Law Firm SEO Southern California Rising Stars Twitter

Law Firm SEO + Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars

Here’s Some Tips On How To Use Your Selection To Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars To Boost Your Law Firm SEO.

I was selected to the Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars list back in 2012, and remain proud of being recognized as a leader in my field. With the recent 2016 release of the Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars, I’m guessing there’s more than a few attorneys experiencing the same professional pride that I did back in 2012, and I figure now’s a good time to tie together my legal and technical backgrounds – and help you learn how use this award to boost your law firm SEO.

If you’re reading this article, it should be fairly obvious why law firm SEO is critical in today’s digital age. But, in case you still think it’s merely a luxury: Both consumers and corporations run into legal issues every day, and the reality is that many turn to the internet in looking for answers to their problems. A simple check of recent Google search data easily confirms this.

Search Law Firm SEO Southern California
Sample law firm search data for the Southern California region. Immigration lawyers, employment lawyers, business lawyers, and accident lawyers in Orange County, Los Angeles County, San Diego County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Ventura County: Take special note of the thousands of potential clients each month.

The real question is how to tap into these potential clients, and that’s where law firm SEO (or “search engine optimization”) – and the recent release of the 2016 Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars list – can help. So, let’s dive in:

Run Content Promoting Your Selection.

I’m assuming your attorney website has some form of content management in place, and that you regularly use it as part of a legal content marketing strategy. (If not, we really need to talk.)

[RELATED: 3 Common Law Firm Internet Marketing Mistakes]

I know this seems elementary, but you’d be surprised how many law firms forget even this basic starting point: You need to run an article on your blog that promotes your selection to the Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars list. Even better, we’d suggest you then syndicate that content to your social media accounts, and to any other third-party content distribution platforms you have access to (including press releases!).

Don’t just add the Super Lawyers badge to your attorney profile on your law firm website. While the badge is a good third-party trust indicator, it alone has zero law firm SEO value – you need targeted content to provide law firm SEO value. Also, don’t forget to run a new content piece every year you are selected to any Southern California Super Lawyers list. Law firm SEO is an ongoing duty; irregular efforts will produce irregular (or worse) results.

Isolate The Keyword Phrase For Your Law Firm SEO Purposes.

Before setting off to write your content piece, you’ll need to know what you’re writing for. And, where the goal is using your selection to Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Stars to boost your law firm SEO, that means you need to know what keyword phrase you want to be targeting.

[RELATED: Law Firm Internet Marketing – 3 Digital Rainmaking Tips for Attorneys]

Although this is a complex process, and one that most law firms leave to professional agencies like ours for good reason, I’d suggest your keyword phrase initially be targeted to three criteria: (a) practice area, (b) location, and (c) a descriptor (such as “award”). This long-tail keyword phrase will result in the smallest set of search volume, but also the highest-quality leads – if there’s enough search volume to go for it. You’ll need to test the proposed keyword phrase in Google’s Keyword Planner tool, and edit it as needed to find the appropriate verbiage and search sample size. For example, in a great many cases, I’d expect the keyword research would eventually show the need to drop the descriptor criteria in order to produce meaningful search volume (but I’d still start with it, because of lead quality if it works).

Explain What Being A Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star Means.

It is extremely important to realize the goal of law firm SEO is for your content to actually be found – and read – by potential clients. So, make sure you are writing for humans! Don’t simply write a garbage article that stuffs in the keyword phrase you’ve selected. Not only is Google very good at sniffing out garbage content (and penalizing it in the rankings), but you’re also hurting your brand with any potential client who reads it.

To that end, your content needs to explain what being a Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star means. And, it needs to do so succinctly. Realize that your potential clients will have little to no idea what “Super Lawyers” is, or what a “Rising Star” is – and have a small-ish attention span. In my past life as a practicing attorney, I made sure to explain my selection to Super Lawyers Rising Stars as “a prestigious honor given to no more than 2.5% of attorneys under the age of 40, based on peer nomination and independent review by Thomson Reuters”. You can define it however you’d like, but keep it short and definitional.

[RELATED: 3 Reasons Real Estate Law Firms Need Legal Digital Marketing Right Now]

Relatedly, your content should also include how being a Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star benefits the potential client. The explanation of the award helps build third-party trust, but you can also help nudge the lead into your sales funnel by showing how it helps them. Keeping in mind potential clients generally have two primary concerns – winning, and at what cost – I’d suggest your content be written to tie your selection to Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star to one or both of those concerns in some way.

I close with two final observations:

First, no attorney should be engaging in law firm SEO without first having a properly designed law firm website. If your attorney website isn’t mobile-friendly, isn’t cross-browser compatible, or simply looks like something from Y2K, you probably don’t want to be driving eyeballs to look at it. Fix your website first, then address your law firm SEO.

Second, law firm SEO today is complex and extremely competitive – particularly in certain practice areas and geographies. And, it is competitive precisely because of its importance: More consumers research legal issues and law firms online than anywhere else. Success in law firm SEO requires a commitment of resources commensurate with the results it produces, and spending only a few hundred dollars a month while expecting to land leads worth multiple thousands in legal fees is vastly unrealistic. While you certainly can find cheap law firm SEO out there, you’ll be wasting whatever you’d be spending – while still getting lapped by the competition.

Using our unique background in both law and technology, OneDemand designs attorney websites and provides professional attorney internet marketing for the entire Southern California region from our Orange County offices.

Best,
Scott J. Jackson, Esq.

Social OneDemand Twitter @soclsurfer
Social OneDemand Linked In www.linkedin.com/in/sjjdev

3 Comments
  • Petra
    Posted at 02:46h, 08 July

    You have got interesting posts here.

  • Harvey
    Posted at 22:30h, 12 September

    Great post. I’m facing a couple of these issues.

  • Chris
    Posted at 06:05h, 17 September

    Thanks for the excellent advice!