When considering choices for the best website platform for lawyers there is no doubt that WordPress is the best option. At FORWARD Lawyer Marketing we focus on WordPress websites for attorneys because we consider it to be the best CMS for lawyers. Below are some of the reasons we choose WordPress.
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WordPress does all the heavy lifting in the background which allows those with no coding experience to create beautiful user-friendly websites that are mobile-friendly and optimized for the search engines out of the box.
Creating such visually appealing and responsive websites contributes to visitors staying longer, decreasing the overall bounce rate which has a positive impact on search rankings. Google is all about user experience, their new Core Web Vitals algorithm rollout coming in June of 2021 focuses on Page Experience.
Google is going to begin penalizing websites with poor page experience because they want to deliver the best experience to the website visitor. If you optimize your website for a good page experience Google will reward you with higher rankings.
An attractive, responsive website design with page structure and internal linking that makes sense is a must for higher rankings. WordPress levels the playing field a little because the SEO plugins offered by independent WordPress developers tell you what you need to do to rank better.
For those unfamiliar with the lingo, a theme is a basic core design that is used to create your website. These themes can also be customized so that they display a unique look for your brand. Many WordPress theme developers are also creating new themes that are very lightweight and faster loading. This is crucial as Google starts making page speed even more important going forward.
Still not sold on WordPress? Take a look at this data from Gotch SEO.
With all of the incredible SEO tools offered by WordPress and its network of independent developers ranking high in the search results is much easier.
When you use all WordPress’s amazing SEO features, you’re one huge step closer to the top of Google’s SERPs
Over the last 10 years, global web traffic on mobile phones has exploded. According to Oberlo, as of February 2021, 55.56 percent of all web traffic comes through mobile phones.
10 years ago the percentage of mobile traffic was only a little over 6 percent, by 2016 mobile web traffic had quadrupled to well over 24 percent of total traffic. This rapid growth rate over the first few years of the decade has cooled down a lot. From 2011-2016 the average year-over-year growth was 49.64 percent, in contrast, mobile web traffic only increased 5.22 percent year-over-year.
Law firm marketing is one of the most competitive markets there is and many people are using mobile to search. Someone thinking of getting divorced likely isn’t searching on the family computer. That means that it is crucial for your law firm’s website to be optimized for mobile. Google is also moving towards mobile-first indexing, meaning if your site doesn’t display and perform well on mobile it won’t even be indexed.
Metadata is the language that tells the search engine crawlers what your web pages are about and can help with higher rankings. Meta keywords don’t really have any pull but title tags and meta descriptions have a big impact as do image alt tags.
WordPress makes doing this easy by utilizing SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, RankMath, and All In One SEO. Using plugins like these you don’t have to code the metadata, the plugin does it for you. They will also give you hints and instructions on what to do with your writing, titles, keywords, description, and more to rank higher.
WordPress makes SEO easier by using the SEO plugins that are created by the huge independent network of developers that build these exclusively for WordPress. The top SEO plugins right now are Yoast SEO, Rank Math SEO, Google XML Site Maps, and Google Analytics. We personally also use the Google Site Kit plugin which gives you great data from Google Search Console and analytics as well as testing your site for Core Web Vitals via Page Speed Insights.
As far as pure SEO plugin goes, Yoast SEO has been the top-rated SEO plugin for years and has been downloaded on well over 5 million WordPress websites. Yoast will help you optimize your content for the search engines by making suggestions to improve ranking. As previously mentioned, the plugin also will code the metadata for you based upon your input into your page or post. Yoast SEO also offers Premium users full support whenever needed.
The constant process of optimizing your posts can sometimes take more time than actually writing the content. If you always feel that you can do more on the SEO for your website but don’t have the time, then Rank Math is what you’re looking for.
It offers a long shopping list of intelligent features that brings top SEO capabilities in your hands that were previously out of reach. A well-thought-out design, powerful features, and years of development by the MyThemeShop squad make Rank Math a game-changing SEO plugin that will level the SEO playing field in your favor to help increase traffic.
See the features which are exclusive to the Rank Math SEO plugin and understand why Rank Math is possibly the Best SEO Plugin for WordPress
The Google XML Site Maps plugin makes creating complex XML site maps an easy task. Sitemaps are an important aspect of SEO as they make your site’s structure easy for search engine crawlers to understand. Each time you publish a post or page the plugin alerts the search engines that you have new content. This speeds up the indexing of your new content which is the first step in getting ranked.
WordPress’s Google Analytics plugin gives you your analytics data right in your WordPress dashboard so you don’t have to leave your site’s admin area to see it. It will identify your top-performing content so you know to write more about similar or related topics. With over 3 million active installs, MonsterInsights is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.
Unlike other Google Analytics plugins, MonsterInsights allow you to enable all advanced Google analytics tracking features with just a few clicks (no need to hire a developer).
Millions of small businesses and top companies like Microsoft, Bloomberg, FedEx, Yelp, Subway, etc. use MonsterInsights to set up Google Analytics on their WordPress sites.
The structure of your website’s URLs is also a Google ranking factor and WordPress makes creating SEO keyword-rich URLs that will help you rank higher simple.
Instead of having an ugly URL full of nonsensical characters, you get something like this:
https://www.bvlawsf.com/personal-injury/
The reason you want to be able to choose and create your permalinks is so you can optimize the titles for the keywords or keyword phrases you are targeting for that specific page. This not only helps you with search rankings but it also just looks better.
Many people don’t realize this but images are another ranking factor and Google searches for images to index based upon file names and image alt tags. The crawlers cannot see images so they rely on metadata to know what it is. So in addition to making your posts look better and more readable but they can increase search rankings.
The page load time of a website is very important and with the Core Web Vitals rollout on the way, the need for speed has never been more apparent. If you have ever been annoyed at waiting for a web page to load then you know firsthand how important this is.
One plugin that can help a lot with site speed is ShortPixel Image Optimizer.
The function of this plugin is to compress your past images and PDFs to make them smaller and decrease load time. WPOptimize is another plugin that can help to speed up your site by caching your pages, clearing your database, and compress images.
If you aren’t including social media marketing in your law firm marketing plan you should be. Social media is an easy way to help build your reputation and an audience of followers. By setting up the proper tracking codes you can extrapolate data that can help you find more potential clients.
WordPress enables you to create custom social media buttons that make it easier for website visitors to share your content and to follow you as well. You can also link your social media feeds to your site and automate social media posting.
FORWARD Lawyer Marketing has built WordPress websites for lawyers across the country since 2013. If you need a WordPress website for your law firm contact FORWARD Lawyer Marketing here or give us a call for a free consultation and site audit at (888) 590-9687
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