d like to see what our platform can do for you, click here to contact Surefire Local today.