Does your law firm appear each time someone searches for a local personal injury lawyer? If not, you’re losing potential clients! About 76% of search engine users visit a searched business within one day.
Search engine optimization (SEO) can even save you money. It could reduce up to 87.41% of customer acquisition costs compared to advertising. Personal injury lawyer SEO is highly competitive, though.
Not sure how to boost your rankings? Read on to develop your law firm SEO strategy today!
Understand SEO Best Practices
Before you begin developing your SEO marketing strategy, you need to understand SEO best practices. There are four types of SEO:
- On-page
- Local
- Off-page
- Technical
On-page SEO involves optimizing your law firm’s website content. You can target specific keywords to appear for relevant searches online.
Local SEO allows you to appear in front of nearby clients as they search for local law firms. You can update your Google Business profile to attract clients. It’s also important to generate reviews as part of your reputation management strategy.
Off-page SEO involves tactics outside of your website. You can generate backlinks to improve your rankings. Backlinks appear on other sites and direct readers to your content, providing you with referral traffic.
Technical SEO involves updating the backend of your website. For example, Google will check the mobile version of your site to determine your rankings.
Know Your Audience
Google looks for content that aligns with each search engine user’s intent. Search intent is often:
- Transactional:
This is where users are ready to pull the trigger, actively seeking to make a purchase, sign up or convert.
- Commercial:
Users in this category are exploring their options, kicking the tires and weighing the pros and cons for their choice. - Navigational:
These users are the ‘get me to the destination’ type. No frills. No fuss. Just one clear path to their information. - Informational:
Users seeking knowledge or answers – not ready to commit just yet.
To better understand the user’s search engine, gather audience and keyword research. Segment your target audience into smaller buyer personas.
Consider age, gender, location, marital status, income, and career. Look into their buying behaviors, pain points, and online behaviors. Gather keyword research for each buyer persona.
Using Personal Injury Lawyer Keywords
Focus on longer phrases, which can help you better understand the user’s search intent. Use these tools to create a list of target keywords:
- SEMRush
- Google Trends
- Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs
- Answer the Public
For each target keyword you select, choose three or four related phrases and synonyms. These secondary keywords will help you avoid keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing could get your site penalized by Google.
When writing content for on-page SEO, you should include your target keyword in the:
- Title
- URL
- Opening and closing paragraphs
- Body text
- Image file name and alt text
- SEO meta description and title
The meta description and title will appear on search engine result pages (SERPs). Make sure they’re both compelling and relevant to the reader’s needs. You’ll generate more clicks, allowing you to increase organic website traffic.
As you generate more website traffic, your rankings will improve. The higher you rank on SERPs, the more often clients will find your website. You’ll generate more website traffic and quality leads as your Google ranking rises.
AI Pro Tip for Personal Injury Lawyer SEO
Simply enter the following into ChatGPT using ‘your keyword’ as the central seed keyword, identify 15 long-tail keywords that potential customers might use when they seek a personal injury lawyer and effortlessly generate long-tail keywords with AI.
Test it out by adding a targeted city to the end of the prompt to see if you get better results.
Updating Personal Injury Lawyer Websites
Remember, technical SEO involves your website. The best personal injury websites are:
- User-friendly
- Mobile-optimized
- Fast
- Secure
Follow Google’s Core Web Vitals to enhance the user experience. A positive experience will encourage visitors to explore your content. Otherwise, they’ll leave, causing your bounce rate to increase.
A high bounce rate can hurt your organic rankings. Lower rankings will make it more difficult for you to appear in front of clients.
Work with an experienced website design and development agency. They can enhance your website for on-page and technical SEO. Enhancing the user experience will help you generate leads and improve your rankings.
Create Personalized Content
Using your keyword research, create high-quality, engaging content with your target audience in mind. Over 50% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. Without fresh content, potential clients won’t have a reason to visit your website.
Continuously creating content will encourage people to return multiple times. They’ll begin recognizing your experience and expertise.
Demonstrating your expertise as a lawyer can help you gain credibility. Establishing your credibility leads to brand trust.
Encouraging brand trust will encourage clients to trust your law firm. You could start booking more consultation appointments.
Use your keyword research list to keep creating content. Google prioritizes fresh, relevant content. Updating a website with fresh content can increase its organic traffic by over 111%.
Focusing on a different keyword in each post will help you appear for multiple search queries. Each time your website appears as a search result, you’ll generate traffic and brand awareness. Over time, you’ll linger in the client’s mind as a local law firm.
Link Building
Include internal and external links within your content. Internal links send readers to other pages on your website. External links send them to helpful resources.
Choose resources that support any claims you make within your content. Strong external links can boost your credibility.
Look for an SEO agency that offers backlink-building services. Otherwise, start writing guest blogs on other sites. Add a link to your content to generate referral traffic.
Track SEO Strategy Trends
Google updates its search engine algorithm multiple times a year. Neglecting to follow the latest SEO marketing trends could cause your Google rank to drop.
The latest SEO trends include:
- Voice search
- Video content
- Zero-click searches/featured snippets
- E-E-A-T
- Personalized content
- Google Core Web Vitals
- Enhanced user experiences
- Mobile-first indexing
- Interactive content
- The use of AI/machine learning
Start adding elements of E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority, trustworthiness) within your content. Tell your brand story, develop your personal brand, and showcase your expertise. E-E-A-T can boost your credibility, which can help you generate more leads.
Compete With Personal Injury Lawyer SEO
While personal injury lawyer SEO is competitive, there are ways to boost your organic rankings. Use these SEO best practices to enhance your SEO marketing strategy. With these tips, you can improve your rankings to reach new clients online.
You don’t have to apply these strategies alone. I specialize in custom website design, development, and digital marketing and have over 18 years of experience helping clients improve their online presence.
I’d love to help your site rank at the top of search engine result pages. Contact me today to discuss your personal injury lawyer SEO strategy.
