Why SEO is the Backbone of an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy
Date: July 9, 2024
We all know that the digital age requires a digital marketing plan, but if your law firm’s strategy isn’t performing as well as you had hoped, it may require just a small change in direction. From blogs and guest articles to your firm’s website, optimizing these assets for search engines is crucial for getting your influential content in front of viewers, and from there, turning them into clients.
What is SEO?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the act of improving your firm’s online presence to increase its visibility on Google and other popular search engines. Think about the times you have Googled a new product, service, or topic: are you scrolling through pages of results, or are you more likely to click on one of the top ranking suggestions? The easy access of these top results, or search engine results pages (SERPs), makes them a go-to for inquirers and a hot commodity for law firms and their marketing teams.
This can encompass many things, from backlinking and technical optimization to digital PR. While each single component is important on its own, your firm’s digital marketing strategy will be most effective when each standalone strategy is combined, working off of each other for maximum results.
SEO for Law Firms
Modernizing your strategy to operate around how your target audience is searching and using the internet is the best way to stay relevant and trusted among customers. And SEO has become a critical aspect of many digital marketing plans due to its customer-centric goals. Google’s main objective is to ease the search process for its users, so it prioritizes authoritative and trustworthy content from experienced expert sources. Luckily for marketing teams, this means if you’re already creating well-written educational blogs and articles, you’re one step ahead.
SEO is about more than just getting put in front of those clients though. While it surely can help your firm cast a wider net, it also creates opportunities to identify yourself as a standout in the industry, become more accessible to potential customers, and improve your brand awareness and reliability.
Stand Out as an Industry Leader
Part of optimizing your thought leadership, blogs, and guest articles for SEO means filling a content gap. This could be topics that people are searching but lacking in useful responses, or sharing information on breaking news in the legal sphere. Create unique content that is also useful and engaging for readers by pulling from insightful senior partners and associates with real-world experience. Putting out resources that are distinctly your own, free of generic advice or AI nuances, lets Google know that your firm is a leader in the industry.
This same result can be seen with potential clients. The transparency associated with a partner sharing insight is huge for not only SEO but for identifying yourself as a trusted and well versed authority within the industry. This sort of personal content is what initially attracts customers and keeps them coming back to your firm’s website for more.
Accessible Anywhere, at Any Time
With SEO as a part of your digital marketing strategy, your firm’s website should be optimized for not only desktop users but also mobile. While updating your mobile site leans more technical than media related, it should not fall down your firm’s priority list. Remaining accessible to potential clients in their time of need is crucial — especially in the high stress situations that often necessitate an attorney.
If someone experiences a slip and fall injury or gets in a fender bender and needs a legal representative, they will appreciate your firm having an informational and intuitive website that’s accessible at the tips of their fingers through their mobile device. Having correctly formatted practice area pages, a quick-loading homepage, and one-click contact information will ease user experience and prioritize your site in Google search results.
Boost Your Brand Awareness
Generally, what works for Google will work for your target audience, and that is absolutely the case with brand awareness. If guest blogs are already a part of your marketing plan, ensure that they are optimized with appropriate and applicable backlinks to your firm’s resources. The same goes for your practice area pages: interlinking between other pages on your site shows Google the value of these items. Google is constantly scouring the trillions of pages available to its users, crawling the text to determine what websites are being cited and used as resources the most, so backlinks and interlinking are crucial for getting your content recognized.
Similarly, guest articles are the perfect opportunity to get recognized by a new audience. Showcasing your firm’s expertise with other high-ranking and trusted legal news sources allows you access to an entirely new pool of potential clients that can now spread the word on your firm. This, combined with your backlink practices, will help boost your standing with Google, leading to higher rankings and more accessible content for new searchers.
Prove Your Reliability
A common thread sewn through each of the prior advantages of utilizing SEO is the emphasis on trust. This should be a key motivator behind any marketing move, and in fact, it is one of the factors Google looks at when determining rank position. Trust is all encompassing, and often comes as a result of your other optimization and SEO efforts. With every useful piece of content, insightful quote, and relevant guest article your firm shares, you garner trust with potential customers as a reliable firm and with Google as a reliable resource.
With all of this in mind, you may be ready to jump into the ever-changing world of search engine optimization. If your firm has already nailed its digital marketing, but is struggling to incorporate best SEO practices into your strategy, there’s no need to worry. To maximize your time, resources, and return on investment, contact us today to learn more about our digital PR and SEO services.
