SEO for Bankruptcy Lawyers (Complete Guide for 2023)

How do you do SEO for bankruptcy lawyers?

Well, here’s the deal:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a critical part of any digital marketing strategy, and bankruptcy lawyers are no exception. SEO can ensure that potential clients searching for legal help can easily find your website and contact you for assistance.

From keyword research to content optimization, SEO can help increase your website visibility, drive more qualified leads, and ultimately grow your practice.

But it all starts with your local SEO strategy:

Why Local SEO is Critical for Bankruptcy Lawyers

Local SEO refers to Google’s local pack:

You want to focus on ranking in the local pack because it’s always prioritized over the traditional organic results (when it comes to local keywords like “st louis bankruptcy lawyer”).

Here are some local ranking factors that Google uses:

1. Relevance: Google looks at how relevant your website and content are to a search query and the local area. This includes looking at the content of your website itself, as well as your backlinks and citations from other websites.
2. Prominence: Google also looks at the prominence of your business in the local area. This includes your presence in local business directories and your reviews and ratings.
3. Distance: Google also looks at how close a user is to your business when they search for relevant terms. The closer the user is, the higher your website will rank in search results.

The first step to improving your local pack rankings is to:

Create & Optimize Your Google Business Profile

A Google Business Profile is an essential part of any local SEO strategy. It helps ensure that potential customers see your business in your local area. It also helps Google understand more about your business, including your location and hours of operation, and can help you appear in more local search results.

Additionally, a Google Business Profile allows you to respond to reviews, which can help improve your overall ratings and help your business stand out from competitors.

Get Citations on Other Relevant Directories

Getting listed on other relevant citations and directories is essential for local SEO success. These citations and directories act as backlinks for your business, helping to improve your website’s visibility and relevance in local search results.

Some directories to sign up for are Avvo, FindLaw, Justia, Nolo, Super Lawyers, and Lawyers.com.

Important: always maintain consistent NAP-W (Name, Address, Phone, and Website) information on every citation you build. Google uses citation consistency as a part of its local pack ranking algorithm.

Make Reviews a Focal Point of Your Local SEO Strategy

Reviews are critical for local SEO success because they help to build trust and credibility with potential customers. They also help improve your rankings in local search results.

Here are three simple ways to get more local reviews:

1. Ask customers to leave reviews: One of the best ways to get more local reviews is to ask your customers for them. You can do this in person, through email, or by providing a link to your review page on your website. Use Whitespark’s free tool to generate your Google review link.
2. Provide incentives: Providing incentives or discounts in exchange for reviews can be a great way to encourage customers to leave reviews. Keep in mind that this is against Google’s guidelines.
3. Run a review campaign: Running a review campaign on social media can be a great way to get more local reviews. You can ask customers to leave reviews and then reward them with a discount code or other incentives.

Once your local SEO pieces are together, it’s time for content.

Content Marketing is the Difference Maker for Bankruptcy Lawyers

From blog posts to case studies, content marketing can help increase your website visibility, drive more qualified leads, and ultimately grow your practice. With the right SEO content marketing strategy, you can drive qualified leads on autopilot.

But to execute an effective content marketing campaign, you need:

1. Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research helps you identify the words and phrases potential customers search for when they need bankruptcy lawyers. You can then create targeted content around these qualified keywords. If you do it right, the content will rank, and qualified organic traffic and leads will start flowing into your website.

Semrush and Ahrefs are great tools for finding keywords related to bankruptcy law. Both tools offer comprehensive keyword research capabilities, allowing you to quickly and easily find relevant keywords and phrases.

You can also look at the People Also Ask (PAA) section on Google. Enter a keyword like “st louis bankruptcy lawyer” into Google and look for the PAA section.

These are often great topics to create content on to build your topical authority.

You can create perfect content around the right keywords, but you still need to:

Leverage On-Page SEO to Unlock Your Rankings

On-page SEO is critical for ranking on Google because it helps ensure that your content is optimized for search engines.

Some on-page SEO includes techniques include:

• Make sure the page loads blazing fast.
• Place your keyword in the most critical spots like the URL, title, H1, first sentence, H2, and last sentence.
• Using a tool like Surfer to optimize for NLP (Natural Language Processing)

All these techniques help Google understand the content on your page and can help you rank higher in search results.

Now here’s the deal:

You can do all these things right and still get the best SEO results possible. That’s because you’re missing one critical part:

Why Every Bankruptcy Lawyer Needs Backlinks

Off-page SEO is important because it helps to improve your website’s authority and organic visibility. And link building is the primary method of doing off-page SEO. The goal is simple: get as many high-quality and relevant backlinks as possible. If you do so, you’ll grow your site’s authority, and it makes ranking in Google much easier.

Here are three techniques you can use to score more links:

1. Guest blogging: You can reach out to blogs and websites in your industry and offer to write a guest post. Search “write for us + bankruptcy” in Google to start finding prospects.
2. Influencer marketing: Reach out to influencers in your industry and offer to collaborate on a project. I recommend starting on the local level and then expanding out. Start with a Google search like “CITY + law blogger.”
3. Broken link building: You can use tools such as Broken Link Checker to find websites that link to broken or outdated content. You can then reach out to those websites and offer to provide a working link to the content.

And now, you might think: “I get how to do SEO, but how do I measure performance?”

How to Measure the ROI of SEO

What’s the best way to measure the ROI and value of SEO? First, you need to understand what the critical SEO KPIs are, such as organic traffic and total leads from organic search. You also need to benchmark your KPIs to see how much you’ve grown over time.

Review these SEO benchmarks to get started. Here are some of the basics of measuring SEO performance:

Start with Google Analytics

Website analytics is essential to measuring SEO’s value for a bankruptcy lawyer. Google Analytics can help you track and measure the performance of your website, content, and campaigns. It can also provide insights into user behavior and engagement, helping you understand what content is working and what needs to be improved.

Track Your Conversions

Conversions are a crucial metric for determining the success of an SEO campaign, as they measure how many leads your website is generating. By tracking conversions (in Google Analytics), you can determine which of your SEO efforts result in more leads and, ultimately, more clients.

Always Track Your Backlink Profile Growth

As you know, backlinks are an essential part of any SEO strategy, and tracking them can help you understand what content is working and what needs to be improved.

Use Ahrefs or Semrush to track your backlink growth over time:

Your backlink profile should grow consistently over time.

SEO for Bankruptcy Lawyers: What’s Next?

You’re now equipped to get started with SEO. The key is to actually get started. The longer you wait, the harder it is to beat your competitors. You have two choices:

Do it yourself with the help of an SEO training program.

Or:

Work with an SEO company that can get results for you (so you can focus on being an awesome bankruptcy lawyer).

The choice is yours. But please, do something because the best time to plant a tree was yesterday!