What is Personal Injury Lawyer SEO?
Personal Injury Lawyer SEO involves techniques, strategies, and tactics that help generate more organic traffic and potential clients to a personal injury law firm’s website by securing first-page ranking positions in Google for the queries personal injury victims are searching for.
It’s clear that Google is the #1 resource for people when looking for legal services. In fact, as of 2020, 97% of people seeking legal advice used a search engine to do so. Referrals and word of mouth marketing are important, don’t get me wrong, but online search almost always dominates the research phase. Another recent study revealed that 74% of people visit a law firm’s website with the intention to take action.
How To Improve Your Personal Injury SEO Strategy?
Many elements of personal injury lawyer SEO have the opportunity to compound and increase value over time. SEO is an investment, and like any other investment, it takes time to see results. But, implementing a well thought out plan that aims to grow your personal injury lawyer SEO strategy, has the potential to magnify your online reach and reel in more personal injury clients than ever before. One way to scale your personal injury lawyer SEO strategy is by creating content that targets specific niche personal injury keywords that only personal injury victims are searching for. For example, keywords like “Personal Injury Lawyer”, “Car Accident Lawyer”, and “DUI Lawyer” are obvious, actually, they’re too obvious. And the reality for almost all personal injury lawyers is that the competition for these keywords doesn’t provide a realistic positive return for your personal injury SEO strategy. Instead, it’s important to seek out more specific and niche keywords with much less competition.
With each of my personal injury lawyer clients, I conduct custom and specific keyword research to identify gaps and opportunities in their local market that we can capitalize on with our personal injury lawyer SEO strategy. However, after hundreds of research hours, I’ve identified dozens of keywords and phrases that have proven to be fantastic SEO targets for any personal injury lawyer. I’ve created a free keyword research document that highlights those optimal personal injury lawyer keywords and a few other valuable content categories that can help drive traffic to your law firm. Regardless if you’re looking to improve your personal injury SEO, criminal defense SEO, or family law SEO, there are countless opportunities to capture traffic and reach your potential clients.
Download the FREE Personal Injury Lawyer SEO Keyword Research Sheet
In this sheet, you’ll find dozens of keywords or phrases to target and help your personal injury law firm generate high-quality leads using low competition keywords. SEO is all about strategy and targeting the best opportunities for your law firm and the local area. This list should provide a great place to start.
Focus on Local SEO
When implementing your SEO strategy it’s crucial to understand that the proximity or distance of the searcher matters. Google has evolved exponentially over the last 5-10 years and can now better understand the context of each individual search query more than ever. For example, if someone from Reading, PA searches for “Car Accident Lawyer”, Google will display lawyers who reside in Reading, PA, and who have also optimized their websites to target Reading, PA. Reading may be a smaller market compared to Philadelphia which is only 45 minutes away, but location and intent take precedence over everything else. This presents a massive opportunity for smaller law firms looking for ways to compete with the bigger firms.
It’s also safe to assume that the competition level in Reading, PA is far less than the competition level in Philadelphia, PA. This presents a realistic opportunity for personal injury lawyers looking to rank for terms that their potential clients are searching for. Sure, there are more car accident cases in Philadelphia, but that doesn’t mean there’s no one searching for a car accident lawyer in the smaller surrounding cities. Focusing on and targeting surrounding markets is often an incredibly effective strategy for personal injury SEO. A more refined search returns less search volume, but it also doubles or even triples the quality of the leads that you do capture. This is a strategy my clients and I often put a lot of emphasis on. My clients have seen some incredible results from simply retargeting and focusing on their local SEO strategy, I highly recommend taking a look at your own local market and identifying some of the small to medium-size towns that are under-represented.
Google My Business Tips For Personal Injury Lawyers
First things first, if you haven’t claimed a Google My Business (GMB) for your personal injury law firm, do that immediately. I can’t emphasize the importance of this asset enough. A strong and well-optimized GMB can completely transform your practice. Google My Business is a completely free and easy-to-use tool for your law firm that helps manage your online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. Other than providing potential clients with more information about your areas of practice and how you can help them, your GMB also shares the reviews past clients have left about your law firm. Reviews, particularly positive reviews, are used heavily by Google’s algorithm when ranking local businesses in Maps. In fact, some of the best real estate to have in search engine results is in the local 3-pack displayed for almost all non-branded searches like “personal injury lawyer, PA”.
Google Local 3-Pack
Google’s local 3-pack is a game-changer for your personal injury lawyer SEO strategy. When a potential client is searching for any kind of legal service, Google’s search algorithm will display the top 3 local law firms in the local area based on the cumulative reviews and optimization from each law firm’s Google My Business. The local 3 pack is so valuable because it displays at the top of the page before any of the organic results. A new study found that searchers click on one of the businesses in the local 3-pack almost 50% of the time.
Optimize Your Law Firm's GMB
So, how do you get your personal injury law firm into the Google local 3-pack? First, ensure all information fields in your GMB are fully filled out and utilizing the optimal personal injury areas you represent. Keyword research is a great idea to find out what terms your potential clients are most often searching for so that your law firm has a better chance of appearing as a result. Lastly, and most importantly, 5-star reviews are worth their weight in gold for local SEO. Google uses various ranking factors for local businesses, but none are valued as highly as client reviews. It’s no secret that clients can base their decision on which personal injury lawyer to use based on others’ experiences. Because of this, Google has rewards the law firms that have a proven track record of success and client satisfaction. Be sure to take every opportunity to not only ask for positive reviews from regular customers but also respond to reviews that have already been given. We’ll talk more about review generation techniques in the next tip for personal injury lawyer SEO.
Review Generation Strategy
Google has said that “high-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location. Although this is true for all businesses, it’s especially true for law firms. Whether you’re searching for a personal injury, criminal defense, disability, or business law lawyer, one commonality you’ll see with all of them is that the lawyers with the most 5 star reviews typically occupy the top results in Google maps. That’s why it’s so necessary to encourage clients to leave feedback about your personal injury services whenever possible. So how do you get more reviews from happy clients? It’s as simple as asking. It was found that 67% of consumers that are asked to leave reviews go on to do so. Be sure to incorporate a review generation strategy for your law firm. I said it earlier, and I’ll say it again, 5-star reviews are worth their weight in gold!
Leverage Personal Injury Lawyer Directories
There are generally two types of SEO, on-page SEO and off-page SEO, pretty self-explanatory. One of the main forms of off-page SEO is building links back to your website. Local citations are online mentions of the name, address, and phone number (also known as NAP) of your personal injury law firm. The legal industry offers countless directories for lawyers, all of which help boost your website’s expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EAT). Some of the more popular directories include Justia, Super Lawyers, Avvo, Nolo, and FindLaw. However, there are dozens of more legal directories that can help improve your overall credibility. I’m currently working on a comprehensive legal directories list, and I’ll be sure to share that with you all once it’s complete. Be sure to sign up for my legal marketing newsletter at the bottom of this page to get new tips sent directly to your email inbox.
Local citations help Internet users discover local businesses and can also impact local search engine rankings. Local citations also work as a trust signal for Google’s algorithm. The more credible citations that your law firm is listed on, the more trust Google has in your firm and is more likely to recommend your legal services to those searching for it. Some excellent places to claim local citations and boost your law firm’s online credibility is Yext, Bing Maps, Facebook, Yellowpages, Foursquare, Angie’s List, Yelp, and many more.
Contrary to popular belief, a citation does not need a link back to your law firm website for it to valuable, although it’s still recommended. The value in a citation is the mention of your personal injury law firm and services online. Google uses these mentions as signals that reward your website with more online credibility. The more mentions of your law firm’s name, phone number, attorneys, etc. online, the higher your website appears in the Google search results.
Local citation consistency is also crucial for local SEO performance. Ensure that all citation listings you’re filling out for your law firm have the same name, address, operating hours, and phone number. Conflicting information online can hurt you when Google is crawling these citation pages and determining where your law firm ranks online. Remember, it’s all about trust. Having a holistic approach to your local citations and personal injury SEO strategy, in general, is paramount for your overall success.
Measure, Measure, Measure!
There’s plenty of things that you can do to improve your personal injury lawyer SEO strategy. But unless you methodically measure the different SEO campaigns that you’re running and the data you’re seeing, you may not know what’s working and what’s not. One of the biggest problems I see with law firms using these “legal marketing agencies” is the lack of reporting and transparency. The truth about law firm SEO is that many lawyers have been taken advantage of for a long time from these agencies. My advice to you is to gain a general understanding of SEO and the best practices associated with it. Being able to fundamentally understand how to drive traffic to your website will help you tremendously when wading through the bullshit many people will try to sell you. I also recommend integrating Google Analytics and Google Search Console to your website; it’s not as hard as it sounds. These free to use tools provide valuable information from your website and the users who have visited. Did I mention it’s free? Tracking your data not only lets you see the progress your website has made but areas of opportunity that could be improved. You’ll be able to know where your law firm website is ranking for specific keywords and any increase or decrease in organic traffic to your website.
When measuring the user engagement on your website, it’s essential to pay close attention to the bounce rate and dwell time of users who visit your site. This gives an excellent insight into what visitors think of your website without them actually telling you. A high bounce rate on specific pages indicates that whatever users were hoping to find on that page isn’t there. Causing them to bounce from your website to another one, likely a competitor law firm who was able to better answer their question. Be sure to use this information to reexamine your content. Ask yourself, is my website answering visitors’ questions? To put it simply, it’s all about user intent. Put yourself in your client’s shoes, and be sure to include everything you’d be looking for if it were you. Seeking and hiring a lawyer is a huge decision for the average person. Doing everything you can to show your credibility and instill confidence in them that you’re the right personal injury lawyer for them is the best way to secure clients.
Ready to Kickstart Your Personal Injury SEO Strategy?
I’ve found my niche in the digital marketing industry by working almost exclusively with law firms and helping increase their online traffic. To me, there’s no better feeling than turning a law firm that relied on referrals to stay alive into a firm that receives countless leads organically. The personal injury category of law specifically presents so much opportunity because of the broad range of cases that can be represented. Having a custom and well thought out personal injury lawyer SEO strategy is one of the best decisions you can make for your law firm. Your phone won’t start ringing until your potential clients can find you online. Start there and success will follow!
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