How SEO can help law firms
by Jess Fields, President, Precision Outreach – Updated July 10, 2023
What is SEO and why does it matter?
In a nutshell, SEO is the practice of trying to get a website ranked high in the search results on search engines. What that really means is “Google,” because no other search engine comes close to its dominant stature. According to StatCounter, a whopping 93% of all web searches and an astonishing 96% – 96%! – of mobile searches come from Google.
Of the people who search for things on Google, 28.5 percent will click on the first link, according to Search Engine Journal. We’ve seen statistics that also put the number closer to 40%.
The second result gets 15.7 percent, the third result gets 11 percent, and the fourth and fifth results get 8 and 7.2 percent, respectively.
All told, the first five results on Google for any given search query get a whopping 70.4% of the traffic, according to that prior study. Again, we’ve seen statistics that weigh more heavily towards the first link, in particular. However, no matter how you slice the numbers, it’s obvious that being number 1 has enormous traffic benefits.
OK, but do law firms need SEO?
Yes. Law firms are top-flight candidates for SEO for several important reasons.
1. Regulations about advertising. Statutes relating to how law firms solicit clients are pretty restrictive. SEO could not be more different than what has commonly been called “ambulance chasing.” It’s like the difference between opening the door at someone’s home and asking to join their dinner party versus keeping your own door open for others to come and join your dinner party.
While advertising is legal for attorneys to find clients, it is also highly regulated. SEO is an opportunity for law firms to make themselves more present to provide helpful information to clients, and therefore avoid being accused of “ambulance chasing” altogether. It’s tremendously better, as potential clients are allowed to contact attorneys about possible relationships, no matter what the inverse of that might be.
2. Trust and authority. It goes without saying that the law sometimes suffers a dearth of trust in the eyes of the public. One of the greatest benefits of SEO for law firms is that it can create instant rapport with those who might need legal services. Folks who stumble across an article, video, or list that answers a question they have are often willing to investigate the services offered by the provider of information much more closely.
We often get the incredulous response, “come on – Google searches don’t create trust!” I assure you, as crazy as it sounds, they do.
This is a hurdle I almost always have to get over with my business clients in any industry, but you’ve got to trust me here: people, especially people under the age of 40, trust a lot of information on the internet without particular regard to the source. Google is explicitly trusted by people for every reason under the sun: locate a doctor or hospital, find a place of worship, find a funeral provider, on and on. SEO kills two birds with one stone. Helpful information, correctly ordered, helps you rank your website. However, ranking your website also creates an initial trust with leads who are then further engaged by helpful content.
3. Niches are riches. Generally speaking, law firms are not able to seek things like venture capital as most businesses can. In order to grow, they have to constantly attract clients – most law firms are perpetually “bootstrapping,” as many entrepreneurs say.
A great challenge of bootstrapping is finding business as easily as possible, so that you can balance between generating new business and taking care of existing business. Referrals will always be at the heart of this, as Harvard Business Review aptly points out. Law firm SEO meets the challenge by helping to locate what people actually need, and gauge how competitive the market is.
You can find exactly what people need and figure out how to meet that need, without having to beat as many competitors. This goes for any business, but it so happens that lawyers benefit more than most.
Imagine having the superpower of legal market omniscience, where you could see which areas of practice have the greatest need. SEO strategy, done correctly, gives you that power. There are indeed riches in niches, as is often said.
I think it’s worth examining a few specific markets to understand the exceptional opportunities that SEO presents to law firms. All data is current as of July 10, 2023, but will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. It’s unlikely that fewer people will need legal help in our increasingly complex world, after all!
Law firm SEO: Houston
Houston’s a great example of where SEO can help lawyers – assuming they have a law firm marketing expert to help them.
These numbers are pretty unbelievable, but they are real.
We located 229,500 searches per month relating to people in Houston looking for law firms across 25,241 different keywords, or search terms. That’s not the most interesting part of this, even.
Popular searches in Houston by type of lawyer included searches for personal injury, criminal, immigration, family law, and business lawyers. There are searches for every area of practice imaginable, of course, but these are some of the more popular.
The vast majority of those keywords are rather uncompetitive, meaning that it’s possible to rank a law firm on them with sound SEO strategy, a little bit of patience, and of course, great content. Clients are wandering in the wilderness looking for you – this is your chance! Lest there be any doubt, for a Houston law firm, SEO is a must-have in the marketing toolbox.
Law firm SEO: Dallas
Dallas on its own is not quite as big as Houston, but there’s a huge metroplex all around it. In spite of the fact that Dallas proper (and those who self-identify as Dallas residents, whether they live in the City of Dallas or somewhere else) is significantly smaller than Houston, it nevertheless presents an enormous amount of online search interest for attorneys.
In Dallas, we found that there are 124,090 searches per month of folks looking for law firms in Dallas across 18,888 different keywords.
Popular searches in Dallas by type of lawyer included searches for immigration, criminal, family law, real estate, and accident lawyers, among many others of course.
The search terms in Dallas are a bit more competitive than Houston, telling us that overall, Dallas attorneys (and perhaps across the DFW metroplex) are a bit keener at employing SEO. Still, the vast majority of those nearly 19,000 keywords are uncompetitive, presenting enormous opportunity to help clients find you, no matter your practice area.
Law firm SEO: Nashville
Nashville is one of the fastest growing cities in the South, with a huge number of businesses choosing to relocate there – it’s no wonder that they have a healthy need of lawyers.
For Nashville, we found that there are 43,680 searches per month of folks looking for law firms in Nashville spread across 6,712 different keywords.
Popular searches in Nashville by type of lawyer include a few you’d expect, such as entertainment and corporate law, but also family law.
Best of all for Nashville attorneys: almost every keyword, even the biggest, are almost totally uncompetitive. That means there are a lot of clients not getting the help or information they need!
How much does law firm SEO cost?
Some people say there are too many lawyers. Well, I know one thing for sure. There is no shortage of SEO firms!
There is also a huge diversity of pricing models available for SEO. Generally, SEO costs break down into three categories: crazy expensive, unrealistically cheap, and somewhere in the middle.
Crazy expensive (over $20,000 per month): There are digital marketing companies out there that charge $100,000 for SEO, monthly, and don’t blink an eye. They may seem like the exception, and they are, but it’s incredibly common to charge more than $20,000 per month. Per month! If you have a national company, that sounds reasonable – but the vast majority of businesses cannot justify spending more than $10,000 per month, much less $20,000.
Unrealistically cheap (under $1,000 per month): In general (we’ll talk about the exceptions in a moment), there’s no one out there with real talent and expertise who can provide SEO services for under $1,000 a month. There are countless outsourced SEO companies who claim to provide SEO services for a song, but you get what you pay for – these poorly written, out-of-touch pieces of copy are more likely to tank your business than help it. Further, the worst SEO companies write all of their content in AI – yikes! You’ll also never see real technical prowess at this level. Ultimately, great content makes great SEO – and we always recommend local (meaning American) folks to do that, and at Precision Outreach we only hire Americans for that reason. They know the language and terminology (whether in English or another commonly spoken language like Spanish) and can connect with your audience far better.
Somewhere in the middle ($1,000 to $20,000 per month): Let’s just get this out of the way. Most companies are completely fine spending a few thousand dollars per month and no more on SEO. The advertising industry people who have left writing cigarette ads for Publisher’s Weekly and wandered over to digital marketing will say no, no, you need real expertise, you need the best! I would posit that you can get pretty darn good, if not the best, for a lot less than some of the “big boys” charge. Full disclosure time. Precision Outreach’s most common SEO packages for law firms will run somewhere around $5,000 per month. That’s not the cheapest, but it sure as heck isn’t the most expensive, either.
Because here’s the thing. If you want to cheap out and have someone in India write generic content for your website, there are countless choices available. If you’re fortunate, maybe Google will pick up those pages and deliver them to potential clients. However. If those clients actually try to read what the overseas SEO people wrote, good luck. There are only so many times you can write “best law firm” in one paragraph, and people wise up.
Our strong recommendation is to hire a law firm SEO company that only charges month-to-month, and give them a few months to see if they can improve your rankings. Do not fall for the trap of signing a huge contract, but also don’t believe anyone who says this will happen in mere weeks. SEO is a marathon more than a sprint – but the results are so worth it.
What should SEO services cost? A price comparison of several Houston SEO companies.
Let’s talk about what Houston SEO services cost. While much of it depends on what exact services are provided, keep in mind that the ultimate question is “will there be an improvement in my company’s Google ranking?” While we are neither the cheapest in town nor the most expensive, we are very competitively priced – and we believe our focus on results sets us apart.
Unlike many marketing firms, you also know with Precision Outreach that your marketing spend is never being outsourced to foreign countries. That may seem insignificant, but our local American talent understands best how to market to your audience, because they live and work in the communities you’re talking to. That’s important, and – we believe – priceless.
Precision Outreach
Precision Outreach charges for SEO services by the focus area – a cluster of related search terms. We charge $500 per month per focus area. For general small business marketing services (consulting, strategy, and some content creation), we start at $1,500 per month. A normal SEO client of ours will spend between $2,000 and $4,000 monthly.
Comrade
Comrade, a large digital marketing company based in Austin that does a lot of work in the Houston area, says on their website: “most of our clients spend around $2,500 to $10,000 a month on marketing services.”
Astoundz
According to their website, Astoundz, a well-established Houston SEO company, “offers packages ranging from around $3,000 per month up to $25,000, based on your unique requirements.”
All things considered, we’re pretty risk-free
I’m tired of folks getting burned by marketers. That’s one of the reasons I decided to start this firm. I’ll never forget when an advertising agency charged my family’s funeral business something like $100,000 for horrible, unresponsive service on a one-year contract that didn’t really accomplish anything other than a simple logo redesign.
The amount of nonsense in this business is shocking and sad. While some entrepreneurs are used to dealing with it, let’s be honest when it comes to law firms: your potential clients cannot afford to land on the wrong attorney. Anyone who has had to hire a lawyer knows that you need the best you can possibly get at the rate you can afford.
For us, that’s a pretty good reason to make sure that good law firms have good SEO, and good content generally for that matter. If you’re interested in working with a boutique marketing agency who cares as much about your business as you do, give us a shout. I’d love to talk with you.
Jess Fields is the President of Precision Outreach, a marketing agency based in Houston. He did okay on the LSAT, but decided to pursue another path entirely – yet still keeps a cadre of lawyers close at hand! He can be reached at [email protected].
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Use this contact form to send us a message. We’ll get back to you ASAP. Or, you may schedule 30 minutes of our time with the scheduling app to the right.
Schedule
You can schedule 15 or 30 minutes at no cost to talk with us about your needs below. We’re available 6 days per week at a time convenient for you. This is, by far, the most convenient (and helpful) way for us to see if we can help you out. By prior agreement or for existing clients, you may also book 1-hour meetings and phone consultations.