If you’re an attorney, there is one tactic that stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to growing your leads and getting more clients for your firm. Ranking first in Google search.
How do you even get there? You guessed it. SEO.
Or how we like to call it: Free traffic from Google.
Why is SEO impactful for attorneys and law firms?
Now, you may have seen law firms doing things like paid search or social media marketing.
After 7 years (and counting) of testing digital marketing strategies, we can confirm SEO is the clear-cut winner for service-based businesses in the high-ticket space.
Not just in terms of results but also in return on investment to get those results.
As an attorney, your money is made in the courtroom. You need your clients to come to you instead of wasting your time chasing them on social.
By the time you finish reading this article, you’re going to have a copy-and-paste local SEO plan that you can use in-house with your team or partner up with a qualified SEO agency to execute.
Well what we all love about organic traffic is it grows in perpetuity, right?
Whereas ads, every dollar you put in you get the same amount and you have to spend more in order to make more it’s more of a staircase and, eventually, your acquisition cost goes up with it.
Now, we are not saying you shouldn’t be doing paid at all. In fact, it is the smartest way to scale your business…once you’ve found a baseline for your digital marketing strategy.
Organic search just keeps growing over time. In other words, your marketing strategy remains the same but your results keep gaining momentum.
And of course, organic traffic converts. There’s nothing more powerful than somebody going to Google, typing in exactly what they want, and finding your website right there.
The conversion rate is higher than any other channel, including paid ads.
Why? Because people know that they’re ads.
People want to see an organic listing. They want to work with a company that feels real.
Hopefully, we’ve convinced you that SEO. Is a very powerful tactic and should be where your focus is.
How do you actually move the -digital- needle for your firm?
Let’s get into the strategy. For most firms, all you really need to do in order to move the needle is to optimize your local presence. This is 100x more powerful than any other short-term action you could take toward your marketing strategy.
Then comes more advanced link-building plays at whatnot. But, please, focus on boosting your local presence first.
When we say local presence we refer to every search that triggers Google maps. A “localized search”, if you will.
Example:
“Business law firms in Miami”
This search will lead you to a local directory where you find reviews, a little bit about the business, the directions, and the map. This is where a large majority of the clicks in localized searches come from. Hence, it’s really important that we spend a little time doing local optimization because this is where you’re gonna get a lot of phone calls from.
In a nutshell, the local optimization process is all about getting your Google business profile right and getting positive reviews across the web. That’s truly just about it before we dive into more technical strategies.
Optimizing your “Google My Business” profile
First things first. We need to get your business profile verified ASAP if it is not already.
You can go to Google right now, type in Google business profile manager and you are in. Make sure to be logged into your Gmail account when doing this and you’ll be able to create and verify your location.
You do need a physical office location, in case you are wondering. That’s very, very important.
If you do not have a physical office location, you need to get one. You can also get a verified virtual address pretty much anywhere. Just make sure to ask the provider if the address is good for you to use on your Google business profile. This is going to make a huge difference when it comes to becoming relevant for Google at a local level.
Next, we want to make sure everything is updated from your business core data. From adding photos, Q&A’s, and working hours, to sharing posts, etc, etc. Try to fill in as much information as possible. Again, this will make a day and night difference in your local presence.
Now, we need to get that review count up.
Don’t have a lot of reviews yet?
Here is a nice tip…
Send out a mass email to all your past clients.
Include anyone you’ve worked with in the past and ask them “on a level of 1 to 10, what was your level of satisfaction with our service?”. For anything above eight, you should reply and ask if they would mind leaving a review for your company. Of course, mention how helpful this would be for your firm. It will quite literally help you help more people just as you help them. Yes, that was an overuse of the word but you get the yeast.
Finally, if you go to your profile and click the “Get More Reviews” button, Google will provide a link to share directly with your clients. This will make it that much easier for them.
Doing this may seem like “too much” but trust us, it goes a very long way.
If you do not feel like sending a mass email at all for whatever reason. At the very least, please personally message some former and current clients that you have a solid relationship with and kindly ask them for 2 minutes of their time to leave a review.
It’s not just about SEO at this point. This is about having a holistic presence in Google.
Think about it, if you’re ranking fifth and you had better reviews than the other four law firms, you probably will steal a lot of that attention. So, remember, it’s not just about ranking first but capturing the consumer’s attention and converting it into a real business opportunity.
The final piece to achieve proper local presence is citations.
These are formal listings on local business directories…and something that we will not dive into in this specific article as it would be incredibly time-consuming for you. And even for your team if they are not well-seasoned with how SEO works.
Here is where we plug ourselves and say that we do offer local citations and overall local presence optimization for our clients so feel free to reach out to us if need be.
Let’s recap before we let you go. There are three main elements for your business to implement in order to improve your online presence fast.
First, set up your Google business profile, keep it active/up to date, and get it cleaned up. This is your foundation for any SEO tactics to implement later.
Then, the all-mighty reviews. If you have any bad reviews that you feel are undeserving, you can also reach out to us to see how we can help get them removed.
Finally, local citations. Probably the most complicated part of it all but it is also your golden ticket into the “web’s yellow pages”.
If you don’t feel like having an agency do this for you, we should certainly be reading as many books and watching as many YouTube videos as you need about the topic because it is that important.
Take care of these things and watch that momentum build up within the next 90 days. It is a truly satisfying feeling to see your business being recognized within your target area.
Best of luck!
