Guide to SEO Services For Law Firms: How to Hire?

Most law practices suffer from a low utilization rate. They don’t have enough client work to fill their work day. Because hey referrals can only get you so far. Hiring resuls-driven law firm SEO services can fix this issue.

If you can get top search engine rankings without lifting a finger, well then why wouldn’t you? It leaves you ample time to actually serve your clients.

In this article, you’ll learn the kinds of lawyer SEO services, costs of hiring a SEO firm, and how to choose the right agency. Let’s begin with the basics.

Types of SEO Agencies for Law Firms

Agencies that offer SEO services are often one of the these two:

Niche SEO law firm agencies

Niche law firm SEO agencies focus solely on law firm marketing. They have have a lot of experience delivering results for your practice area.

However, such marketing agencies may hit the ceiling as you grow. They might not be able to help you scale when you decide to go into multiple locations. 

Multi-industry SEO law firm agencies

SEO agencies that offer marketing services across different industries and verticals, like On The Map Marketing, offer a lot more experience and expertise. They should still have SEO marketing results to show for your practice area (we have a lot of them!)

Their additional benefit is that if you decide to scale your marketing efforts, they will have the resources and systems in place to grow with you.

Now you may opt for a dedicated vendor specialized in a specific aspect of SEO such as: link building for lawyers, or legal content creation, or even local SEO for attorneys. But that’s only in the scenario that your inhouse lawyer marketing team actually needs help for something specific.

What Should Lawyers Look For in an SEO Agency?

Choosing the right agency for your law firm can be overwhelming, and most firms won’t know where or how to start. I along with my colleague, Chintan, got together to discuss everything you need to know about law firm SEO services on our podcast:

Below are some important factors that can help you focus on what to look for in an agency.

Successful case studies from previous clients

An effective SEO agency should be able to show you results and successful campaigns from their previous clients. Without this, there is no way of telling if the agency can deliver what they say they can. If you’re a personal injury lawyer in New York, ideally you want the agency to show results for your exact situation.

However, it could also work if the agency has worked in a metropolitan lawyer market as competitive as yours. So a case study of the agency delivering results for a criminal defense firm in Miami also proves efficacy of working in competitive markets.

Contracts should be clear

The contract should be clear and outline everything that will be implemented in your campaign. Methodologies, timelines, and the scope of your SEO project should be laid out to avoid any surprises.

Transparent reports

The agency should provide transparent and easy-to-understand reports that show your project’s performance. They should send updates and communicate regularly regarding your project. It’s also important that these reports state how many leads you generate every month from organic traffic.

Get a glimpse of their process

Is your agency on the good side of Google? SEO is ever evolving. So on your calls or emails with them, enquire how they build backlinks, get citations, and conduct keyword research. What kind of SEO tactics do they use? How do they keep up with Google’s algorithms?

Also check the compliances and the quality checks that the law firm SEO agency you’re contemplating on hiring has in place.

Expertise and skill sets of their team around lawyer marketing

Search engine marketing isn’t limited to Google’s organic search. You want your agency to ideally be able to help you with web design, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, or even social media if the need arises. They should be able to get your firm in local directories, to the top of Bing results (if that’s where your prospective clients are), create top notch legal website content, etc.

While your agency need not have all of these skills, their team must be full-stack and be able to offer expertise beyond SEO (which may be needed).

How Should Law Firms Prepare to Work With a Law Firm SEO Agency?

Before hiring a law firm SEO service provider, you need to be prepared for a few things:

Evaluate your current performance

Familiarize yourself with basic SEO and digital marketing concepts, including analytics and metrics. Knowing how to measure results is essential so you understand future reports that your agency will present to you.

Here are some website statistics you need to have handy:

• Average organic traffic per month from Google Search
• Keywords your site is ranking for on the first page in SERPs
• The keywords your Google My Business profile ranks for
• Visitors that turn into leads and new clients every month

You can find or set up most of this data inside Google Analytics. If you’re using an attorney client relationship management (CRM) software, it may also show you this data.

Settle upon your business and marketing goals

When you know where you are in terms of your SEO ranking, you need to have a goal. This can be lead generation, getting more clients, website visits, or ranking in the top spot for a highly competitive keyword.

Be cautious of law firm SEO agencies that promise vanity metrics as results (such as more traffic). This is a common red flag and often indicative of an agency’s desperate move to land a client. 

How Much Should You Spend on Law Firm SEO Services?

You can expect to pay anywhere between $2k to $10k per month for working with a lawyer SEO agency. The exact cost of such a law firm SEO project depends on the competitiveness of your practice area and the current health of your law firm’s website.

Remember that a low budget could be an impediment to getting results quicker. A higher monthly budget will mean more content, backlinks, and more hours put into the technical upkeep of your site by law firm SEO experts. 

How Long Should You Expect Results From a Law Firm SEO Agency?

This would depend on three factors:

• Current rankings
• Resource allocation
• Competitor aggressiveness (the volume of content and links they are pushing out)

Here’s a calculated estimate assuming you’re aiming for ranking in a highly competitive niche (such as metropolitan areas or personal injury):

• Starting from scratch: Could take an year or more (at a budget of about $3k to 5k per month)
• Starting from rankings on pages 3-5: About a year to crack top spots
• Starting from page 2 rankings: 4 to 6 months (or a bit more)

What Are Some Red Flags of a (Scammy) SEO Agency?

Some agencies don’t have your best interest in mind and are simply out to make money. Here’s what to watch out for:

Pricing that’s too good to be true: If an agency is promising they will provide optimized quality content, build links, and rank you for a high-competition keyword in $100, it’s probably a scam. They will end up cutting corners or using black hat techniques that will harm your site in the long-run.

Top ranking commitments: This is a marketing ploy to get law firms to sign up. Nobody can promise page one rankings as Google’s algorithms keep evolving. Your best bet to land a top Google berth is working with a SEO agency that promises delivering a stellar user experience for your target audience.

Reports lacking lead generation results: If an agency report shows rankings & traffic, but doesn’t report the phone calls and form submissions you get, their SEO work may be subpar. They are probably creating web pages focused on low intent keywords, thereby driving visitors that won’t convert into your clients.

Local SEO campaigns without showing map rankings. You need to know your map rankings when you have a local SEO campaign because it’s a measure of the campaign’s effectiveness. An agency should be able to do this.

Final Thoughts

Working with a lawyer SEO agency is one of the best steps you can make towards building awareness and growing your clientele online. Entrusting your firm’s marketing goals to experts allows you to focus more on the actual work of managing your firm and serving your clients.

We believe you should hire SEO companies that will execute one or all parts of SEO instead of going for lawyer SEO consulting that may just give suggestions.

We already shared a list of few of the best SEO services for law firms in this article. But hey, if you’re short of time, get in touch with us.

We’re experts in executing SEO for attorneys with a proof of efficacy across the most competitive markets of the country.