By now most of us are at least somewhat familiar with the SEO strategies used to boost our legal website up into the much-coveted first page place of honor. Because Google gets smarter almost by the hour, it continuously comes up with more advanced algorithms which strive to halt the use of so-called “black hat” SEO tactics, while encouraging the use of organic SEO. While the term “organic search” sounds a bit like something you might find at the Whole Foods market, it is simply the latest buzzword for a search which returns a ranking result based on keyword relevancy and overall content. This is in direct contrast to the listings which are based solely on who dug the deepest into their pockets to appear at the top. The idea of organic search rankings is to quickly return to the user the most relevant results based on the page’s content, the relevant links which point to the page and a smattering of other so-called “objective” criteria.

Advantages of Organic Law Firm SEO

The primary advantage of organic SEO is that we tend to trust the results more, and they are often much more relevant than sponsored results.  Organic searches typically will produce higher click-through rates for your legal website (all other things being equal) thereby maximizing traffic to your web pages. If there is a downside to organic SEO, it is simply one of time. Organic results rarely come quickly, rather build slowly but surely.

Of huge importance in legal web pages and legal web blogs is promoting your brand, and putting your resources into organic search results can give you a decided marketing edge in this area.  Most of us are skeptics when we see a television commercial, an ad on the Web or a sponsored ad on a search engine because we are fully aware that the ads are commercially motivated and may not yield us the results we are after.  Another high-ranking advantage of organic SEO is that it’s free! Google has remained adamant about not charging for inclusion in their index of billions of pages, therefore organic SEO is one of the few things which you really don’t have to pay for.

How to Boost Organic Search Engine Rankings

In order to fine-tune your legal web pages to the preferences of the major search engines, you must first know what each search engine is looking for, and why the law firm at the top of the page is able to hold that position week after week.  Some search engines tend to index more of your pages than others, meaning no two search engines will be analyzing exactly the same pages.

Location is Key, Keywords are Critical

Most search engines first consider the same aspect of those who sell real estate—location, location, location. In this instance location refers to where your keywords appear as well as how often your keywords appear in relation to other words on your legal web page. The assumption is that any page which is relevant to your overall topic will, of course, mention your keywords near the top of the page, in the headline and in the first few paragraphs of text. While your keywords are critical, if a search engine discovers you have repeated keywords hundreds of time in an effort to climb up the search engine ladder, it will judge your entire site to be spam. Such a slap on the wrist can be extremely hard to recover from, so use your keywords judiciously.

Other Important Considerations

Make sure your legal website is clean and easy to navigate—not only will your potential clients thank you, but the search engines will have a much easier time locating your legal web pages as well as all the sub-pages.  Take great pains to link each of your legal website or legal blog pages to other pages within your website if you don’t want your rankings to go down. High quality links which are directly relevant to your legal sites can strategically boost ratings; if you include relevant links from government or education sites, you will see a much quicker upswing. Finally, if you have a clear theme which runs through each page of your site, you stand a better chance of a good ranking.

Headlines and Copy

And, of course, nobody reaches the ranks of the privileged few at the top without clear, keyword rich headlines in strategic locations, and high-quality content which boasts keywords scattered naturally throughout the pages rather than appearing as though they have been artificially added. Your copy must be enticing, unique, and optimized all at once. The longer your site has been around, the more authoritative it is judged to be, at least by the search engines, so make sure you are abiding by the basic rules of organic SEO, and be patient. Soon, you will be rewarded by your law firm’s site popping up on the very first page of the search, and you will be out of the choppy waters and into smooth sailing.

Call us today for a free discuss about your law firm website at (769) 218-6099.