Boosting your online presence is essential in today’s digital-driven world, and lawyers are no exception. In what has become a highly competitive space, especially with changing consumer buying behaviour, the need for an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to attract more clients is paramount.

The global pandemic has highlighted the importance of adapting to technology and changing traditional ways of marketing for businesses. Now, without a properly SEO-optimized website, or a strong digital presence, you’re likely to lose out on important business opportunities. That’s why legal professionals, whether working independently or with a firm, must take advantage of the increasing digital landscape to position themselves for better opportunities.

Google is far and away the most popular search engine, so ranking suitably high on this platform can do a whole lot of good in promoting your legal services. However, various tactics can be used when optimizing your website for better search engine visibility. But whatever strategy you decide on, it needs to be tailored to the legal industry to be effective—especially since there are certain rules guiding how legal entities can advertise their services.

It has become commonplace to state that internet use has grown exponentially in the last 20-odd years. Doing things the old ways simply doesn't work anymore. Whenever looking for legal services, people are most likely to begin their journey by searching on Google to find a local lawyer or legal firm.

To understand just how good or bad your current website SEO-optimization is, you can Google your name or that of your law firm and see what the results are. If it turns out that you don’t appear anywhere near the first few pages of the search results, then you still have a lot of work to do in improving your website’s SEO.

One of the first steps towards optimizing your website as a lawyer is keyword research. Focus on the keywords that show that whoever is searching is actively looking for legal services. Keywords like divorce lawyer in Toronto or car insurance lawyer in Houston are good examples for how to think about optimizing your website to be relevant to people living in your area. But it's also important to focus on keywords with high search volume, otherwise you’ll lose out on a lot of traffic. For example, people are more likely to  include the word “lawyer” in their searches than “attorney.”

Above all, the goal is to think about what your ideal prospective clients are bound to type into search engines when looking for the legal services you provide. Once you’re certain of the keywords you want to rank for, the next step is to build your content around those keywords. Having a constantly updated blog page is an effective way to incorporate keywords and improve your website’s SEO. To be effective, a blogging strategy requires unique and niche content published regularly to ensure you have fresh content on your website—which is a major part of the algorithms that determine what sites show up in searches on Google and other search engines.

Keeping to a schedule of posting sustainable website content that's engaging, informative, and appealing to readers can be overwhelming for most law firms. Thus, if you don’t have a dedicated team with a good grasp of legal terms and topics, outsourcing the writing to reputable legal marketing companies like dNOVO Group can do you a world of good.

Another great SEO strategy to boost your online visibility is creating video content. Websites with engaging videos have been proven to rank higher on search engines since they help increase the time spent by visitors on your page and reduce the bounce rate. Creating videos that include Q&As and success stories can provide immense value to your clients—and you can feature your lawyers in them to give it a more personalized feel.

Maintaining your search engine visibility requires you to regularly monitor your website’s performance. Incorporating site analytics will let you know what aspects of your page or content need tweaking if, for instance, you notice they have high bounce rates and low conversion rates. Technical SEO, which includes site security, user-friendliness, and load speed, is another major contributing factor to the success or failure of your SEO efforts.

Whether you choose to implement your SEO strategy yourself or employ the services of a professional, being able to execute it better can allow you to stand out from other law firms while growing your client base faster.