SEO for Criminal Defense Lawyers

There are potential clients in your area searching for a criminal defense lawyer as you are reading this article. However, if you aren’t on the first page of Google, chances are they will not find you.

Instead, they will contact one of your competitors, who rank higher on Google.

For many reasons, potential clients who require a criminal defense lawyer do not have time on their hands to methodically work their way through several pages of search results. To capture potential clients, you must ensure that your SEO is on point and will help you rank high on the first page of Google.

The Importance of SEO for Criminal Defense Lawyers

Search engine optimization, often referred to as SEO, is the process of optimizing your firm’s website so that your web pages rank highly on search pages such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. You want potential clients to see your name as soon as they search online for a criminal defense lawyer.

To do this, you need to create SEO-friendly content and ensure that your website meets the SEO requirements that Google and other search engines put in place to rank sites based on relevance and usefulness.

When you manage to get your web pages to rank higher, you will gain significantly more targeted organic traffic, which can result in higher quality leads and clients.

SEO for law firms: The Inner Workings

If a potential client searches “criminal defense lawyers nearby,” Google offers viewers pages of websites to pick from. These pages are referred to as Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), and the aim of SEO is to ensure that your content appears on the first page shown in response to a search.

It is estimated that 98% of Google users never make it past the first page of search results, whether they are looking for someone to detail their car or someone to defend them against serious criminal charges.

SEO and PPC ads: What’s the Difference?

You may already have some PPC ads on Facebook or Google. If you are already running ads but have never tried SEO, you might wonder what the differences are between the two marketing strategies.

While each marketing strategy will bring more traffic to your website, the difference lies in how you pay for them. Rather than paying per click or lead as you do with PPC, payments for SEO are much simpler.

SEO is an ongoing strategy of optimizing and improving content on your website to generate more organic traffic. This marketing strategy is very complex and difficult to execute correctly, so the most successful law firms opt to turn it over to external agencies, like Gladiator Law Marketing. Once the content is complete, having been subjected to detailed SEO analysis, it will gather traffic for your website at no extra cost.

SEO to get in the SERPs

Using SEO to get your web pages into the SERPs is the most effective way to gain organic traffic. However, every criminal defense law firm is competing for the top spot on Google, so you will find a lot of competition here.

While competition can be fierce, there are things you can do to beat out your opponents. For starters, if you are a small practice, you can focus on local SEO in a specific practice area to reduce your target market and avoid coming up against national law firms. While national law firms will also target local traffic, our SEO agency will help you win the attention of your target audience.

SEO for your Google Business Profile

Not only should you use SEO to ensure that your web pages rank highly, but you should also use it to increase the likelihood that your Google Business Profile appears on the first page of SERPs.

As a rule, Google Business Profiles appear above organic search results, offering you an advantage over your opponents for capturing potential clients who don’t scroll down.

Normally it is easier to get your Google Business Profile to rank, so you might want to focus on this aspect first.

SEO for Featured Snippets

Featured Snippets, which sometimes also are called position zero, are short snippets of information that come with each search result. They appear at the top of the page, and the intention from Google is to answer the query you input into the search engine as quickly as possible.

These snippets appear as standard paragraphs, bulleted lists, or even tables. When you manage to have your content appear in the Featured Snippets, you have a great opportunity of generating more leads for your firm, as yours will be the first form of information people see.

To get exposure in the Featured Snippets, you must undertake some SEO to become recognized as the most relevant answer for that search query. This differs from standard SEO and requires the skillset of an agency to ensure the best possible results.

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SEO Benefits For Criminal Defense Lawyers

Simply put, better SEO will bring more potential clients to your business. According to Capterra, as much as 70% of law firms gain new clients from their websites. That includes anyone who filled out the contact form, emailed, or called them. Seventy percent is a huge volume of additional clients, which is why getting your SEO in order is so important.

The biggest issue you face as a criminal defense firm is that law-related keywords are very competitive, which makes it very difficult to rank for them without the efforts of a professional agency.

Ultimately, if your law firm’s website isn’t showing on the first page of Google, you will be missing out on an abundance of potential leads.

SEO to Get Results

Content Marketing

Executing a content marketing campaign is an excellent option for any criminal defense lawyer. A content marketing strategy should focus on original content that you get published on other companies’ blogs, which links back to your company website.

Publishing articles on other web pages with links to your website is an excellent way to increase traffic to your site and help improve your brand reputation, improving your SERP ranking.

Video Marketing

Video marketing is a huge aspect of generating search engine traffic. It can have a significant impact on improving your SEO ranking, not to mention helping potential clients feel more comfortable using your services.

Produce videos that introduce you and the team to potential clients and explain why you offer the best solutions for their needs.

Produce High-Quality Content

Producing original, high-quality content for your company’s website is vital for successful SEO. Optimized content will help your law firm’s web pages rank and will further increase your authority and credibility in the digital space.

High-quality content is also a vital aspect of any backlink strategy. Anyone searching for your content is probably on the hunt for an attorney, so it is important to focus on creating content that answers related questions.

Another smart option is to include an FAQ section for anyone that visits your site, to help readers understand the process of how everything works in the justice system. Calming them and establishing your expertise makes them much more likely to contact you.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO includes several aspects in addition to writing incredible and engaging content. Here are some of the other aspects that impact on-page SEO:

Source citations and references
Imagery and videos
Latent semantic indexing keywords
Internal and outbound links
Image optimization
Short and clear URL paths
Mobile-friendly content
Keywords in headings and subheadings
No 404 errors.

Focus on Local SEO

Local SEO allows you to rank highly in search engines for searches conducted by people in your local area.

As criminal defense keywords are extremely competitive, it is vital for you to focus on targeting local leads. Leave it to the national law firms to target the general population and allow us to help you get your brand in front of potential clients in your area.

Run a Backlink Campaign

Finally, executing a backlink campaign is another excellent route to take and one that closely ties into your content marketing strategy.

With a backlink campaign, you can create inbound links to your website from reputable websites, showing Google and other search engines that you are a reputable source of information and improving your overall ranking.

Let Gladiator Law Marketing Run Your Criminal Defense SEO Strategy

Unless you are well-versed in criminal defense SEO, the best option to secure success for your criminal defense firm is by teaming up with a professional SEO agency, such as Gladiator Law Marketing.

At Gladiator Law Marketing, we are a team of legal SEO experts who specialize in helping law firms dominate the first-page rankings.

Get in touch with us today to understand how we can support your law firm’s website SEO and take your brand to the next level.

SEO for Criminal Defense Lawyers

You help your criminal defense clients identify the best options for their future.