FAQ
Q. Do people use search engines to find lawyers?
A. Yes. Every day more and more people turn to search engines and the internet to get answers to their legal questions, research their legal issues, and find lawyers. We work with law firms that rely on internet marketing strategies for a significant portion of their new business.
Q. What is law firm search engine optimization (SEO)?
A. Law firm SEO includes all the processes, strategies, and techniques used to increase your law firm’s visibility in search engines. These processes can be broken down into two main categories, on-page optimizations and off-page optimizations (or link building).
Q. What are on-page optimizations?
A. On-page optimizations include using key phrases that are relevant to your legal practice in various HTML tags and text on your law firm website. Some of the more important on-page optimizations include using key phrases in your pages’ title tag, heading tags, and internal anchor text links.
Q. What are off-page optimizations?
A. Off-page optimizations include all of the signals that tell search engines what your site is about and how authoritative your site is as compared to other sites. These signals include link signals, local signals, and social signals. Link building includes all the strategies used to garner editorial links to your law firm website. Some commonly used link building strategies include article marketing, directory submissions, link exchanges, and guest article writing.
Q. What is a law firm SEO consultant?
A. Law firm SEO consultants can assist you in carrying out a search engine optimization campaign. While some law firms hire law firm SEO consultants in-house, many more outsource these services. Some law firms will hire an SEO consultant to teach them how to execute search engine optimization techniques. Others will retain the SEO professional to actually execute the work.
Q. What should I look for in an SEO consultant?
A. Whether you’re thinking of hiring a consultant to work in-house, or outsourcing to an SEO firm, there are a couple things to consider when structuring the relationship.
First, don’t commit to long-term contracts with your SEO professional. Second, stay away from firms that claim a “special relationship” or “partnership” with search engines. Third, avoid companies that guarantee rankings.
Look for consultants with experience that will work on a month-to-month basis and are transparent with their strategies. Measure the performance of your law firm search engine optimization professional by increases in traffic, potential client leads, and return on investment.
