SEO for Lawyers in San Diego: Understanding the Basics
lawyer SEO (SEO) is more cost-effective for reaching customers than using paid ads. According to the Google Keyword Planner, up to 10,000 people search for the keywords “immigration lawyer san diego,” “divorce attorney san diego,” and “san diego personal injury lawyer” each month.
SEO is the most cost-effective way to reach these users. If you were paying for Google Ads, you would have to pay up to $251 for a single click when bidding on these keywords. Organic search traffic is free after your site has started ranking, so SEO has a much better ROI in the long run.
While there are a lot of benefits of using SEO as a San Diego lawyer, your competition will also be extremely fierce. The California State Bar Association reports that there are 16,242 active lawyers in San Diego County. All of these lawyers would like to be on the top page of Google, so it can be challenging to stand out without a consistent SEO strategy.
What Is Lawyer SEO and Why Is It Important in 2023?
Lawyer SEO is a key component of law firm internet marketing which involves the art and science of optimizing websites to help them rank better in Google and other search engines. The SEO process involves various essential tasks, including strategically incorporating keywords in content, building links to the website from other sites, and ensuring the website is well structured so Google can crawl it more easily.
While there are many similarities between optimizing law firm websites and websites in other industries, there are also some crucial differences. For example, lawyers can take advantage of unique link-building opportunities, including using legal directories such as FindLaw and Avvo. They may also find that there is a lot of competition relative to other professions in San Diego, which is one of the reasons law firms hire agencies that specialize in lawyer SEO in San Diego.
There are clear benefits of hiring a marketing agency that specializes in lawyer SEO in San Diego. The National Law Review reports that many law firms spend $7,500 a month on their SEO strategies. Law firms wouldn’t invest this much in search engine marketing if they didn’t feel it paid off.
However, the success of your law firm’s SEO strategy is going to depend on how well it is executed. Your law firm will reach more customers on Google if you have a well-rounded SEO strategy that you focus on consistently. If you don’t have the knowledge or resources to handle your SEO strategy in-house, then you should consider working with an agency that has a lot of experience.
Here are some of the most essential elements of successful law firm SEO campaigns.
On-Site SEO content
On-site content in particular is extremely important for SEO. Google and other search engines crawl the internet, searching for relevant content that people may be searching for.
You need to ensure that your site has relevant keywords and content so Google knows it is a good resource for people looking for lawyers in San Diego. However, it is also essential to use keywords naturally rather than trying to shoehorn them into your content. This task can be challenging if you don’t have SEO copywriting experience.
You also need to know where keywords should be placed. They should be used strategically in headers, the alt tags in your images, URLs, the HTML title, and the body of the content.
Off-Page SEO
Search engines also pay close attention to off-site SEO factors when ranking websites. Google ranks websites higher if they have links from other websites. Citations (references to your company name, address, and phone number) are also very important for law firms and other local businesses.
There are many ways that lawyers can earn backlinks and citations to improve their website rankings:
- Google My Business is a fantastic marketing tool for attorneys and local businesses. You can submit your site to Google My Business and be listed in Google Search and Maps. These listings can improve the ranking of your law firm’s website. They also help you get more visibility if people find your Google My Business profile.
- Citations are almost as crucial as backlinks. A study by Moz shows that local citations are also extremely important for local SEO. You should try to get citations from various business directories, social media profiles, and other websites.
- Legal directories such as Avvo, FindLaw, and Martindale can help you earn relevant, quality backlinks.
- If you want to improve your law firm’s SEO, then you may also want to join professional organizations or submit your website to local business directories such as the Chamber of Commerce. There are eight San Diego chambers of commerce that you can join.
- Another great way to get backlinks for your law firm’s website is by writing guest articles on other websites.
- News sites can also be excellent avenues if you are trying to earn links to your law firm’s website. You can use tools such as Help a Reporter Out to find reporters looking for opinions and request a website link. Another option is to submit press releases to major news sites.
Earning quality links and citations will give you a huge advantage over competitors in the search engines.
Content Marketing
More than ever, Google is rewarding companies that share detailed, authoritative content. Longer-form content tends to rank higher in the SERPs. However, content also needs to be valuable to readers, so it shouldn’t have a lot of extraneous words for the sake of padding the word count. It should have accurate information, detailed statistics, sources, quotes, and other details that readers will find helpful. Content with images, videos, infographics, and other visual content will also be more valuable to readers and rank higher in the search engines.
You can explore various content marketing strategies to improve your law firm website’s search engine rankings. Some of these options include:
- Blogging can be very beneficial for search engine optimization. Google rewards websites with fresh content, so adding new blog posts every month will boost rankings. You will also have an easier time targeting different keywords if you write various articles on different topics. Furthermore, you can link to your content from other blog posts, which increases rankings further.
- Guest blogging is a content marketing strategy that involves writing articles for another blog in exchange for backlinks. As a San Diego lawyer, you can write guest articles on various topics for different types of websites. For example, if you specialize in personal injury law, you can write articles on the importance of getting the right car insurance policy for a personal financial website.
- You should also consider using social media to earn backlinks to your website. While most social media links have “nofollow” tags, they can still help indirectly. Other publishers may discover your content on social media and link to it.
Technical SEO
You can have the best content in the world and more quality links than your competitors. However, if search engines can’t easily crawl your website, then your site will not rank very well.
Technical SEO is the part of your SEO strategy that ensures your site is accessible to search engines and users. The following steps will help improve your technical SEO:
- Ensure that only one version of your website is accessible to both users and search engines. If you have content containing a version containing “www” and a version that doesn’t include it, you may want to redirect the URLs containing “www”.
- Improve your website speed. You can use a tool like Pingdom to see how fast it loads. If it shows your site is loading too slowly, then you need to try compressing your images, removing unnecessary JavaScript code, or using a contact distribution network to help make sure it runs faster.
- Make sure that your site doesn’t have duplicate content. Otherwise, Google will not know which content to index and may decide not to index any of it. You may want to use the “noindex” tag for tag and category pages so that only your articles are indexed by Google.
- Remove any links to broken pages on your website.
Prioritizing technical SEO is going to make it a lot easier for your site to be indexed, which will increase your chances of ranking.
How Long Does SEO Take to Show Results?
While SEO can be very beneficial for law firms trying to get traffic on Google, it takes time to pay off. One poll conducted by Ahrefs found that 45.6% of marketers reported that it took between three months and six months to get results. Only 16.2% of marketers found that it took less than three months. The average time to see results may be longer for law firms since there is more competition.
A number of different factors influence the amount of time it takes to start seeing results, including the amount of competition, how quickly you are developing new content, and the quality and volume of the links you are getting to your site. As a lawyer, you will face intense competition on Google, so it is possible that it will take your site longer to start ranking. However, you may still see progress within 3 to 6 months if you are investing heavily in your SEO strategy.
Can I Do SEO Myself, or Do I Need to Hire Lawyer SEO Services?
Many San Diego law firms spend substantial money on their SEO strategies. You are going to have a very difficult time competing against them if you don’t have a dedicated team of SEO specialists by your side.
Here are some reasons you will want to hire a trusted SEO Company instead of doing it yourself.
You probably don’t have enough time to do SEO on your own
As a lawyer in San Diego, you are extremely busy. When your time is already stretched thin, you probably can’t spend an extra 15 hours a week working exclusively on your SEO. You are better off hiring a team of SEO professionals when you don’t have the time to execute your own SEO strategy.
Bad SEO practices can permanently damage your rankings
Your website can suffer significant penalties if you don’t implement your SEO strategy correctly from the very beginning. Duplicate content, structural issues with your website, spammy backlinks, and other problems can ruin your rankings for months or even permanently.
Your website will rank much better if you work with a team of qualified professionals from the very beginning. They can help you avoid catastrophic mistakes that can get your website backlisted from Google.
It is challenging to keep up with ongoing changes
Google is regularly implementing new algorithm changes to fight spam and improve the quality of its search results. Many of these algorithm changes can greatly impact your SEO strategy.
As a San Diego lawyer, you are busy enough trying to serve your clients and stay on top of significant changes in the legal profession. You would have a tough time trying to monitor changes in the SEO profession as well.
A qualified SEO company will carefully monitor algorithm changes. They will update their SEO strategy accordingly, so your website continues to rank well for years to come.
Lawyer SEO Services in San Diego
Rocket Pilots specializes in lawyer SEO in San Diego and helping law firms in the area improve their search engine rankings. The company’s founder, Brian Hansen, is a highly experienced digital marketing expert who carefully monitors SEO changes and adapts strategies accordingly to help his clients.
If you run a law firm in San Diego, please don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more about our law firm internet marketing services. We provide services to a wide range of law firms including those who specialize in personal injury, criminal defense, family law, estate planning, bankruptcy, and more. Our team of dedicated law firm SEO professionals will be happy to help.
Some of the locations we serve in and around San Diego include Solana Beach, Encinitas, La Jolla, Del Mar, Point Loma, Pacific Beach, Bay Ho, Clairemont, Mission Hills, University Heights, and more.