Search engine optimisation (SEO) is important to consider when creating your website content to make it more visible to potential customers. But, climbing the ladder of SEO needs a bit more knowledge than just a bit of writing and clicking the publish button. There are many different methods to collectively optimise your blog to gain authority, record traffic to your website, identify keyword rankings and track conversions.
Search engines, like Google, find and present blogs to users, and if your content is most appropriate for the search term they stand a good chance of being displayed on the SERP (search engine results page), but this depends on a number of things.
In this blog, we’ll look at the key factors you should consider when writing blogs for your law firm and how to achieve the best results.
Key SEO factors for your law firm to consider
The title of the blog
First things first, come up with a title for the article. In the modern world of online marketing and SEO, you’re unlikely to think of a topic that hasn’t already been covered. Why not write the best version of it you can and gain an advantage over your competitors?
The title is the first thing the user will see and will influence whether they click on it or keep scrolling, so it’s important to get it right. Include relevant terms that will grab the user’s attention.
Think about who the blog is targeting
Identifying your target audience is beneficial as it will affect how the blog is written and the tone of voice of the article. Understanding the audience and demographics that will be reading the content allows you to talk about specific areas that may not have otherwise been mentioned.
For example, if you are a family law firm and the blog is on grandparents’ rights, the audience will significantly differ from that if you are writing about commercial litigation. A more personal feel could be appropriate for more individual matters.
Look at your law firm’s competition
Once you know the audience and blog topic, thinking about what your competitors are doing could influence how you write the blog. How often do they publish new blog content on their website, is it weekly? Is the content good quality? Have they already written about this topic?
If the answer is yes to all the above, it’s a good idea to spend a little extra time to ensure your blog comes out on top by fully optimising it. If this is done correctly, depending on the authority of the sites and relevance to the search query, your blog will be competitive against other firms.
Do keyword research
Before starting to write your blog, you should think about the keywords and short phrases to include in the content. By including keywords, you will increase the chance of the article showing on the SERP for that query. Firstly, make a list of keywords, but make sure they’re the right keywords.
Start with the most popular terms to get more eyes on your post but be careful when selecting. Suppose a user searches for “divorce”. In that case, their intent is not so clear and Wikipedia will likely show up, but “divorce solicitors” search engines will know exactly which results to display – solicitors and law firms.
Targeting one or two long-tail keywords is another good way to pick up traffic and rankings. These longer, often question-based terms do not have the competition and search volume of the more generic keywords, but you can take advantage of this. They may not get the reach and traffic of other blogs, however, visitors that land on these articles are more likely to read the whole page and most importantly, convert and contact you.
Optimise your blog content for search engines
Use relevant keywords
Once you have your list of search terms, decide on the primary keyword that will be used multiple times and which are your secondary keywords, which should have no more than one to two mentions.
Ensure your primary keyword is included in the following places:
- Meta title
- Heading 1
- Opening paragraph
- Body text
- Closing heading 2
- URL
Be careful not to include too many keywords and avoid keyword stuffing, as this negatively affects SEO and the reader experience. Ensuring the text flows and reads naturally is vital, as although you want to gain more traffic and be seen on SERP from using keywords, the priority should always be to answer the intent of your visitors and not feel forced. It will also impact the likelihood of customers choosing your firm over competitors.
Structure and formatting
Ever been on a website where the text is too small to read, and all bunched up in huge paragraphs? Yes, we have as well, and it’s exactly what you need to avoid.
Keep paragraphs short and separate different topics with headings. It’s essential for SEO that these headings are formatted correctly and not just highlighted in bold. Heading 1, or H1, should only be used on the page once, which is the title. Headings that come beneath that are H2, then H3, H4 and so on, just like in Microsoft Word.
If a frequently asked question (FAQ) is included at the end of the blog optimised with correct header formatting you could achieve a featured snippet position. A featured snippet is a glimpse of an article on the SERP displayed above the first organic result. Formatting and clear headings will make it easy for the search engine to identify this.
Link internally
This is probably a job for when the article has been written. You should add a few internal links from the blog to other pages on the website. Linking back to the main service page for the topic is recommended.
Adding links to your latest post from other pages provide visitors reference to additional content they might find useful but also inform Google and other search engines of other pages you would like to rank. This also helps with indexing and crawl budget.
Add call to actions
While you want to answer users’ questions through your blog, it’s also a chance to add a short piece of text in the closing paragraph about how your law firm can help. Mention your expertise and include a call to action to the enquiry form or clickable phone number if they want to get in touch. You may want to encourage visitors to contact an individual member of staff depending on the topic.
Optimise your meta title
Your meta title for a blog post will usually be the H1 followed by the name of your firm or brand. You could slightly shorten the meta title if it’s close to 60 characters, but this is more important for service pages which sometimes include your locations with a local focus.
Be mobile friendly
It’s more important than ever to be mobile-friendly. 58% of global web traffic originates from mobile devices. Google uses the mobile version of your website for indexing and to rank pages on the SERP. If you don’t get this right, you could be fighting a losing battle from the start. Check Google search console for any mobile errors.
Check your site speed
Visit “Page Speed Insights” to check your site speed score and core web vitals score for different pages on your site. Visual elements such as images and embedded videos, unnecessary code and overuse of plugins can reduce load times, which is a big ranking factor in 2022. We’ve previously written about the Google Page Experience Update and listed some helpful tips.
Include user friendly URL structures
It’s best to stay away from overly long, complicated URLs and just keep it nice and simple. The URL slug should not be built from the root domain URL, instead be under, for example, /blog or category /family-blog.
Make sure the blog is indexed
Are you receiving zero hits to your new article? Perhaps it has not yet been indexed. It can be frustrating to spend hours carefully writing something for it to not be live on Google and other search engines. Users will still be able to view it by directly clicking through your site, but you will not benefit from organic search and search queries on Google.
Go to Google Search Console, copy your URL into the top search bar and request indexing. If your blog is written to a high standard, you should have no issues getting it indexed within around a week. Internal linking, as mentioned earlier, can also help resolve this.
Share on social media
Be sure to share across your business social media platforms. Add an image to increase the chances of user engagement and any relevant hashtags if appropriate for your topic. By sharing your original and well-written blog posts on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, you increase the chance of other accounts interacting, sharing and linking to your content.
You can also post directly from your Google Business Profile.
Post frequently
An active blog keeps your site fresh and up to date. If your last blog post was 2 years ago, it doesn’t give a good first impression to potential customers and leaves them wondering if the website is even still active. Weekly posts on a range of topics with good formatting, internal links and keywords will benefit your website’s SEO performance.
Refresh and republish existing content
You don’t have to always start from scratch every time. Maybe you’ve noticed a blog that was performing well 12 months ago but traffic levels have recently dropped. This could be down to a few factors; the article could be out of date a year later or competitor firms have improved their content. Take some time to go back, add some keywords after researching them, increase the word count or improve the formatting.
Ready to attract more readers to your law firm blog?
Our blog post has detailed top tips for ensuring your blog posts are optimised and attracting readers to your blog. But, if you’re still unsure about where to start, contact our team on 0117 325 0200 or email sales@conscious.co.uk to discuss our copywriting and SEO services.