Law Industry has traditionally been a slower one to adapt to different marketing tactics used by other industries. There are a minimal number of law firms in Australia that are adopting various marketing strategies to grow their businesses.
Marketing can be in traditional form and modern form. The traditional way of advertisements are the ones we encounter daily. These methods include Print Ads, Broadcast, Direct Mail, Telephone marketing and outdoor marketing. These advertisements are hard to ignore.
Modern marketing is done with the use of the internet these days. This type of marketing is also called digital marketing. Digital marketing includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Marketing (SMM) and many more.
Search Engine Optimization is an organic form of marketing wherein; it helps the firm’s website to rank better on the specific keywords on Google Search. Whereas in SEM, you can promote your website on the search results in the form of an ad. Both the concepts are very different from each other. It is always preferred to perform SEO instead of SEM for your website. You can learn more about this in detail on this link.
A combination of traditional and modern marketing is used by firms to get the highest benefits of their marketing efforts. For the Lawyers niche, traditional marketing wouldn’t be useful. This is because traditional marketing is for the mass audience, whereas modern or digital marketing caters to your firm’s target audience.
Here are some SEO strategies for Law Firms to increase organic traffic to your website. Before that, let’s understand the mistake that lawyers makes in marketing their services.
6 Marketing Mistakes made by lawyers
Marketing for Lawyers on online front requires a dedicated and continuous effort. The firm needs to focus on different things. There are various mistakes that lawyers commit while they do online marketing for their firms. These mistakes are:
1. Not spending enough time on marketing efforts
As a lawyer, it is challenging to examine, as to how much time should you spend on marketing. You should at least spend 200 hours per year of your time on your marketing efforts. You can utilize this time on various organic marketing approaches mentioned in this article below.
2. Being limited to industry exposure
Industry exposure is connecting with different people in the same industry. Meeting other lawyers, attending law conferences, giving interviews are some activities that the lawyers in Australia limit themselves. This limited exposure might not bring more significant benefit to the organization. The internet marketing community has grown widely. For you to survive in business, you must be visible to people searching for firms like yours.
3. Not knowing your target audiences
If you are not sure about who can be your clients and to whom you can cater to, you will not be able to reach them, and this will reduce your chances to acquire new clients. Also, by this, you lose your time and money on such marketing efforts. You need to carefully analyze your target audiences by knowing their needs and preferences.
4. Poor website design
Your website is a reflection of your services and your brand. It must offer the opportunity to your prospects to position your firm securely as an expert in your field. For this, you need a well-designed website with informational and engaging content. Tabs on your website must indicate the pages where the visitors wish to visit for specific information.
5. Not auditing your website frequently
To stay on the top of your niche, you must continuously reevaluate your site or hire some agency to make changes as per the latest updates. Your web presence must suit your brand identity. If you do not audit your website frequently, you tend to lower your chances of ranking on the top in the search engines like Google.
6. Failure in measuring marketing results
When you do not measure the results of your marketing campaigns, you wouldn’t be able to understand which marketing efforts are paying you well and which are just a waste of time and money. You can utilize these results for your future campaigns.
While you are willing to grow by using organic marketing, here I present to you the most used and trusted organic method for marketing. You can do Search Engine Optimization for Lawyers for increasing your visibility amongst your prospective clients.
Search Engines like Google are some easy source to drive traffic to your Law Firm website in Australia. As per research, 96% of people looking for legal advice in Australia, search for it on search engines and among them, 74% of people visit the law firms website to know more and then take action on the same.
There are techniques by which you can win the space on Google search results.
- Using these techniques, you can manage to rank your website at a higher position on Google by yourself.
- Also, by doing this, you can screen out bad proposals by different SEO agencies.
Organic Marketing Tips for Law Firms in Australia
Understand How Google Works for Legal Queries
The results that Google shows, changes on every search. When searching for anything, you find a variety of results on Google. Same happens for legal services firm too.
For example, when one types a query on Google like “Law Firms in Australia”, he can see different results like:
- 4 paid ads
- 3 Google maps results
- 10 Organic results
Out of the 10 organic results, most of them are aggregators sites. There is a lot of competition for the remaining spots, so, this reduces your website’s chance to be visible on the first page.
The aggregators’ sites are well ranked on Google as they are highly rated and are a trustable source. So, rather than fighting for a spot on Google, you can list on the aggregators’ site. By doing this, you can drive their traffic to your website.
Examples of aggregators website for the keyword “Law Firms in Australia” are:
- You’ve Entered Law Land
- Financial Review
On these sites, you can rank well and manage to get the traffic towards your website.
You can also advertise on these aggregators website. By doing this, you can reduce the cost of advertisement as compared to advertising on Google search ads.
Optimize your Website on Local Search
Businesses like law firms are highly local. Prospects tend to search for a local attorney or a local lawyer when in need of one. Being available on the local searches will help you increase your visibility and competitiveness. You can register on the following platforms to be available on local searches. It is local SEO for lawyers in Australia.
1. Google My Business (GMB)
GMB is the highest reached platform as it comes on the search results in the maps section. These are localized results, and they come as per the searchers’ location details.
You can register your business with GMB. After you fill in the details, Google sends you the verification code via postcard, and after that verification, you can fill in the other information about your business. As per your business location and reviews, it will showcase your company’s website on its maps section.
2. Local Directories
Local directories work as an online phone book that associates your website with the physical location. For “Local Businesses in Australia”, there are directories like “ShowMe Local”, “True Local” and many more which rank well while searching for local businesses in Australia.
3. Law Directories
These directories get traffic from people searching for lawyers only so; these local lawyers directories become more specific. For “Lawyers in Australia”, there are law directories like “Australian Lawyers Directory” and “Find Law Australia” that rank well and are considered as the best sites for local lawyers information.
Targeting the Keywords Based on the Intent
You can search for keywords that suit best to your website from various free keywords search tools like Uber Suggest, Google Adwords – Keyword Planner tool and Keywords Everywhere tool. The keyword-based on Intent refers to the searcher’s purpose while searching for the query.
There are 3 types of keywords that you must have on your website. These types of keywords are:
1. Money Keyword
A searcher’s Intent when he types a money keyword is that he is thinking of making a purchase. The money keywords must land on the sales page of your website.
For Lawyers (if you operate in Melbourne city), money keywords can be “Lawyers Melbourne”, “Family Lawyers Melbourne” and such keywords that will directly lead to the money content of the website.
2. Discovery Keyword
Here, the searcher is searching for the information that is related to your service. The information can be related to the services that you offer or about specific guidelines in your niche. The discovery keywords can land to your services page or your blog page.
For Lawyers, discovery keywords can be “Difference between Lawyer and Solicitor” or “How to Become a Lawyer in Australia”. These keywords showcase that they want to know certain information relating to your field of expertise.
3. Attention Keywords
The searcher’s Intent while asking this query is to have information relating to a particular case. So here, they search for information for getting a reference for themselves for a specific case. The attention keywords are generally used on the blog page of the website.
For Lawyers, attention keyword would be like “Property, Stock and Business Agents Act 2002” where the person is searching for a reference for a particular case.
You must use all the 3 types of keywords on your website. The main goal is to rank on the money keyword, but, you can also rank on the other keywords and interlink them to the money page.
Having all types of Keywords is preferable since the searcher’s volume for money keywords is far less than the one’s searching for discovery keyword. Also, people searching for discovery keywords are less than people searching for attention keywords.
So, by ranking on all the 3 kinds of keywords, you can get the highest visibility and traffic.
Invest in a Good Website
A good website design creates an excellent first impression among visitors. Over 94% of good first impressions are related to the design of the website. When the site is well-designed, it builds trust for the website among its visitors. The design of the website must have the following things:
1. Design the Structure Based on Your Firm’s Speciality
The website’s design – that includes the website’s URL, Title, Content and Navigation based on the type of the Law Firm. There are 3 types of law firms for which different SEO tactics can be used, the types are:
I. Single Service Law Firm
If your firm specializes in any 1 type of Australian Law like Family law, then structure your entire website around your speciality only. For this, you can do the following things:
– Use Exact Match Domain (EMD) for your website. This means, if you are specializing in family law, have your website domain name as www.familylawaustralia.com or www.familylawyers.com this will help you get a better rank. It can only be done if you are planning to specialize in a particular niche.
– For a specialized niche, you can have pages dedicated to the informational content about the specialized niche. In that content, you can have discovery keywords and attention keywords for that niche.
II. Multiple Service Law Firm
A multiple service law firm specializes in different aspects of the law, such as family law, criminal law, commercial law, etc. For such firms, you can use the following SEO tactics:
– Here, use the firm’s name as the domain name. It will create a brand around the firm’s name.
– Prepare different pages for each service that you offer and describe each function in the best possible form with the informational content.
– In this informational content, you can include various discovery keywords and attention keywords to rank on those content too.
III. Multiple Locations Law Firm
A firm offering its services in multiple locations like Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth etc. is a Multiple Location Law firm.
– Here, use the firm’s name as the domain name. This will create a brand around the firm’s name.
– For such law firms, prepare different pages for each location that it caters its services to and then, within the locations, create service pages. By this, the site will be able to rank on different places with different pages.
2. Develop Website Content that Attracts People
Your SEO success highly depends on the content you have on your website. The material on your site must be unique and must be interesting to get more readers. Following things can be done for engaging content on your website:
I. Assign Keywords to Your Content
As discussed above, you can divide all the 3 kinds of keywords in different content on your website. You can use these keywords on your:
– Page URL (if it’s a single service firm then on the main domain, i.e. www.familylawyers.com or if it is a multiple service firm then, www.retro.com/familylayers),
– Title (Example: Top Family Lawyers in Melbourne)
– Image Alt Text (Top Family Lawyers in Melbourne)
– Content (Have a minimum 500 words article wherein, you can include keywords 4-5 times)
II. Create a Blog Page
One of the best ways to showcase your expertise, talents and cases is by writing a blog. The legal world is always changing, and everyone can’t keep track of it. Hence, by having a blog, you can spread the information and drive traffic to your website with these blogs.
Blogging relevant content will give you an edge over the competitors. You can also provide backlinks from different websites to your content and then interlink it with your money content.
3. Include Call-to-Action on Your Website
Call-to-Action on your website directs the visitor’s next action. This improves the conversion rate on your site. You can have a contact form or lead generation form on your website for Call-to-Action.
4. Make the Website Responsive
The responsive design of the site states that it can be viewed in all devices like desktop, mobile phone or tablet. People these days tend to visit websites using their phones, so the site needs to be responsive.
Build Quality Links for your website
Authority of a site is determined by the number and quality of links directed towards it. Google ranks sites with such quality links. Building such links is a long process, but it does benefit the website for the long term. There are different types of links that you can have for your site. They are:
1. Forum Links
Being a part of related forums, answering questions relating to your expertise and then generating links through these forums will give your site a better authority. As a Lawyer in Australia, you can be a part of forums like “Law Answers” and “Expat Forum Australia”.
2. Social Media Links
You can create links on social media by having it on the company account and with that, creating a buzz about your website on this channel.
As a lawyer, you can create a buzz by having exciting content about the recent updates in the niche and put it in a readable form. This increases the visitor’s interest towards the website.
3. Link Outreach
This is the most potent “white hat” SEO method that you can use to rank your website at a higher position on Google. Link outreach is reaching out to the sites that post related content and inserting links directed towards your website in their content.
You can add these links in their blog’s comment, or you can write a guest post on their website with a link, or you can have advertisements on their website that directs towards your website.
For a Law Firm, you could write articles on the other websites that talk about the recent reforms in the lawyers’ niche. You could also insert a link on the local news subscriptions websites like Lawyers Weekly.
4. Inter-Linking
Linking all your website pages to each other is Inter-Linking. This helps in passing the valuable link juice from your blog content to your money content.
Analyze the Results of your Marketing Efforts
Measuring marketing efforts of your firms helps you evaluate the returns on your firm’s investment on it in terms of time, money and other resources.
You can measure your SEO outputs in different forms like:
1. Check the Organic Visitors
After using the techniques mentioned above, the traffic on your website would have increased. You can check this on the Google Analytics tool (in the overview section of the audience) or you can use similar web for getting better data.
2. Track the Leads Through Organic Search
To check the number of leads generated from your website, you can visit the Google Analytics tool or Similar Web. For Google Analytics, go to Conversions > Goals > Overview. Here, you can check the number of goals completed and track the number of leads through each goal.
3. Check the Overall Search Engine Visibility
For your website to rank high on Google, it takes a few months. You can check search engine visibility on SEMrush. Here, you can check the keywords on which your site is ranking. It also estimates the traffic volume and value on your website.
By using the above SEO tactics and altering your website with latest Google updates, you can rank your website higher in search results. The Google space in Legal niche is competitive, but, you can rank well with the right SEO techniques.
