Top SEO Trends for Attorneys

Law expertise is always a difficult thing to market. Between the complexity of attorney services and the difficulty in targeting highly specific audiences, it can be surprisingly hard to make any headway online – and search engine optimization is no exception.

However, SEO is not always going to be a tricky process if you approach it with no plan in mind. Sometimes, looking at what works for other firms can be an incredibly effective way to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your own SEO operations and can lead you to much more effective ways of promoting your services.

But which SEO trends are currently having the biggest impact on your typical attorney or law firm website, and how can you apply them to your own? Here is some advice on how you can push ahead with your own SEO in a more effective and goal-driven way.

Local SEO Content

One of the first things you will see mentioned in many law firm SEO guide articles is the concept of local SEO – SEO focused entirely on the local area you operate in. While you might already be focusing on your country or state, it is easy to overlook your own city or even districts within that city.

Larger cities and other widely spread local areas might be more limited regarding the potential customers you will earn, but there is also far less competition. It is not uncommon to see one law firm absolutely dominate searches for “law firm in (city),” even if there are dozens of other places where customers could turn to for legal help.

Looking at local search analytics, picking up local keywords, and creating locally specific content can be fantastic ways to boost your SEO. In some cases, this might even mean creating bespoke pages and SEO plans for every major city you are looking to draw in customers from rather than just the one your office is located in.

Mobile-First Pages

With more and more people turning to mobile devices for internet browsing, it is no surprise that mobile-first websites have become an increasingly important part of any SEO strategy. However, it is easy to forget this when designing your pages or writing new content pieces, which can be a problem.

A mobile-first approach to your website means designing and creating pages with mobile devices in mind. This could involve keeping content short and concise, making navigation easy to use, and ensuring that the images and videos on your site are optimized for smaller screens. Ideally, you would do all this without compromising the experience of desktop or tablet users.

Considering that mobile searches are a huge proportion of all searches for any topic, ensuring that your website works well on mobile platforms makes sense. If it does not, some search engines may even penalize you for creating a worse experience on mobile devices.

Topical Authority

Most search engines want to present users with information that is directly relevant to what they are looking for – whether that is answers to a specific query, a certain kind of product or service, or even news updates. This means that content with a clear focus and an authoritative tone will rank higher and have a higher chance of actually drawing users in.

For example, if your firm focuses mostly on helping clients with personal injury lawsuits, you will want to create content that is tailored toward that area. However, this content will hit harder and gain better SEO benefits if it is both relevant to what the user is looking for and provides clear, direct answers that are written by an authority on the matter.

Suppose you have a lot of accurate and up-to-date articles about personal injury lawsuit information. In that case, your site will be an authority on that topic – which can mean higher rankings and a stronger presence online.

UX Optimization

While mobile optimization has already been mentioned, it is important to consider how your site appears to users in general, regardless of platform. Search engines note how users explore your site and whether or not they are clearly lost (jumping from page to page rapidly, immediately backing out of pages, and so on).

Users must be able to navigate a site properly and access the information they are looking for, especially if they are actively looking for your services. This means that you need to create a site that is functional, usable, and easy to navigate. This often requires constant tweaking and adjustment, but it can have a big impact on your SEO.

Search engines dislike sites that users clearly do not find easy to use or ones that are functionally broken on certain platforms. Even if you just want the SEO benefits, the functionality of your site matters a lot more than you may have originally considered.

Video Content

Video content has become increasingly important for SEO and as a marketing tool in general. More and more people are turning to videos for their information and news rather than articles – just look at the rise of video essays on YouTube, which overtook the usual blogging format.

Informative, useful, keyword-rich videos are a fantastic way to establish yourself as an authority on certain topics. Not only can they catch the attention of potential customers when placed on platforms like YouTube, but embedding them on your site (usually along with a short article on the same page) can build a very effective piece of content.

Videos have a lot of staying power and can be an invaluable resource for your target audience, whether or not you want to promote your firm’s services. If you are just trying to boost your SEO, then video content can be a great way to capture an entirely new segment of your audience, so it can also serve as a marketing tool in its own right.

What Else?

Law firm SEO can be an incredibly complicated process, and no two firms are going to approach it in the same way. While these trends are some of the more notable things you might want to focus on as of writing this article, they are far from the only options that you have.

Some of the top SEO trends for attorneys are ones you would not even think to consider, let alone put into practice yourself. On top of that, each firm might have its own way of handling these trends, so there is no “best way” to approach your own SEO.

Ultimately, it comes down to trial and error, analysis, and careful planning. Look at your own site, read up on useful SEO resources, and do not be afraid to experiment or adapt an idea to work better with your own firm’s marketing goals.