In the past, law firms relied on word of mouth as well as traditional forms of advertising, including print ads, television and radio commercials, billboards, and more. While offline advertising should remain an important part of your marketing budget, the fact of the matter is that more and more people refer to the internet when it’s time to secure the services of a skilled attorney. As a result, the process of refining your law firm’s online presence is more important than ever.

SEO Is Crucial to the Modern Law Firm

Overall, the vast majority of the techniques used to establish and improve your firm’s online presence can fit under the umbrella term known as search engine optimization, or SEO. Why? Activities like responsive web design, creating quality page and blog content, and improving the speed and performance of your site are primarily geared towards one ultimate goal – to increase the online visibility of your page for people searching for legal representation, make it more likely for those users to click through to your website, and provide a quality experience that influences users to become clients while they’re there.

In other words, SEO techniques aim to rank your law firm’s website at or near the top of Google’s search engine results page. This increase in web traffic and brand exposure serves to capture the attention of more of your potential clients, thereby helping you grow your firm. Done correctly, multiple SEO strategies and techniques work together to provide the Google ranking your law firm site needs for growth.

How SEO and Establishing Authority Can Help Your Firm Rank Well

At this stage of the game, your law firm should – at a bare minimum – have an attractive, easy-to-navigate website with helpful, quality content for your potential and current client base. The next SEO step most firms take is to ensure that all content contains commonly searched keywords and phrases to help direct potential clients to their homepage. However, these strategies alone don’t mean Google will rank your page high on its search engine results page (SERP).

For that, you’ll need to establish your law firm’s expertise, trust, and authority on the matter – a combination Google refers to as EAT. While Google’s human raters (and your potential clients) refer to your “about” information, your firm’s online ratings, and other professional indicators to establish EAT, the search engine’s algorithm looks to identify websites with EAT – and especially authority – via a set of ranking factors.

Why Links Matter

While ranking factors themselves number in the hundreds and are changed or altered frequently as Google adjusts its algorithm, two of the most important remain consistent – quality content and backlinks. Put simply, creating quality content that establishes you as an authority in your field should inspire others to link back to your site. In this way, Google and other search engines gauge your EAT by assessing how many other pages link to your pages – as well as the quality of the pages that link to yours.

In other words, garnering a high number of links to pages on your website lets Google know that the page in question is a source of quality, authoritative information. Pages with quality content, a good link profile, and high EAT rank higher on the SERP. The result? More exposure, more traffic, and likely more clients.

The Importance of Link Building

Certainly, any piece of quality content your law firm produces may eventually receive enough attention from your readers that other sites will want to link back to it. However, acquiring organic backlinks in this way can take a very long time. As a result, most firms elect to work to achieve backlinks from other quality pages, a process known as link building.

Overall, link building helps expedite your efforts to build authority, boosting your rankings, and ultimately, improving your website’s traffic volume. With an appropriate number of backlinks, Google’s crawlers recognize your page as an important and authoritative source of information. Perhaps even more importantly, featuring your website on other high-EAT pages results in more interested people visiting your page and even transfers some of that page’s EAT to your firm.

How Can You Begin Link Building?

Before you begin link building, it is essential to mention that your first priority should be link building via ethical practices. Spamming your links in the comments section of blogs, purchasing linkbacks, and other unethical behavior can lead to serious penalties or even de-indexing from Google. For your best chances at success – and to avoid the potential for penalties – stick with these tried-and-true methods:

1. Creating directory listings. The web is full of third-party legal directories, some with better reputations than others. Only some of these directories offer the type of “dofollow” links that pass their EAT to your page, but all can help you boost your traffic. Ensure your listing information, including firm name, address, phone number, business hours, and site link, are correct on well-known legal directories like:
   • FindLaw
   • NOLO
   • org
   • Avvo
   • Justia
2. Create guest posts and contribute to other sites. Recently, guest posting has gained a bit of a negative reputation, as businesses have engaged in creating low-quality or useless content full of backlinks to post on spam sites. Still, as long as you ensure you are creating high-quality content and receive permission to post it on a site that is either local to your service area or relevant to your legal field, you can benefit from guest posting. In addition, ensure that you only include one or two backlinks to your site and direct users to helpful pages that add to the utility of your post.
3. Make a real-life effort to contribute. Whether you’re sponsoring an event in your local area, contributing to a relevant organization within your niche, or receiving an award, you have the opportunity to mention it on other pages. Local news outlets, the Chamber of Commerce, or other local organizations will often agree to publish your link along with a story about your contribution. Similarly, award-giving organizations usually include a brief write-up and site link, along with an official news release.

Focusing on the above steps is a great start, but many law firms struggle to take link building to the next level while others risk neglecting this critical SEO strategy altogether. To ensure you continue to establish your firm’s expertise, authority, and trust – and increase your Google rankings in the process – it is crucial to develop a dynamic link building strategy. That’s where RizeUp Media can help; our experienced SEO team has the tools and the Google intelligence necessary to build a quality backlink profile. Contact us to learn more about how we can help your firm achieve top rankings that can help you achieve your goals and grow in the process. Call 866-806-8536 or reach out online today.