Did you know that Google wants your business to be found and provides free tools to help make this happen? Google’s mission is ‘to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’. Accordingly, it makes sense that Google has built many tools and resources to make this possible, even for the average business. Law firms are no exception. Why bother ranking on Google? Google is the number 1 search engine in the world, with a staggering 92.18% of the market share, followed by Bing and a few other smaller players. The bottom line is, if your website isn’t on Google, you’re losing out on clients to your online competitors who are ranking.
3 Steps to Rapid Ranking
There are 3 crucial steps you can take now to bring your law firm marketing and law firm SEO to the next level.
Google My Business, Google Search Console and Google Analytics are essential resources for your overall law firm marketing strategy. If you’re not using these tools, you could be missing out on countless opportunities to improve your law firm SEO and drive leads and potential clients to your law firm. These free resources give you the necessary tools to tweak your website for optimum performance and analyse what’s working and what’s not with your law firm marketing. You can then drill down into the results and implement strategies to streamline your efforts and make your website work like an efficient lead magnet.
Step 1 – Google My Business
Get out there and be noticed
The first step to start ranking in online searches is to tell Google you exist and to know a little bit about SEO for lawyers.
If you have a website, you need to let Google know about it and have a basic understanding of how search engines work. Google My Business is a free listing service to help people find you on Google Maps and in local search results. You can create an account and list your location, profile, office hours and website address. But it doesn’t stop there. Google My Business is constantly evolving and has recently introduced features that enable businesses to add posts and updates linking back to your website.
To set up your free account, visit Google My Business support and find out how you can start building your business profile to optimise your online presence.
Step 2 – Google Search Console
Track and optimise your website’s performance
Google Search Console is a free service that can help you monitor and optimise the online visibility of your website. Search Console is fundamental for understanding how Google ‘sees’ your site and is a great troubleshooting tool to enhance your law firm SEO efforts.
By signing up to Search Console you can discover how Google crawls and indexes your site and serves your content up in search results. You can find out about indexing problems which can be fixed to give your pages every opportunity of being found. You can also submit new and updated content for indexing as you go, getting a head start on those pages ranking in search results. Search traffic data shows how often your site appears in Google search and helps you to identify which terms are the most successful in leading people to your website. This data is invaluable for optimising your content and targeting your law firm marketing efforts.
Search Console also regularly checks your site for spam, indexing, and other issues, sending you email alerts so you can troubleshoot and fix these problems to ensure your website is running as efficiently as possible. Search Console is constantly expanding, with new tools and analytics becoming available every year. Just how far you want to drill down into the many features available is up to you.
To help you get started with setting up Google Search Console, please email us and we can assist with the installation.
Step 3 – Google Analytics
Getting to know your visitors, aka, your potential clients
Google Analytics is a platform that collects data about your website traffic and compiles it into useful reports. Analytics provide valuable information about where your visitors are coming from and how they are interacting with your website.
Creating an account in Google Analytics establishes a link between your website and Google, so data can be collected and displayed using interactive reports on your account platform. One of the great features of Google Analytics is its ability to collect and then sort complex data into manageable and readable reports comprised of metrics (anything that can be measured with a number) and dimensions (how a metric can be segmented). The collection of data is facilitated through tracking codes made up of JavaScript which are placed on your website. These are used to collect anonymous information about how users interact with your site’s pages. You can find out:
- how many visitors go to each page of your website over a period of time;
- the average time visitors spend on your website;
- bounce rates – how many visitors close your site or click the back button without interacting on the site;
- the device used by each visitor when visiting your site, for example, mobile or desktop; and which browser they used;
- the source of your website traffic – whether they were brought there from a search engine, advertisement, or email marketing campaign.
Google Analytics is free to anybody with a website and can be used at a basic level or for more advanced analysis. There is a tonne of information available. You can customise how data is processed so it is relevant to your law firm and then tailor your marketing efforts based on your learnings to help with your SEO rankings.
To help you get started with setting up Google Analytics, please email us and we can assist with the setup.
Where to next?
Google has many free tools that can help increase rankings, drive traffic to your website and generate more leads and new business.
As a law firm owner or practice manager, even if you are not directly involved in using these tools, it is important to understand how they can help you make informed decisions to target your law firm marketing efforts. If your website is not currently connected with Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and you would like better Google rankings , please email us here.
When it comes to SEO for lawyers and ranking well in search engines, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and installing Google My Business, Google Search Console and Google Analytics is just the beginning. Effective SEO for lawyers takes a long-term approach and a robust SEO program forms a key component of your overall strategy for law firm marketing success.
We are a law firm marketing agency. We formulate effective marketing strategies for busy lawyers to help them grow their practice through digital marketing, e-newsletters, and quality content. We build, host, and manage law firm websites for optimum performance and conversion with the visitor and user in mind. If you need assistance with your law firm marketing call Peter on 1300 881 811 or email [email protected].
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