A law firm is like any other business in order to grow and make money they need to continue gaining new clients. That is why when you’re dealing with law firm marketing implementing SEO services is vital! However, if you don’t have the background knowledge to do this correctly, then you could end up wasting your time. That is why MyCity Social, a Tampa SEO agency, is here to give you the tips that can help you ensure that you are doing everything possible when it comes to your marketing plans and strategies.
Why SEO Should Be a Significant Part of Your Law Firm Marketing Plan
The experts at a Tampa SEO agency wants to make sure that law firms are aware of the fact that in order to have a successful marketing campaign you need to be mindful of search engine optimization and how it can help you boost your business and the number of clients you get.
There are a variety of marketing techniques that have been proven to help gain new clients for a law firm, but nothing compares to being discovered through an organic search. When a prospective client finds you on their own through their own search, they are more likely to be interested in working with you than if you were to reach out on your own. It doesn’t matter where your law firm is located as long as people are looking for legal representation in the area you have the ability to acquire new clients who are actively seeking counsel and who want to hire you. Research has found that one-third of clients find their lawyers through online resources, including blog posts, podcasts, and graphics. A lot of firms make the mistake in believing that their clients aren’t using a search engine like Google to find their lawyer, but the truth is about ninety-six percent of people do use a search engine when they need legal advice or help. Although it seems like most people know a lawyer either through their families or friends not everyone does so they need to go to a search engine to locate a firm that they can trust and who can help them. Because of this law, firms need to make local SEO a priority in their digital marketing plans. Everyone wants to meet their lawyer face to face, so being able to find your firm quickly is essential to gaining new clients. If you’re able to rank on the first page of a Google search based on relevant keywords, the number of clients you get will automatically increase. This means that having a company website isn’t enough anymore. It is critical to do more with your marketing if you want to get your target audience to pay attention to your firm. If you still aren’t sure whether or not SEO is something you should be paying attention to here are some impressive statistics on the topic!
- Ninety-three percent of online experiences begin on a search engine like Google
- Seventy-five percent of users don’t ever scroll past the first page of search results
- Seventy to eighty percent of users ignore the paid ads that appear on the search results page and focus all of their attention on the organic search results underneath
The top three results get the most traffic, so you must try to identify the particular keyword that will get you at the top of the first page. By doing this, your law firm will attract more traffic and gain new clients.
Understanding what is actually involved in search engine optimization is imperative to make sure your marketing strategies are effective. SEO isn’t exactly complicated or complex unless you make it that way. Effective SEO has the power to make your firm’s website rank higher than your competitor’s sites as long as you are targeted appropriate keywords and phrases that people are typing in. The way search engine optimization is done for your law firm isn’t any different than SEO for other local businesses. Of course, the keywords that are used will change, but the process that is used will remain the same. The goal of every business’ SEO plan, despite their industry, is to get recognized by prospective clients and earn new business. Search engine optimization is a proven strategy that will help make your law firm’s website more visible to clients in the same location as you. The higher your site ranks the better chance you’ll have at gaining new clientele.
If you’re new to the world of SEO and digital making, you may be wondering what the difference is between traditional marketing techniques and search engine optimization. In the past your law firm had to depend on traditional marketing methods like advertisements, radio ads, television commercials, and direct mailers, now your online web presence plays a vital role in ensuring your firm continues to grow and beat out the competition. The digital space also allows you to have a further reach with your services, putting you in an even better position to grow. There are a few reasons why making the switch to digital marketing, and SEO is imperative to making sure your firm remains in a good position and why traditional marketing techniques no longer stand a chance.
- Traditional marketing is too broad. Techniques like cold calling or advertisements on TV and billboards have a wide reach, but you aren’t able to control who sees them. More importantly, you can’t measure the success of the ad to see how much it is helping your business, which is something you need to measure your return on investment correctly.
- Traditional marketing can also be extremely expensive to keep up with. There’s a good chance that you’ll have to go through a significant amount of your marketing budget before you find out what strategies work best for you and your firm. What this shows you is that traditional marketing isn’t cost-effective in the long run.
- Traditional marketing is a short-term plan. Although the results from these types of campaigns are immediate, they aren’t there for the long run. This means in a short amount of time; you’ll be going through the same procedure in order to receive consistent results.
According to research done by Search Engine Journal, the leads that businesses received with SEO had significantly higher close rates than those that were generated by direct mail and print advertisements. There are some significant differences between traditional marketing, which is considered outbound, and search engine optimization, which is inbound. Traditional marketing sends out advertisements or promotional messages to their customers where search engine optimization generates interest from prospective clients. SEO can help you attract clients, and traditional marketing allows you to reach out to your target audience. Outbound marketing requires one on one communicated where inbound marketing doesn’t really require human contact or involvement once it has been set up and established. With SEO return on investment is fairly easy to track and monitor, but with traditional marketing, your return on investment is particularly hard to measure. Traditional marketing techniques are all about informing people about your services while search engine optimization is about working on educating the public about your services. Although there is a learning curve with SEO and it takes time to yield measurable results in the end search engine optimization is a fantastic addition to your business that can enable your company to grow and is worth all of the effort that it requires.
The biggest reason to implement an SEO strategy for your law firm is to be sure that you can be located by potential clients twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Search engine optimization makes this possible without you needing to be physically present and without the need for one-on-one marketing. These aren’t the only benefits of SEO either there are even more to be considered!
- An increase in relevant traffic: Although there are some people out there who just Google to Google and are searching for ridiculous things most of the time people go to a search engine with a specific need in mind. They know exactly what they need and what information they are looking for. If your site is effectively optimized, you will be ranking at the top of a search result page, which is the trick to getting more traffic than your competitors. It is critical to note that there is a difference between traffic and relevant traffic. Your site may be getting a significant amount of traffic, but if it isn’t relevant than it won’t help your business grow.
- More prospective clients: Ranking in organic search results is critical, which means that you need to be targeting the right keywords and phrases to see those rankings. If you rank in the top few results of an organic search, there will be an increase in the prospective clients you see without a doubt. If you have an effective SEO strategy in place, you will continually receive more business without having to try that hard.
- A greater return on investment: When you’re in the legal industry, the competition is always going to be tough and fierce. However, with a proper SEO investment and technique, you will be able to get ahead of your competition and save money while doing. When search engine optimization was compared to other inbound marketing techniques like pay per click advertising, blogging, and social media marketing, there was a great return on investment for SEO.
- More mobile-friendly: Mobile devices have taken over the world of searching. A majority of local searches are done from some type of mobile device, which is why optimizing your firm’s website is something that you should be doing without a doubt. This isn’t just an opinion; Google announced that more searches are done on a mobile device than on computers in at least ten countries, including the United States and Japan. Also, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the number of mobile users greatly surpasses the number of computer users in the U.S.
There are ways to have your website rank high on a search page without search engine optimization, and that is through paid ads. This is appealing to a lot of lawyers because getting their firm’s website to rank higher than others isn’t something that will happen overnight. It takes time to climb the ladder and be discovered. This is why those paid ads called AdWords are so appealing to many businesses. However, these ads will not give you the long term results or the return on investment you’re looking for. They will also cost you thousands of dollars each month. Being able to rank in the top three positions of a search result page isn’t an easy task to accomplish. However, there are a couple of ranking factors that you should keep in mind when you’re optimizing your firm’s website. The first is content. Great content is, without a doubt, the currency to ranking high in a search. If your website doesn’t feature good content, there will be a lot of red flags raised. If your site has relevant and in-depth content that is a calling card for search engines, this gives it a reason to rank you over your competitors who may not have the correct content. You need to be sure that the content that is put up on your site is more than just detailed; it needs to be authentic and true as well. The second factor to consider is building high-quality and diverse backlinks so your website cannot be ignored. This has become increasingly more difficult over the years because Google will now only consider backlinks from diverse domains, which means that simply having backlinks is not enough to get recognized. This is something that will take a lot of work, but without it, you won’t be likely to rank in the top three positions.
Contact a Tampa SEO Agency
MyCity Social has gained recognition throughout the Tampa area as providing digital marketing businesses can trust. We pride ourselves on having extensive knowledge in the internet marketing field, which has made our clients come to us again and again for advice on law firm marketing. We make it our top priority to help businesses reach their full marketing potential through unique and strategic tactics. Call or visit us today to find out how we can help you!
