SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is the practice of creating strategies to show up higher in the search engine than your competitors. Lawyer SEO needs to be approached differently than a restaurant or business. To make things more difficult for attorneys they have to go up against some large Law Firm SEO companies that have directories specific to their clients (Findlaw Justia, Lawyers.com). Here are some things you can do to help your site.
1. Less competitive keywords
Sorry to lead with that, but you need to start somewhere right? Instead of going for, "Bankruptcy lawyer Grand Rapids," shoot for something like, "Stop creditor harassment " or "Kent County Chapter 7 attorney." These keywords will drive less traffic into your website, but people searching for these things will be finding a closer result to their Search queries.
2. Claim all local you can
It's hard to keep up with the changes in the search engines, but one thing that has been pretty consistent is local results can get more favor and are often better results for the user (makes sense right?). Most law firms serve their surrounding communities and when it's difficult to rank organically for keywords local results can be your best option. There are a lot of places you can do this, but the more notable ones are:
Google, Bing, Yelp, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Yellowpages.com, Merchant Circle and Dex
3. Find Directories
Heading title should probably read NICHE directories because those are the ones you want. There are both paid and free directories available. The paid directories can range from a small one time fee to over $800/month. It's impossible to say what ones will work for you because even the best directory overall might not be the best directory in your geography. A good way to figure out what directories are worth it are to run searches and see what ones come up for the keywords/phrases you want to show up for. If you see directories ranking well chances are those are the ones worth paying for.
4. Create Internal Page Links
If you do criminal defense your website should have pages for the different types of cases you want. A page dedicated to OUI, Assault, Drug Possession...etc. For each of these pages you want to build internal links to those pages. You don't want every link pointing to your home page and nothing going to your internal pages. The links should be your a mixture of your url, keywords and law firm name. If you target only keywords it doesn't seem natural.
5. Spread Out Content
Become an active community member by releasing articles and press releases to different sites with good information. If you do Family Law you know a lot about what people go through during a divorce that involves children. If you think you know something that could be valuable put it together in an article - claim ownership as the author and include a link to your website in the content before you distribute it.
If something happens worth sharing in your firm create a press release. In a previous post I mentioned ways about how to write a press release you can view. It should have everything you need to get started there.
The five Seo Tips listed above will get you started building an online web presence. These things require work and you need to actively do this stuff every month to start seeing results. Unfortunately a good SEO strategy doesn't happen over night. If you don't have time or lack the desire to manage your site Mindshare Marketing Group can help.
