Attorney & Law Firm Website SEO - Five Factors to Consider

Attorneys and law firms seem to be of the hottest areas for website marketing, SEO, and development. Based on search volume alone, as well as all the companies specializing in only marketing or designing websites for attorneys, you can assume it's quite lucrative for attorneys to be found at the right place at the right time online. Here are a five tips to consider when addressing this market:

1. Multiple Domains Verses Subdirectories/Interior pages

The dilemma of having several keyword-rich domains verses using one main domain with lots of pages came up in a recent SEOChat forum thread with a poster specifically asking which strategy to use for an attorney website.

From what I've learned from working with law firms and attorney sites, it's best to: 

• Create one domain (or ideally have an aged domain with links already built to it).
• Use sub/interior pages describing the different the areas of practice in detail (get verbose).
• Put as much verbiage as you can per area (or 500 words or so) describing each law in detail and going as far as 1st, 2nd, 3rd offense descriptions, penalties, jail time, statutes, caveats, anything you can get your hands on. Luckily, legalese jargon lends itself to doing this (hopefully your the attorney client doesn't mind writing).

The other direction would be to buy specific domains using the name of an offense with the word attorney in it, such as BankruptcyAttorneyDFW.com. This strategy also works, but should not be focused on too much in the beginning. 

2. The legal Long Tail

One reason you don't want to spread your efforts out to multiple sites is that there will be a lot of long tail phase searches, which actually convert better. You will not be able to assume all major search terms by creating dozens of separate sites.

Secondly, there are strategies of the past which do not work anymore if they seem like a shortcut such as: buying 100s of domains and linking them all together. It's easy for Google to see if they are all owned by the same person, or are all hosted on the same server.

3. Online Marketing Strategy & Keyword Research For Law Firms

Having one site with many stratified pages with plenty of copy is going to be the optimum starting strategy, along with building a plethora of links. There are tons of law firm and attorney-specific directories such as: findlaw.com, theattorneystore.com, and others. Make sure all the major pages are inner-linked very well and stratified out.

Another key to remember is if your client is a defense attorney, most people accused of a crime don't call themselves criminals. So, don't optimize for phrases like: sex crimes, violent crimes, white collar crimes, or even criminal defense. Optimizing for defense attorney or defense lawyer + city name is fine, but you'll have more targeted leads and less competition if you optimize each interior page for the different areas of defense. For example: the name of crime being charged with + city. 

4. How Users find attorneys online

A highly qualified searcher will type what he/she is charged with along with the keyword stems: case, penalty, laws, jail time, defense, even "what is" or "definition of ...." As well as, of course, the name his or her charge + attorney or lawyer.

Localized search is huge for attorneys using the county's name, as well as city, in which the person was charged. For example: charged with aggravated assault in Baxter county Arkansas

5. What's Your Hook

There are 1000s of attorneys in large cities. In order to get a direct response from a client prospect, you need a hook. I'm not talking about a snazzy tag line. From my experience, offering a "100% Free Consultation," even if that just means a phone call back, may be the push that online researcher needs to get him/her to make the move.

To learn more about Internet Marketing and website design for attorneys and law firms, download a free SEO 101 report for attorneys.