Reports say that typical millennials spend around three hours a day (or more) on their phones. As consumers increase dependence on their mobile devices, businesses should examine how their marketing plan will reach out to mobile users. If you have not recently examined your law firm’s website for mobile optimization, this is the ideal time to get started. Google will be soon by rolling out algorithm changes that highly favor mobile searches. If your law firm makes crucial changes in your website now, you will be able to stay visible in searches and avoid losing business.
What is Mobile Only Indexing?
Google has been planning to initiate mobile only indexing, and this change is imminent in 2021. Mobile only indexing means this: Google will soon ignore any images, text or video content that is not visible on mobile devices. Currently, your website may feature one header for desktop users and another for mobile users. However, after Google switches to mobile only indexing, only your mobile optimized header would be visible to users.
Mobile Marketing for Lawyers
To get ready for Google’s new mobile only indexing, where should lawyers begin making improvements? Start where mobile users are searching for your law firm.
Optimize For Local Searches
Reports show that many mobile searches are localized, and these searches gain an 80% conversion rate. To enhance your mobile visibility in local searches, begin adding your services and location in content keywords and metadata. Since many local searches start with phrases like “lawyers near me” make sure your law firm has claimed and fully completed your Google My Business listing and profile. For mobile users, the GMB listing takes up the entire screen, making it essential to grab a dominant spot in search results. Consider submitting FAQs and answers in your business Questions and Answers section, because this will be a helpful tool for potential clients.
Optimize for Voice Search
Voice searching is a type of artificial intelligence that is becoming more popular because of mobile users. An estimated 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches, so consider using voice-friendly SEO to optimize your website for voice search:
- Common language triggers, such as: who, why, and where
- Long-tail keywords instead of single words
- Proximity words, such as: near me, nearby and close
- Location specific keywords using the names of streets or nearby landmarks
- Conversational search phrases like: “divorce lawyer” instead of “family law practice.”
Optimize Your Law Firm’s Website
After a successful search, mobile users will probably land next on your website or blog. The collection of content you maintain should load fast and to avoid frustrating mobile consumers. The speed at which pages load is one of the most critical factors in optimizing you website. It is essential that your website renders efficiently by compressing images, blocking JavaScript scripts, and reducing server response time. Pages should fully load in three seconds or less. Some tools to assess your website’s page loading speed include: Google Analytics, Google’s Page Speed Insights, Lighthouse and GTmetrix.
Mobile Friendly and Mobile First
Mobile Friendly
Along with the rest of the online world, your law firm’s website has probably been slowly evolving into a mobile friendly platform. But the future, led by Google’s new mobile-indexing goals, will require your law firm to go beyond mobile friendly and escalate into a “mobile first” mindset. Before examining the requirements of mobile first, start by checking off the following basic requirements of a mobile friendly website:
- Does your website load in three seconds or less?
- Is your mobile score over 90? Use this tool to measure it.
- Does your website have a load time under 2.5 seconds with 4G? Check your data here.
- Do you have calls to action on your website that use Live Chat, text and call?
- Is your mobile website compliant with ADA?
Mobile First
Mobile first takes mobile friendly a step further. Adopting a mobile first approach means that you think of mobile users as your primary audience. Your website is one of the most crucial spaces to broadcast a mobile first mindset. If you are just starting to create your law firm website, using a responsive and mobile friendly design is the new default. View the following checklist to see if your website is ready for mobile first:
- Allow crawlers to crawl. Avoid blocking Googlebots with nofollow tags for mobile pages. If Google’s crawlers cannot access your webpage, these pages cannot be indexed on Google search.
- Stop popups. Mobile users do not want to encounter popups, because they translate to a poor mobile user experience.
- Optimize metadata. Confirm that your mobile pages have metadata that is optimized, such as: page titles, header tags and descriptions. Since desktop versions have been the default priority until recently, it is essential to optimize your metadata for mobile users. The best length for a page title is 78 characters, and meta descriptions should be kept to a maximum of 300 characters.
- Avoid Hidden Content. Keep all content visible and display all rich content to the user. This will increase your chances of ranking well for your chosen keywords.
- Enlarge tap targets. Tiny tap targets might work well for a desktop user with a mouse, but mobile users will struggle. Make sure your most important clickable buttons are visible and easy to access for mobile users.
- Examine content width. It is crucial to fence in your content within the viewing port, optimizing each page of your website.
- Shrink header images. Consumers with mobile devices do not want to wait for your expansive header image to load. Avoid user disruption by reducing the size of your header images.
- Apply structured data. Structured data is information that is plugged into an organized format, such as a table with rows and columns. Use structured data whenever possible, since this helps boost the mobility of your website.
- Find new channels. A mobile first mindset means you are constantly searching for new ways to serve your clients, whether the channel is social media, chat, or AI applications on your website.
Benefits of a Mobile First Mindset
When you have a solid mobile first strategy in place, you will be able to access more potential clients in an ever-expanding audience. The legal industry should begin to view mobile first design as a key tool for business growth. The benefits for being mobile first include:
- Greater reach to potential clients
- Improved client engagement
- Fresh new revenue channels through mobile apps
- More data resources through mobile usage statistics
- Improved user experience
- Solid foundation for future mobile growth
- Advantage over competitors who have not embraced the mobile first approach.
Digital Marketing Steps
It is clear that the use of mobile devices is gaining ground and will only increase. The concept of mobile first will transform every business in every industry, ready or not.
- Getting your law firm optimized for mobile indexing and making the searches of your potential clients easier should be a high priority, so consider taking steps that will improve your business for mobile searching. Start now, move ahead of the competition, and get ready to reap the future benefits. Take time to determine what your law firm’s online presence looks like on mobile devices to determine if any changes need to be made.
Annette Choti graduated from law school 20 years ago, and is now the CEO & Owner of Law Quill, a legal digital marketing agency focused on small and solo law firms. Law Quill is the only legal digital marketing agency that provides unique, SEO-optimized content, pre-packaged content, and courses for lawyers to learn SEO themselves through Law Quill Academy. Annette used to do theatre and professional comedy, which is not so different from the legal field if we are all being honest. Annette can be found on LinkedIn or at annette@lawquill.com
