11 Most Common Law Firm SEO Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

I’ve been doing SEO for 30 years, and specializing in law firm SEO for the bulk of that time. So it’s safe to say that I’ve seen it all.

I know what works for lawyer SEO, and maybe more importantly, I know what doesn’t work. 

Law firm SEO mistakes are particularly costly because firms often go months or years before realizing they’re doing something wrong. And by the time it takes them to identify and correct those mistakes, they’ve fallen behind competitors who have a substantial lead.

Here are the most common law firm SEO blunders I’ve seen over the years:

1). Giving Up Too Early

Setting realistic expectations from day one is one of the first keys to success with SEO for your law firm. You need to understand that law firm SEO takes time to get results. 

For established sites with lots of content and existing traffic, noticeable results may come as early as 3-6 months. But smaller sites, new websites, or sites just starting SEO may not get results for 12-24+ months. 

One backlink earned today isn’t going to double your site traffic tomorrow. A blog published next week may not get you leads for months. 

Lots of lawyers try to compare SEO to PPC campaigns, where results are immediate, but it’s just not a fair apples-to-apples comparison. 

So stay the course. Pulling your budget too early sets you up for failure as you’re not giving your strategy enough time to come to fruition. 

2). Only Using Traffic as a Success Metric

This often happens to law firms that have been working with junior-level SEO teams. The SEO “experts” you’re working with keep showing you reports that your traffic is up, but you’re not seeing a measurable difference in your bottom line.

That’s because not all traffic is created equally. 

Some sites have what I like to call “vanity traffic.” This is traffic to your site that gets clicks, but doesn’t move the needle where it counts. 

Let’s say you’re a personal injury attorney in Massachusetts. If you’re getting 10,000 visitors per month to a blog post about estate planning laws in Florida, guess what? You’re probably not going to get any leads from that post.

Your attorney SEO strategy needs to be aligned with your firm’s big-picture goals.

While traffic is important, you also need to track new leads, qualified leads, and conversions to truly understand if your SEO approach is working. 

3). Targeting the Wrong Keywords

Keyword stuffing has been outdated for close to a decade now. And in addition to just cramming tons of keywords on different pages, I constantly see law firms targeting the wrong keywords.

Going for high-volume search terms like “personal injury lawyer” or “medical malpractice attorney” is likely going to be a waste of time for 90-95% of law firms.

Big, national players are going to dominate these search terms. Plus, you need to make sure you’re getting traffic from people who actually need your services.

I strongly recommend going after lower-volume long-tail keywords that are not only easier to rank for but also get you more targeted traffic.

Targeting something ultra-specific like, “can you sue former employer for mesothelioma claim” can be far more valuable than broad “personal injury attorney” keywords. 

4). Overlooking Audience Intent

In addition to getting your keywords right, you need to align your content production with search intent. Ask yourself, what stage of the funnel is a prospective client in when they’re searching for a topic? How can my content best serve their needs at this stage of the funnel?

For example, let’s say your firm handles estate law. Consider the following search terms:

• Do I need a will?
• How a revocable living trust works
• Probate attorney near me

The first search is clearly someone just deciding whether they need some basic estate planning. This person is probably not ready to convert yet.

The second search is someone who is further along in the estate planning process. Maybe they’ve been told that a trust can help secure and distribute their assets. They are much warmer, and 50/50 ready to book a consultation.

And lastly, someone searching for a probate attorney near me likely just had a family member pass away, and they need a lawyer ASAP.

Giving a hard pitch for your services on an informational blog post is a waste of space and can likely turn people away when they’re just looking for a quick answer. Conversely, giving people purely information with no pitch when they’re ready to schedule a consultation is a missed opportunity. Consider using a customer journey map for SEO to help align your content with search intent. 

5). Not Having a Content Plan

Investing in SEO without a content plan would be like walking into the courtroom without knowing what witnesses you’re planning to call or what questions you’re going to ask them.

You can’t “just wing it” with law firm SEO.

At the absolutely minimum, you need to have a month’s worth of content planned out. But 3-6+ months is much better.

This is how you truly establish authority in a particular niche. Determine your top three most important keywords that you’re targeting this year, and then come up with every possible supporting topic surrounding those keywords that you’re going to publish over the next quarter.

Each piece of content builds upon itself. You can internal link between them, map out your publishing schedule, determine when you’re going to share which pieces of content on social media, take snippets for email marketing, and so on.

Google will reward you for fresh, relevant content published on a consistent basis. If they can recognize that you’re really going deep in certain subjects, you’ll be rewarded in the SERPs.

6). Neglecting Local SEO

Another huge mistake that I see law firms make is just assuming that they’ll get traffic from local searches. And while traditional SEO definitely plays a part in local SEO, the two are actually very different. 

Local SEO for lawyers is all about showing up in Google local map packs (also known as 3-packs). This involves tactics like:

• Getting more Google Reviews
• Creating and optimizing your firm’s Google Business Profile
• Getting featured in online directories
• Optimizing your landing pages for “near me” searches
• Local backlinks

This stuff doesn’t happen by accident. 

If you Google search “[your practice speciality]” + “[your location]” you’ll quickly notice a pattern between the top three attorneys being listed here. They’re all doing the stuff I mentioned above in addition to applying regular SEO tactics. 

7). Only Focusing on Your Website

Obviously, most of what’s important for law firm SEO is tied directly to what you’re doing on your firm’s website. I’m not trying to dispute that.

But the goal is getting Google to recognize that you are an authority expert in your practice specialty. Your website alone isn’t enough to make this happen.

Look for ways to get organic backlinks from other high-authority and relevant websites. 

Accept speaking opportunities whenever possible. Be active on social media and engage with your audience. Start hosting a monthly podcast and accept invitations to be a guest on other podcasts. 

Get more reviews on as many platforms as possible.

These external signals are sent to Google and they understand who you are holistically. So when you publish something on your website, it has that much more credibility in terms of Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines, and has a better chance of ranking higher in the search results. 

8). Failing to Pivot After a Google Algorithm Update

Your SEO plan from five years ago isn’t going to work today. Yet I still consult with so many law firms using outdated tactics from ten years ago and wondering why their traffic is tanking.

Some Google algorithm updates cause traffic to drop. That’s just the reality of having a website, and aside from maybe Apple, I don’t think I can name a single website that hasn’t been adversely affected at least once by a Google update.

This tends to happen often with law firms because they are so busy handling clients and case loads that they don’t have time to stay up to date with the latest SEO trends and Google changes. 

That’s why working with a law firm SEO agency is crucial, as the agency can pivot for you. 

80% of your strategy can likely remain the same, but you’ll need to make adjustments to account for new things, like AI overviews, voice search, the rise of forums in the search results, and so on. 

9). Ignoring Technical Issues

If your website is slow, doesn’t load properly, or can’t be fully crawled by Google, you’re never going to rank high in the search results. 

When was the last time you got a technical SEO audit?

You need this at least once a year, assuming there are no problems.

If you don’t have the in-house development skills to identify problems and implement fixes, then you need to work with a lawyer SEO agency who can handle this stuff on your behalf.

From broken links to schema markups, improper meta tags, duplicate content, and dozens more, these types of issues can’t be fixed by the average lawyer on their own. 

10). Publishing Surface-Level Content Instead of True Thought Leadership

Building topical authority to establish yourself as an industry leader is the “fast track” to law firm SEO success. I say fast track, but what I really mean is that years of hard work will ultimately pay off (and yes, that’s fast). 

This can’t be accomplished by giving basic, generic answers to common questions that people can get anywhere. If your site just regurgitates content that’s published everywhere else on the web, you’re never going to truly stand out.

Instead, position yourself as a thought leader.

Deeply explain topics based on your first-hand experiences using real examples and scenarios that nobody else can replicate. 

One of my favorite ways for lawyers to do this is through podcast marketing, and I’ve had tons of success with this over the years with my clients. 

The beauty of recording a podcast episode is that it’s just talking. You don’t have to worry about sitting down for hours writing, editing, and polishing your copy. Just speak your knowledge into the microphone, and the episode will be published on your website along with the transcript. 

11). Lack of On-Page Conversion Optimization

Law firm SEO is all about getting targeted organic traffic to your website. 

It takes a lot of hard work to reach this point. Now don’t waste your efforts by forgetting to optimize your pages for conversions. 

What’s the point of driving people to your site if you don’t make it easy for them to book a consultation?

You need to test different design elements, button placements, form fields, CTA phrasing, and essentially everything else to ensure people who are ready to convert have every possibility to do so. 

Final Thoughts

Search engine optimization for lawyers isn’t necessarily easy. But too many law firms make it harder on themselves by making these common mistakes.

If you can avoid the blunders I mentioned above, you’ll have a much easier time climbing the rankings and getting more targeted organic traffic without setbacks.

That said, it always helps to have experienced law firm SEO specialists on your side.

So if you have questions or need help implementing your strategy, contact our team here at McDougall Interactive for assistance.