Link building for Law firms

First, from an Lawyer SEO perspective, search engines like Google and others view link building for law firms, especially those from authoritative domains, as votes of confidence in a website. Essentially, if a webpage has something worth linking to, it likely provides some valuable information, entertainment, helpful resources, or some other kind of positive user experience.

Beyond the Off-page SEO considerations, links to a law firm’s website and the process by which they are earned, have other positive effects. First, they provide additional exposure for a law firms brand, and potential traffic to the firm’s site from relevant sources. The process of link earning can also introduce the firm to individuals who could potentially provide referrals, ideas, networking opportunities or other value to the firm’s marketing efforts.

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?

Backlinks basically refer to links other sites cite back to your firm. They are the equivalent of votes for Google and every time you get a backlink, consider this a BIG WIN! But, why should firms focus on quality over quantity? Simple: For law firms, prioritizing a high-quality backlink strategy over sheer quantity is the key to unlocking long-lasting growth over time, as it signals to both search engines and potential clients that your firm is a credible, authoritative, and trustworthy source of legal expertise.

Backlinks are important for a few reasons: 

• Effective backlinking is part of SEO optimization that helps improve your search engine ranking
• High-quality backlinks operate like endorsements or referrals from other websites since they are pointing their audience to your content. 
• Search engines use backlinks to determine the authority and relevance of your website.

White-hat vs. black-hat link building

When Google was still fairly new, its algorithms looked more at how many links a website had pointed to it, vs. how authoritative or relevant they were. After website owners realized that it was, at that point, a numbers game, the race was on to get as many links as possible, regardless of how.

Google, again in an effort to provide its users with the best possible experience, soon began making updates to its algorithm in terms of how it treated links when ranking web pages. More value was seen, over time, from links that came from relevant and authoritative sources, and “link-spam” was devalued and in some cases manual actions have been issued by Google that affect the search visibility of websites.

Black-hat SEO essentially involves anything that is against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines A few examples of black-hat linking techniques include:

• Buying links
• Participating in link-schemes
• Using or buying links from link networks or link farms
• Great, helpful blog posts
• Informative pages with unique content and perspective
• Creative assets

While white-hat link building is far more laborious, in the long run it will keep law firms out of trouble, and yield the best results. It is difficult, but worth it.

What kinds of links have the most benefit for law firm?

Links are not all equal in value in terms of referring traffic, or SEO value. Some of the best links to secure are:

• From “high authority” domains (websites that have been linked to by other trusted domains)
• From domains with local relevance. Local businesses, organizations, colleges, etc.
• From domains relevant to your business
• .Gov & .Edu links (These are especially are sought after as signals of trust and quality)
• Those that have “anchor text” (i.e. the highlighted words that are clicked) that is relevant to the page or website. “Car accident lawyer” may be good anchor text for a law firms auto accident page, however too many links with the same anchor text can appear to be “overoptimized” and can be a negative signal.

How can a law firm build good quality, high authority links?

A typical law firm’s practice-area pages will not organically attract great links. However, by adding some exceptional content on their site and using proper outreach to potential linking sites, a law firm can have a much better chance of building a strong backlink profile and improving their rankings. Some potential sources of strong links for law firm websites include:

• Operating a scholarship competition.
• Connecting with organizations that the firm supports.
• Writing guest blogs for other authoritative sites.
• Cross-promoting content with other non-competing attorneys.
• Links from online profiles that are on reputable legal business directories, such as Avvo, or other sites based on the firm’s or lawyers’ affiliations.
• Small business citations (https://www.brightlocal.com/local-citation-sites-for-attorneys/)
• Writing truly unique content that illustrates the firm’s authority and expertise.
• Creative Assets

What should a law firm focus on when building a linkable content asset?

First, always have your audience in mind. Are you developing a resource that has a powerful impact on the potential audience? Who are they and what types of information are they currently seeking? In addition to your website audience, you need to think about the linking audience. What kinds of organizations, businesses, schools or other entities might be interested in linking to your content asset.

Think about interaction. Can the information you are providing be found elsewhere? Is it full of large blocks of text or something more engaging? Does your asset provide ways for people to interact with it, to share it with others, or to promote it?

Lastly, does it cover a trending topic that might naturally generate shares and links? Developing an asset that digs into a future trend or forces your audience to think outside of the box can be a great way to earn links as well.

How to do Link building for Law firm websites?

Link building, in general, is not an easy activity in which to find success. When it comes to a law firm’s website, it can be especially difficult. There are several reasons why:

• People and organizations can be skeptical about law firms and the content of their websites.
• Many important law firm website pages are “commercial” or promotional in nature. Linking to a promotional page is often not highly desirable.
• It takes a lot of time and resources to create great content for a law firm website, and to do proper outreach to build links.
• Some websites, such as non-profit or health-related websites may say that they don’t want to show preference to a specific law firm by linking to them. They want to remain “neutral”.

4 Steps to Boost Your Website Backlink Strategy

If backlinks are an important part of SEO strategy, how do you get them?

You could simply wait for other websites to discover you and naturally link out to your content, but the more effective way is to take a proactive approach. Here are four steps to take: 

1. 1. Identify Your Target Audience
      

      Start by getting really clear on who you want to reach. Your target audience may be based on a few demographic factors such as:

      • Age, gender, culture
      • Location 
      • Income or spending power
      • Online behavior

      When you know who you’re trying to reach, you can focus on building backlinks from websites that will be visited by your target audience. 

   2. Create High-Quality Content
      

      If you are creating quality content, it will speak for itself. Crafting compelling content is the cornerstone of a successful link-building strategy for law firms, as it not only showcases your expertise and thought leadership but also magnetizes organic backlinks that amplify your online authority and credibility.

      While there are many tips and tricks you can implement, we’ll start by saying: 

      • Understand your audience: What are their needs? Preferences? Pain points? 
      • Keep up-to-date with legal trends, industry news, and recent verdicts to ensure your content remains fresh, informative, and valuable to readers
      • Experiment with diverse content formats e.g. blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc. 
      • Create attention-grabbing headlines that pique curiosity
      • Incorporate relevant keywords

      The real secret to getting those sweet backlinks is to create content that’s so good, people can’t help but share it. So, don’t just settle for quantity – aim for quality and watch your backlinks soar. Here are some pieces of content that are highly relevant to your audience:

      • Blogs and articles
      • Interviews
      • Whitepapers
      • Podcasts
      • Videos

      And what happens when you’ve got content but don’t know exactly how to get the most out of it? We’ve got you covered. 

      Take Full Advantage of Your Media With Content Recycling Here 

   3. Reach Out to Relevant Websites
      

      The next part of your strategy is to compile a list of relevant websites and directories that may want to link your content. Again, the goal is always to provide value to your target audience, so make sure you are choosing sites that align with your goals, mission, and values. 

      You may choose to reach out to: 

      • Industry directories
      • Thought leaders with blogs or published articles
      • Publications
      • Company websites

      When you reach out, do so with the intent to build a relationship and serve your mutual target audience. Quality is much more important than quantity, so consider only websites that have high authority and provide value to your audience. 

   4. Monitor and Maintain Backlinks
      

      Ideally, your outreach strategy results in a number of other websites linking back to your content. Once you have backlinks, it’s important to monitor them regularly. Periodically check for new backlinks and remove ones that are low-quality or irrelevant. You can assess the backlinks by answering these 2 questions: 

      • Are the backlinks still active? 
      • Are they sending the right kind of traffic your way?

      Ultimately, you only want to keep a few, high-quality backlinks that will boost your SEO and overall site authority. 

Diversifying Your Link Profile

For a successful campaign, you want to make sure that your backlinks have a little bit of everything pointing back to your site, for example:

• Top-level domains like .com, .edu and .org
• Image links
• Follow
• Nofollow
• Niche directories
• Guest posts
• Local directories
• Internal links

You can also link practice area pages to each other, location pages, and other pages within your own site, which can often provide benefits as well.

Social media platforms can be a great way to get backlinks as well. Sharing blog articles or other industry news on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can be a great way for your website to get backlinks from some high-authority sites, and get clicks on your content.

Leverage Local Directories 

You should also submit your law firm’s website to reputable local directories and legal-specific listings. Why is this still relevant? Harnessing the power of local directories is a vital link-building strategy for law firms, as it not only bolsters local search visibility but also generates targeted backlinks that amplify credibility, driving a steady stream of potential clients right to your virtual doorstep.

Here are some legal directories we recommend leveraging: 

• Justia
• Avvo
• Nolo

Guest Posting 

Are you looking to build relationships with other legal professionals? Showcase your expertise? Enhance your reputation? Drive targeted traffic? One way to boost all of this is through guest posting. By contributing insights and offering your legal expertise with reputable legal blogs or news websites you are not only generating valuable backlinks but also positioning your law firm as an authority figure above the rest.

Varying Your Anchor Text

Anchor text is the actual word, phrase, or sentence that is tied to the link. Typically, your anchor text is a phrase that you imagine prospective clients will use to search for when looking for your services. Because the anchor text of a link sends a strong signal to the search engines, pages can begin to rank only due to the anchor text. This doesn’t mean that every single backlink should have an anchor text containing a strong search such as: “CITY NAME car accident lawyer.” That kind of over-optimization and lack of diversity can cause suspicion and work against you.

Maximize Your Referring Domains

Backlinks are often confused with referring domains, but in fact, they’re quite different. A referring domain is the actual domain that the backlink comes from, not the link itself. You may have several backlinks from one single referring domain. Just like with the quality of your backlinks, the number of referring domains you have pointing back to your site can give you a huge boost. The search engines don’t want to see a site that has 1,000 backlinks from five different referring domains. That can signify spammy tactics. The more high-authority referring domains you have, the more domain authority your site will gain, and the higher your rankings will climb.

In addition, if your SEO is increasing the backlinks to your site, they also need to increase the referring domains pointing to your site.

3 Link Building Pitfalls to Avoid When Promoting Your Law Firm Online

Are you investing or planning to invest in SEO? Then, this blog post is for you! Stay with us to discover the top mistakes and myths behind one of the most critical practices in law firm SEO. 

Law firm SEO is a crucial player behind a firm’s marketing ecosystem. To increase visibility, secure high-quality cases, increase credibility, and more, many firms are incorporating a wide range of marketing practices including creating high-quality content to rank higher in search engines and ultimately, to lure clients in and offer a helping hand. 

One way law firms are securing all of this is through blogging. The latest tech report by ABA finds that: 

As law firms continue to invest heavily in content creation in various forms (blogs, social posts, videos, etc.) it’s critical to make the best use of it all. While there are many best practices around legal content creation, we’ll start with one critical one: the link-building strategy.

 In this article, we’ll review the top 3 red flags and myths you should avoid. 

But, before that, let’s clarify the basics. 

What’s link building and why should law firms care about this?

Link building refers to getting other websites to link to your law firm’s page. Although the average user may not notice it, links are one of the most important ranking factors used by search engines like Google. 

Links are a critical part of your law firm’s SEO because: 

• It boosts credibility 
• It can boost your website traffic
• It gives you an authoritative voice
• It enhances referral traffic from one website to yours
• It increases visibility, exposure & more. 

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s touch on the top 3 myths around link building. 

Myth 1: “Link Building is Unnecessary” 

Link building is one of the most important elements of SEO for any business. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of myths and misconceptions about link building, and one of the most common myths is that link building is unnecessary.

 Like in any business, relationships are essential. In SEO, you build bridges and relationships through link building! 

Think of link building as your way of digitally building relationships with other websites. Ultimately, it’s about giving people a reason to link to your website. In addition to increasing exposure, link building can help you build authority. When other websites link to your website, they endorse you, which is extremely beneficial for your rankings. 

Myth 2: “Link Building is All About Quantity” 

Is quantity better than quality? In this case, no. Link building is essential to SEO, but it’s important to understand that it’s not all about quantity. Having more links can help increase your page’s visibility and rankings, but having too many low-quality links can do more harm than good.

Think of it this way: a quality link is a far more potent ‘vote’ of trust from Google than having 10 links directed to low-domain authority sites. Thus, the quantity can hurt your online reputation and ultimately signal Google to penalize your website!

Want to learn more about the industry’s bad practices and avoid the pitfalls? 

Uncover the Bad Practices in the Legal Marketing Industry

Myth 3: “Links Are Permanent” 

Links aren’t permanent. Like most digital marketing assets, they’re dynamic. Links can be removed, changed, or even broken over time.

For example, a website may decide to remove a link from one of its pages for any number of reasons – like a change in content strategy, or a change in website ownership. If that link goes away, then any SEO benefits associated with that link are gone as well.

In addition, even if the link remains in place, the page it points to may no longer exist or be updated regularly. This is known as a broken link.

Takeaway: Don’t Be Afraid to Dip Your Toes in SEO 

If you want the most (and the best) results from an SEO investment, it’s important to focus on even the ‘tiniest’ details, including link building.  

The abovementioned myths often lead people astray when building links, but link-building is still essential! While link building can be difficult, it is well worth the effort.

You’ve learned about the mistakes many law firms make in their backlink strategy. Uncover the 5 biggest link-building myths now and make sure you identify them before it’s too late.