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The best search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for personal injury lawyers is the one that generates results.
In this guide, we look at the ins and outs of a comprehensive SEO strategy for personal injury lawyers and law firms.
With the right approach, you position your website to generate traffic and visibility with the idea of converting it to clients.
Attract more qualified case leads to your law firm with our results-driven marketing services.
Why SEO strategy is important for personal injury lawyers
Developing and designing a high-quality website is a good start, but it’s just that — a start.
You need to drive eyeballs to your website, and that’s based largely on your ability to rank at or near the top of the search engines for your target keywords.
Before we proceed, let’s take a look at an example. Maybe you’re a personal injury lawyer in Detroit seeking to drive more search engine traffic. One of your first tasks is to create a list of target keywords based on three primary factors: relevancy, monthly search volume, and competition.
Relevancy means choosing keywords that match your law firm and the services you offer. For example:
- Detroit personal injury lawyer
- Detroit personal injury attorney
- Car accident attorney Detroit
- Truck accident lawyer Detroit
- Detroit motor vehicle accident attorney
With a strong list of keywords, turn your attention to monthly search volume. You can dig up this information using a tool such as Ahrefs or Semrush. The higher the volume the greater chance there is of driving traffic to your website.
Finally, use the same tools to unearth search competition. Ideally, find keywords that are medium to high volume with low competition.
There are many reasons why you should devote time, money, and resources to improving your website’s search engine rankings.
Consider the following:
- Improve visibility
- Establish authority within your legal niche
- Generate traffic
- Supplement other marketing tactics
8 tips to optimize personal injury law firm SEO
Now that you know why an SEO strategy for personal injury lawyers is important, let’s turn our attention to eight tips that can help you achieve your short and long-term goals with SEO.
1. Position your website for success
Don’t dive headfirst into an SEO strategy without an idea of what you want to accomplish.
Doing so can lead you down the wrong path, thus costing you time and money. Not to mention the fact that you give your competitors a leg up.
Develop your goals and audit what you already have.
The way you develop and design your law firm’s website has a lot to do with your future results.
Some things to keep in mind:
- A clean, modern website is a must: By impressing your audience with a well-designed website, you also improve its bounce rate and speed. Both of these things are important to compete for the top spot in Google.
- Focus on producing unique, engaging, quality content: Content is and always will be king when it comes to search engine optimization. Your website should be full of unique content that engages your audience. This includes both landing pages — such as About and Services — and blog posts.
- Include a contact form: It’s not good enough to drive traffic to your website. Your goal is to generate leads. The best way to do that is to make your contact information highly visible. In addition to a contact form, place your phone number in a prominent location (such as the top right corner of the header).
Don’t rush through the process of developing and setting up your personal injury website. Do whatever it takes to get it right the first time around.
2. Mobile-friendly design
This wasn’t as big of a deal 10+ years ago, but today it’s an absolute must. According to Statista, mobile devices account for approximately 54 percent of all website traffic.
Think about that—half of the people who visit your website will do so on a smartphone or tablet. So, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it’s time to make some changes.
Two reasons why a mobile-friendly design is critical:
- It’s inviting to the user: Have you ever visited a website that isn’t mobile-friendly? If so, you know that navigating it is next to impossible. You don’t want your audience to have that same experience. Invite them in so they stick around.
- SEO-friendly: A site that isn’t mobile-friendly is a site that will struggle to reach its full potential. Mobile-friendliness is a ranking signal in both Google and Bing’s algorithms.
The percentage of people browsing the internet on mobile devices should continue to increase in the years to come. This makes a mobile-friendly design a must — not optional.
3. Blogging
Search engines love unique, high-quality, fresh content. And for that reason, you should get into the habit of publishing new blog articles on a regular schedule.
As a general rule, set the goal of writing and publishing a minimum of four blog posts per month. This works out to roughly one per week, which is a schedule that most people — even newcomers — can adhere to.
Tip: if you don’t have the internal resources to create content, consider hiring a freelance contractor and/or using AI (such as ChatGPT) to bring efficiency to the process.
Before you get started, create a content calendar that outlines details such as:
- Topic idea
- Audience
- Proposed publish date
- Primary and secondary keywords
The more content you create, the easier it becomes to determine what has the best chance of moving the needle.
Ideas to get you through the first month or two include:
- How-to guides: Examples include “How to File a Personal Injury Claim” and “What To Do After a Car Accident.”
- Specific legal scenarios: Recent changes to personal injury law, such as those resulting from specific cases.
- Case results: Settlements won for clients or jury verdicts in your favor.
- Informative content: Ideas such as “Common Causes of Car Accidents” and “How Much is a Personal Injury Claim Worth?”
- News: Recent news from your area pertaining to personal injury law.
Sticking with the example above, if you cater largely to car accident victims, you could create a blog post titled “How to File a Personal Injury Claim After a Motor Vehicle Accident.”
Not only is that topic highly relevant to your audience, but it positions you as an authority and someone prospective clients should consider.
4. Keyword research
Gone are the days of stuffing your content with keywords, watching it move to the top of the search engines, and taking advantage of a boatload of traffic.
Today, every piece of content you create should answer this question: What does the reader need to know?
Keyword stuffing your content will actually hurt your search ranking, but organically working the terms in will help your chances.
Research keywords (and your competitors’ keywords) before you create any type of content, especially blog posts. You can do so with keyword analysis tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, and the Google Keyword Research Tool.
You should also use this opportunity to better understand what your competitors are doing.
Answer questions such as:
- What primary and secondary keywords are your competitors optimized for?
- Where does their content currently rank?
- What can you do to ensure that your content is of higher quality?
Don’t spend so much time reviewing your competitors that you neglect your own keyword research. But make sure you at least have a high-level overview of their approach and how you can overcome them in the search rankings.
Here are some additional tips for conducting keyword research:
Understand your client’s needs
Identify the types of cases your firm specializes in and the types of clients you want to attract. Use this information to guide your keyword research. For instance, if your firm specializes in car accidents, keywords like “car accident attorney” or “auto injury lawyer” could be beneficial.
Analyze competitors
Look at the websites of competing law firms. Identify the keywords they are using and ranking for. This can help you discover new keywords and understand the competitive landscape.
Consider long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords, which are typically phrases with three or more words, often have less competition and can attract more qualified leads. Examples could be “motorcycle accident lawyer in [your city]” or “workplace injury legal advice”.
Track and adjust accordingly
SEO is an ongoing process. It’s not a “set it and forget it” strategy. Monitor your keyword performance regularly and adjust your strategy as needed. Remember, the goal is not just to drive traffic, but to attract potential clients who need the services your law firm provides.
5. On-page SEO
As noted above, it’s imperative to develop a high-quality website that provides visitors with a good user experience. While doing so, devote the time necessary to on-page SEO.
On-page SEO means optimizing individual pages of your website in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic from search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page. Off-page SEO refers to links and other external signals.
In other words, even if you create the highest quality content in your niche, it doesn’t guarantee that it’ll rank well in the search engines. There are other factors that impact your rank in search engines.
Google’s crawler bots sift the internet for webpages, so your website must be organized properly from day one. When combined with the right content and keywords, there’s a greater chance of reaching your goals.
Another big part of on-page SEO is including the right types of landing pages. In addition to regularly published blog posts, static pages should include:
- About
- Contact
- Frequently asked questions
- Help
- Resources
- Attorney bio pages
Even if you don’t have in-depth knowledge of on-page SEO, you must make sure the basics are in place. Neglecting to do so can kill your chances of generating a high volume of search traffic or prospective clients.
6. Attorney search engine optimization
As noted in section #5 above, attorney bio pages are a big part of law firm websites. A friendly face is a welcome sight for any visitor, but there’s also SEO value in including bios.
When people search for one of your attorneys by name, your website should be the first search result they see.
If a potential client wants to get in touch, don’t make them scour the internet for your law firm’s website. Use the right terms to describe the attorney’s practice areas so that someone searching for that specific service will push your law firm into the search results.
Here are some finer details of optimizing attorney pages:
- Keyword Usage: Incorporate relevant keywords (like “car crash attorney” or “motorcycle accident lawyer in [city]”) in the page title, meta description, headers, and content to improve search visibility.
- Content Quality: Provide valuable, unique, and informative content that addresses common client questions and concerns.
- Local SEO: Optimize your attorney’s page for local search by including the physical location, and local phone number, and integrating Google Maps.
An attorney page optimized with successful SEO tactics should rank for your target audience.
7. Local SEO
If you haven’t done so yet, stop reading and create your “Google My Business” profile. This improves the likelihood of your website being seen in local searches.
For instance, if you’re a personal injury lawyer in San Diego, you want to rank for terms such as “San Diego personal injury lawyer” and “personal injury lawyer in San Diego.”
While Google Business is your jumping-off point, other legal-specific websites also allow you to create a profile. Avvo and FindLaw are two of the most popular.
Add your law firm to as many legal directories and local directories as you can find. It helps you brand your brand, improve your search engine rankings, and drive traffic to your website.
8. Get Google Reviews
Today, more people than ever before read Google reviews before choosing a service. This holds in every industry imaginable, from law firms to landscaping.
While you can’t compensate people for leaving a positive review, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask your clients to leave an honest review.
When your client engagement comes to an end, ask the person if they’ll leave you a review on Google (and other websites, if applicable).
As long as you’re confident that they’ll say something positive—it’s always worth requesting.
Law firm SEO is important, but only if you play by the rules. You don’t want to blur any lines that could mislead others and get you in hot water.
Here are some other tips you can follow to obtain more Google reviews include:
- Send email reminders: Incorporate a call-to-action in your email communications, reminding clients to share their experiences on Google.
- Share a review link: Make the process easier by providing a direct link to your Google review page in your emails, website, and social media platforms.
- Provide industry-leading service: Prioritize superior customer service and positive client interactions.
- Respond to reviews: Actively respond to all reviews, both positive and negative, showing that you value client feedback, which can encourage more clients to leave reviews.
These simple tips can have a major impact on the number of Google reviews your law firm receives.
Related reading: Ethical Regulations in Legal Marketing
Find success with our SEO strategy for personal injury lawyers
With this guidance, you have everything you need to create an SEO strategy that will generate leads and traffic over the long run.
It doesn’t always come easy and results take time, but a persistent and consistent approach will tilt the scales in your favor.
When you have a dedicated strategy to commit to, you’ll find yourself moving in the right direction at all times.
See how Kaleidico can help you reach lead generation goals and get the best cases.
We know what it takes to get your law firm to the top. Let’s talk about it!
