Link building is an important part of search engine optimization (SEO) for any website, but especially for law firms. As there is a cutthroat competition in the legal field, lawyers have no option but to embrace sophisticated methods to emerge in the first search results pages. This article explains the reasons why link building is very important to law firms, describes the most effective link building strategies among others, and demonstrates how to measure effectiveness.
Nowadays, most people seek legal advice or services through the internet, particularly search engines like Google. This makes search engine optimization necessary for law firms since landing on the first page of any search engine attracts almost every client who needs legal services. This is where link building comes in for law firms. Why is link building most important for law firms?
When it comes to ranking a website in search engines, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of elements to base that decision on and backlinks are one such element. A backlink is a webpage from an authoritative site pointing to your law firm’s website. Thus, the one way linking works improves your website’s credibility. As you acquire more and more quality backlinks your DA will increase, which will in turn improve your positioning for the target keywords used by your potential clients looking for similar offerings in the web. This is very important, particularly for attorneys link building and law firm link building as legal service provisions are very competitive and a higher DA can provide that competitive advantage.
A backlink has dual advantages. Apart from improving the SEO rankings, backlinks can also enhance direct traffic to the site. Since the backlink acquired from a popular legal directory or a news site attracts traffic, chances are visitors clicking the link may visit your site. This increases your exposure, and if your website is designed in a way to turn visitors to clients, then this can have an effect on your firm.
The only way to succeed in link building for lawyers is to comprehend the various forms of links as well as elementary strategies for link building which are relevant to the legal profession.
Before getting down to the nitty-gritty of various ‘n’ types of tactics, let’s ensure that some critical ‘n’ linked words are understood first:
Some of the most productive methods of link building for lawyers are:
As SEO for law firms grows in practice so do the expectations from the law firm’s SEO. These advanced Link Building techniques may help your practice stand out:
The Skyscraper Technique or the so-called Replicative Link Building is an elaborate and relational resource management practice that takes effort and time to master. For example, you can target a popular blog on estate planning, cut it down into pieces and improve upon that same wedding post focusing on proposal ideas. This is a smart way to acquire authority backlinks since you will be providing better content to the users who are getting the same links.
One more advanced approach is Broken Link Building. In this case, the method revolves around seeking out other legal websites and locating relevant link placements on those sites and then looking for broken links on whatever pages they are located on and offering your articles as potential solutions for these problems. In doing this, one provides a solution to the problem of the web owner while securing a back link in return. You can use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to locate broken links in your niche.
Doing this is quite simple because testimonial or case study submissions for businesses you’ve worked with can earn you backlinks. To illustrate, let’s assume that your firm has entered into a partnership with that of a software provider or a legal consultant. Such businesses can provide their advertisements and even backlinks in exchange for having a given number of clients. Law case studies with great success can also earn backlinks from legal providers and news sites.
Whenever a law firm is seeking to bring in clients who are situated in a particular locality, it is essential that the understanding of local SEO be considered. Here’s how local link building plays a role:
Hyper local backlinks are those that you get from websites that are based within your city or region. It is best to start with hyper regional news portals, community websites, and business chamber websites. There are also events that you can support; these provide an opportunity for backlink placement as well.
Citation links derived from resources such as Avvo and Justia provide a critical hoplink to the local SEO. These platforms not only help your firm rank in local search results, but also provide backlinks. Make sure to have NAP consistency across the listings, as this further boosts the local SEO signals.
Link building for lawyers certainly does not only require the development of the strategy but also of such tools that facilitate monitoring and achieving the set objectives.
The following are some of the most common sources that may facilitate link building:
When utilizing these tools, do not forget to:
Examples and case studies offer really good information on how best to proceed with link-building.
A few case studies of law firms that manage to link about a little are as follows:
There are a number of errors that should be avoided in link building such as the following:
Purchasing backlinks to some low-level and spammed sites. This can undermine your SEO and can even lead to manual actions from Google.
Having too much concentration on the overall number of link rather than the focused on the quality. It is better to have a few quality links from reputable sites than several links of little or no merit.
ROI being s return on investment is one of the very important aspects that further can be ascertained through evaluating the bolstering policies in regard to link building.
One can monitor the success of their link-building strategies through the following metrics:
The amplifications that accrue to a firm with a solid backlink profile are not limited to merely an increase in the revenue generated per visiting traffic. Those examples of high quality link building do correspondingly strengthen the perception of the law firm which, over time, increases the amount of traffic and requests from clients. In the long run, agencies who implement SEO campaigns with active link building will rise steadily to the top of the competition by gaining large amounts of organic leads.
A strategic and planned approach toward developing a backlink profile is the ideal strategy any legal practice that would position itself to capture a large share of the market. Using the most basic to the most advanced link building strategies including guest posts, legal directories, broken link building and link partnerships strategies, law firms can enhance their domain authority, search engine positioning and maintain healthy levels of non-paid traffic to the website. There is no danger in over optimizing the link strategy as long as the right objectives are formulized and appropriate tools to measure the impact are used effectively.
As the market witnesses an influx of lawyers, it is imperative to seek competent link building services for the lawyers. The link building for law firms can be very impactful if done by employing the right strategies.
Backlinks refer to links that go back to your website from other websites. They are especially important to a law firm as she uses them to improve SEO, build domain authority and gain referral traffic.
Law firms can start by writing good content which answers most of the client’s quests in law, proceeding to guest posts, and being incorporated in legal directories.
The best strategies employ link building services that look for quality rather than the number of links. These include focused outreach, guest posts and local seo services. There are experts who have in-house teams who specialize in SEO link building services for lawyers and provide bespoke approaches.
Link building is a long-term strategy and returns on investment typically take anywhere from a few weeks to several months. The time frame, however, would depend on several factors such as content, competition, and even the strategies used.
Some of the techniques that work include guest posting, legal directory submissions, content creation for exposure, and local sponsorships.
Combining dofollow and nofollow links is the best approach even if dofollow links will always be more valued for SEO. Some nofollow links are still important from a traffic perspective – to help generate traffic and thereby create brand awareness.
Some of the top metrics in this regard include. increase in organic traffic, increases in domain authority, and the conversion rates of referred traffic from link building.
Yes, increasing the share of content through social media would increase the chances and likelihood of backlinks being acquired organically from other websites.
Tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush are good devices to use since they provide backlink opportunities like guest posting and fixing broken links.
Some mistakes are: getting links from and to poorly rated websites, ignoring the importance of backlink monitoring, and blindly pursuing numbers of links disregarding their pertinence.
It does, link building is an effort worthy of investment; the right strategies in place can help a firm rank better on search engines, attract more traffic and consequently more clients.
Law firms need to make these adjustments and revisions as often and as much as there are changes in the best practices of SEO and other technological changes.