Family law is an excellent niche of law to practice for a multitude of reasons. However, because it's such a great vertical of law to practice, the level of competition is exceptionally high. Unlike other areas of law, people tend not to ask family or friends for recommendations for divorce attorneys because they sometimes feel embarrassed or ashamed of their situation.
While we don't enjoy that being the case, it's the unfortunate reality. So, when people are looking for divorce attorneys, how do they find them?
They search for them on Google. And to put it into perspective, there are 49,500 Google searches for 'divorce lawyer' each month.
A pretty significant number, right?
So, the moral of the story is, if your family law website is not ranking on page one of Google for relevant divorce law keywords, you're pretty much last.
That's why every lawyer who practices family law MUST be doing SEO for divorce lawyers.
In this guide, we'll outline things you can do to boost your divorce law firm's SEO rankings and rank on page one of Google for highly competitive keywords, like family law attorney near me.
If you don't have the time or the interest in learning how to do SEO, no worries, contact us, and we'll manage it all for you.
First of all, what is SEO?
Simply put, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making your website more visible on search engines to searchers. Google Search works because when someone searches for something, Google will show them the most relevant search results possible.
For example, if you were looking to Google to find a law firm SEO agency but got search results for dog groomers near you, it would make no sense, have no relevance, and kill your user experience.
So, with SEO, Google knows which sites are quality and which sites are junk. They also know which sites answer questions for their searchers and who are just trying to sell something. If you're a high-quality website the produces informational content; you're going to reap the masterful benefits of SEO.
SEO is widely used in law firm marketing, so ensuring you know how to implement it is critical.
You Need A Website
This shouldn't have to be reminded in the 21st century but believe it or not, divorce lawyers still run their law firm without a website. In short, it just can't be done. Without a website, you'll limit your ability to scale your firm, and nobody will be able to find your firm online.
This is not to say you need a crazy, over the top website, because that's not the case.
What makes a good website is its design, functionality, and user experience. If it looks nice, works well, and users can find what they are looking for, that's all you need.
Now, if you have a bigger budget and want an excellent website for your family law firm, a web design agency can build your website and add some great features and more functionality. But again, if you don't have a big budget, a standard informational website will do just the job.
Write Your Meta Titles and Descriptions
So, now that you have your website for your law firm, you have to make sure it's optimized for SEO. While there are many things you can do to optimize your website, starting by writing meta titles and descriptions is a great place to start.
The best way to explain what meta titles and descriptions are a preview of what your website page content is about. A page's title tag and meta description are usually shown whenever they appear in search engine results.
Here is an excellent example of well-written meta titles and descriptions for your family law firms website:
Whys is this a great example? For starters, the title contains the lawyer's name, the area of practice (family law), and the law firm's name. Then, the description again mentions the name of the family law attorney, the firm's name, and what niche he serves; in this case, family law. Telling Google precisely what that page is about, without making it look low-quality or spammy, is the first step in optimizing your on-page SEO.
Write Good Web Copy
When you're in the process of building your website or working with a web design agency, you need to have sales copy to put on your website. When writing copy, you don't just give a quick bio about who you are and where you're located; you want to address pain points your ideal prospect would be searching for answers to. In your copy, link to other pages of your website so that people on your site end up taking your desired action of submitting their information for a consultation.
Here is an excellent example of web copy that does a great job of connecting with their prospect, explaining who they are, and also linking to other pages on their website:
As you can see, they did a great job of doing all the things we mentioned above. They hyperlinked they anchor text' family law' to their family law page, they included keywords without stuffing them in, and they resonate with what their client might be going through. This is an excellent example of well-written web copy.
Create High-Quality Content
Creating content is a must in divorce lawyer SEO. In such a competitive industry, basic fluff won't cut it either. As we stated earlier in this guide, competition in the legal divorce industry is exceptionally high. Google doesn't reward every website with high-rankings, only the ones that are of quality, informational, and consistent.
When crafting blog content for your divorce law firm, you don't just want to write about anything because you'll only be wasting your time.
Generally speaking, the customer journey before finding and locating a divorce attorney would research a particular issue. For example, instead of immediately searching for a 'divorce lawyer near me,' your potential client will probably search for something like, what are the New Jersey rules regarding alimony? Or, how do I acquire full custody of my kids in NJ?
By creating blog content that answers these specific questions and ranking for what we call long-tail keywords, you're establishing credibility and trust with your potential clients. At this point, your blog post is the first thing they are seeing and reading, and more than likely, they'll soon need a divorce attorney, and you'll be one of their options.
On your blog posts, you can also add a sidebar with a contact form or have your phone number visible on your site so that you can convert them into a paying customer right there and then.
You could also run some retargeting campaigns on Google, YouTube, or Facebook. Still, you'll want to approach this carefully because divorce (as you know) is very emotional, and you want to make them feel comfortable, not overwhelmed.
What Should You Be Writing About?
Like we mentioned in the last paragraph, you'll want to write about topics that answer questions, but ones that are typically at the top of the sales funnel. For example, instead of writing about why you're the best divorce attorney in NJ, writing about something like In NJ, what are the child support laws? By writing about topics at the top of the funnel, you're going to be your potential client's first point of contact during this emotional road. As we said, you're establishing trust and credibility here.
So, while it'll take longer to rank for geo-based keywords like 'family law attorney city X,' focus on long-tail keywords that you'll begin ranking for in a matter of weeks, sometimes days! An example of a long-tail keyword would be 'child support laws for New Jersey.'
Here are three rules to follow when deciphering what your content should be about:
1. You have to make sure that there is an intent to purchase legal services. A topic like "3 Ways to Make Your Divorce Go Smoothly" would be a waste of time if we're honest. At that point, all that person is looking for is free advice, which is fine, but you're a law firm, not an online forum. Now, a topic like "A Guide to Understanding New Jersey's Child Support Laws", would be something that has buyer intent, and that's worth your time.
2. Keyword volume has to be large. To explain this clearer, if you're trying to rank for a keyword that gets, on average, ten searches a month, it's just not worth your time. You want to ultimately rank for keywords that get 1,000 searches per month, minimum. While they're a bit more difficult, it's not impossible and far more worth your time.
3. Continuing our point of keyword difficulty, you also need to be realistic with yourself. If you're finding content written by the NY Times or CNN - forget it. You will never be able to compete with them, and again, you'll just be wasting your time!
As we hit on earlier in this post, if you have the desire and willingness to learn how to do this on your own - great. But, the reality is, it's something that you learn over time, and you'll more than likely waste a lot of time and money trying to figure it out on your own.
If you're serious about growing your divorce law firms' SEO and business, contact us, and we'll be able to create high-quality content that can rank highly and not on page four of five.
Build a Profile of Reliable and Credible Backlinks
The best way to describe what backlinks are is by votes. The more links (votes) you have, the more authority and credibility your website will generate. Thus, it will rank higher and quicker for keywords.
Acquiring backlinks can be one of the most challenging parts of doing SEO for divorce lawyers.
However, it's definitely what will move the needle the furthest.
Google's search algorithm analyzes two things when it comes to backlinks; quantity and quality. You need to have a concrete mix for a webpage to hold its value.
There are quite a few ways you can build backlinks, but we'll show you a few of the best ways to build links for divorce lawyers.
1. Passive Link-Building
You've heard of passive income. Everyone wants it, but it's hard to generate. Well, the same goes for passive link-building.
Ultimately, passive link building entails other blogs and websites using your content as sources, meaning they're linking back to your website.
This is extremely difficult and takes the longest amount of time because you need to create unique, factual content, and it needs to rank highly so that other bloggers and divorce lawyers can found it.
To passively earn these links, focus on creating great content and optimizing your website as well as possible. In time, people will start passively linking back to your site as a credible source.
2. Guest Post by Manual Outreach
Guest posting on other blogs or websites is arguably the best way to earn backlinks to your website, but it's certainly time-consuming.
A typical manual outreach process looks something like this:
Find websites that publish content regarding family law or divorce information.
Locate the blog or website owners' contact information.
Contact the site owner and pitch a content idea or topic to them.
Then, either you or a professional writer needs to write an article based on the proposed topic.
Submit the article to the website and ensure that it gets posted in an ample amount of time.
Sometimes, these website owners will allow you to include in-content links, which are fantastic, or they won't, but will give you an author bio with a link back to your website.
In this case, take what they offer you if the site is worth your time.
As you can see, manual outreach and guest posting can take a long time, but it certainly pays off. We have created a process that permits our SEO agency to do this at scale. From years of experience, we have become connected with many blog owners in various niches. This is something that will take you time (to do right), so if you want us to do this for you, schedule a time to speak with Dillon.
3. Foundational Links
Foundational links do precisely as they sound; they build the foundation of links for your website. You can't build a house without a strong foundation. Well, the same applies to links; it's hard to create a strong link profile without a strong foundation of links.
Foundational links are best described as contextual links or mini properties that help build a base of authority to your site to help keep your link profile diverse and looking natural in search engines' eyes.
Some examples of areas that you could look to build these kinds of links are social media platforms, local business listings, or web 2.0's (Wix, Weebly, WordPress, etc.).
While these don't move the needle much on their own, they serve a critical link-building role, as you're continually diversifying your anchor text so that Google views it as natural link-building and not a site over-optimizing.
SEO Will Grow Your Divorce Lawyer Firm
Contrary to how SEO benefits other types of lawyers, like a corporate lawyer who seeks to only rank for the keyword' corporate lawyer near me', divorce attorneys can win big and fast with properly strategized SEO for divorce lawyers.
Search engines are far more valuable to divorce lawyers than social media because divorce is a sensitive, emotional, and private conversation that most people getting divorced don't want to share with their Facebook or Instagram friends. Instead, they'd like to gather information and find a divorce attorney in private by doing a Google search. That proves why SEO is crucial for divorce attorneys to embrace and implement into their digital marketing strategy.
SEO is also semi-permanent. Unlike paid search advertising, it doesn't fall off once you've paid for it.
A divorce lawyer's website that ranks well for a query should continue to rank well for that query for a long time, potentially continuing to drive leads for years.
If you're a divorce attorney and are looking into SEO for family lawyers, get in touch with Dillon and his digital marketing specialists team.
The Dillon Ross Group can be reached at (917) 397-1655 or via their website contact form.