Since its release, Google’s new generative AI search tool, also known as Google SGE, has had a major impact on the way users interact with the search engine. Shifting away from Google as we knew it in the past where keywords reigned supreme, Google SGE supports – and even encourages – a conversational tone for search queries.
For small law firms, a strong online presence is vital in attracting potential clients and establishing credibility. However, in an ever-changing digital landscape, it can be difficult to know what you need to be doing to adapt to new enhancements in technology.
Read on for a comprehensive guide of essential strategies for attorneys to maintain their law firm website’s competitive advantage in the age of Google SGE.
Essential Strategies for Staying Competitive on Search
#1 Creating high-quality written content
High-quality written content remains a fundamental, unchanging principle of achieving search engine optimization for your website. However, with the introduction of AI-powered search tools such as Google’s SGE, the role of high-quality content becomes more important than ever to the visibility of your website on search. This is due to Google’s push for holding websites to a higher information standard than it has in the past. Google has made it clear that its goal for the new AI-powered search tool is to generate search results of the highest quality for its users, signaling to businesses that their web content needs to meet this quality standard to remain visible on search.
To ensure that your law firm website is delivering high-quality written content to potential clients and satisfying Google’s latest quality standards, here are some best practices to follow:
- Consider the relevance of your content to your potential clients. Develop content that precisely addresses the issues, questions, and concerns your potential clients have. Oftentimes, thorough keyword research can help you to identify what topics are relevant to your target audience.
- Foster a positive user experience. Ensure that your content is well-structured, uses headers and subtitles, is easy to read, and provides valuable insights. Accompany any legal jargon with clear explanations and examples, and focus on clarity and simplicity.
- Update your website content regularly. Google’s AI-powered search tool aims to deliver the newest, highest quality search results to its users. To help your pages stay relevant to Google SGE, it’s helpful to periodically update your website with new content.
If you’re just getting started building your new law firm website or are adding a new practice area, it can be overwhelming to create written content that will help connect your website to your potential clients online. With the LawLytics smart content creation tool, creating pages of new, customized practice area content is quick and easy. The built-in tool supports 20 practice areas with over 250 practice area topics that have been professionally written and are optimized for search. To learn more about this tool and how it can help you succeed on search engines, click here.
#2 Employ search engine visibility elements
Even before Google introduced its new generative AI search tool, it has always been very sophisticated in how it returns search results to its users. While the actual written content on the pages of your website has a significant impact on search performance, several other elements also help to determine a page’s visibility on search.
Below are the nine search engine visibility elements for law firm websites. To read more about these visibility factors and how LawLytics can help you achieve results for your practice, click here.
- Duplicate content management
- H1 headers
- Internal linking
- Intuitive structure
- Proper URL structure
- Redirects management
- Schema
- Title tags
- XML Sitemap
#3 Optimize your content for clickthrough
As Google’s SGE becomes more sophisticated, optimizing for better clickthrough is more critical than ever. SGE can provide instant answers to the queries of your potential clients without requiring them to click on search results.
To encourage more potential clients to click through to your law firm’s website, consider the following strategies:
- Compelling page titles. Consider crafting attention-grabbing page titles that will work to entice users to click on the page. To do this, use action-oriented language and highlight what makes your firm unique.
- Optimized meta descriptions. Similar to compelling page titles, meta descriptions help your potential clients understand what to expect the page of content to be about. The meta descriptions of your web pages should also use attention-grabbing language to encourage clickthrough.
- Featured snippets. Aim to secure featured snippets for relevant keywords. These snippets appear at the top of search results and can significantly increase clickthrough.
- Useful and engaging content. Content that genuinely addresses user queries and provides valuable information has a higher likelihood of having a better clickthrough rate on search.
#4 Diversify your traffic sources
Relying solely on organic search traffic can leave your law firm vulnerable to the impact of generative AI like Google SGE. Diversifying your traffic sources can help mitigate this risk and ensure a consistent flow of visitors to your website.
Here are a couple of ways to diversify your traffic sources:
- Social media marketing. You can use social media to help drive more traffic to your law firm’s website using a variety of social media posts. Share valuable content, engage with your followers, and consider allocating a small portion of your marketing budget to paid advertising such as boosting your posts to drive traffic back to your website.
- Email marketing. Over time, your practice can build and nurture an email list of potential clients and past clients and use this as an effective marketing channel. Send regular newsletters, updates, and informative content to keep your contact list engaged and drive traffic to your website.
#5 Remain flexible and adapt to the changing digital landscape
To stay competitive in the ever-changing search landscape, attorneys must be agile and willing to adapt. There are several ways to achieve this, such as:
- Continuous learning. By staying updated on the latest SEO trends, Google algorithm updates, and technological advancements in the field, you can expand your knowledge of what’s happening next in the world of search engines.
- Mobile optimization. The use of mobile search only continues to grow, so your law firm website must be up to speed. (Tip: All LawLytics websites are optimized for performance across all devices.)
- Voice search optimization. The use of voice-activated devices is also on the rise. Ensure your website content is optimized for voice search queries by focusing on natural language and long-tail keywords.
- User experience improvement. Investing in the overall user experience of your website will have a big impact on your site’s ability to remain competitive on search. Elements like fast page load speeds, intuitive navigation, and mobile-friendliness all contribute to a positive user experience for your potential clients.
Maintain a Strong Online Presence with LawLytics
Achieving success with your website’s SEO is an ongoing process that requires you to be proactive. In the highly competitive world of online search, it’s essential to your business to hold your law firm website to the highest standards of quality in both design and content.
At LawLytics, we deliver high-quality law firm websites that are fully equipped with everything you need to remain competitive on search engines. We take the guesswork out of what you need to begin seeing results from your firm’s online presence.
If you’re not yet a LawLytics member and would like to see the technology in action, schedule a 20-minute interactive demo with us.
