How SEO Can Help Your Personal Injury Law Firm

Chances are you’re not the only personal injury law firm attorney in the area, which means you’re likely competing with other law firms for clients. You have a visually appealing website, plenty of staff, and a great court record, so why are you having trouble attracting new clients?

Have you considered using SEO for personal injury lawyers? Not sure what SEO is or how it can help your law firm? We’ll explain exactly what SEO is and how it can give you an advantage over the competition.

A Brief Explanation of SEO

SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization, but, why should you care about optimizing search engine results? The answer’s quite simple: the practice helps move your website to the top of search engine results.

Search engine results are the list of websites that closely match your online query. For example, if you type ‘find personal injury lawyers near me’ a list of attorneys in your area will pop up on your screen. The goal of SEO is to move your website to the top of the list.

Why do you want your law firm to appear at the top of the search result list? Most people click on the first two or three websites that appear in their search results. Very few people are going to spend clicking through various pages to find a website listed at number 20 or even further down the list.

How to Create an Effective Website Using SEO

Creating an effective website using basic SEO practices may seem like a daunting task. However, using SEO effectively is easier than you may think. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

Find and Use The Right Keywords

What are keywords? Keywords are terms that are commonly used in internet searches. However, before you start inserting keywords all over your website, you want to use relevant, high-ranking terms.

Relevant keywords apply to your niche and industry. For example, as a personal injury attorney, you want to use keywords that apply to your profession. For example, using keywords like ‘pet care’ is not going to drive clients to your law practice. You might get a high volume of calls asking about how to care for a cat or dog, but this is not going to translate into potential clients.

Finding high-ranking keywords isn’t difficult. You can take advantage of free online SEO tools or pay for a subscription service. If you’re planning on changing your keywords every few weeks or so, a subscription service may be worth the expense.

Some SEO services will even track your keyword rankings so you know which ones are generating leads.

Optimize Everything

Using SEO effectively means optimizing all aspects of your law firm’s website, which includes the content, titles, and meta descriptions. If you’re unsure of what a meta description is.

A meta description is a short blurb, usually no more than 120 characters, describing the purpose of the website or content page. For example, if your law firm specializes in personal injuries resulting from car accidents your meta description should allude to this fact.

Optimizing titles and content includes using well-placed keywords, which means inserting keywords in places where they make sense to the reader. Your website will drop in the search engine results if the keywords do not make sense. A quick example of what not to do if your keywords are ‘personal injury attorney’ is to create the following or similar sentences.

“Poor driving conditions are a leading cause of traffic accidents personal injury attorney”. A correct way of optimizing the sentence is, “Poor driving conditions are a leading cause of traffic accidents. If you’re involved in a car wreck, you may want to contact a personal injury attorney.”

You’re ultimately optimizing the sentence using your relevant keywords in a way that will make sense to potential clients.

Use Relevant Images

SEO is not only about using keywords in titles, meta descriptions, and content—SEO also refers to using well-placed, relevant images. Yes, the size of the image matters, along with its quality, since search engine algorithms can detect when you use random or poor-quality images.

So, what are relevant images for personal injury law firm websites? The answer depends on the page’s content, so if your page is about motorcycle accidents, an image of a car hitting a guardrail is not relevant.

Along with using the right images, you also want to optimize each picture, which includes compressing large images to no wider than 1000px and inserting alt text. Alt text is how Google identifies the image.

If applicable, use your keywords in the description. Not sure how to get started? A good tip is to write the text as if you’re describing the image to someone who can’t see the picture.

Don’t forget to Insert Internal and External Links

Websites with both internal and external links tend to rank higher on search engine results. Exterior links take readers to other websites, and internal links connect to other pages on your website.

You can use keywords to anchor (place) the links; however, you want the link placement to be in line with the corresponding page. For example, if you’re using a link to refer readers to a page on head-on collisions, do not use keywords referring to medical expenses.

When it comes to external links, try to only link to websites with a high authority ranking. In other words, try to avoid linking to external sites that have a low ranking on search engine results.

Don’t Ignore The Power of Social Media

After optimizing your website, go ahead and brag about it online. Taking to your law firm’s social media accounts is a great way to promote your newly revamped website and generate interest.

Using social media, you can reach a broader audience, which can translate into more traffic to your website and turn into more clients asking for your legal expertise. Getting your website perfect may take some time and effort, but it’s worth it when clients choose your law firm over the competition’s.