How Estate Planning SEO For Lawyers Can Increase Your Clients

October 18 , 2022 | BY admin

estate planning

Did you know that nearly 75% of American adults think that estate planning is confusing? That is far from the only estate planning statistic that illustrates the need for competent, engaged attorneys.

We know that people need your services, but sometimes the hard part is getting them in the door in the first place. Aside from the fact that people don’t tend to want to talk about preparing for the inevitable, you also have the challenge of getting your message in front of potential clients.

This is where marketing techniques such as estate planning SEO for lawyers can come in handy. By understanding what your clients need — or at least what they are looking for online — you should be able to drive traffic to your website and create business for your firm.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. We’ll go into more depth by looking at the following topics:

  • What Is SEO?
  • How Is Estate Planning SEO Different?
  • Why SEO Is a Great Match for Estate Planning Attorneys
  • A Big-Picture Look at SEO Strategy
  • Ways SEO Increases Clients
  • Prerequisites for Good SEO
  • Other Types of Online Marketing
  • SEO vs PPC for Estate Planning Lawyers

What Is SEO?

SEO is a type of marketing technique. The acronym stands for search engine optimization.

This type of approach aims to work within the rules of the search engine. Search engines are complex services that use algorithms and other automated processes to deliver the most relevant information possible to internet users.

From a marketing perspective, this presents an opportunity. One of the goals of marketing is to match customers, or in the case of a law firm, clients, with the products and services that they’re looking for. This aligns with the goal of the search engine.

SEO is about building a website in such a way that search engines can read it. It’s also important that humans can read it and find useful, relevant articles to read. That is, after all, the type of website that search engines want to connect people with.

How Is Estate Planning SEO Different?

SEO for estate planning attorneys is a bit different than it is for other types of businesses. This is mostly because the legal profession is very competitive online, and estate planning can be a competitive practice area. 

When you are using this type of marketing technique for any type of business, it usually takes time to show results. In the context of a more competitive landscape, it can take even longer — if you don’t take every advantage available to you.

That’s why, with estate planning SEO, it is important to have a strategy right from the beginning. If you don’t target development in a methodical, forward-looking way, your competition might have the opportunity to outmaneuver you.

Why SEO Is a Great Match for Estate Planning Attorneys

Many types of law firms tend to focus on short-term growth more than on the big, multi-decade picture. After all, a criminal defense, family law, or personal injury client might just have one legal issue in their entire lives that requires the services of an attorney who focuses on these adversarial practice areas.

Estate planning lawyers, on the other hand, tend to form lifelong or even multigenerational relationships with their clients and their families. In that context, waiting a few months for investments show to show low-maintenance, sustainable results is much more palatable.

In short, SEO is a good match for estate planners because it has the following attributes:

  • It’s relatively inexpensive to maintain.
  • It typically provides stable, predictable results over the long term.
  • It is tied directly to the identity of the firm through the website (unlike pay-per-lead advertising, for example).

A Big-Picture Look at SEO Strategy

SEO for estate planning lawyers typically focuses on establishing knowledge centers on a website. For example, your office might want to provide some general information to potential clients illustrating the complexity of estate planning and persuading them to engage you for whatever services they may need. 

It sounds straightforward. However, the fact that it requires dedicated research for each firm makes it difficult to talk about specifics.

SEO can be difficult to understand. That’s why we offer SEO for attorneys that takes the guesswork out of strategy. Whether you’re starting out or you’d like some more performance out of your budget, please contact us to discuss your goals today.

Ways SEO Increases Law Firm Clients

SEO often increases clients for a number of reasons. The first reason is the most obvious. 

SEO, when it is successful, increases your website’s rank on search engines such as Google. This results in more people visiting the website. When more people visit your website, there are more chances for people to contact your firm to become new clients.

Another way you can get more clients is that SEO focuses, at least in part, on providing useful information to people who need your services. People might share these web pages, videos, and blog entries that you write with their friends who need your services. 

This sort of referral and sharing behavior happens frequently with social media, but it can also happen via email, text message, and word of mouth. The key aspect is that you have to provide articles that people find useful and want to share.

Prerequisites For Good SEO

The first thing you will need in order to have SEO is a website. SEO needs something that you’re trying to promote. If you do not already have a website or if you believe yours is out of date, we can help with our custom design services tailored specifically to attorney websites.

You also probably need some type of guiding strategy, as we mentioned above. Even if you know the basics, that is not typically enough to succeed. To be as efficient and successful as possible, you typically need to understand where to focus your efforts at different stages of your SEO progress in order to build and maintain your rankings. 

Other Types of Online Marketing

There are many other types of online marketing and advertising for lawyers, but only a few of them have the same type of alignment with estate planning businesses that SEO does. Here are some examples:

  • Social media: Social media might be a good way to connect with clients and share your website materials with a ready-made audience. 
  • Business profiles: Business profiles outside of social media include Google’s business profiles that appear on the maps utility and attorney directories, such as Avvo and FindLaw.
  • Paid advertisements: Paid advertisements give you a flexible but often expensive way to get your message out immediately.
  • Lead purchasing: Buying leads could get younger practices off the ground — or stabilize the number of incoming leads for a more established firm.

SEO vs PPC for Estate Planning Lawyers

SEO is very different from paid online advertisements, but, since they are both under the general umbrella of attorney business development, they are often talked about together. Let’s take a look at how this method works specifically for estate planning attorneys:

  • SEO is less expensive than PPC in the long run and typically provides more lasting results. Since estate planners typically maintain a client portfolio over the long term, slower, more efficient growth can be compatible.
  • SEO generates a library of useful general information that both attracts new clients and benefits existing ones. These articles can be useful when clients have questions — or when they want to refer you to friends and family members. These articles also often become features in the email newsletters that estate planning firms use to keep in touch with former and existing clients. PPC tends to depend on highly motivational landing pages that might not work as well as a general knowledge resource.
  • PPC is a short-term option for most firms because campaigns are relatively expensive. In SEO, you are publishing material to your website that can remain active as long as you want with no cost other than the general maintenance costs of the website itself.

All of this adds up to lawyer marketing strategies for estate planning law firms that typically favor SEO rather heavily. Of course, your strategy should depend on a detailed analysis of your practice — not just assumptions based on your practice area.

Contact FORWARD Lawyer Marketing Today

If you would like a general idea of where you stand in terms of SEO performance, take a moment to use our online SEO audit tool. It should give you a few insights into the challenges your site faces in terms of SEO and the opportunities you might have in order to rank higher. 

Of course, that’s not the whole picture. We’re also available for dedicated consultations. Call (888) 590-9687 to get started today.