As a top-tier law firm, you’re dedicated to providing your clients with reliable information, resources and counsel through your online content. While simply maintaining a professional website was once enough to engage with your audience, technological advances make “screenless searches” and “virtual assistants” increasingly common today. Chances are that your potential clients are using tools like Siri or Alexa to search for law firms nearby or simply searching law-specific keywords. These trends make voice search optimization a must for your growing law firm.
Tailoring your law firm’s online content to voice search can effectively improve your search engine results page (SERP) ranking and help you engage a broader audience. This article includes valuable information about how to optimize your law firm for voice search, a process that’s sure to boost your firm’s success for years to come.
What Is Voice Search?
As its name implies, voice search is a form of technology that allows users to request information or make commands simply by speaking. Voice search doesn’t typically require any physical contact with the device performing these tasks. A few of the most common examples of voice search today include virtual assistants such as Google (users activate this tool by saying, “Okay, Google”), Cortana, Alexa and Siri. Each of these virtual assistants can perform various tasks, from playing music to turning off the lights and relaying a number of facts found on the internet.
Voice search is made possible by what is called Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP is a form of artificial intelligence that allows machines to make sense of human language, permitting computers to infer meaning based on language patterns. While the development of NLP technology dates back several decades, its use in household items like “smart speakers” or virtual assistants, like Alexa, has grown rapidly in recent years. In fact, according to Forbes, 1 in 4 American adults owned smart speakers in 2020. With this statistic in mind, it’s easy to see that voice search capabilities are increasingly utilized — and coveted — in today’s digital world.
Voice Search Tips to Grow Your Law Firm
Voice search makes everyday life easier for users, and your law firm’s target audience is no exception. Typical uses of voice search related to the legal world could include finding the best law firm in the area or searching for what to do in a specific legal situation.
Today’s voice search users have a wealth of information at their disposal, and they’re not afraid to use it for legal matters. That’s why choosing to optimize your law firm for voice search is guaranteed to help your firm surpass competitors who aren’t adapting to technological advances. Incorporate the following tips into your firm’s voice search strategy to experience a broader reach and long-term success.
Go Local
Voice search is deeply intertwined with local search. In fact, almost half (46%) of all Google searches are searches for local information, and the use of the qualifier “near me” has skyrocketed in recent years. With these trends in mind, there’s no doubt that establishing your law firm’s local presence online will boost your voice search results.
One surefire way to make your firm more compatible with voice search is to claim your Google My Business listing, ensuring that your address and contact information are accurate and uniform across all platforms. You can also encourage satisfied clients to leave reviews online, as customer reviews continue to be an invaluable asset to grow your firm and attract new clients. By making sure that your business’s location, hours and contact information are published online, you can more easily tap into local voice search queries.
Publish Content in a Conversational Voice
In order to improve your law firm’s voice search compatibility, it’s helpful to publish content that’s written in a natural tone of voice. The content that you share online should resonate with your target audience’s needs, interests and concerns. On top of that, the closer the tone of your content is to your ideal customer’s voice search, the more engagement you will get.
For example, if a portion of your target audience is asking their virtual assistants to find an “affordable defense lawyer near me,” it’s in your best interest to use that phrase in your content. Avoid publishing content that sounds too stilted or technical — not only will you be less successful with voice search, you also run the risk of alienating your audience.
Focus On Long-Tail Keywords
Yet another strategy to optimize your firm’s content for voice search is to choose appropriate long-tail keywords to focus on. The beauty of long-tail keywords is their specificity. The more you can hone in on what your audience wants, the more likely you are to gain clients and notoriety in your field.
If you’re not sure how to determine the best long-tail keywords for your law firm, start by going to Google. Type in a few words, such as “personal injury attorney,” and see what suggestions come up. This is your biggest clue as to what people are searching for. Then, use these long-tail keywords as a basis to carve out your law firm’s niche.
Your goal should be to align your content with your audience’s voice searches, which makes it even more important to publish content that’s written in a conversational voice. While it may be tempting to engage in what’s known as “keyword stuffing,” it will inevitably damage user experience, content readability and your overall SERP ranking.
Write an FAQ Page
Including a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on your firm’s website is another terrific way to improve your voice search results. After all, most of your potential clients will probably have questions as they search for a lawyer, whether they’re wondering about the legal process, pricing or timelines. For this reason, FAQ pages are highly effective tools for attorneys to provide valuable insight into the legal process and capture potential clients’ attention.
As you are writing your FAQ page, be mindful not to be too vague or general in your answers. Google and other search engines have one goal and one goal only: to provide users with the best possible answers to their questions. Therefore, by taking the time to offer detailed, accurate answers to your target audience’s most common questions, you can improve your firm’s SEO, SERP ranking and overall visibility.
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Use
In order to achieve maximum voice search success, it’s important to think about how your firm’s target audience is searching for information. A typical scenario likely includes an individual saying, “Hey, Siri,” and proceeding to ask a question like, “Who’s the best-rated defense lawyer near me?” The user will then proceed to pick up their device and scroll through the options that Siri provides.
When the user comes across your firm’s website, the last thing you want them to do is to struggle to navigate through your various pages or deal with botched formatting. For this reason, it’s crucial that your website is optimized for mobile use. If you’re not convinced, consider that half of the world’s web traffic is conducted on mobile devices as of 2021. This astounding figure shows just how prevalent mobile devices are in today’s societies, making it even more important to optimize websites for mobile use and, ultimately, voice search.
Focus on Producing High-Quality, Relevant Content
At the end of the day, each of the aforementioned tips will not yield the desired results if your firm doesn’t produce high-quality, engaging content. Search engines exist to provide users with the most helpful information available. For this reason, your firm will go further by producing well-researched, long-form content than by trying to cut corners with subpar, keyword-stuffed material.
Take steps to incorporate the appropriate long-tail keywords into your content in a thoughtful, natural way, and prioritize quality over quantity. This type of attention to detail will be reflected in your customer reviews, backlinks from other sites and your audience’s engagement. These practices are sure to help you optimize your law firm for voice search in a lasting way.
Optimize Your Law Firm’s Content for Voice Search with Surefire Local
For law firms that are dedicated to helping clients day in and day out, adapting to the latest technology, like voice search, can be overwhelming and time-consuming. Luckily, our marketing experts at Surefire Local are here to help you navigate the ins and outs of voice search optimization.
We have the experience to make sure that you stay competitive while appealing to a broader audience of potential clients and boosting your visibility. Surefire Local’s all-in-one marketing intelligence platform makes voice search optimization a breeze — connect with our friendly team by calling (703) 884-8442 today.