We’ve written about S.E.O. before, from getting started to structured data, and we will write about it again. S.E.O. is a big topic and it’s changing all the time. So, how are you supposed to digest all this S.E.O. information into something that you can work with? A good place to start is with best practices. Luckily, Google has the S.E.O. best practices written right on their website for the world to see!
We’re here to translate those recommendations into actionable best practices that you can use in your law firm marketing today.
SEVEN LAW FIRM S.E.O. BEST PRACTICES
- Create Content: Of the people, for the people, by people
- Use Your Words: Title tags, headers, and alt text
- Make Your Links Crawlable: Tell Search Engines about your law firm website
- Tell the World: Let people know about your law firm website
- Technical Tips: Best practices for images, videos, and other non-text content
- Rich Results, Structured Data: Leverage all areas of the SERP
- Keep It to Yourself: Block content you want blocked
CREATE CONTENT: Of the People, For the People, By People
If you ask any lawyer or legal marketing professional about their digital marketing goals, they will say something along the lines of “rank on page one of Google results.” Every firm, every company wants the same thing, and for good reason: page one is where all the action happens. In fact, only 0.63% of Google searchers ever click on something from the second page!(1)
That being said, don’t try to game the system. Google is a sophisticated machine, using advanced algorithms. They will find you faster than Liam Niessen if they think you’re trying to “hack” your way into a favorable ranking. The best way to rank on page one is to create people-first content.
People-first content means content that’s created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings.(2)
How Do You Know If Your Content is People-First?
Well, Google provides a handy list of questions you can ask yourself when developing content. The overarching principle is to serve your audience. Ask yourself if this is something your audience will find useful. Forget about generating leads, or business – does the content you are creating provide value?
Here are some additional questions you can ask yourself when cozying up with your keyboard.(3)
- Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
- Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
- Is this content written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
- Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service)?
For a full list of the questions from Google, click here.
USE YOUR WORDS: Title Tags, Headers, and Alt Text
When you are creating content, every word matters. Some matter more than others, in particular the page title, the header of the page, and the alt text of the images included in your content. Each of these are important for slightly different reasons.
Title Tags
Next time you are searching for something, take note of the blue links on Google. Those are title links.
A title link is the title of a search result on Google Search and other properties (for example, Google News) that links to the web page.(4)
These are controlled by the
Title tags are extremely important in terms of search. When a user searches for something on Google, they scan the results to see which one matches their query. As it is a different color than the rest of the page, users often scan the results by title tag first. Think of it as your first impression. You always want to make a good one of those.
Heading 1
We like to think of headers as chapter titles. The title of this article is “Law Firm S.E.O. Best Practices, According to Google” but the header 1 is “Seven Law Firm S.E.O. Best Practices” Headings are important because they help users scan content easily, and from a search perspective Google can use your H1 as the title tag, as they have been known to re-write(5) title tags in search results to better satisfy a user’s query. Make sure you use your H1 element wisely and try not to have more than one.
Alt Text in Images
Alt text (text that describes an image) improves accessibility for people who can’t see images on web pages, including users who use screen readers or have low-bandwidth connections.(6)
As Google is a robot, it also cannot “see” images, although it’s getting better at that. That’s why Google uses alt text to understand the context of an image. Resist the temptation to keyword-stuff your alt text. Instead create helpful, information first alt text for people, not machines.
MAKE YOUR LINKS CRAWLABLE: Tell Search Engines About Your Law Firm Website
A link doesn’t just magically happen on a website. Similar to when you insert a hyperlink into a word document, there is an extra step to creating a link on a webpage. Not to get too technical but, in website code, regular text can be contained in a
paragraph
and links are generally contained in this is a link Links are important for a lot of reasons that we will cover in another post and for their importance to make any sort of impact you need to make sure that Googlebot can crawl them. Keep those links in tags and you are on your way.
TELL THE WORLD: Let People Know About Your Law Firm Website
So you have a website, it has well-written people-first content, the images have alt text, you’ve wrapped all those links in like it’s Christmas morning…..but have you told anyone about your website? Yes, Google will crawl your website, and there are ways you can instruct it (more on that later), but hitting the publish button does not immediately place you on page one. You need to get the word out.
Tell people about your site. Be active in communities where you can tell like-minded people about your services and products that you mention on your site.(7)
Spread the word about your site on social media, at CLEs, and networking events. The more people that talk about your site, the more opportunities it has to be discovered by your audience.
TECHNICAL TIPS: Best practices for images, videos, and other non-text content
Content in 2023 usually isn’t just words. Great content is interactive and immersive. It features images, videos, audio, and more. For each of those features, there are specific guidelines to help you optimize the right way. For example, with images, you want to ensure you are uploading optimized images with small file sizes. That helps reduce the load when a user queues up your site and helps improve site speed. Google also enhances content in S.E.R.P.S. with things like map packs, rich results, and related questions content. For more information on these element best practices see below:
Images
It’s unlikely to find a website today without images that complement the on-page content. Images are an essential part of the website experience in 2023. In the eyes of Google, there are a few things that you can do to improve your image S.E.O.:
For a full list click here.
We mentioned above that the Google SERP is ripe with enhanced content. The information below details how to signal to Google that you would like your content to be eligible for those rich results.
RICH RESULTS, STRUCTURED DATA: Leverage All Areas of the SERP
The Google SERP (search engine results page) has evolved since the early days of the search engine. For instance, take a look below at the search results for Apple.
Search is no longer limited to blue links and descriptions. There are a plethora of visual elements that can represent your website if you know how to optimize for that specific element. For more information on how to leverage structured data to enable rich results and visual elements, check out our post 5 Ways To Improve Law Firm S.E.O. Leveraging Structured Data.
KEEP IT TO YOURSELF: Block Content You Want Blocked
Not every single thing on your website needs to be or should be indexed by Google. Perhaps you have a recently departed attorney that needs to be removed, or perhaps you have a client portal that you don’t want Google to index. There are certain situations where you want to specifically instruct Google to NOT index something on your website. Two of the more popular methods are no-index and robots.txt
No-index
Google documentation reads – “The no-index robots meta tag is a rule that tells Google not to index your content or let it appear in Google search results. Your content can still be linked to and visited through other web pages, or directly visited by users with a link, but the content will not appear in Google search results.”(9) – (“Block Search Indexing with Noindex | Google Search Central | Documentation”)
Robots.txt
Google documentation reads – “Google only indexes images and videos that Googlebot is allowed to crawl. To prevent Googlebot from accessing your media files, use robots.txt rules to block the files.8 “ (“Hide and Remove Images from Google Search | Google Search Central | Documentation”)
For all the ways to block content, click here.
To recap, the seven best practices for S.E.O. as described by Google are:
- Create Content: Of the people, for the people, by people
- Use Your Words: Title tags, headers, and alt text
- Make Your Links Crawlable – Tell Search Engines about your law firm website
- Tell the World: Let people know about your law firm website
- Technical Tips: Best practices for images, videos, and other non-text content
- Rich Results, Structured Data: Leverage all areas of the SERP
- Keep It to Yourself: Block content you want blocked
(1) Dean, Brian. “We Analyzed 5 Million Google Search Results. Here’s What We Learned about Organic CTR.” Backlinko, 14 Oct. 2022, backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats.
(2) “Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content.
(3) “Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content.
(4) “Influencing Title Links in Google Search | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link#page-titles. Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.
(5) Southern, Matt G. “Google Is Rewriting Title Tags in SERPs.” Search Engine Journal, 18 Aug. 2021, www.searchenginejournal.com/google-is-rewriting-title-tags-in-serps/416793/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
(6) “Google Image S.E.O. Best Practices | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images#use-descriptive-alt-text. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
(7) “Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content.“Google Image S.E.O. Best Practices | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images#use-descriptive-alt-text. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
(8) “Google Image S.E.O. Best Practices | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images#use-descriptive-alt-text. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
(9) “Control the Content You Share on Search | Google Search Central | Documentation.” Google Developers, developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/control-what-you-share. Accessed 10 Mar. 2023.
