If you own a law firm and you aren’t using SEO to your advantage, you’re essentially giving FREE business away to your competitors.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of optimizing your website to obtain visibility on major search engines, such as Google, for high-volume, high-traffic keywording. It is one of the few ways you can acquire new cases for FREE (yes, free) without spending money on wishy-washy marketing tactics, such as print advertising and expensive pay-per-click.
Statistically speaking, you are 71% more likely to acquire a case if you are on page 1 of the search results as opposed to a mere 6% on page 2 and beyond. Therefore, it is fair to say that maintaining page 1 rankings (top 10 placement of any given search result) is crucial to your online case-acquisition success.
How to Tell If Your SEO Agency Is Ripping You Off
If you own a law firm in 2019 and you AREN’T using SEO to your advantage, you’re setting your practice up for failure. Perhaps you’ve attempted to optimize your own site, or maybe you’ve hired an agency to do the work for you. Unfortunately, if you’re reading this article, something still isn’t quite working, and you’re likely asking yourself, “Why?”
Before you spend another dime on ineffective law firm SEO, read through this post to discover some of the key metrics we use at TAYMC to track your SEOs progress. By using this information, you’ll be able to gauge whether or not your SEO is actually working, and if not, you should have a better understanding on how you can remedy the problem.
Let’s get hypothetical for a minute. Let’s say that six months ago you retained SEO Agency XYZ to optimize your website. They’ve promised you page 1 rankings, a favorable ROI (SEO Cost:Case Acquisition), and increased brand visibility in exchange for a pretty steep monthly retainer.
Now, six months and thousands of dollars later, you’re still not ranked page 1 for high-traffic, high-volume keywording and SEO Agency XYZ is telling you, “it’s a competitive field; it’s going to take more time.” Given that you’re an attorney, and business owner, you do not have the time to babysit your SEO agency and therefore, you accept what they tell you and hope for the best.
Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Las Vegas Car Accident Attorney is one of THE most competitive keywords in terms of Law Firm SEO. I was able to get my client to page 1 in LESS than six months. So, if your agency is feeding you the “it takes time” line after six months of service, fire them. Immediately. They either (A) aren’t prioritizing your site or (B) don’t know what they’re doing.
How to Avoid SEO Fraud?
Step 1: Check your rankings (OFTEN)
Each webpage on your site should be centered on one or two keywords at most. The easiest, most basic way you can track your SEO progress is by subscribing to an SEO management platform to track your keyword rankings in real-time. If you do not know which keywords your SEO should be targeting, email me for a complimentary keyword analysis centered on your practice area/location.
Check your rankings daily. If your rankings are on a steady decline, or stagnate, you are likely victim of SEO fraud. Note, Given that each website’s indexation schedule differs, rankings may fluctuate negatively and positively slightly.
Step 2: Check your local citations
Local citations are going to help your website rank high in the Google 3-pack (the first three local listings you see on any given Google search.) If your business lacks uniformity in local citations (incorrect information on various citations) or lacks any citations at all, you are likely a victim of SEO fraud.
You can request a completely free citations scan by clicking here.
Step 3: Check your on-page content!
Google is concerned with maintaining a quality search experience for its users. In determining which websites to list in top 10, one of this biggest factors is centered on on-page content. If your content lacks proper structure, keywording, and/or informative content, you simply will not rank page 1.
When I started with my Las Vegas personal injury client, his on-page content was a mess. His site had duplicated content, his webpages were not service-specific, and his pages were not properly optimized for high-volume keywording. Upon properly optimizing and re-structuring his webpages, I noticed a significant jump in rankings.
If you’re questioning whether or not your on-page content is up to page 1 Par, request a free analysis. We’ll send you a content-quality score in addition to a citations scan and current rankings report.
For more information on detecting SEO fraud or boosting your current rankings give me a call or send me an email. You can also check out our Law Firm SEO Management system to discover how we can assist you in reaching page 1 for a fraction of the cost.
