Strong Website
Almost 90% of US law firms have a website. Clients expect you to have a website. A well-designed website increases your credibility. It also offers an introduction to your San Francisco law firm. A great website is a marketing pitch and legal content hub.
Some essentials for your site include:
- Shows off your law firm’s legal expertise
- Offers contact information
- Provides success stories of past clients
- Offers informative legal content that answers common questions
The website needs to be user-friendly. This means navigating on a phone or PC should be a breeze. It also should be optimized for Google, Bing, and Yahoo, so your site is easy to find. Every web page should have a solid call to action to encourage prospects to contact you. Website design should be simple and intuitive.
For example, the visitor should be able to find the information they want in one or two clicks from the homepage. If someone is looking for how to get the best San Francisco car crash settlement, they should be able to find that information quickly on your site. If not, they will bounce out and go to another site.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Even if your web designers create a great website, it will not do much good by itself. Many attorneys fall short because they do not know how to use SEO to soar to the top of the big search engines. Search engine optimization is how your site is noticed in search engines and brings more high-quality leads to your firm.
Many potential legal clients search Google for the best San Francisco law firms. For instance, they may type ‘best personal injury attorney San Francisco.’ This is called a long-tail keyword, and your website should be optimized to rank high for them. Search engines such as Google regularly crawl your legal website for long-tail keywords.
SEO services aim to grab leads who search for your legal services. You capture the leads by creating legal content that includes those keywords. All San Francisco law firms that rank high in Google use SEO effectively.
Further, local SEO is critical to optimize your firm’s presence to find leads in San Francisco and surrounding communities. Google and other search engines collect data from social media, links, and citations to determine your law firm’s local SEO rank.
Then, Google tracks the law firm’s location and places them on Google maps. This is how potential clients find your contact information in your city. Google also places client reviews with your business listing.
Having local SEO nailed down is vital to your law firm’s success. It is estimated that 46% of searches seek businesses in their local area. Effective local SEO will help the firm show higher search engine results. This attracts more potential clients to your site. You can use this free SEO audit tool to see how you compare to your competition.
Get Inbound Links
Link-building is still a vital part of improving Google rankings. The quality of links is a primary ranking factor according to the search giant. So you can get more inbound links by creating great content that Internet users share.
Some other proven ways to acquire inbound links are:
- Create infographics: Infographics are highly informative and straightforward to share. Every time a website posts your infographic, you get another inbound link.
- Write blog posts: As noted elsewhere here, writing high-quality content gets attention from visitors and Google.
- Do podcasts: Do a weekly or monthly podcast where you answer common San Francisco legal questions.
- Compose guest posts: Offer legal guest posts to major websites in the legal world.
Testimonials
Building and updating your website should include powerful testimonials and reviews from satisfied clients. San Francisco attorneys with many positive reviews and commentaries are more likely to get new contacts.
Remember, most people searching online to buy something will not pull the trigger without checking user reviews. Therefore, a passionate and positive review of your law firm can play a vital role in attracting more clients.
In addition, Google and other search engines say that online reviews are a significant ranking factor. So adding plenty of ratings and reviews to your website will boost your presence online and build credibility.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Where do people in San Francisco go when they need a lawyer? The majority use the Internet these days. What if there is a way they locate your law firm with one online search? With PPC advertising, you can gain leads quickly.
PPC advertising is when a company pays a website each time its ad is clicked. Popular venues for PPC advertising include Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
PPC can be a cost-effective digital marketing technique. Your law firm decides the budget, and the ads are highly targeted. Sites selling PPC ad services let you target the audience by gender, age, race, income, zip code, and more.
Google ranks its PPC advertising campaigns based on how relevant the campaign is for the audience and how helpful it is. Therefore, your PPC ads must have relevant advertising copy related to your target keywords.
How much is PPC? Like almost everything, it depends! The cost of your legal ads depends on the Google Ad Auction that the search giant uses to judge the quality and relevance of your ads. At the auction, which occurs online in real-time, you must bid on your desired keywords. PPC for attorneys is generally expensive in San Francisco, so it is wise to rely on 3rd-party PPC management services for ideal results.
Some ways to reduce the costs of your ad campaign are:
- Set your Google ads to run when the target audience is online.
- Tailor the ads to your firm’s target audience demographics, such as income, marital status, and age.
- Micro target your ads to specific parts of San Francisco that offer the most leads.
- Use exact match keywords, so the ad focus is narrower. This prevents wasting money on searches that are not searching for law firms.
- While PPC ads are effective for law firms, they work best as part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.
Social Media
Social media sites are among the most popular in the world. Unsurprisingly, law firms with a dynamic social media presence do well in local marketing. Social media giants such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn have millions of users. Billions of social media posts are shared daily.
Legal websites with top Google ranks usually have an excellent social media presence. Effective social media marketing for lawyers is a fantastic way to boost your website’s SEO. It also is another opportunity to promote your unique legal content.
You get more online exposure when your social media posts have website links and are shared. There also is a higher chance other sites will link to you. A solid social media presence also increases trust in the San Francisco region, making legal prospects more likely to reach out.
Fantastic Content
It is critical for your site’s Google rank to create high-quality legal content that visitors value. The greater content on your site, the more people will stay on it and read it. In addition, Google notices how long visitors stay on your site; it is an important ranking factor.
Let’s say you are a divorce lawyer in San Francisco. Some possible blog content topics to focus on might be:
- Is Alimony Always Awarded In A California Divorce?
- How to Co-Parent Effectively After A San Francisco Divorce
- Top 5 Signs You’re Going To Be In San Francisco Divorce Court
Spend some time every week answering questions that you get on your website. You can use answers to those questions as the basis of your blog posts. If you get good enough at answering legal questions, you could get the coveted ‘position zero,’ which is #1 in organic rankings for a question or keyword. Organizations get position zero by offering the best answer.
Law Firm Case Studies
This case study shows how a single-attorney family law practice started attracting more high-asset, financially complex divorce cases.
Click here to read about a family law firm that increased its caseload five-fold in a few months.
Texas Criminal Defense Law Firm Doubles Revenue In One Year
Personal Injury Law Firm Sees 99% Increase In Organic Traffic
Contact Our San Francisco Lawyer Marketing Team
At FORWARD Lawyer Marketing we believe in taking a “leave no stone unturned” approach when it comes to our legal clients. With that in mind, we employ extremely experienced people in the industry.
Our SEO Director has been marketing online for well over two decades and oversees all SEO tasks including editing content and performing on-page optimization as well as internal and external linking.
Creating a comprehensive lawyer marketing strategy for San Francisco does not need to be overwhelming. However, if you focus on the basics mentioned here – SEO, social media, content marketing, and website design – you have a fantastic start for digital marketing.
Our specialty is law firm marketing and SEO for lawyers at FORWARD Lawyer Marketing, call us at (888) 590-9687 to discuss how we can increase the revenue of your law firm.