President & CEO of Corberry Digital Marketing Agency, a full-service digital marketing agency offering web design, SEO, PPC, social & more.
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For your law firm to attract more customers, you’ll need to start using search engine optimization (SEO) for your website. This helps you position yourself better in search engine results pages (SERPs) so more people get to know how you can help them. Aside from that, SEO can help you get ahead of your competitors.
On-page SEO is the crucial management of elements on your website (vs. off-page SEO, like external links) so that you rank higher in search engine results.
E-A-T For Quality Content
Successful on-page SEO is derived firstly from fact-based, high-quality content. Your content has to include E-A-T: expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. This concept comes from Google’s Search Quality Rating guidelines. It plays a big part in on-page SEO.
E-A-T is extremely important for any business but especially a law firm, where all of the information on your website must be accurate. But what is the quality of the content lurking on your own webpages? E-A-T will help you determine what to keep, what to modify, and what to delete for improved on-page SEO.
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Keyword Optimization
Keywords are an integral part of any on-page SEO strategy. It’s the very foundation of what SEO is.
Your target keyword(s) must be present in the first 100 words of your content. This is because Google prioritizes the first part of your content delivery in determining how you should rank compared to similar websites.
You also have to remember to still focus on prioritizing user experience. Google aims to bring users the best experience, so if your content helps Google achieve that, then you’ll rank higher in SERPs.
As a law firm, you may have a very large range of different users, whether it’s a person seeking legal information for themselves in a court case to various government representatives or other legal entities. The keywords you choose must represent the classes of users who access your website. If you only focus on inserting numerous keywords just to attempt to gain SEO ranking, it will hurt you because Google is able to determine relevance. If your keywords are out of context for the information you present, this is called keyword stuffing and Google penalizes websites that do it.
Finally, don’t forget to include long-tail keywords. These are longer and more specific keyword phrases that users search for when they’re closer to the point of purchase. An example of a long-tail keyword would be “companies that specialize in on-page SEO for law firms.”
Usually, long-tail keywords have a lower search volume. What makes them great is that the more specific the user’s search is, the higher the chances they get converted to paying customers.
Page Titles And Meta Descriptions
Search engines look at page titles and meta descriptions to figure out what your page is about. As for users, this is what they view in SERPs to get a quick understanding of what they will see once they open the link.
Incorporating your target keywords in page titles and meta descriptions is important for on-page SEO. Keep your page titles under 60 characters so users can see all of them in the SERPs. As for meta descriptions, keep them short and impactful so it entices your audience to click on your links.
Internal Links And Backlinks
Hyperlinking other helpful pages of your website to your content is called internal linking. It’s a great on-page SEO strategy because it keeps readers on your website longer since they consistently find useful content. Search engines interpret this as your site is helpful and valuable to users.
In contrast to internal linking, backlinks are links from an outside website that link to a page on your website. They are like validation votes that tell search engines that your law firm’s content is valuable, credible and helpful. As a result, this helps you rank better on SERPs.
Mobile Optimization
Did you know that most of your users will access your website via a phone and not a computer? At the end of 2017, Google started rolling out mobile-first indexing. As a result, you can expect to be ranked lower if your website is not optimized for mobile phones.
So, ensure that your website’s mobile loading speed is as fast as it can be. To check if your website is mobile-friendly, you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
Page Loading Speed
According to Think with Google, if a website’s loading time jumps from one second to three seconds, the probability of users bouncing from your website increases by 32%. The probability increases to 90% if it takes five seconds to load.
You can significantly increase your webpage loading speed if you compress your files—and, of course, this is crucial for mobile, where many people may be operating on old phones or bad Wi-Fi connections.
To check if your website is as fast as it can be, use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. You can then troubleshoot problems if your website is taking too long to load.
Conclusion
Make sure that your on-page SEO follows E-A-T and is optimized, and then make sure that your website has a mobile presence and is quick to load. Consider your internal links and backlinks, and, of course, make sure your content is accurate and true.
Monitor your website regularly by following this simple guide to on-page SEO for law firms.
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Author: Michael Fox, Forbes Councils Member
