5 Most Common SEO Mistakes Attorneys Make

The world is getting more and more digital. Everyday people are relying on the internet to provide them with education about attorneys. If you're an attorney, you should be turning your attention to search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is the act of bringing your firm’s website to the top of Google in an effort to get prospects to find your law firm. Are you doing all you can to improve your SEO or are you letting these 5 common SEO mistakes hold you back?

1. Building Links Like It's 1996

Remember the days when every link was a good link? It used to be that any website that contained a link to your website would be helpful. It didn’t matter where it came from, as long as it was pointing back to your site.

Those days are long gone. Now, Google places high importance on the quality and relevancy of each link. Less is more. These days, it's all about getting the right people to link to you. One link from the National Lawyers Guild is worth more than 50 links from some hackers in Russia. The 50 links from Russian hackers will actually hurt you more than do you good. Google is getting very good at recognizing bogus backlinks.

2. Not Using Long-Tail Keywords

Attorney SEO is all about optimizing your content for the right keywords in the right places. For example, a lawyer in Tampa will naturally want to optimize their website for large sweeping keywords such as "Tampa attorney" or "Tampa lawyer".

However, it’s much more important to focus on highly specific keywords. These types of keywords are called long-tail keywords. These are keywords like "Tampa real estate attorney" and "Tampa, Florida foreclosure defense lawyer".

The long-tail keywords do 2 things for your SEO:

1. It reduces the competition. The longer the keyword, the easier it will be to get found.
2. It helps attract the right audience. If done properly, only the people you want to find you will find you.

3. Producing Low-Quality Content (or No Content at all)

Gone are the days when any content was good content. Google's algorithms have become increasingly precise when it comes to understanding what content is valuable and what isn't. Lawyers (and really anyone with a blog) used to be able to put up a half-thought-out blog post and get ranked for it.

Your potential customers (and Google) will not stand for this any longer. They are demanding high-quality content that will provide real value. Unfortunately, most lawyers don’t have the time to write content, let alone great content. If this is you, look to outsource your content creation. It will save lots of time and an expert will likely do it better anyway. You’ll may pay more upfront, but the end result will be more traffic and more conversions.

4. Ignoring On-Page SEO

Lawyers often make the mistake of only trying to get off-page SEO. This includes building links from high quality and relevant websites and is often done through guest blogging and connections. While it’s important to focus on this, don’t overlook the on-page SEO.

On-page SEO isn’t limited to the following, but below are some great starter tips. Every page of your website should have:

1. Its own keyword
2. A unique title containing the keyword.
3. A unique meta description contains the keyword.
4. Unique, high quality content.
5. The keyword a maximum of 5 times (otherwise Google will think you’re spam).

5. Not Using the Data

How are you tracking search engine traffic? You need to track your data! There are many great tools, such as Google Analytics and Hubspot. With their help, you can answer questions like:

• What are your top traffic sources?
• What are your top pages?
• How many people are visiting your website every month?
• What are people doing when they visit your website?

There are plenty more insights to be gleaned from data analytics. Among other things, your data can help you measure ROI, improve conversions and, ultimately, make more money.

Conclusion

Attorneys wear many hats and "marketing guru" isn’t always a favorite. However, it's a necessary evil when trying to grow your law firm. If you want to grow your practice in the future, it’s imperative to focus your efforts on SEO.

By avoiding these common SEO mistakes, you’ll put your website in a position to take the lion’s share of the web traffic from your competitors. Get in touch with one of our marketing experts today to learn how to boost your SEO and start generating more leads.