An SEO Crash Course For The Legal Field

For plaintiffs firms and small firms in particular, a keen awareness of search-engine optimization practices is critical to success. 

If a motion were filed containing the term “truck injury attorney” where the term “truck injury attorneys” should have been, for example, the editing oversight would be regrettable, but likely benign. 

But the world looks different to search engine algorithms, and on Google, a missing letter can make a world of difference to a law firm looking for exposure to new clientele. 

That’s the gospel from search engine optimization guru Jeff Jacobs of MarketingSuccess.com, an SEO marketing agency with an emphasis on law firms. 

Jacobs is one of the guests in a densely informative webinar presented by our friends at Assembly Software, “How You Can Put SEO to Work for Your Firm.” 

He uses the truck injury attorney as an example of how fraught SEO strategy can be. According to Jacobs’s keyword research, the singular form of the search term yielded more than three times the results as the plural form.

Where Your Clients Are

Approximately 80 percent of all search is organic, according to the presentation, meaning it consists of unique users looking for the information or services they’ve searched for. 

Effective use of SEO strategy gets your practice in front of those search users, ideally sooner than later. If done correctly, the result is a spike in website traffic, leads, and ultimately new clients. 

These kinds of insights aren’t exactly intuitive, which is why Jacobs’s presentation is structured like an SEO crash course tailored to the legal field. 

For lawyers willing to learn how to charm Google’s web crawlers, a pipeline of quality leads and potential clients awaits. 

“Everybody wants the new leads and the new clients,” says Jacobs in a moment of marketing tough love. “This is what it takes to get there.” 

A Five-Phase Process

What it takes, according to Jacobs’s conversation with Above the Law columnist Bob Ambrogi and McKay Ferrell of Assembly Software, is a lot of research and strategy, not unlike preparing for litigation. 

Jacobs presents a five-phase process designed to analyze the competition, decode what Google is searching for, and use that information to boost the all-important Google ranking. 

SEO is its own discipline, Jacobs warned, which doesn’t mean lawyers can’t learn and wield it themselves, but it should usually be outsourced to a specialist if possible. 

DIYers Welcome

Jacobs does such a good job of demystifying SEO and breaking down the process that the presentation will inevitably inspire some to do the search optimization work themselves, however. 

For the DIY crowd, Jacobs details how to create and maintain optimized content and deploy it as part of a holistic approach to making your firm’s site attractive to Google. 

The search giant’s goal, after all, is to deliver the highest-quality results, and that means design and copy created with Google’s quality standards in mind. 

Translating SEO Into New Clients

Later in the webinar, Ferrell, of Assembly Software, discusses lead conversion and client intake technologies. 

These can be seamlessly integrated into an SEO strategy that guides prospective clients from the first click to the close of the case. 

Want to get a sense of the business your firm is missing? 

Check out this webinar for a look at the tools that are already at your fingertips to help your practice thrive.

View the Webinar