Customer acquisition through the phone book or newspaper is all but gone but local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for law firms provides an even better tool to attract qualified clients nearby. This SEO strategy improves your firm’s visibility for a searcher’s geographic query—law firms in Charleston—or their physical location—law firms near me.
Why Law Firms Should Focus on Local SEO
A law firm that doesn’t prioritize local SEO may fail to attract clients within the lawyers’ practicing jurisdiction and their business will suffer.
Legal Category Expert, Scott Brandon, explains, “We see attorneys who practice in specific districts, and law firms expanding their offices to new areas, struggle to find clients through organic search and local listings. Optimizing their profiles and website to increase visibility with potential clients in the vicinity is a game-changer for these firms.”
Scott added, “Google also prioritizes geo-based results to help connect people to services in their area. Someone searching for a divorce attorney will see a handy map plotting local family law firms and a concise listing of each. If your law firm’s website and business profile aren’t optimized, you won’t be on the map—or anyone’s radar.”
How To Use Local SEO To Capture The Legal Market
Personal referrals remain essential for consumers looking for attorneys, and as this 2024 report suggests, about 40% of consumers count on recommendations from family, friends, or other lawyers. But today’s quest for legal help no longer relies on word-of-mouth alone—61% of individuals who ask others for legal recommendations also hop online to solidify their decision. When competitors appear near the top of the search results, they can easily pilfer potential clients, even from a highly recommended firm.
A law firm can distinguish itself from competitors in local search results through on-site optimization of practice area pages, creating content addressing regional legal concerns or laws affecting the community, and actively managing client reviews and questions on its business profile.
Optimizing these areas can help satisfy search engine ranking requirements for businesses, which include:
- Relevance: The firm’s practice areas relate to the person’s search terms or search history
- Prominence: When a legal group appears in local directories, has positive client reviews, and is linked to from other sites, its value increases.
- Location: The physical address and distance from the searcher’s location or geographic search terms.
5 Tips To Improve A Law Firm’s Local SEO
Now that you understand the benefits of optimizing profiles and websites to attract a local crowd, let’s look at how ad agencies specializing in legal marketing get this done. A law firm needs to include its Google Business Profile, client reviews, business directories, and website content marketing on its list of local SEO tasks. Follow these tips to enhance your law firm’s online profiles and website for improved visibility:
1. Create or Claim a Google Business Profile
We’re certain you already have a Google Business Profile—the first step to establishing your firm’s presence on the Google Local Pack and Google Maps—but in case you don’t, or you haven’t claimed control of your profile yet, it’s time. If you’ve ever searched for a service in your area, you’ve seen the Google Local Pack in action. This search feature displays a trio of the most relevant business listings and shows these places on a map providing a rating, address, and contact information.
2. Optimize Your Google Business Profile
It takes more than owning a Google Business Profile to earn a spot on the local pack. Ad agencies that specialize in legal domains will remind you that your profile must also be optimized. Doing so gives the search engine details about your business so it can determine what queries your law firm should rank for.
Use these tips to improve your law firm’s local SEO and help your business rank:
- Write an Accurate Business Description: Follow Google’s guidelines and provide helpful, accurate details about your practice areas and legal services, the firm’s mission, and its history.
- Verify Your NAP: Confirm the business’s Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are correct and consistent with your website and other online profiles.
- Add Images: A business logo, images of your law office exterior, and images of your team at work can help legitimize your firm.
- Manage Google Reviews: Monitor your reviews and respond to positive and negative feedback to strengthen your reputation.
- Add a Profile Q & A: Offering this section (or creating your own FAQs) provides potential clients information on the services you handle, the circumstances that may or may not require a lawyer, and the districts you serve, to help them make informed decisions.
3. Ask for Client Reviews
Client testimonials and feedback are huge differentiators for law firms looking to dominate the local market. These can shape how a potential client views your business and convince someone to choose your law firm when they need legal counsel. Once a client’s case is closed, encourage them to review your services online with a personalized email (and include the link to your Google review page to make it easy). Respond to client feedback with gratitude to encourage additional reviewers.
4. Take Advantage of Online Business Directories
Online directories are the digital, modern-day Yellow Pages and many people look to these to find law firms nearby. Yelp is a popular business directory, but law firms should also aim to gain listings on legal sites, like Avoo, FindLaw, and Nolo. Most platforms are free and the reviews and visibility help boost a law firm’s credibility and rankings.
When your directory entry is up and running, follow these local SEO tips for law firms to get even more out of each listing:
- Verify the business’s name, address, and phone number is correct and consistent
- Add an accurate, informative description
- Include a complete list of services and practice areas
- Take advantage of publishing opportunities to build your brand recognition and authority
- Review existing directory entries for outdated or inaccurate information
Law firms can also use Facebook Business like an online directory profile to enhance their local SEO by increasing their online presence and offering additional opportunities to engage their local audiences. Though social channels don’t always directly impact rankings, being active on these accounts does help companies attract backlinks, drive traffic to their web content, and discuss topics to engage the community.
5. Refine Your Content Marketing
Even if your law firm’s on-site optimization is underway, there are location-specific tactics to incorporate in your content marketing to garner the attention of your local client pool.
Tips for optimizing content—blogs, legal articles, and website pages—to reach a local audience include:
- Targeting Local Keywords: Use regional indicators in your headers and copy, such as, “We’re a family law practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, specializing in…” or “The Triangle’s Best Corporate Lawyers” to give searchers who stumble onto your page a quick clue to your location and to help Google match your firm to local searchers.
- Competing With Local Businesses: Perform competitor research to understand what local law firms are doing and which of their search terms are attracting local clients. This can help you identify shifts in demand, content gaps, and areas where you have an edge to adjust your marketing efforts.
- Speaking to Your Audience: Remember that people in your target audience likely do not hold law degrees so your content should be approachable and understandable; it’s ok to speak with expertise, but unexplained legal jargon can be off-putting and intimidate potential clients.
- Put On Your PR Hat and Pitch Your Firm as a Community Player: Showcasing how your firm and staff interact within your community can boost your reputation and earn your website valuable backlinks from local businesses or charities. Generate opportunities by sponsoring community events, networking with area businesses, and providing resources on local government topics.
- Create Content on Location-Specific Topics: If your state has laws about contributory negligence, it’s a no-fault state, or there’s a class action lawsuit against a local corporation, blog about it; these topics can help confirm your prominence in the area and your authority on regional law.
- Use Schema Markup: Schema is code added to the back end of a website to communicate specifics to search engines, like the law firm’s attorney roster, the legal services offered, and office hours; this markup helps websites qualify for ‘rich’ results—enhanced results with more information than displays in conventional search results—that give people more reasons to click.
- Support Mobile Users: Your website should be responsive on mobile devices so anyone can interact with your content, easily tap the ‘call’ button, and browse your services on any device.
Some of these tasks may be outside of your wheelhouse, and that’s ok. Ad agencies that specialize in the legal industry understand what needs to be done to improve your local SEO and how to do it. Don’t lose leads that are (literally) down the street because clients can’t find your business online.
Speak to our agency about kicking up your optimization efforts today.
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