Current top-level search engine optimization strategies are similar to what they’ve been in past years. The best approach is still to publish the information your ideal clients will be looking for.
SEO is, after all, the process of optimizing a website for search engine technology. Search engines essentially want to answer questions, so that’s what your website should be doing. Of course, it gets a little more technical than that — and the rules are always changing.
Some techniques stand out above others as being more relevant this year. These include cultivating backlinks, optimizing for mobile, using business-listing services, and updating website copy. Others, such as maintaining keyword saturation, are continuing to become less relevant.
Now, let’s dive deeper into best practices in SEO for lawyers in 2022. Here’s what we’ll cover:
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Table of Contents
Is SEO for lawyers still relevant in 2022? The short answer is yes. Many law firms continue to generate new clients via search engines.
The long answer is that some SEO techniques are rising in priority as others grow less effective. SEO is a long-term, strategic, relatively low-maintenance business development effort, so it makes sense that individual tactics would change over the course of a campaign.
In other words, you still need SEO. You just might not need the SEO techniques you’re using.
If you suspect that your website rank is suffering because of outdated techniques or failure to keep up with new priorities, you’re probably right. Many of our clients have experienced significant improvement across multiple metrics in the months after we take over their SEO.
The only way to know your potential for improvement is by performing a detailed analysis of your website and web presence. Luckily, that happens to be one of the first things we do for new clients. Again, please feel free to contact us at any time to get started.
If nothing else, the Internet is a network. Despite all the technological bells and whistles, you are still essentially connecting your business to other businesses and to potential clients.
This network of connections, specifically its strength, scale, and quality, is one of the primary factors in the contemporary search engine ranking process. The way that Google measues it is somewhat opaque, but one of the most important aspects is linking.
Links are the building blocks of the Internet. Search engines can see who is linking to your website and which sites you link to. If possible, you want to have reputable, popular websites linking to your content. In some cases, it can also help to have outgoing links to important resources that would interest your clients.
Building your network is one of the more behind-the-scenes aspects of SEO. It doesn’t necessarily show up in your articles, but search engines can see it and use it to determine your rank.
At this point in the development of the internet, having a mobile-optimized site is essential. “Mobile” does not just mean cell phones anymore. More people of all ages are using tablet-type devices to look for lawyers.
Tablets and smartphones alike automatically display different versions of websites. These trimmed-down versions accommodate the devices’ smaller screens and less-powerful processors. Of course, you need to build a website that has multiple versions in order for this to happen in a controlled, predictable way.
Mobile website optimization is a technique that focuses on creating this second, lighter version. It also tries to help websites load faster on all types of devices.
Faster loading time is important for the low bandwidth connections that you often find on cell phones. It’s also important from a behavioral perspective, as few people these days are willing to wait even a few seconds for a website to load. If people leave your site immediately while it is loading, your search engine rank will suffer.
So, you need mobile optimization in 2022 even if you’re not getting a lot of traffic to your site from smartphones. If you don’t know which types of devices people are using to visit your site, please contact us — chances are we’ll be able to help you make some big improvements.
Listing services are very important now and going forward with SEO. Chief among these is Google My Business / Google Business listings.
GMB quite literally puts your firm on the map — Google Maps, that is. This is valuable in and of itself because it gives you the opportunity for your firm to display in the map panel on local searches.
Once your business is listed with a physical location, you will want to go a step further, completely filling out all available fields in your listing. This would involve choosing the correct practice area, describing your business attributes, setting your hours, and changing all of these pieces of information on your listing as soon as they change in real life.
Business listings, including those on Google, also typically allow you to accept reviews for your firm and interact with reviewers. Doing so could increase your search rank as well as give people a valuable outside perspective on your services.
If you already have reviews and if they are not all positive, you might be interested in our online reputation management services. Improving your business’s score should increase your search rank as well as restore your image.
Consistently publishing new content is still important for SEO in 2022. One of the classic ways to do this is with a blog on your website.
However, the quality of your blogging matters more now than it has in the past. There are multiple reasons for this, including more competition from other firms, more efficient search algorithms, and the potential for quality articles to generate increased traffic from sharing behavior.
With sharing in mind, you might also want to consider sharing your own posts. This could mean developing a social media presence. You can also share your new publications directly to your Google business listing, potentially increasing your presence on search engine results pages.
One way that firms are improving their SEO in 2022 is by reviewing and revising website content. The best way to approach this is to use analytics.
Analytics show you which pages are performing well and which might need improvement. This is useful because it tells you something specific about the people who visit your site. However, you can also improve your website based on general SEO principles. Examples of improvements might include:
The era of incomprehensible, keyword-stuffed internet articles is slowly passing. However, old habits die hard. Your site might still be using this outdated strategy.
Keywords aren’t gone. It is still critical to speak directly to a specific topic. It’s also usually important to include the exact words that people are entering into search engines. However, keywords have become more relevant when setting up advertising campaigns and directing strategies. They are no longer as important when writing your pages, though you should still include descriptive phrases in your content.
As recently as a few years ago, many content firms and major enterprises would include keywords as frequently as every 100 words. These days, most prioritize placing keywords in titles, meta information, and subject headings. The focus is on providing authoritative information on the subject instead of repeating specific phrases.
SEO does not stand alone. To grow your practice in 2022 and going forward, you will probably want to spread your business-development resources across multiple different types of marketing techniques. Luckily, many of these techniques directly synergize with SEO.
The interaction of SEO and other marketing tactics can be complex. Let us help you make the most out of your efforts — call Forward Lawyer Marketing today at 888-590-9687.
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