When someone is seriously hurt in an accident that was not their fault, they need a lawyer who will protect their rights and interests. So how do people find a personal injury attorney? The majority start by looking online. That’s why Personal Injury lawyer SEO matters. It could be the difference between a potential client seeing your law firm’s site on Google’s first page or them not seeing it at all.
At SunRize Marketing, we provide law firm SEO services. It is our mission to help lawyers build a credible online presence so that they can connect with more qualified clients. We have extensive experience working with personal injury law firms. Here, our digital marketing team provides a comprehensive guide to SEO for personal injury attorneys in 2022.
What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process of improving both the quantity and the quality of a website’s traffic. SEO targets unpaid website traffic—and it does so primarily through enhancing the visibility that a website has on search engine results.
Google is the dominant search engine. According to data from Statista, 83.8 percent of global searches conducted in July of 2022 occurred on Google. Moreover, the company has had the dominant share of the global search market for nearly two decades.
Why Do Personal Injury Attorneys Need Strong SEO Practices?
The legal industry is notoriously competitive—and personal injury law may be the most competitive practice area. According to IBISWorld, there are nearly 50,000 practicing personal injury lawyers in the United States. With some exceptions, it is more difficult for personal injury lawyers to build a long-term relationship with a particular client. Most often, someone will need to hire a personal injury lawyer after a serious accident. Once their case is resolved, they may not need a personal injury attorney for many years or ever again. For this reason, new clients are crucial for personal injury law firms.
Word-of-mouth recommendations are still important. However, an increasing number of people are finding their personal injury attorneys online. For this reason, it is imperative that personal injury lawyers and personal injury law firms have strong and well-structured SEO practices in place. The right SEO strategy can be the difference between an injured victim who desperately needs reliable legal representation seeing your profile at the top of the Google results and a victim never hearing about your law firm at all. A prospective client may hire a competing personal injury lawyer solely because he or she has better SEO rankings.
Does SEO Really Work? Does it Create Viable Leads?
You may be wondering: Does SEO actually work for personal injury lawyers? After all, the marketing goal of a personal injury attorney is not to get the most views for a website. It is to get qualified and viable leads to actually contact your law firm so that you can set up a consultation and connect with victims and families who you may be able to help. The answer to the question is that SEO absolutely works for lawyers and law firms. The right SEO strategy can be especially effective for personal injury attorneys as so many people who need to hire a personal injury lawyer are starting their inquiry with a Google search.
SEO is about more than just driving traffic. A well-considered SEO strategy is about both quantity and quality. Of course, driving organic, unpaid traffic through SEO strategy is not necessarily going to be the totality of a personal injury law firm’s digital marketing strategy. Indeed, many personal injury lawyers can benefit from pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The right law firm PPC strategy can drive additional qualified local leads to a personal injury lawyer.
Personal Injury Lawyers Need to Understand their Target Client Base
Many personal injury attorneys know SEO is important—but there are a lot of questions about how to do it. Unfortunately, too many SEO and digital marketing strategies fail to produce the desired results because lawyers and law firms do not have a well-honed understanding of their target audience. In 2022, search engine rankings are competitive. Still, there are a lot of opportunities out there for personal injury lawyers who take the right approach. A successful SEO strategy requires:
- A crystal clear understanding of who you want to reach;
- Knowledge of the best keywords to use to improve search performance; and
- A plan for ranking in the right categories for your target audience
An Overview of What Makes a Good Website for a Personal Injury Lawyer
One of the most underrated parts of developing a successful SEO strategy is putting together a good website. Did you know that bad website design could ruin your law firm’s marketing? Ultimately, a personal injury law firm’s website is the foundation of its digital marketing effort. You cannot build something successful on a flimsy foundation. Frustrated potential clients are likely to simply click away from a poorly designed or hard-to-use website. That means leads that are not being converted and, eventually, damage to your search engine performance. Here are four key things that make a good website for a personal injury lawyer:
- SEO Optimized: First and foremost, a website for a personal injury attorney should be SEO optimized. The search performance of a website will depend, in large part, on the quality of its SEO. An otherwise great website for a personal injury attorney that is not SEO optimized will underperform.
- User-Friendly and Informative: The user experience matters. How easy is it for a potential client to navigate the website and find all of the information that they are looking for? Can they quickly and seamlessly find information about specific personal injury practice areas? Are they able to find the professional credential of the firm’s lawyers? A user-friendly experience matters.
- Visually Appealing: A personal injury law firm website should be visually appealing. The simple reality is that the look of a website matters. A website with a poor or very stale design is likely to be viewed as less authoritative or potentially even untrustworthy by potential clients.
- Call to Action and Clear Contact Options: A website is, in a way, a marketing funnel. As a general rule, a person is not going to hire a personal injury lawyer based solely on their website. They are going to want to contact them for a consultation. A website should make it as easy as possible for a potential client to schedule a consultation with a personal injury lawyer. You do not want a potential lead leaving the website without contacting you.
What is the Best Strategy for Doing SEO for a Personal Injury Law Firm
Whether you are trying to implement a marketing strategy for a big law firm or managing a small law firm, you must have a well-designed SEO strategy in place. Google’s algorithms are more advanced than they have ever been before. SEO must be comprehensive. How do you optimize search engine results for a personal injury law firm? Here are some key elements of an SEO strategy:
- Keyword Research: Keywords are still a key part of search. While a rudimentary “keyword stuffing” approach will get a website penalized by the algorithms, a well-tailored use of keywords improves performance. You need to know the right keywords for your audience.
- Content Creation: Content is king in SEO in 2022. Personal injury law firms should be prepared to produce balanced, high-quality content that is reliable and consistent with their services.
- Onsite Optimization: On-site optimization is sometimes called on-page SEO. It is the practice of optimizing the individual elements of a website for SEO performance and search engine rankings.
- Local SEO: The data is clear: People want a local personal injury lawyer. Local SEO is critically important. If you are a car accident attorney in South Florida, it does not matter if your website is performing well in Los Angeles. You need SEO tailored to your local market.
- Link Building: Link building is a crucial part of SEO. When other websites link to your website, it will increase its performance. The expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) score of a website goes up when it has backlinks from other reliable websites.
- Google My Business: Google My Business is a service. All personal injury lawyers should have a well-developed and accurate Google My Business profile. Not only do potential clients refer directly to this profile, but a Google My Business profile also affects SEO performance.
Five Technical SEO Factors to Consider for Personal Injury Lawyers
Search engine optimization has both technical and non-technical elements. The Search Engine Journal defines technical SEO as “all of the technical aspects of your website that affect SEO.” It is the process of ensuring that a personal injury lawyer’s website meets the current technical standards of a modern search engine. Key technical SEO factors include:
- An XML compatible sitemap;
- Fixing crawl errors that could undermine SEO performance;
- Fully secure with SSL (secure sockets layer);
- Proper hosting with sufficient speed; and
- Mobile-friendly interface.
Content Tips for SEO for Personal Injury Law Firms
For personal injury law firms, content is a key part of improving search engine performance, driving organic traffic, and finding viable leads. Loading up a website with low-quality or irrelevant content is not going to produce successful results. Here are three content tips for personal injury lawyers:
- All content should always be relevant to your target audience. Only relevant content is likely to improve SEO performance and the number of qualified leads.
- High-quality content makes the difference. It is the content that people want to read that will improve SEO rankings.
- New content should be regularly updated. While certain types of high-quality evergreen content can perform well for a very long time, fresh content is important for SEO performance.
How to Track Your SEO and Digital Marketing Performance
One of the core advantages of implementing SEO practices as part of your law firm’s marketing strategy is that you can easily track performance. A top digital marketing team, such as the professionals at SunRize Marketing, will carefully measure the results of an SEO strategy. The SEO performance can be evaluated with industry-leading web tracking and keyword tracking tools. This means that you will always have the analytics you need to measure and improve performance.
Why Choose SunRize Marketing for Personal Injury Lawyer SEO?
SEO is complicated. Personal injury lawyers have a lot of professional obligations on their plate. No one goes to law school, passes the bar, and develops a professional practice to become a digital marketing expert. Still, SEO practices are key to running a successful personal injury law firm in 2022. The team at SunRize Marketing has extensive experience working with small, mid-sized, and large law firms. We put forward the time, resources, and attention to detail to develop the digital marketing and SEO strategy that is best suited for your personal injury law firm.
Contact Our SEO Professionals for Personal Injury Lawyers Today
At SunRize Marketing, our SEO professionals help personal injury attorneys and personal injury law firms establish a strong digital presence so that they can connect with more clients. If you have any specific questions about SEO strategy for personal injury lawyers, we are more than ready to help. Contact us today to set up your initial appointment and to learn more about our services.