SEO for law firm websites
In Zach Thompson’s article, “SEO Tips for Attorneys and Law Firms,” methods for search engine optimization for a law firm’s website are discussed. In class, we discussed the PageRank algorithm and how it works but also learned that Google no longer uses this for ranking the results of a search. If the public knew exactly how pages were ranked, it would be easy to manipulate the algorithm or figure out how to always have one’s page be at the top of relevant searches. Therefore, Google has kept their methods a secret for many years, but probably mend them frequently to improve them. However, even though one cannot know exactly how to boost one’s rank in a search, there are things a website can do to potentially help them.
Thompson’s article discusses tips particularly for law firm websites. He argues that it is becoming increasingly more important for them to maximize their business. His first tip is to focus on mobile websites, as they are very commonly accessed, and since he writes that Google uses mobile-first indexing, it is important for the mobile version to be very similar to the desktop version. In addition, the author mentions E-A-T scores, which stand for “expertise, authority, and trustworthiness,” as they are especially important for law firms. To do this, he suggests incorporating past cases of the firm into paragraphs and links to good authorities such as the U.S. Department of Justice website, and having an Secure Socks Layer (SSL) certificate. Thompson also writes that Google takes into account the time that it takes for a page to load, as slightly more than half of mobile users exit a site if it does not load in under three seconds. His last suggestion is to include links to hubs with high scores, which we have seen in class.