This chapter covers on-site SEO for lawyers. In it, we will explore:
On-site SEO is the process of optimizing a website’s on-site elements such
as architecture, content, and code to help it rank higher on search engine results and increase organic search traffic. It allows search engines to crawl your website’s content and understand what it’s about. Optimizing your sites structure also helps search engines and users alike navigate your website better.
On-site SEO from a digital marketing point of view, is critical to your SEO campaign because it helps understand and crawl your website’s content which in turn helps Google with ranking your website. When search engines understand your website, they can better index it to show to search engine users..
Why is On-Page SEO Important?
From a digital marketing standpoint, on-site SEO factors are important because they’re within your control. Using on-site SEO best practices gives you direct influence on how Google perceives and ranks your website. By optimizing elements such as title tags, meta descriptions, and content, you make it easier for search engines to understand and index your pages, thereby enhancing your visibility in search engine results.
It Improves Usability
Remember that at its core, on-site SEO is about creating a better user experience. You can write the best content that any law practice has ever written, but ifs not optimized properly, users will not stick around to read it. Whether its making your site mobile-friendly to structuring content for easy readability, these optimizations improve search engine rankings but also user experience (user signals are a Google criteria) by making your site more accessible and engaging for potential clients.
It Improves Conversions
For law firms, a well-optimized website goes beyond attracting organic traffic—it converts visitors into clients. By presenting your visitors with content that is informative and compelling, with strong calls to action, on-site SEO optimizations of your web content, will help guide potential clients through the decision-making process.
It’s Cost Effective
I always say, SEO is an investment like buying a house vs PPC which is like renting. SEO like real estate will go up in value and attract visitors for free while PPC, once you stop paying, you no longer receive traffic. This is why compared to paid advertising strategies, on-site SEO is a cost-effective (best ROI) way to increase visibility and attract clients. By investing in on-page optimizations, law firms can have sustained visibility without the costs of paying for each visitor that is associated with pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Even if you chose to add PPC campaigns at some point in your marketing campaign, SEO is the foundation your website needs before exploring other lead generation methods.
Before you start creating content for your website, it’s important for you to plan out the overall structure of your website, as this will provide the foundation of your website’s URL layout so that your content can easily be found by users and search engines like Google.
First you need to decide on which URL structure you will want to utilize: flat or multiple sub-directory permalinks.
A flat URL structure is one that does not use sub-directory folders. Here’s an example:
<a href=”https://www.site.com/new-york-car-accident-lawyer/”></a>
<a href=”https://www.site.com/new-york-motorcycle-accident-lawyer/”></a>
As the name states, a multiple sub-directory structure uses a number of directory folders to organize your law firm’s website content. Here are some examples:
<a href=”https://www.site.com/practice-areas/new-york/car-accident-lawyer/”></a>
<a href=”https://www.site.com/locations/new-york/motorcycle-accident-lawyer/”></a>
Many lawyer websites rank well using a sub-directory structure and search engine optimization specialists recommend a multiple sub-directory structure, it does have some drawbacks:
Again this doesn’t mean that websites cant rank using a sub-directory structure; there are a number of highly authoritative website rankings this way. However, our experience shows a flatter structure tends to yield better results. Here’s why:
Important remember with a flat architecture, all pages must utilize proper internal linking.
A sub-directory structure has a natural hierarchy that makes good internal linking among a website’s pages intuitive . To achieve the same result using a flat structure, you will need to use breadcrumbs (shown below).
If you want to rank in highly competitive geographic areas, you will need to take advantage of all techniques available. One such is using a flat architecture, which is not only easier to implement, but also provides a better chance to rank in search results.
This is the foundation of your website, so make sure to give it proper consideration.
Metadata is a non-negotiable, must do aspect of on-page SEO that significantly influences a site’s search engine visibility as well as user engagement rates. After optimizing hundreds of law firm websites, here’s what actually moves the needle when it comes to metadata, title tags and meta descriptions.
Title Tags: These are arguably the most important metadata component, consider them as the name or headline for your webpage in search engine results. A properly optimized title tag should be concise using relevant keywords that accurately reflect the page’s content. We have found for law firms, including practice areas and geographic locations in the title tag can improve local search visibility.
Meta Descriptions: While not a direct ranking factor, they affect click-through rates, which indirectly impacts rankings. Meta descriptions provide a brief summary of a page’s content in search engine results. Writing a compelling meta description can improve click-through rates by showing potential clients what to expect from your content. Something to note, Google many times will use its own snippets, pulled from your page’s content, instead of the meta descriptions you provide if they feel its more compelling. So, be sure to create excellent copy on every page.
Using heading tags and content structure correctly enhances readability for your audience while allowing Google and other search engines to understand and rank your content.
Heading tags, ranging from H1 to H6, are HTML elements used to designate headings and subheadings within your content.
H1 Tags: Your H1 tag is basically the title of your page or blog post and should be used only once per page. They should include the primary topic so that both readers and search engines understand what your page is about. Performing proper keyword research will help to ensure you include your primary keyword. Proper H1 optimization alone move rankings up 3-4 positions
H2-H6 Tags: If your H1 is the title of your page, these tags are the chapters. These subheadings will allow you to breakdown your content into smaller sections. They should be used in a hierarchical order to organize ideas and topics logically. Your subheadings should also target primary and secondary keywords that are relevant to your H1 and could even include variations of your main keyword. Your content structure should mirror how potential clients think about their legal issues.
Meta title tags should immediately tell your visitors what your webpage is about. Optimizing a title tag provides the most impact of all on-page SEO techniques for your law firm SEO. The meta title tag is located in the <head> of the HTML code on a website and looks like this:
<meta title Insert Image>
There are some title tag guidelines for your attorney website:
Here are some things to avoid when optimizing for local search results:
Want to create a winning title tag for your legal website?
Here’s a proven formula for a practice area page title tag:
City + practice area + lawyer
An example title tag using this formula would be:
“New York City Car Accident Lawyer”
If your title tag isn’t to long, you can then add your law firms name
“New York Car Accident Lawyers | Smith Law”
To target additional local search volume add “near me”
“Los Angeles Car Accident Lawyer Near Me”
Want to improve click-through rates, add a modifier:
“New York Car Accident Lawyer | Free Consultation”
Pro Tip: Titles are not just a one-done task. While you might think it is, you need to constantly test if they are performing well. You might find new keywords relevant to your page, or discover users are using different keywords to find your content.
Another way you can find keywords to use in titles and in your content is to look in Google Search Console. There you search for any webpage on your site to find the queries people are searching to find your content. If you find a page with a lot of impressions and a high number of clicks, you can add them into your titles.
The goal of writing a good meta description is to encourage searchers to click your listing while searching the internet. The more compelling your meta description, the better chance that a prospective client will click it on Google’s search results page.
Even though Google and other search engines do not use meta descriptions to rank your pages like they do with meta titles, meta descriptions do impact your click-through rate (CTR), which by the way, is a ranking factor. If you want to organically increase your rank, you need to create enticing meta descriptions that will prompt the reader to click on your listing.
While there are no set rules for writing quality meta descriptions, effective ones need to be:
Here’s an example of a quality meta description:
Note: If you’re not using a professional Law Firm SEO Agency to do your Lawyer SEO or PPC agency or you are doing SEO yourself, be careful using superlatives such as “best,” in your meta tags. Most state bar associations do not like this practice, so check if there are any restrictions placed on law firm marketing in your respective state.
A mistake I see many lawyers make….. placing their office phone number in the meta description.
As I said with putting your phone number in your meta titles, by doing this, a prospective client may not click through to your website because they can call your phone number directly. This hurts your SEO campaign because Google doesnt know that they called your law firm. Which means Google may think you were not relevant for that searcher’s query even though you got a call. This could result in Google not serving your practice in search results because of low confidence.
An internal link involves creating a hyperlink, with specific anchor text, that links to another page on your website. Not only does it help a visitor with navigation of your law firm website, but it’s a big part of on-site SEO for lawyers.
For example, look how we internally link our SEO for Lawyers chapters.
Internal links provide a tremendous SEO value in a number of different ways for your website’s SEO.
The links you create in the body of your content will establish a hierarchy of your websites pages. When done correctly, internal linking increases your page authority allowing you an opportunity to distribute link equity or “juice” to the most important pages. This allows these pages a better chance to rank higher in Google. This also helps search engines crawl and index more of your law firms content.
It sends another signal that lets search engines know what your webpages are about through anchor text. Internal links offer another SEO benefit for legal websites, by showing users additional relevant content related to the topics, it keeps them engaged on your site longer which lowers bounce rate.
Dwell time is another Google ranking factor so having a longer time on-site demonstrates a good user experience.
Finally, I want to mention that internal links also have a positive effect on your website’s conversion rates, as they direct a consumer further into the funnel so they convert (contact form or contact us page).
You can get the most SEO value from your internal links by implementing these linking practices into your content:
Here’s an interactive guide explaining how to find internal link opportunities.
Go to Google.com and enter: Site: websitename.com and the name of the page.
For example: Site: thebarnesfirm.com should I hire a lawyer after my construction accident
The pages Google shows in the results would be the best ones to link too.
External links need to be used wisely. We only want to link to reputable, authoritative sites outside of your own. These can enhance the credibility and value of your content. Including these resources prudently in blog posts or practice area pages can increase the trustworthiness and depth of the information provided.
Linking to pages that reference statutes, statistics, court decisions, or articles from legal publications not only offers readers additional resources for detailed understanding but also informs search engines that your content is well-researched because it’s linked to other authoritative sources.
Important note: Make sure your external links open up in new tabs so that it keeps visitors on your site.
We spoke about “link juice” earlier. External links give link juice to the website you are linking to. Be sure to create a metatag to prevent that from happening. How do we do this, let me show you:
NoFollow (rel=”nofollow”): Use the nofollow tag when linking to an external site so we dont pass our “link juice” (SEO value) to other websites. This is extremely important when linking to any content that you are unsure of. It instructs search engines not to follow the link, helping to safeguard your site’s reputation while providing your readers with additional resources to read.
Another way of protecting the privacy of your website or your users is to add the NoReferrer (rel=”noreferrer”) tag to your external links.
The Noreferrer tag should be used when you want to keep your website private from the linked site. This is not only for privacy reasons but also includes a nofollow effect, meaning it will also tell search engines not to pass along SEO equity.
As I mentioned earlier, use the NoOpener (rel=”noopener”) to open external links in a new browser window.
The NoOpener tag should be implemented when linking to a new tab or window to protect your website against potential security vulnerabilities. It prevents the newly opened third party website page from having control over the originating page, which can protect your site from malicious scripts.
Advanced SEO marketing consultants understand this next technique better than anyone. Semantic SEO takes on-page optimization to a new level by focusing on the meaning behind the words used in your content, not just the keywords themselves. It improves the understanding and intent behind a user’s search query.
Structured data is a way of organizing information on a website in a way that search engines can easily understand. It uses special code or tags called schema markup, to label specific information like names, dates, and locations, helping search engines display more relevant and helpful results to users. This can lead to better click-through rates and visibility in search engine results.
Implementing schema markup will provide search engines with precise information about the meaning of a page’s content which in turn can enhance your firm’s visibility in search results. For law firms, this could be applied to marking up practice area pages, location landing pages, attorney biographies, blog posts, client testimonials, and law-related articles, making them eligible for rich snippets and improved SERP positioning.
Schema (schema.org) is a structured data vocabulary that defines entities and relationships on the Internet (people, places, organizations, things, webpages, etc), and helps search engines understand what your webpage is about. There are a number of different schema types law firms should use, legal, FAQ, ratings and review schema.
For attorneys, legal service schema structured data is the most important schema type to add to a website. This will help Google identify your an entity as a law firm which can make your page more relevant to users searching for legal information, It also makes it easier for search engines to understand the information on your webpage.
This can help SEO by improving your click-through rate, giving you another opportunity to outrank those sites that do not use legal service schema..
Pro tip: In the “priceRange” field, rather than enter fees (as shown below).you can insert “free consultation” if you offer one.
Screenshot showing the “priceRange” field in LegalService markup
Example of Structured Data Used by Morgan & Morgan
Fun Fact! Did you know according to Google, 53% of all mobile users leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Increase load time from 1-5 seconds and bounce rate increases 90%!
Mobile searches are increasing daily, a slow website can hurt SEO and user experience. I think now you can see why important page-speed can’t be ignored.
Using a free tool by Google called PageSpeed Insights, you can run a diagnostic scan of your website. This is an example of how the results look:
(Please note: Definitely not our client )
Want To increase the speed of your website?
The usual cause of poor site-speed is the use of uncompressed, high-definition images. Uploading uncompressed images frequently, like for blog pages, tends to degrade the overall performance of your site.
Solution: Compress all images by installing the Smush Image Compression and Optimization (formerly WPSmush.it) plugin.
This tool removes hidden information from your images, reducing their file sizes and improving your load times. If you install the plugin on your WordPress site it also scans new images as you upload them to remove unnecessary data and compress the image.
Install a caching plugin can improve website performance by generating static HTML pages of your website and saves it on your server. Many plugins can also lazy load images, compress and optimize scripts.
Select a premium hosting platform – Very important and often overlooked, but poor performance can hurt your user experience and Google rankings. Dont use cheap packages or hosting companies that offer those inexpensive packages. The few dollars you save wont make up for all those lost cases!
An internal link involves creating a hyperlink, with specific anchor text, that links to another page on your website. Not only does it help a visitor with navigation of your law firm website, but it’s a big part of on-site SEO for lawyers.
For example, look how we internally link our SEO for Lawyers chapters.
Internal links provide a tremendous SEO value in a number of different ways for your website’s SEO.
The links you create in the body of your content will establish a hierarchy of your websites pages. When done correctly, internal linking increases your page authority allowing you an opportunity to distribute link equity or “juice” to the most important pages. This allows these pages a better chance to rank higher in Google. This also helps search engines crawl and index more of your law firms content.
It sends another signal that lets search engines know what your webpages are about through anchor text. Internal links offer another SEO benefit for legal websites, by showing users additional relevant content related to the topics, it keeps them engaged on your site longer which lowers bounce rate.
Dwell time is another Google ranking factor so having a longer time on-site demonstrates a good user experience.
You can get the most SEO value from your internal links by implementing these linking practices into your content:
Schema (schema.org) is a structured data vocabulary that defines entities and relationships on the Internet (people, places, organizations, things, webpages, etc), and helps search engines understand what your webpage is about. There are a number of different schema types law firms should use, legal, FAQ, ratings and review schema.
For attorneys, legal service schema structured data is the most important schema type to add to a website. This will help Google identify your an entity as a law firm which can make your page more relevant to users searching for legal information, It also makes it easier for search engines to understand the information on your webpage.
This can help SEO by improving your click-through rate, giving you another opportunity to outrank those sites that do not use legal service schema..
Pro tip: In the “priceRange” field, rather than enter fees (as shown below).you can insert “free consultation” if you offer one.
Here’s an example of a fully optimized legal service schema.
Image optimization is another on-site SEO technique lawyers can use to help their webpage rank for additional keywords. By placing our keywords in an images “alt” tag, we can boost our pages SEO. These image tags let search engines know what your image is about and in the event they do not load, let the user know too.
Google crawls the pages on your website, it crawls alt text to determine what is shown in an image.
The best way to use this SEO technique is to analyze your website’s pages and determine which pages are performing well. To do this you can use Google search Console, SEMRush or Ahrefs. Once you find the page you are looking to improve, you will need to look for the keywords that are not rankings #1.
Now use the keywords you want to improve and place them as the alt text for your images.
This is a great way to add additional keywords onto the page without having to include them in your content. It’s not always easy to include search phrases into your law firm’s content because they don’t make sense, or flow organically within the body text; using alt text optimization allows you to circumvent this issue.
<img src=”/image-path.jpg” alt=”head on car accident”
Image SEO Tips:
If your images are larger than 1-2 MB, Optimize your images using Smushit, a free tool that works to compress your images for the web.
Google’s focus is to provide the best possible answer to each users search query as quickly as possible.
You need to pick a topic your law firm wants to rank for and get client cases. Then you need to figure out supporting topics that go more in depth and answer user questions.
After working with a number of writers, many decide to search Google using the primary keyword they want to focus on and writing their content based on the topics other competing law firms are using.
The issues with that are:
It takes a long time to do.
Creates content that is generally the same as every other law firm, thus preventing you from out ranking them.
To combat this, you can use a tool like Surfer SEO . It can help expedite the SEO process by analyzing the top-performing content and aggregating the relevant keyword terms (entities) and subtopics being used by each law practice.
A law firm’s website is an invaluable way for getting new clients through Google. Improving your site’s online visibility requires understanding the principles and search engine optimization techniques involved in on-page optimization.
On-site SEO optimization means considering all of these factors when uploading your content. Now that you know what and how to optimize thats only part of the process. Actually performing the content optimization can take a lot of time and effort. However, nothing that is worthwhile comes easy and your website is no different. Your law firm’s website can be an effective growth driver for your law firm by following these SEO best practices. Now that you’re familiar with some of what goes into optimizing your website, you can see why maybe firms go with hiring an SEO agency. A qualified law firm SEO company gives you the best chance at maximizing your return on investment. By helping you optimize your website’s content and functionality for the best search engine performance. But now you’re familiar with the basics.