Lawyer SEO

[standenman]

I am solo attorney in a niche market. I enjoyed a high SERP ranking on Google until the last year. In looking at SEO issues for attorneys, it appears that listings on avvo, yelp, justia, findlaw matter. So it seems to me that I as a solo attorney never compete with a firm that has several laywers: I have one avvo listing, they have 7, etc. Anybody agree or disagree?

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Disagree.

Those are citation sources, which help but ultimately don't decide your fate. Give us a few example competitors and your site (or PM them) and we'll give you some action items to go work on.

My guess is they have a better website answering more questions that customers have. They also probably have a stronger backlink profile because they've invested in more linkable assets and outreach. Then we could probably get into your social media strategy/remarketing/overall offsite branding.

If you're listed on all the same sites the competitors are, it doesn't really matter the quantity. You need to look at what else you're doing to promote the business and keep it top of mind.

 

[Digitaldar]

I think many lawyers are investing heavily in SEO agencies (or just SEO); I'd look at backlink profiles.... many firms do regular scholarships as a means of getting links, especially from .edu sites.

 

[bhartzer]

Most likely the other lawyers are going to have their listings point to the same domain name. I don't think it's a benefit to have more than one AVVO listing, at least when it comes to links.

When it comes to actual search engine rankings, there are so many other factors that come into play that I don't think it's a concern.

As a solo lawyer, you have much more control over the content on your website, for example, and it's content. A larger law firm tends to have 'red tape' so to speak, just to get changes made or updates posted on their website.

 

[AndiFox]

I have worked solely in the legal SEO field for the last 2.5 years.
What you need is:

1. Link building (DA of 30+)
2. Good, long, informative blogs, with good use of white space, bullet points, anchor links, alt text/titled photos with great eye catching titles
3. Long practice pages using the above elements
4. Yelp, Yext, Bright Local
5. Social Media cross pollinating your blogs into your social media as well as engaging posts
6. Make sure you only have one H1 on every page
7. Make sure every single thing is consistent with Google, right down to commas
8. Good site speed

SEO should NOT cost you a fortune unless you are doing PPC in which the highest cost should be for your actual ads and not the person running them.

 

[Ray Litvak]

Were you ranking in the Organic listings, Local 3 Pack or both?
Have you claimed your Google My Business listing and optimized it for your niche? If not, doing so could help.

 

[SEO Travis]

I am solo attorney in a niche market. I enjoyed a high SERP ranking on Google until the last year. In looking at SEO issues for attorneys, it appears that listings on avvo, yelp, justia, findlaw matter. So it seems to me that I as a solo attorney never compete with a firm that has several laywers: I have one avvo listing, they have 7, etc. Anybody agree or disagree?

It sounds like you aren't building citations. Citations are important. You do not want to build so many that Google thinks you are just a spam website.

I advise you find the terms in the cities you are trying to rank for and see what top 10 citation websites are being used. As in, they are ranking in the top 10 searches.

Then see what you can do to get higher positioned on those sites. This could help with getting more clients. It will help with SEO for sure, but may not make a huge impact since they are just citations.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

To answer your question about them having more lawyers and whether or not that is a competitive advantage when it comes to citations:

No, there is no competitive advantage. They are for 7 different profiles (attorneys) which means the citation power is split 7 different ways for Avvo.

What SEO really boils down to is 4 areas:

• Citations
• Online Reviews
• Website Optimization
• Backlinks

There are 200+ different factors Google looks at when it comes to ranking websites but all 200+ can be fit under these 4 categories.

Work on these 4 things (or better yet, hire a reputable SEO company to do it) and you'll be fine.