SEO for Lawyers: The Attorney’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization for Law Firms – Part 4

In part 1 of “SEO for Lawyers: The Attorney’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization for Law Firms,” we covered the “Why” and “What” of SEO. In part 2 of SEO for lawyers, we briefly explained how search engines find and organize information. And in part 3 of the series, we discussed the benefits of good domain selection for law firms. Today, however, we are going to start discussing competitive search analysis.

Competitive Search Analysis Starts with Segmentation

The Internet is a very competitive place. Thus, in order to succeed online, one has to work smarter than their competition. One of the ways in which you can do this, is by making sure you are actually talking to the right audience through your attorney website and law firm web content.

Traditionally speaking, the right audience for your services would be considered your target market. In essence, your target market is a segment of the population that shares a common need or desire to buy the services you or your competition are offering.

In order to be successful at reaching your target market, you need to understand them. By understanding them, you will be able to sharpen your attorney marketing efforts while differentiating yourself from the competition in their eyes.

Understanding Your Law Firm’s Target Market

Here are a few questions to help you identify your target market.

1. What are the values, needs, problems, fears, worries, challenges, circumstances, and concerns of your clients and desired clients?
2. What gender, age, income level, profession, and background do your clients or desired clients share?

You can learn allot about your target market through interviewing your existing client base. The more you learn about your clients, the easier it will be for you to speak to their interests and create web content that is geared towards them. Understand that the more your web content speaks to your target market, the more likely they will be to respond to it.

Segmenting Your Client Base and Attorney Website Audience

Search Engine Optimization is like other forms of marketing. Just as you would segment your target audience in a traditional marketing campaign, you would also want to do this for an SEO campaign.

For example, a plaintiff’s oriented personal injury attorney could segment their audience by how the injury occurred or by the injury itself. To segment potential clients by “how the injury occurred,” the firm could have SEO campaigns for auto accidents, medical malpractice, slip & falls, air plane crashes, and so on. However, they could also segment according to the “injury itself” by targeting back injuries, spinal injuries, brain trauma, and so on.

At the very least, a full service personal injury firm should address the needs of these different groups. Moreover, if the budget permits the needs should be addressed separately by targeting different parts of the website to each of the needs. Alternatively, a firm might even consider pursuing multiple practice area websites that were each targeted to a particular segment. For more information about the multi-site strategy for law firm marketing, read this article.

Segmenting for Law Firm SEO

The reason segmentation is important for law firm SEO is that it helps you to determine what your target market is searching for online. By understanding what your market is searching for online, you will be able to fill the needs of the market.

To do this, you need to know what keywords and keyword phrases your target market is using for search.

You also need to know the volume of such searches — to see if they are worthwhile.

Plus, you need to know how competitive the keyword phrases are — because the more competitive they are, the tougher the competition will be.

Basically speaking, you need to know the phrases that pay from the phrases that don’t. The phrases that pay are the ones you can get good ROI from. The phrases that don’t, are the ones that will either produce no returns or end up being a money pit for you.

Fortunately, SEO marketing for attorneys is not a “pay and pray” endeavor like some other forms of marketing (phonebook, TV, print ads, etc.). With SEO, if you are truly determined to out perform the competition and have the resources to do it, you can. It may not happen overnight, but you can achieve results if you are committed to it. Good search rankings, are there for the taking. You just have to be willing to fight for them.

Stay Tuned for Part 5 of this Series

Now that you have learned the basics of market segmentation, you are ready for the next lesson which covers competitive analysis in more detail.

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