It is a common question for people at all stages of their website and brand development: when should attorney marketing start incorporating SEO? SEO (search engine marketing) is a fundamental part of many website redesigns and the correct answer is almost always the same: as soon as you can. Why? With so many moving pieces, now is the time to set up something new and improved that you can build on into the future. Building a website and then figuring out SEO content can lead to revisions and changes, creating more work than necessary. Or even worse, doing work that you later don’t need. More importantly, a website is only useful when people see it.
To get people to see it, you need to focus on SEO.
Before building a website, building a plan for SEO can help you to rank for competitive keywords. Building trust with Google isn’t something that happens overnight, so you need to get to work as soon as possible to see results. The time it takes you to build and launch a website that you are proud of will work in your favor – since Google takes a while to crawl websites (in order to reduce the amount of spam they show), you will be able to bolster your content and make it better.
The SEO process can take anywhere from a month up to a year, depending on the niche. However, you should start to see an impact on your rankings quickly, they just might not be the full impact right away. When you are competing with other law firms who employ similar attorney marketing tactics, it can take even longer. Then, Google has to go in and take a deeper look at your content and understand who is the best option to place in their first spot. Luckily, we know what Google is looking for and what the trust signals are – and how to build them into a beautiful website. The SEO process can start as soon as you decide on a domain name.
Figuring out your domain name is the first step because from there, the SEO work that you do can move forward quickly. Why? You can work on multiple facets of the SEO process at the same time. Of course, website design is a big part of conversion and actually finding clients (the ultimate goal of attorney marketing), you need to put those first steps into place so that people actually get to your website.
The on-page SEO process requires content creation, optimization of HTML, fine-tuning the user experiencing, creating banners and images, and more. All of this factors into your SEO. Every single element of your website can help you with ranking if you know what you are doing. Then, there is off page SEO that has nothing to do with your website at all. Instead, you have to think about citations, Google profiles, links, Google analytics, other search consoles, influencers, press releases, reviews, social media, PPC, advertisements, and even guest blogs.
SEO is a lot of work and it is complicated. There isn’t a shortcut. You have to do the work to see real, long term results.
The good thing is that most SEO campaigns can roll out slowly and start to work almost immediately if you combine good attorney marketing practices with best practices for SEO. Every step that you take will start working towards your ultimate goal – you do not have to launch everything at once. You do not have to sit and wait for Google to take notice in order for some of your work to bring in new leads.
For many people, keeping your domain address is simple and the best way to start rebuilding your SEO and marketing. However, there is a caveat: if you have used bad SEO practices in the past, Google has already decided that you aren’t worth their time. Getting back in their good graces is difficult and requires far more work than just setting up a new SEO campaign.
If you are interested in building a website and/or an SEO campaign as part of your attorney marketing strategy, contact ION Results Marketing today.
Literally the best online marketing team on the East Coast. The level of attention and results I've received as a customer of theirs has surpassed every expectation I had when I engaged them, and we've happily expanded the services we are receiving as we've moved forward.
Benari Law
ION is run by solid marketing experts with a focus on creating a strategy that is effective and give you a good ROI. They are ethical and transparent which is hard to find from other providers that offer internet marketing these days. Definitely recommend them!
Nebraska Interstate Drug Defense
Their thought leadership and guidance in performance marketing has shaped our digital strategy, delivered tangible improvement to all our digital efforts, and most importantly, helped deliver qualified leads to our sales teams.
Customer
Highly knowledgeable about how to undertake Search Engine Optimization (SEO) projects... Their strategies went a long way in winning the first page of Google.
Customer