Ranking Factors
Keep in mind that all search engines have their own proprietary ranking process. We focus on Google's ranking factors because they are the leader. Other search engines typically follow Google's lead and use similar elements to rank their search engine result pages (SERPs).
How Google Ranks Law Firms When Users Search
Experts estimate that Google uses around 200 ranking factors in its algorithm to rank websites within a given web search query. They assert that SEO is about making small modifications and incremental improvements to your law firm’s website that impact your site’s user experience and performance in organic search engine results.
Overall, we could summarise this whole section into the most important one, high-quality content. If your site has the best content that is relevant to the user’s search, you will most likely rank well. This content would answer search engine users’ questions or needs, quickly and thoroughly. Good content is also always evolving and the way you present this content also has a major say on your ranking. Google says it best “Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content” in their webmaster guidelines.
It’s critical to note how Google interrelates user experience and search results. Many of Google’s most significant changes to the way it measures law firm website rankings focus on the user performing the web search. Google algorithms are the complex formulas it uses to determine website rankings. These algorithms consider a myriad of factors when ranking websites like the quality of content, user analytics, link profiles, social media signals, and many others.
Correct Your Local Citations
Having and creating local citations is important, but what matters most is making sure all the information for your law firm is consistent online. A local citation refers to any online mention of your law firms (NAP+W information):
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
- Website
Correct Citations help people find you when they need a lawyer. It’s crucial to create and maintain a wide range of popular internet accounts to keep a strong local footprint. This not only includes Google Business Profile, but Yelp, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, even Instagram, and Tik Tok.
If your citations are inconsistent, not only could it negatively affect your standing and branding, but it could also frustrate customers trying to contact your firm because of outdated or wrong information.
Local Ranking Factors
Relevance
Relevance refers to how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for. Adding complete and detailed business information about your law firm can help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches.
- Geo-relevance is determined by predefined groups of zip codes and further defining the geographic area by longitude and latitude
- Keyword relevance is determining if the document has the search term in the:
- Title
- Content
- Category
- Links
Prominence
Prominence refers to how well-known a business or Law firm is. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web like links, articles, and directories.
Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking. It’s also worth noting that having more positive reviews increases your conversion rate, meaning that more leads will contact your business over competitors.
Your position in web results is also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization.
Distance
(also called Proximity)
Distance refers to how far the following two factors are: the search result and the term’s location within a search. If in any case a user doesn’t specify their location within the search; then Google calculates the distance based on external factors known about the location.
For example, Google algorithms might decide that a business that’s farther away from your location is more likely to have what you’re looking for than a business that’s closer and therefore rank it higher in local results.
On-Page Ranking Factors
On-page SEO ranking factors refer to items on your website and a particular webpage that influence your ranking. Several on-page factors exist. The most important for your law firm's website include:
High Quality Content
Bill Gates’s famous essay, “Content Is King” was published in 1996. His message has aged well because digital marketing success and a fully optimized website heavily rely on the content on each page of your website.
Your content impacts your Google ranking in a few ways. First, high-quality content keeps the reader on your website and encourages them to engage with it. Specifically, Google is monitoring if visitors to your site click on more pages or have more interactions with your website.
The length of your content and the keywords on your page also play a major role in telling Google about your page and how much information it has on a particular topic. You generally want your landing pages to contain at least from 500 – 1,000 words (and often more depending on what your competitors’ websites have) that contain several variations of the keyword you are targeting. It is within best practices to only target one set of keyword family per page. For example, if your practice in Minneapolis is primarily targeting car accidents your primary keyword would be “Car Accident Lawyer [in Location]”, you might include the following variations in your content:
- Car Accident Attorney Minneapolis
- Minneapolis Auto Accident Lawyer
- Car Accident Injury Lawyer in Minneapolis
- Car Accident Injury Attorney in Minneapolis
- Car Accident Legal Help in Minneapolis
This gives you an idea of how to vary your keywords. You will learn more about keyword research in later chapters. Keep in mind that your content should be useful for the reader. You don’t want to add fluff just to hit a certain word count.
Title Tag
Title tags are an HTML function that specifies your web page’s title. When users search for a keyword, the search engine results display multiple items. The most relevant target keywords for the page should be at the beginning of the titles followed by the firm’s entity to the far left of the title tag. This order is due to Google bots reading from left to right, giving more importance to the keywords at the beginning of the title.
Each clickable headline is the title (ranking factor) and the few sentences that follow are the page’s meta description (not a ranking factor, but helps CTR). Title tags and descriptions must be accurate and concise to help your law firm rank higher in Google’s results. The biggest reason that titles are so important is that if you don’t accurately convey the purpose of your content, users will not click on your link.
A major metric Google uses to determine the relevance of the website and content to the searcher, which is also related to your title tags, is your click-through rate (CTR). Your CTR is calculated by dividing how many times searchers clicked on your website by how many times Google showed them your website.
URL
Another factor that Google uses to rank and understand pages are URLs. A page’s Uniform Resource Locator (or URL) shows where it falls in the hierarchy of an entire website. Search engines use this information to determine how relevant a given page is to a user’s search. The URLs for your law firm’s page should reflect the structure of your website with words. Ideally, one or more keywords are in the URL, revealing your page as an option before a search engine even processes the content.
Internal Linking
The purpose of building a good internal linking structure on a website is to assist users in navigating the website. A good internal link can help someone discover more related pages on the site, which keeps potential clients on your website longer and increases the probability that they will contact your law firm.
Internal links also affect how Google views the website. If a page has a lot of internal links pointing at it, Google will see that the page is one of the more important pages on the website, making it easier for that page to rank higher in the SERP (search engine results pages). The goal is for the most important pages to have the most internal links pointing to them.
The technical side of your website also plays a big role in where Google will rank your law firm’s website. Technical SEO is all about website coding and server-side optimizations. These optimizations help crawlers (Google Bots) have an easier time indexing and ranking your website. We will go over this briefly in this chapter since we will dive deeper into Technical SEO, in chapter 3.
Mobile responsiveness is more important now than ever, as mobile searchers start to outnumber desktop searchers, so your website must work flawlessly on a smartphone. In fact, internet traffic from mobile devices took over traditional devices in 2017. As of 2021, more than 55 percent of all internet traffic comes from smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.
Other important factors to optimize on your website when doing Technical optimization are the following:
Core web vitals
They are a set of metrics that quantify elements that make up the user experience on your site and each one of your pages. We will go over this further in chapter 3.
XML sitemaps and Robots.txt
Files that guide Bots through your website.
Site and URL structure
Creating a hierarchy of all the pages on your site, with relevant similar content grouped together and URL describing the page and its location on the site.
Schema Mark-up / Structured data
These are a highly organized and formatted (tables) databases that make information searchable for Google AI to understand more about a given page, its entity, and other supporting information. Their use is now confirmed as valid by Google.
Duplicate content
and using Canonical tags
Duplicate content and Canonical tags go hand in hand, canonical tags being the solution to duplicate content on a site. When you find content that is similar or duplicate, it is best to redirect it or use a canonical tag to tell Google Bots that the content took inspiration from its original page.
Hreflang
Hreflang is an HTML attribute used
to specify the language and geographical targeting of a webpage. If you have multiple versions of the same page in different languages, you can use the hreflang tag to tell search engines like Google about these variations. This helps them to serve the correct version to their users.
404 pages
These are pages that could not be found. Not a ranking factor, but a page having a 404 issue will definitely not rank.
Ranking pages can also lose their rankings if they happen to maintain a 404 error for as little as 48 hours.
Site/ Page Speed
Page load times are another part of technical SEO that is important. No one wants to wait. Google strongly considers a website’s page load time when ranking pages.
Off-Page Ranking Factors
Off-page SEO, also called off-site SEO, refers to the actions that impact your rankings outside your website. We already discussed the importance of local citations, which occur off-page. However, there are several other off-page activities that can impact your law firm’s Google rankings. Ultimately, the goal of SEO with regard to off-site activities is to improve Google’s perception of the popularity, relevance, authority, and trustworthiness of your site. Other websites, pages, and people who link or promote your site vouch for you, your firm, and the content you provide. You can think of positive off-page ranking as the digital form of word-of-mouth marketing/advertising. Below we discuss backlinks, the most crucial element of off-page ranking, as well as other off-site activities your law firm can engage in.
Reputation
With the introduction of Google E-A-T (Expertise, Authority and Trust) reputation became a ranking factor. This has made entity optimizations for Law firms a very important part of each SEO Strategy. Part of Reputation management is to maintain a line of communications with potential and actual clients through all available channels.
Responding to and addressing concerns in Google, Facebook reviews goes a long way with earning trust with your targeted market, therefore improving your online reputation. Being a Better Business Bureau (BBB) accredited Law Firm also increases your online trust and reputation.
Social Media
In addition to backlinks from external websites, another common off-page SEO strategy is social media marketing. This includes having a presence on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, etc., but it also includes using Youtube or Facebook Ads to target your audience and drive traffic to your firm’s site.
Backlinks
Backlinks have been, and remain, one of the most important factors Google considers when ranking your website. While backlinks might not carry as much weight as they did five or 10 years ago, they are still the strongest indicator for Google to determine the authority of your website. The idea is that if numerous websites link to your content, you must be a trusted authority. The best practices when it comes to SEO for lawyers require a focus on getting backlinks from credible websites, with high authority in Google’s eyes.
Three main types of links exist, categorized by how they are achieved: natural, manual, and self-created links.
- Natural links are those that you receive without taking any action. For example, a blogger or the bar association in your state adds a link to one of your blog pages discussing exceptions to statutes of limitations in personal injury cases, or some other topic.
- Manual links are a result of deliberate link-building. Depending on the type of law firm you have, manual links may or may not be the best choice for you. Manual link-building includes asking clients, writers, bloggers, relevant people in your field and much more to link to your firm’s website. You could also ask an adjacent firm to link to your site, as long as the link is relevant and meaningful there won’t be an issue.
- Self-created links include adding backlinks to an online directory, a discussion forum, a press release, or comments on other blogs. While some of these links are natural for legitimate businesses to create, Google frowns upon some of these tactics and prefers natural and manual links, so do not overdo self-created links.
Regardless of the type of backlink, those that transfer the most equity contribute the most to your SEO efforts. Link equity refers to the idea that links pass a certain amount of value and authority from one page to another. Factors that influence link equity include:
- The relation of the topic between the two sites
- The age of the link
- Anchor text
- Linking site’s trustworthiness
- Number of total links on the linking page
- The popularity of the linking site
What's Next?
Now that you know what Google looks at when ranking your content pages, we move to the base of your whole strategy with competitor and keyword research for firms. An understanding of what keywords are working for your competitors and the difficulty of ranking for the keywords you choose will allow you to more easily build targeted content to organically increase your place in Google and other search engine rankings.
