Lead generation can be one of the most challenging obstacles for both law firms and lawyers. Lead generation involves the process of attracting potential clients or customers to your business, with the goal of then converting these leads into actual legal clients. However, the lawyer lead generation space is highly competitive, so developing high-quality lead generation processes and strong inbound marketing strategies is essential to the success of your law firm.
How to Beat Your Competition at Law Firm SEO
Believe it or not, there are over 439,740 law firms in the United States. That’s a lot of competition – especially when it comes to competing for shared SEO keywords and limited online space. Fortunately (and unfortunately), there are only so many terms you can use to describe legal services (i.e. there are only so many ways you can phrase something like “personal injury lawyer”).
This is the double-edged sword of SEO. As a law firm, you can narrow down your list of key search terms that prospective clients might use; however, you are then competing with the same keywords that thousands of other law firms also aim to rank for. This is one of the main reasons why SEO is so competitive for lawyers.
So how can you beat your competition, level up your marketing and increase your law firm leads?
Have an Effective Law Firm Content Marketing Strategy
When everyone is doing essentially the same thing, you have to compete by doing it better. One of the best ways to do this (and cut through the noise) is by meeting prospective clients where they’re at.
Understanding the different phases people go through when hiring an attorney is essential to generating more law firm leads. Long before an individual makes a call to a lawyer or looks for legal services, they conduct research online. Helping prospective clients through this research phase could be the difference between law firm leads and qualified conversions.
The internet is oftentimes the first place people go for expert advice or to find an answer to their questions. Google alone receives over four billion search queries per day; with roughly 8% of these search queries being question-related. So, if you want to connect with prospective clients…you need to answer their questions.
How can you do this, though?
Create Content That Engages and Attracts Prospective Clients
Create the content you know prospective clients are already searching for. Google and other search companies want to deliver the best information possible to their users; and having high-quality content on your website that matches the questions and concerns potential clients have is a great way to get your law firm noticed and improve your search rankings.
Optimizing your website for question keywords also puts the power of SEO back into your law firm’s hands. Who knows more about what your prospective clients need and/or are looking for than you do? What are the problems they have? What are the questions they are asking? You are the expert in your field, and you understand the unique needs of the clients in your area of practice. A great way to connect with these prospective clients and generate more leads, is through helping them through the research phase and offering them valuable information/ expertise.
A recent survey suggests that approximately 95% of consumers prefer to hire the company that helped them research the problem; and provided them with ample information to navigate through each stage of the hiring process.
Tips:
- Sites such as Answer the Public, Ask Socrates, and Ubersuggest offer great insights into the specific keywords and questions that prospective clients may be searching.
- Short-form content such as blog articles, newsletters, and video are all great ways to provide answers to consumer questions and set your law firm apart.
- Prove you can help prospective clients by actually helping them in their research phase.
In Summary
To find lasting success in a crowded legal market, it’s all about being in the right place at the right time and staying on top of your law firm’s lead generation processes. Meeting prospective clients where they’re at and helping them through the research phase will not only help to increase your law firm lead opportunities, but it will also help to set your law firm apart and build trust with prospective clients early on.
It is all about doing the little things in your lead generation now, to reap the big benefits in your law firm leads down the road.
