Speaker 1: 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine. These five tips that I'm about to share with you are strategies you can implement right now to take advantage of that attention, jumpstart your SEO strategy, and improve your SEO rank. How's everybody doing today? Welcome back to the channel. I'm Matt with Life Marketing, the digital marketing agency that helps small businesses grow. Today, I'll be sharing with you five quick ways to increase your law firm SEO rank. If you're a lawyer, SEO is the best way to find new clients. In fact, 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine. These five tips that I'm about to share with you are strategies you can implement right now to take advantage of that attention, jumpstart your SEO strategy, and improve your SEO rank. Before we jump in, make sure you're subscribed to the channel so you don't miss out on any of our weekly digital marketing videos. And don't forget to like this video for more law firm marketing advice. First, let's briefly define what SEO is. We have a whole video on SEO which I'll link here, so I won't spend too much time on this. But in short, SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of your website traffic organically through search engine results. You do this by improving where your website ranks for specific keywords through the process of keyword optimization, web design, and content marketing. The first way to improve your law firm's SEO rank is by fixing any on-site issues you may be having. You may be asking yourself, what is an on-site issue? On-site refers to anything you do directly on your website to improve your SEO rank. On-site issues are things that can be fixed easily because you have direct control over them by managing your website. The first on-site issue that can seriously hurt your SEO rank is whether or not your website is optimized for mobile devices. What we mean by this is, we know that any website that can be reached on your desktop or laptop can be reached from a browser on your phone. But is your website as visually appealing and fully functional on mobile devices as it is on a computer? If not, this is hurting your SEO rank. Studies show that nearly 60% of all online searches are now carried out on mobile devices and 31% of all law firm related website traffic comes through mobile search. If you're not optimized for mobile, not only will it hurt your SEO rank, but it will also hurt your business in general because consumers will not have a good user experience on your site. After all, the goal is to get the consumer to either fill out a lead form on your website or find more information about how your firm handles the type of case that they have so that they can call your office. In fact, 74% of prospects that begin a search online end up calling the office on the phone. This means that if the user is struggling to navigate your site, whether that be on a desktop or mobile device, your business will suffer. Another quick way to improve your law firm's SEO rank with on-site factors is to improve your page's loading speed. For starters, a slow loading speed will be recognized by Google and this will hurt your SEO rank. Much like mobile optimization, a slow loading speed will also harm your potential client's user experience, leading to negative interactions, which are also known to decrease your SEO rank. An example of a negative interaction is a high bounce rate, which means visitors are leaving your site quickly or early. Having a high bounce rate is a red flag to Google that your site is not providing value to visitors and is giving them a negative experience. Google does not reward signs like this with higher rankings. So you may be asking, how slow is too slow? Research shows that 40% of website visitors will abandon the website they are on if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Even worse, 80% of that 40% won't ever return to that website. When it comes to law firms, most people will seek help quickly to handle their cases. If your website's speed doesn't meet their urgency to find help, odds are they will work with your competition instead. There are many free services available to test your website's speed. If your website itself isn't the issue when it comes to speed, you may need a new web hosting provider. I've got a question for you. How often do you update your website? If the answer is not often, your SEO rank is probably suffering because of that. Google looks at the time on page, time on site, and bounce rate when determining your SEO rank. In order to increase a visitor's time on an individual page and time on site overall, as well as decrease your bounce rate, you need to provide website visitors with high quality, engaging content that keeps them there and makes them want to come back. A great way to do this is by using visuals. According to WiseOwl, people watch an average of 16 hours of online video a week and 84% of people say that they have been convinced to buy a brand's product or service because of watching a brand's video. Combine that with the fact that 25% of people researching legal topics visit YouTube during their research process and video becomes a no-brainer for your firm. If your law firm is already utilizing YouTube, that content needs to also be posted to your website. Why? For starters, it's easier for consumers to watch or listen to something rather than read about it. That's not the only benefit, though. Remember how your SEO rank is partially determined by time on site? By posting videos you've already taken the time to create to your website, you'll be able to keep the consumer on your site for a longer period of time, which will directly boost your SEO rank. We understand, however, that not every law firm has the resources necessary to produce high quality videos. If this is true for your firm, you can still deliver high quality, engaging visuals with infographics. Although infographics still include text, they are 30 times more likely to be read than text-only articles. Infographics are also a great way to build backlinks to your website, which are known to improve SEO rankings. And we'll talk more about backlinks later on in this video. Great infographics require a great design and great text. In regards to the infographic text, it's important to know that Google won't index the text on the infographic itself. Infographics are a great way to share statistics about cases your firm has handled without losing the viewer's interest by laying out the facts with plain old text. Another great method for producing high-value content that will increase your SEO rank is by making your content about your client. We know that as an established law firm, you have many attorneys that have earned honors and awards you'd like to display. However, making your content more about your client and less about you appeals to the personalization factor that Google also uses to determine your SEO rank. A simple and effective way for law firms to get great content that is centered on the client is by attaining testimonials. Have your clients share with you why they chose to work with you, how their experience was from start to finish, and their satisfaction with your services. High-value content is what's going to separate you from your competition. By providing high-value content to your current and potential clients, you'll create a connection with them that will make them want to work with your firm over others. This video is all about quick ways to increase your law firm SEO, and this method I'm about to share with you is one of the fastest ways to increase your website traffic. That method is Google Maps Optimization. Did you know that 85% of people looking to find legal service locations use online maps, and that 71% of people looking for a lawyer think it is important to have a local attorney? When a consumer performs a local search for law services, you'll first see Google Ads, then Google's Local 3-pack, and then organic results after that. Google's Local 3-pack is the top three ranking local businesses for a search query, and this is where you'll want your business to appear. This is because it is a lot easier and takes less time to rank highly on Google Maps than in the top organic search results because Google Maps doesn't rely on domain authority. One of the quickest ways to improve your Google Maps ranking is to fill out everything you can about your business on your Google My Business page and make sure it is properly categorized. Make sure to fill out all niche practice areas your firm covers, such as personal injury or divorce. Ensure your firm is properly categorized with the main practice area that you market to. Want to find more about how Google My Business can help your overall SEO rank? Stay tuned because I'll give you some tips later on in this video on how to use Google My Business to increase your SEO rank. Links are a fundamental part of determining your law firm SEO rank. A great place to start working on your firm's links is with any broken links your site has. Broken links can crush your SEO ranking. You can use any online link checking service to check individual pages or your entire website for any broken links. Broken links should be replaced immediately to provide a quick little boost to your SEO rank as well as to provide a better user experience for your visitors. Another great method is to work on your firm's internal links. This is because Google finds your posts and webpages best when they are linked to other pages online, whether that be pages on your own website or from another website. Internal links can be used to connect your content which will provide Google with an idea of the structure of your website. If you're an injury attorney that specializes in many different cases, and car accident cases are what bring in the most business for your firm, you probably want Google to know this so your page on car accidents receives a lot of traffic, right? By providing more link value to your site's car accident page, Google will begin to establish a hierarchy of pages and will be able to determine your car accident page as one of the most important on your site. A form of external links that can provide a quick boost to your SEO is backlinks. A backlink is when one website links to another. In this case, you will want credible websites to link to your law firm's website. Here's why. A backlink is essentially a vote of confidence from one website that tells the Google algorithm the content that is linked is valuable. However, backlinks will only help your SEO rank if the website that is backlinking to your website has a higher domain authority than your own website. Websites that have a lower domain authority than yours that backlink to your website can actually hurt your SEO rank. The more quality backlinks you get to the same page on your website, the more relevant that page will appear to Google, thus moving it higher up the search engine result pages. Remember earlier in the video when I told you I would share secrets on how to use Google My Business to increase your SEO rank? Well, now's the time. Google My Business is free to use, so there's no reason not to take advantage of the many benefits it can provide your law firm. The one condition to using Google My Business is that your law firm must have a physical location, so if you operate completely virtual with no physical office, unfortunately, this tip is not for you. One method of improving your SEO rank with Google My Business is to verify your business through Google. Google will send you a four-digit PIN in the mail. Once received, simply go to the link that is provided and enter your PIN. This lets Google know that your business is legitimate and the physical address for it is accurate. As previously mentioned, filling out as much as you can on your Google My Business profile is critical. It may sound simple, but if you miss filling out important information about your business, Google gives others opportunities to do so on your behalf, such as your competition. Here is the most important information that needs to live on your Google My Business page according to a survey conducted between SEO experts. As you can see, these are rather simple pieces of information to provide about your business that can help improve your SEO rank. Much like any great SEO strategy, you have to keep up with your Google My Business account. It is vital that all of the information on your page is accurate and stays that way. Any changes in address or phone number must be reflected immediately on your Google My Business page. You should also include pictures on your Google My Business page. Pictures of your team should be semi-professional, but with a team of attorneys that show up dressed to impress, we know that won't be an issue. Although these photos should be of the highest quality, it may be beneficial to take them with your phone. Not only do today's phones have great cameras built into them, but photos taken on your mobile device will store location data with the image. If you're an iPhone user, go to your photo albums in the Photos app and scroll down to Places. This will bring up a map that will show exactly where your photos were taken. When using these photos for your Google My Business page, they will be more credible and it will help Google to further verify the location of your business. The last tip that I have for improving your SEO through a Google My Business page is to stress the importance of reviews to your clients. When it comes to reviews, the saying, quality over quantity, definitely applies. Google has recently stated that reviews with 200 or more characters will be viewed as more valuable by Google. This means you'll want to get in-depth reviews that are rich with keywords rather than a quick five-star review that says, Matt was a great lawyer. If you want to take this a step further, make sure you respond to the reviews left on your page. Responding to reviews will show customers that your firm cares about what they have to say about your services and that you appreciate that they took the time to review your firm. More importantly, it shows Google that your firm is engaged with its clients, responds to them, and is active on the Google My Business platform which will help improve your rank. Those are five quick ways to increase your law firm SEO ranking. Please give this video a like if you found the information valuable to your business. Also, if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on any of our weekly digital marketing videos. We'll see you next time.