Phone Call by Appointment Only : (832) 305-5997

13 Ways to Actually Rank Your Lawyer Website Faster for FREE

How “Pimp” is your law firm’s online footprint?

In other words is your…

  • Google Business Page
  • State Bar Profile
  • AVVO Profile
  • …yeah the whole Web 2.0 situation…

Is that all maximized out. Do you even YouTube bro?

In 2016 I took a personal injury lawyer website from domain registration to the first page of Google (in the Houston market) in less than 60 days. Here are 13 of the Ninja Tactics I used to do it.

1) Pimp the F. Out of Your Google My Business Page

Google rules local search (until Facebook takes over in about 3 years). So I always start every SEO campaign by Building a Google My Business Page (they are freaking free), then getting it verified by Google.

You can see my G+ Business Page Here. Note that…

  • There is a check-mark by my profile pic (the page is verified)
  • All address and contact info is filled out
  • I’ve added several posts, images, and a YouTube video is connected to the G+ Biz Page

Once you get all of that done, you need to start bugging everyone you know (who has a gmail account) for 5-Star reviews on your G+ Biz Page.

This will help you tremendously in the local rankings and it is the start of every SEO campaign for lawyers.

Do you need more clients?

Want to work with someone who actually knows how to bring new clients to your business every month?

Then fill out my Client Discovery Form.

2) Go Beast Mode on YouTube

Look at my YouTube Channel. It has a featured video that greets new visitors and a video that greets returning visitors.

Both videos have video descriptions with great content + backlinks to my website.

youtube for lawyersMy about page links to several of my other social profiles & to my website.

All of this is free link juice to your website and your entire online presence.

Google owns YouTube so you got to play the YouTube Game.

AVVO isn’t quite irrelevant…but we’ll get to that in Number 7.

3) Facebook is a Major Player in Lawyer Marketing

Most people don’t know the difference between a Facebook profile, Facebook brand page, and a Facebook business page.

You should build a Facebook business page for your law firm…and you should get it verified.

click 2 visit me on FB

click 2 visit me on FB

 

Completely fill out the entire About Page, and add a backlink to your law firm website in the About section.

You can read my article about complete Facebook domination for lawyers here.

SIDE NOTE: I’m running a Facebook marketing test right now and I’m looking for 10-20 lawyers to run Facebook ads for (at no charge, you just have to share your results with me). Email texaslawyerseo@gmail.com, subject header Free FB Ads Test). Also, must have a WordPress website to participate.

BONUS TIP: Most people only put one backlink in their Twitter profile. But check out how I actually put 2 backlinks in my Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/followdustin

4) Your State Bar Profile is A Goldmine of Backlinks

I have embedded my Tx State Bar Profile below. This Bar profile allows a backlink to your website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and 3 Blogs of Your Choice.

Tons ‘O Link Juice…

tx bar profile

 

BONUS TIP: Some of you are also members of the…

  • County Bar
  • City Bar
  • Criminal Lawyers Association
  • Other Laywer Specific Associations, e.g. Smith County Family Law Association

Many of these memberships have online profiles that give sweet link juice to your website, blogs, and other online profiles.

If you want to be on Page 1 of the search results, the name of the game is still backlinks and you need as many quality, relevant backlinks as possible to outrank your competitors.

BIG LAW isn’t going to spend time filling out all these profiles but you can…and that’s how you can compete with them in local lawyer search.

5) Yelp Business Page

Build a Yelp Page for your law firm. Put a backlink to your law firm in the description…BANG instant link juice.

6) LinkedIn…practically irrelevant, but necessary

One of the many social properties that were swallowed up by Facebook (I’m looking at you myspace, Google plus, twitter, four square, soon to be YouTube…).

There are a few things you should do on LinkedIn to maximize the benefit to your online rep and extract as much link juice as possible.

  1. Get a vanity URL, mine is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinsanchez
  2. Add your Twitter, your website, and 1 other online profile to your contact info (for the link juice yo).
  3. Create either a Company Page, a Showcase Page, or both for your law firm (don’t have time to explain it, just google it), and add a backlink to your website therein…and connect your blog to it so that all articles are syndicated to your page (more backlinks).
  4. Spend a few minutes optimizing your LinkedIn profile, because people will find it when they search your name in Google (pay special attn to the part about how to get LinkedIn reviews).

7) Hate to Love AVVO.com

Full disclosure…I’m not a fan of AVVO. But I love AVVO because it allows you to link to your website, 4 social profiles, and to upload YouTube videos to your profile.

See mine here…notice the video I uploaded.

Why do we care about getting backlinks on AVVO and all these other Web 2.0 Properties?

delete avvo

SEO isn’t just about getting a lot of backlinks. It’s about getting a lot of (1) high quality, and (2) relevant backlinks.

There are a few metrics that determine what a high quality backlink is, and one of those metrics is “Domain Authority.”

All of these popular Web 2.0 sites like Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter…they all have high domain authority.

Lawyer sites like AVVO and the others that I will mention below have high domain authority AND they are very relevant to your law firm website.

So it makes sense to get as many of them as you can (since they are free).

And when you start putting links to your other social and web 2.0 properties on all of your profiles, it allows you to power up your entire online footprint.

8) How to make the most of your LawLink Profile

Unfortunately LawLink is not mobile optimized yet or else I would embed mine here, because mine is totally rocked out.

You can literally put every online profile you have into your LawLink account, as well as images and videos.

LawLink has some decent Domain Authority, so if you decide to power up this particular profile, it will pass link juice to your entire online footprint.

When they give you an opportunity to create a profile like that…in the words of Homer Simpson…you got to sass it.

9) FindLaw allows you to load up on backlinks

See what I mean here.

10) Justia…backlinks and video embeds

You will have to scan and email a copy of your State Bar Card in order to get approved for Justia.

Scroll through the profile below and you can see that Justia allows a link to your…

  • website
  • 3 blogs (which can really be any 3 URLs)
  • video embeds
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • g+
  • avvo
  • lawyers.com
  • martindale, JD Supra, LLRX, BePress, SSRN, Scribd (if you have made any of those profiles)

Making videos (YouTube, Vimeo, and especially Native Facebook Videos), and uploading them to as many of your social profiles as possible will pump your online footprint full of link juice.

[update 3/23/2016] See also…http://www.morelaw.com/lawyers/atty.asp?f=Dustin&l=Sanchez&i=110922&z=77035

MoreLaw offers a decent backlink opportunity as well.

Here’s a free Gift to you…80+ Web2.0 Profiles for lawyers to get some serious link juice to your website.

Will this strategy get you to page one on its own?

In some cities, in some legal niches…yes.

In larger cities like Houston, Miami, Dallas, L.A., San Diego, Chicago, etc…you are going to need more than this, which is really just the very beginning of effective law firm SEO.


Dustin Sanchez is a Law Firm Online Marketing Expert. He focuses on SEO and Facebook Marketing for attorneys.

Get started by filling out my Client Discovery Form Here.

Call (832) 305-5997 if you are ready to start pulling clients off the internet all day every day.