Should Lawyers DIY SEO?

Lawyers often counsel clients away from pro se representation. As the saying goes, people who represent themselves have fools for clients. But lawyers do not always follow this advice when it comes to their law practices. Despite having little free time for administrative tasks, lawyers in solo practice and small law firms often try to do everything. But should lawyers try to DIY their SEO?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Instead, you will need to decide how much time, effort, and money you want to devote to your attorney SEO marketing.

Here are some DIY SEO tips for your law firm that will help you decide whether you can handle your search engine marketing.

Basics of SEO for Law Firm Sites

Search engines collect information from web pages and index them. When a user enters a search query, the search engine uses a proprietary algorithm to select web pages for the user based on the index.

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” SEO is a set of techniques to help your web pages attain higher rankings for selected keywords in the search engine index. SEO pushes your web pages higher in the search results. And the higher you appear in the search results, the better the chances that a user will click on your website.

Lawyer SEO works exactly the same as SEO for any other type of business. As you look for beginner’s DIY SEO tips, you can apply suggestions for businesses outside the legal industry to your law firm’s website.

Choosing Between DIY SEO and Law Firm SEO Services

Your time is valuable. The time you spend on administrative tasks like marketing is time you cannot spend practicing law.

Online marketing has similarities to practicing law. To execute properly, they both require:

Training
Tools
Time

So, the choice between DIY SEO and outsourced lawyer SEO services comes down to whether you want to dedicate your resources to learning SEO, buying the tools needed for SEO, and spending the time to execute your SEO marketing plan. If this appeals to you, DIY SEO is right up your alley. If it does not, you should consider a digital marketing firm to develop and implement your SEO marketing campaigns.

DIY SEO Tips for Lawyers

Approaching DIY SEO in an orderly way will help you ensure that you hit all the steps and have the resources ready to implement your SEO marketing plan.

Laying the Groundwork

Two keys to a successful SEO plan are to know what you have and know who you want.

You can learn what you have by generating a sitemap of your website. Understand the content you have and where you want users to go when they find your web pages through search engines. You also need to decide what features, practice areas, and characteristics of your firm you want to promote.

You probably already know who you want. But you need to figure out who they are and, more importantly, what they search for when you capture them. Based on this analysis, you can set a goal for your SEO plan and a mission for reaching it.

Understand the Technical Side

Search engines like Google provide tools for you to track and analyze your traffic. Learn about Google Analytics & Google Search Console and configure them to track results.

You will also need to:

Select keywords
Identify influential sites for backlinks
Develop a content plan

Picking keywords will require research and thought. Every firm wants to show up at the top of the search results for their practice area. But sometimes you will get better results by picking less competitive keywords. For example, rather than optimizing for “personal injury,” you can optimize for “hotel slip & fall.”

Implement Your Content Plan

To optimize your site, you must consistently publish content that is:

Relevant
Useful
Uses the keyword topics or “Topic Cluster”

You should incorporate the keywords naturally into the content’s body, title, meta description, and alt tags.

Request Backlinks

The search engines give greater weight to content on your site that others have linked to. These are called backlinks. To get backlinks, you will contact the influential sites for your practice area and ask them to link to your content.

Spot and Troubleshoot Technical Problems

You want to avoid broken links and poorly structured pages. Search engines must “crawl” your pages to properly find and index your content. Technical issues can interfere with that process.

Refine Your Content and DIY SEO Plan

SEO is an interactive process because:

Search engine algorithms change
Techniques for implementing keywords change
Competitors’ search engine rankings change
Keywords used by potential customers change

You will need to use the analytical tools and industry news to keep your SEO results headed in the right direction.

Let the Experts Help

Lawyers often lack the knowledge, time, and tools to produce successful DIY SEO results. To speak to experts in lawyer SEO, contact the team at Law Firm Sites.