Coming up with the right words to capture the attention of prospective clients is as easy as, well- it is not! Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is about far more than creatively crafting words together that will get your desired target market to not only see your product, but explore and utilize it. The words you choose are only a fraction of what is required to develop successful SEO. Additionally, it is not just about the terms you use, but the geographical areas, age ranges, genders, and a host of other communities and groups you wish to reach.
Even if you know exactly who you want to connect with and how you want to affect them, there are a plethora of technical pieces of the SEO puzzle that you must know in order to succeed. To be clear, if you are not sure what title tags or meta descriptions are, perhaps developing your own SEO is above your skill set. And if anchor text makes you think about ships instead of hyperlinked text, you should most certainly hire an internet marketing team to run your law firm seo campaign.
While there are indeed lawyers who not only develop their own SEO but do it well, there are five items to be considered before you embark on a solo SEO journey.
Five Considerations of SEO for Lawyers
How do you bill?
Time, as they say, is money, and that is especially true when your time could result in the loss of your money. Considering that most lawyers charge anywhere from $100 to $500 and more an hour, you may lose revenue if you choose to devote your time to writing a blog instead of meeting with a client. And even if you are a stellar writer who can create an amazing piece of SEO quickly, you will still lose money you could have otherwise made. Ultimately, only you can determine the benefit- burden ratio for your firm.
How competitive is your location?
For the attorney who works in Small Town, USA, a one person marketing team may be an ideal way of advertising. Attorneys in more populated areas however, are likely to be sharing that space with many other lawyers. A preponderance of attorneys in any one geographical area , by definition, means greater competition between them. With each attorney and law firm vying for clients in the same general locale, each becomes obligated to up their game and ensure that they have the best advertising, marketing, and SEO. Having your own firm create these posts, given the demands of the community as well as the competition between lawyers, could prove to be a fool’s errand, lead to a loss of revenue, and create a very tired work environment.
How soon do you need your business to grow?
Search Engine Optimization builds businesses and their reputations over the long term. It can take days or years until the right formula is achieved and a firm’s marketing proves profitable. If you are part of a long established firm who has that kind of time to bank on, then investing energy and funds into your SEO is the right way to go. If however you need your business to grow quickly and steadily, guaranteed, SEO marketing may not be your wisest choice. This decision comes down to money and how long you can wait to see the fruits of your labor. Consumers are unpredictable and often finecky, and that is something you also must consider.
Are you a technophile?
If you had to look that up, the answer is a resounding ‘no.’ SEO blogging and marketing, aside of the engineered verbiage you will need for a successful campaign, requires you to understand the technology and algorithmic updates that will directly affect your message. Knowing how to appear first in consumer searches for exactly what you offer, makes understanding things like title tags and search engine result pages, or SERP’s, a requisite skill. Keeping informed of how this field works is information you would do well to have. But the questions you need to consider include your time availability and desire to wholeheartedly stay on the SEO up and up.
How detail oriented are you?
Becoming a lawyer, studying for the Bar, building a successful law firm, and developing a knowledge of “The Law” inside and out requires tremendous analytical skills. Besides that, attention to detail and adherence to the minutiae of the Constitution are skills needed by any attorney worth their salt. Engineering SEO that meets your needs while attending to site structure, regulatory demands and ensuring quality posts, demands similar and painstaking focus. Are you up for the challenge? Do you have the time to determine if you are up for that challenge? On a lighter but important note, how many regulatory agencies do you want to deal with? Only you can decide, but these factors are crucial to your decision making process.
What’s the Bottom Line?
Benefits and burdens, as well as risks and rewards of SEO marketing are really in your hands. Cost is of course something you need to consider, but then you must also determine how much your time and energy cost. Internet marketing companies that hire dedicated staff, devoted to creating quality content can indeed be costly, but then, it can also save you from wasting precious time, both personal and professional. If producing quality SEO is an undertaking you think you can actualize, then go for it. The likelihood of running a fruitful law practice while executing meaningful content though, may be a bet you would do well not to hedge.
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