Why Do You Need a Search Engine Optimization Checklist for Lawyers?

Why is search engine optimization for lawyers so important? For the same reason it’s important to every other business that wants to be found. Google has moved from a term coined by Carl Sagan, to a .com, a multibillion-dollar international company, and now to a true 21st-century verb. Who hasn’t actually said, “Google it!”

Odds are, someone is googling your practice right now.

Now here’s the real issue; can they find you?

Maybe not specifically you but certainly someone with your type of practice, in your particular locality. After all, what would someone looking for divorce attorney in Chicago do with a bankruptcy attorney in Fort Lauderdale? Search engine optimization used to be about the raw numbers – how much traffic you had. As Google has evolved it’s less about the numbers, and more about pertinent traffic. It’s also about how SEO is done, in order to keep on the right side of the Mighty Gavel of Google. The three most important things that you need to know are as follows;

1. Pages are for users. Google is looking for pages that enhance the user experience, and they are actively working against pages that have the sole purpose of climbing the rankings. Creating high-quality and original content with white hat SEO will help you to organically grow your user base.

2. Deceiving users will get you gaveled down. It’s not that your page is missing, it’s that Google has blocked you from any search results because it has found deceptive (or black hat) SEO on your site.

3. If you are outsourcing your SEO, be very careful who you hire. There are people who set themselves up as experts when they’re not, as straight shooters when they’re crooks, and is able to deliver miraculous results when the only thing they’re delivering is a website that is write for banning.

ABC and 123: A Lawyer’s Search Engine Optimization Checklist

1. If you don’t already have one, create a Google business listing. It brings up your business on Google search and Google maps. This should be at the very top of your search engine optimization checklist, since it helps to control very basic data about your business; where you are and how to find you.

2. Update your website design to be accessible across multiple platforms. We’re not just talking about Mac versus PC, we’re talking about Google’s mobile first index. This means that mobile oriented websites are in line for indexing first, and will show higher up in the rankings than desktop oriented pages. Also older sites have a lot of coding that is now obsolete and can even count against you in search rankings.

3. Talk to them. Update your website with useful information, post regular updates, and engage online. You don’t have to be a chatty Cathy or social media maven, but you do have to get into the conversation.

And You Can Contact Us

At 4 Step Studio, we can be your “all of the above” outsourcing company for your search engine optimization checklist. We cover everything from web design; to social media; to helping you fine-tune your online presence; to digital ad campaigns that are effective and efficient. Call us today and see what we can do for you and your firm, and get on that all-important Google first page.

Fill out this form to get a free consultation from our digital marketing professionals.

About 4 Step Studio

4 Step Studio is an online marketing agency that specializes in website design and redesign, SEO, social media and more. Our team of experts focuses on helping small business get found online, while educating them on what will make them successful in the digital world. To learn more about what we can do for you, visit our website at www.4StepStudio.com