If you want more enquiries from your law firm website then first you'll need to get more traffic.
I'm going to share with you 16 effective ways that you can get more relevant traffic to your legal website.
1. Search engine optimisation for law firms
While SEO for solicitors can take a few months to really kick in, it can also be one of the most cost-effective ways to generate lots of enquiries for your legal website.
By creating valuable content that your target clients want to engage with, you can rank highly in Google for relevant search terms.
This means more clicks to your website from Google.
For a successful SEO strategy you'll need to do three things:
Firstly make sure that your site is technically well set up. This means it is easily crawlable by Google and has no speed issues, particularly on mobile devices.
Slow loading scripts and poorly structured HTML can all contribute to a website that search engines like Google find difficult to crawl.
Secondly you’ll need to create a content strategy by researching the types of content that you can create that are relevant to the things your ideal clients are searching for in Google.
The content not only needs to be well written or produced, but it also needs to be better than what is already ranking.
You'll need to do the research and make sure that your content is more valuable whether that be better structure, more words, more depth or even visually appealing.
Finding popular search terms is one thing, but being able to create content around those search terms and making sure that you don't have too much competition is another altogether.
Finally you want to try and build links from other authoritative websites in your niche.
By finding great websites in the legal sector you can reach out and see if you can get a link from them to your content.
This can be a time-consuming process. Find out more about link building for law firms.
2. Google My Business
Google my business is a great way for law firms to attract local clients.
To make your Google my business page work, you can optimise the page title for your most important local search terms e.g. “Family solicitors in Manchester”
- Add images of staff, offices or anything else that may be of interest
- Add relevant services
- Create posts link back to your website
- Update office hours and contact details
3. Google ads
Google ads are for getting fast visibility from your target audience.
You can use the Google Search network, display network or YouTube to get in front of people looking for your services.
You can decide whether to pay every time somebody clicks on interacts with one of your ads or every time somebody sees it, depending on your objective.
The beauty of Google ads is that it’s all measurable and you can measure the number of enquiries by phone calls and website forms filled in as a direct result of your Google ads activity.
You can create campaigns based on the level of intent of your target clients to make an enquiry.
For example if we target search terms that people enter into Google “solicitors near me” we know exactly what they are looking for and can create a relevant ad for that search term that prompts an enquiry.
We might also know that anybody who's looking at property will need the services of a conveyancing solicitor and therefore it's worthwhile creating visual ads or the Google display network.
4. Directories
There are loads of specific website directories for law firms as well as small businesses.
The benefits of joining these are that they can often appear in Google before your own website for certain searches and give you additional visibility.
Visitors to the website directories can find your details, visit your website and even call you directly. Some of the most popular for law firm directories include Venables.co.uk and Yell.
5. Social media
A presence on social media is a great way of driving website traffic as well as keeping you front of mind for potential clients.
Social media content from a law firm may not be the most exciting content that people consume during the working week (depending on your approach to risk), but there are still lots of ways that you can add value across platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and even Instagram.
The prominence of story features on these platforms means that you can now do clever things like create simple guides to some of the services you provide, whether that be making a will or property conveyancing. Stories get great organic reach.
6. Upgrade existing content
Fresh and relevant content is a great way of ensuring that your content is deemed relevant by search engines. You may find that you had a page which was ranking highly for a search term a few months ago but it has since taken a dip.
This could be for a number of reasons including more relevant, long form content from competitors.
Keep an eye on why your pages are ranking and how you can make improvements and tweaks to existing content to ensure it remains relevant.
Laws can change so it's easy for a Blog to become outdated.
7. Power up your keyword research
When writing website copy, it's not only important to have target keywords in mind but also keywords that are semantically related to your topic.
If creating content for your targeting customers who are looking for will writing services, Google will be aware of the things that are related to will writing such as gifting, estate planning, powers of attorney.
By understanding the related search terms that Google is looking for, you can power up your keyword research and make sure that your content stays relevant for longer.
8. Repurpose content
You should convert blog content into other formats. A blog post that you've created could translate into a YouTube video with you voicing or appearing in front of the camera alongside a simple animation.
This will help you get more visibility across YouTube which is the world's second largest search engine after Google and your videos may even appear in Google Search results.
The power of video is also going to help your website statistics, for example having a video can dramatically reduce the bounce rate on your pages.
Video content can also be used for ads across Facebook, YouTube and the Google display network.
9. Podcasts
Appearing on podcasts can be a great idea if you’re looking to extend your reach nationally.
It may be a podcast specific to business or even commercial property but people do listen to podcasts.
With over 2 million active podcasts, there’s a good chance your target audience are listening to them. There are some great sponsorship options as well as the potential to have links back to your website from other podcast web pages.
10. Blogger outreach
Blogger outreach still works.
This is the process of building relationships with other relevant websites in your niche and either providing them with blogging content that adds value to their own website and ideally linking back to your website.
This is similar to links from directories.
The value in this is it gives you more visibility and potential traffic from the target website as well as a link from that website to your own which Google will view as a vote of authority.
11. Add “share triggers” to all content
Adding the option to share and save your content allows people to quickly share your content across social media networks such as LinkedIn as well as even bookmark. This means they are promoting the content for you.
12. Retargeting ads
Remember we mentioned Google and social media ads earlier on?
Well, another cost-effective way of targeting people is to retarget them.
For example anyone who visited content about property conveyancing on your website can be retargeted across Google and social media with ads that are specific to your property service.
This can be a really low-cost way of re-engaging people and driving more enquiries from those who didn't previously get in touch with you.
13. Publish long form
If you are working in a competitive legal service area, then there is real value in publishing”long-form” content.
Don’t just write words for words sake but if you can create something better than search engine competitors, you may just find that you outrank your competitors as, is it will be deemed authoritative.
Google is putting a lot more emphasis on “E-A-T”.
Expertise, authority and trust.
So, if you can create content that is based on your experiences then you'll be in a great position.
14. Go mobile
Google recently moved to mobile first indexing which means that if your website looks rubbish on mobile, you're not going to rank highly in Google.
A website that is fast loading, has fonts that are easy to read and links that are easy to click is now likely to rank higher in Google than sites that are neglected.
Consider how people interact with content on mobile.
15. Find great content ideas (keyword research)
You can’t expect to write content that has been written 20x by competitors with more authoritative websites and still get lots of traffic..
Find questions that your target audience are asking, that you can answer better than your competitors.
16. Steal competitors keywords
You can steal competitors keywords and see what they are ranking for.
Use tools such as Ahrefs.
Want to get started with any of the above? Get in touch here.