How Law Firms Can Use SEO to Leverage Lead Generation

In our ultra-digital world, no marketing plan is complete without an SEO strategy. Just as important for law firms is lead generation. A sophisticated marketing program combines both of those elements. Though SEO and lead generation are not the same thing, the efforts should be complementary. In many ways, generating new awareness and traffic for your firm will help to drive new leads. Here, we will cover 7 ways that you can use SEO to increase your law firm’s lead generation. 

1. Audit your website

First and foremost, you need to understand which pages are working and which need improvement. That’s why crawling your website is an important initial step. You can use a premium tool to do this, or a free one like Screaming Frog. Keep a running tally of broken links, incorrect meta-data, or other issues. 

2. Look at speed

Fast-loading pages are critical for user experience, but also for SEO. Slow load times can impact a site’s ranking whether on mobile or desktop. You can use Google’s Page Speed test to analyze specific web pages and implement suggestions for improving load times. Take the time to improve performance on each page where load time is slow. 

3. Conduct keyword research

A critical element of SEO is having your content rank for the relevant keywords. That means keyword research is absolutely essential. You can’t create content based on keywords if you haven’t done the proper research on what’s interesting to your audience. Identify the main keywords for your business and then build out a list of related words and phrases. Keep these keywords, phrases, and queries at the core of your SEO strategy. To perform this research, try using tools like SEMRush Magic Keyword finder or a free option like UberSuggest. They will help you to analyze keywords and find similar terms. 

4. Update current on-page content

SEO for lead generation helps to drive people to your website, but they will only stay there if the content is helpful, interesting, and valuable. Review all of the existing content on your website. Make sure your language is not only clear and concise, but also has SEO best practices implemented. Track items such as appropriate headers, scannability, images with alt descriptions, and other items that can help search engine crawlers. Make sure to take advantage of Google Analytics tools and use the findings to improve all of your on-page content. Any page with a high bounce rate should be your first priority. 

5. Understand your competitor’s performance

It’s actually really helpful to benchmark how firms like yours are performing online. Make a short list of your most important competitors and then periodically review their positions in search for the same keywords that you want to rank for. If a competitor is ranking higher than you are for desired terms, look into why that might be. Is it how their posts are written? Their backlink strategy? What can you learn from their success? Consistently looking at how competitors are ranking can give you new ideas to help your own SEO efforts. 

6. Develop an ongoing content plan

A steady stream of content is one of the most valuable tools you have at your disposal when it comes to SEO for lead generation. Make sure you create content that is not only optimized for SEO, but also offers real insights for your potential clients. Then they’ll be willing to fill out forms or subscribe to your newsletter to get more content. A content calendar will help your team stay organized and ensure you are consistently coming up with fresh and timely content. 

7. Create a backlink strategy

Backlinks are created when one website links to another, and they are important for SEO reasons. These links are essentially votes of confidence for your own website. There is a whole science behind backlinks, though. Just choosing credible sites and linking to them is not a strategy. Learn more about specific backlink tactics here. 

Takeaway: 

Combining a strong lead generation strategy with practical SEO tactics will ensure that your website is not only effective, but contributes directly to your bottom line. The 7 tactics we listed are important elements of a good SEO strategy, but there’s so much more you can do. Make sure you follow our blog to get fresh tips on lead generation and SEO strategy – and more ways to combine them.