Why Isn’t My Law Firm Ranking on Google? Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
If you launched your law firm website in hopes of generating new clients, but it’s not showing up in Google, you’re not alone. Search engine optimization (SEO) for law firms is brutally competitive, and it takes a lot of hard work to get seen. SEO is complex, and certain mistakes can keep your site from ranking. In a market where leads click the first results they see, SEO (search engine optimization) is life or death for your law firm’s business. Let’s break down the most common mistakes that can hold your law firm back, along with some solutions. You haven’t given your law firm’s website enough time If you law firm’s website is new, you’ll need to wait for results. Assuming you’ve been working on your SEO (search engine optimization), it could take six months to a year to see results. If you’re trying to do it all yourself, the time it takes to rank could be years or you may not see results at all if you aren’t using an effective strategy. In any case, if you aren’t sure where you stand, get a free SEO site audit or get a consultation from a professional SEO agency as soon as possible. You don’t have an SEO strategy Getting visibility in Google takes more than just publishing a few pages with relevant keywords, generated from an online tool. Effective SEO requires a strategic approach with attention to detail. A basic SEO strategy contains the following elements: Keyword research. You need to know what terms real people are searching for, and what LSI keywords to include in your content. On-page SEO. This includes optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, headers, URL structures, and other on-page elements. Additional aspects of on-page SEO include writing good content, using internal linking, and optimizing images. Technical SEO. You need a mobile-friendly, fast-loading site with no crawl errors, broken links, or indexing issues. XML sitemaps and schema markup are essential. Content strategy. The content you publish directly impacts your ranking. Local SEO. Having a Google Business profile, local citations, client reviews, and content optimized for your service areas are all essential components to optimizing for Google My Business (GMB) listings. Link building. You’ll need strong backlinks from authoritative sites to rank. This can be accomplished through guest posting, media mentions, and creating linkable assets that people want to share. Analytics and reporting. You can’t improve what you aren’t tracking. But SEO analytics can be complex if you aren’t familiar with everything. Ongoing optimization. SEO isn’t something you do once and walk away. You’ll need to constantly monitor and optimize your site to maintain and improve your rankings. While some people are able to successfully learn SEO on their own, taking a DIY SEO approach is risky. Unless you want to make SEO a part-time job, you’re better off hiring a law firm SEO pro. Your law firm site isn’t indexed It’s frustrating to see your site all the way back on page 20+, but if your site isn’t indexed, it won’t show up at all. Here’s how to know which issue you’re dealing with: Go to Google and do a site search by typing in: “site:yourwebsite.com” See if any of your web pages show up in the search engine results pages (SERPs). If none of your web pages show up, they aren’t in Google’s index. If pages show up, they’re indexed, but not ranking. To get your web pages indexed, submit a request for Google to recrawl your URLs through your Google Search Console. If your pages are indexed, but aren’t ranking, you’ll need to employ an aggressive SEO campaign to get seen. Google changed their algorithm (again) Since the beginning, Google has made hundreds of updates, major and minor, and each time, perfectly good websites take a hit. If your site used to show up in searches, but now it’s pushed far back, check to see if there was a recent algorithm change or core update. Sometimes sites recover naturally after a short period of time, but updates have been fierce in the last few years and you might need to call in an SEO pro. Your law firm’s website content is thin If all you have is a home page that lists your practice areas and phone number, you probably won’t rank well. The same is true if you publish a single 300-word blog post once a month. A good blog post should answer important questions in-depth and be at least 1,000 words long. It doesn’t help to publish blog posts on a regular schedule if the content isn’t good. You’re better off posting less frequently to ensure your content is high-quality. Law is a highly competitive market, and you have to do some work to get seen in Google. At minimum, you need a separate web page for each of your practice areas. For example, if you’re a personal injury attorney, you’ll want a separate page for the following: Slip and fall accidents Dog bites Motorcycle accidents Truck accidents Car accidents Bicycle accidents Wrongful death Premises liability Medical malpractice With a single page simply listing your personal injury lawyer practice areas, Google won’t see your site as helpful. Having a separate, well-written web page for each personal injury practice area gives you a better chance at ranking for related searches. Your web pages are overloaded with legal jargon Even though Google loves specificity, legal jargon will only confuse people who read your content. And if your leads aren’t searching for jargon, it’s not going to help you rank. Avoid complex sentences and excessive legal jargon. It’s okay to use technical words to describe your practice areas, explain how the law works, and describe the process people will go through when they file a lawsuit. For example, if you’re a car accident attorney, you’ll need to explain comparative negligence, no-fault insurance, and similar concepts. However, keep in mind that people who need a lawyer will search for “what to do after a car accident”