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A Brief Crash Course on SEO for Law Firms

A Brief Crash Course on SEO for Law Firms

February 28th, 2025

The term “SEO” has been around for years. However, if you mention it to a random person on the street, don’t let it surprise you if they look at you blankly. They might have that reaction because only certain individuals from a few select niches know about SEO and what it means.

You might know if you work in marketing that SEO for law firms requires a certain strategy, while SEO for some other professions needs a different set of tactics to find success. In this article, we will go over SEO for law firms and lawyers. It’s something they need, even if they don’t always know it.

What Does SEO Mean?

SEO means search engine optimization. When we’re talking about search engines, we’re basically talking about Google, since it has an enormous and dominant market share. You may want to optimize a website for other search engines to some degree, like Bing, but mostly, it’s Google that you’re trying to satisfy with your content strategy and all your actions surrounding it.

As a company, and that includes law firms, you’ll need a website. Search engine optimization means you’re subtly altering your site to make it more attractive to Google’s web crawlers. As those crawlers scrutinize your site, if they like what they see, they will send it shooting up the search engine ranking positions, also called SERPs.

If you want your business to do well, meaning you want it to attract customers or clients who will convert, then you need to land on the first page of the Google results when someone types in keywords or phrases having to do with your niche. You can also employ some other SEO tactics that don’t directly involve your website, but your efforts in this niche will normally start there.

Keywords

SEO continues to evolve. It started with some relatively basic tactics or strategies well over 20 years ago. At that point, the internet had far fewer websites and way less content.

Because of that, business entities like law firms that created websites didn’t have as much competition. If you had a half a dozen law firms in one geographic region, maybe only half of those even had a website at this point. Since then, businesses of all kinds have come to understand how much websites matter for companies, regardless of what services they offer or products they sell.

SEO started with keywords, or at least they entered into it and remained a focal point during the first several iterations of the SEO concept. These days, they do not comprise all of SEO, but they still matter for it a lot.

As far as law firms go, you will probably want to do keyword research if you want more people to visit your website. These site visits go by the term “unique page views.” The more people you have visiting your website, the more conversions you will probably get.

Conversions, in marketing parlance, mean individuals who you got to do something that you wanted. Maybe that’s hiring your law firm. Perhaps you want them to also follow the law firm on social media or to sign up for a mailing list.

How Do You Optimize a Law Firm’s Website for Keywords?

You can use different tools to look for keywords that the tool determines you should feature on your law firm’s website if you want to appear at the top of the SERPs for that particular niche or industry. For instance, you might want the site to appear at the top of the SERPs for phrases like “best lawyer near me” or “best personal injury lawyer in Chicago.”

To get to the top of the SERPs, you will often need to add keywords the tool told you about to your website copy. You can hire a copywriter to do that, or you could use a marketing agency.

That’s just the beginning in terms of what you’ll need to do to get a sizeable market share through SEO, though. Law firms have plenty of competition, and many other candidates will vie for those spots at the top of the Google results for terms having to do with your niche.

Other Ways You Can Make Your Site Rank

If you want your law firm’s site to rank, you can add visual elements. The Google crawlers like that. You can add professional-quality photos and videos to the site. You can write short paragraphs and feature them on your landing page instead of long, boring blocks of text.

You can add the elements that best web practices indicate you should have on the site. Those include an “About Us” section. They include an FAQ section. You will also probably want a blog.

The crawlers love new content, but you may not want to change the content on your landing page very often once you have optimized it with the appropriate keywords. That means, if you want a place to add new content on a weekly basis, having a blog makes sense.

You can write the blog yourself. You might choose topics in which you think your potential clients will have an interest.

You may ask your followers on social media what topics they would like to see featured on your blog. If you don’t have the time to write the blogs yourself, then you may hire a copywriter to do it for you.

Off-Site SEO vs On-Site SEO

We could talk for days about on-site SEO (also referred to as “on-page SEO”), such as how it focuses on optimizing elements within your website itself to improve search engine rankings. This includes optimizing content with relevant keywords, ensuring meta tags and descriptions are accurately reflecting your services, improving site speed and mobile responsiveness, and creating a user-friendly website structure. On-site SEO aims to make your website more appealing to search engines and users, while off-site SEO (also referred to as “off-page SEO”) enhances your firm’s online reputation and authority by building connections and visibility outside your website. Combining both strategies will create a comprehensive SEO approach, driving traffic and attracting more clients to your law firm.

Off-site SEO needs to enter into your strategy as someone trying to attract more clients for your law firm. Off-site SEO involves things like creating a Google Business Profile listing (previously Google My Business), if you don’t have one yet. If you do have one, then you need to make sure there’s only correct information there since visitors will be viewing that information.

Additionally, off-site SEO encompasses a range of strategies such as earning high-quality backlinks from reputable websites within the legal industry or related fields. This can be achieved through guest blogging, contributing articles to industry publications, or participating in relevant online forums and discussions. Engaging with your local community through sponsorships, events, and partnerships can also boost your firm’s online visibility and credibility. Ensuring positive reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and legal-specific directories, as well as leveraging social media channels to share valuable content and interact with potential clients, are also key components of a successful off-site SEO strategy.

As you learn more about SEO, you’ll see that it’s always evolving. You will often need to go beyond the basics to truly get the results you want for your law firm.