SEO For Your Law Firm Or Small Business
This article is second in a series of articles about the basics of digital marketing. These articles will define the marketing strategies we recommend law firms and small business owners implement today to positively impact their businesses.
Our goal is to help you clarify the tasks you need to do to market your business, so you can spend less time performing administrative tasks and more time doing the work you set out to do.
Let’s keep going with SEO!
What is SEO?
One of the most important marketing tasks law firms and small businesses face is SEO.
SEO or search engine optimization is the process of getting a better quality and higher quantity of website visits from search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
SEO is an “organic” or unpaid marketing strategy built into or embedded in the valuable content you developed on your website pages, in blog articles, downloadable content, and so on. (Learn more about content marketing and content creation.) You cannot have SEO without content, though how much content you create may depend on your law firm or small business.
The Goal of SEO
User friendliness is the endgame of SEO. The goal is to use what are called keywords and specific phrases in your content that will help potential customers and search engines alike navigate to your page.
It is also important to note that SEO should be implemented on static web pages that exist on your site all the time – we call this on-page SEO) and new content like blog articles, landing pages and more.
How Can SEO Help My Small Business?
SEO can do nothing but help your law firm or small business, and in the case of on-page search engine optimization (referring to the optimization of your static web pages), it is an easy marketing strategy to employ right away!
Here’s what SEO can do for your private practices or small businesses:
Cast a wider net.
SEO allows you access to a range of people interested in your services. According to a report compiled by Hubspot, Google gets over 100 billion searches a month. (Hubspot, 2017) Additionally, 81 percent of shoppers conduct online research before buying, and B2B researchers average 12 searches before engaging on a specific brand’s website. With good SEO practices in place, people searching for what you offer can find their way to you.
Improve the quality of your digital content.
SEO is helpful because it allows search engines to define your content and direct consumers accordingly.
According to the Hubspot report, 72 percent of marketers themselves say relevant content creation was the most effective SEO tactic they used. (Ascend2, 2015) High quality content translates into a better user experience for visitors, leading to better leads and eventually customers.
Get better leads.
Sixty-three percent of businesses report generating traffic and leads with their website is their biggest challenge (Hubspot, 2017). But, with SEO your visitors have the potential to become qualified leads because they searched for a word or phrase that a search engine matched up with your website’s services or products.
Get longer-lasting benefits for your efforts.
TV ads come and go – even PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns end – but as long as a page is live on the Internet, SEO can help you reach customers whenever and however they are looking for your services or products. Additionally, on-page SEO of static web pages often only has to be implemented once and then updated periodically as search engines update their algorithms – usually minor tweaks to high-level pages will suffice.
Do it as you go.
Once you’ve applied important SEO techniques to your website and your content marketing strategy progresses, you only have to keep SEO in mind while developing and sharing new content.
Next Steps
Now that you know what SEO is and how it can benefit your law firm or small business, what do you do? Start with your web pages! On-page SEO is a quick and easy way to get started.
If your web pages have already been optimized, and you have your content marketing strategy underway, ensuring it follows current best practices for search engine optimization is the next step. Be sure to read up on the latest changes in search engine algorithms.
If you don’t have time to do your own SEO or to keep up with the ever-developing rules of SEO, Above the Fold Media can help, so you can be free to do the work you set out to do in your law firm or small business. We offer a range of SEO services that give your business a boost in the right direction.
