How Search Engines Determine Law Firm Rankings
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How Search Engines Work & Determine Law Firm Rankings
What Are Search Engine Rankings & Why Do They Matter?
Search engines like Google and Bing are like librarians of the internet. Their job is to find, understand, and organise the internet’s vast amount of information, making it easy for us to find exactly what we’re looking for. What people type into search engines can be varied but search engines like Google provide their answer to a query as a list of results (SERP’s – Search Engine Results Pages). And, as you will know, being listed in the first few spots on the first page of search results is the goal.
But how do search engines determine which law firm will appear in the top 3 positions in the search results? To learn how this is determined, you need to understand how search engines serve up the results they do.
How Search Engines Work
The process starts with search engines sending out a team of ‘robots’ or ‘spiders’ to find new and updated content on the web, like a new web page or an updated article. This is known as ‘crawling.’ These robots follow links on the internet, just like we might click on a link on a web page to go to another page.
Once the robots find a piece of content, they take a snapshot or ‘index’ it, like a librarian cataloguing a new book for the library. The search engines then store this indexed content in vast databases, ready to be pulled up when someone makes a relevant search.
When you type a query into a search engine, it looks through its vast ‘library’ of indexed websites and delivers a list of results it believes are the most relevant to your search. This is done through a process referred to as ‘ranking,’ which uses complex algorithms to evaluate web pages based on hundreds of factors. These factors can include the phrases or individual words in your search, the relevance of the content, the page load speed and user experience of the website’s pages, the expertise of sources, the time people have spent on that page before you for a similar query, as well as your location and settings.
The core objective of a search engine is to provide you with the best possible answer to your query, pulling from the most relevant and reliable sources. That’s why SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is so important for law firms. It’s the process of making your firm’s website attractive to search engines. Which, by default, is actually about serving up high quality content to a search engine’s users, because Google’s success is based on their ability to serve up the very best information from the ‘library’ that is the internet.
Law Firm Rankings Contributing Factor #1 – Helpful & High Quality Website Content
There’s no doubt that lawyers know how to craft words but what is it that search engines are looking for in content that contributes to higher rankings?
Google refers to their quality criteria for content (or framework as it’s known) as E-E-A-T:
E – Experience
E – Expertise
A – Authoritativeness; &
T – Trustworthiness
▸Experience
Content that cumulatively demonstrates that you have considerable experience in the areas of law you offer.
▸Expertise
▸Authoritativeness
A potential client who hasn’t had a referral (and even those who have) will undertake a degree of online research. This is where content creation such as developing additional information-based web pages and resources to your existing service pages can add to your firm’s authority online.
▸Trustworthiness
Trustworthiness is determined by a number of metrics that measure how accurate, honest, reliable and safe a website, webpage and its content is. Of all four of these measures, trustworthiness is the most important.
While E-E-A-T is essential, it is only one of the deciding factors in rankings in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Law Firm Rankings Contributing Factor #2 – Technically Sound Website
Reviewing a firm’s site for technical structure is called Technical SEO. A website audit is undertaken identifying the core factors that need improvement. When two or more firm websites have equally high quality content, then it is the quality of technical superiority of one firm’s site that will contribute to one ranking higher than the others.
A Technical SEO audit can identify anywhere up to 150 potential issues for consideration. They are sorted into three categories – the top issues for attention, warnings and notices (less important issues to be investigated and considered for optimisation).
In the table below find a sample of some of the critical issues that negatively impact a law firm’s website’s ability to be more discoverable online and rank higher in search results.
Law Firm Rankings Contributing Factor #3 – Directory/Citation Sites & Backlinks
Backlinks are links on other sites that when clicked on, or “followed” will bring the user to a page on your site.
You would have experienced this sort of link journey if reading a news article and it is underlined (and often in a different colour to the surrounding text) and links to another relevant webpage.
In terms of using backlinks to get relevant traffic to your site, backlinks from reputable websites have the most impact. Consider reputable news sites, large well respected companies that relate to your work, and credible local, national and international directories specific to the legal industry.
Law Firm Rankings Contributing Factor #4 – Geo-Specific Considerations
By auditing a website’s current state and developing an SEO plan to position a firm’s website higher in search results, makes it more likely to be found and discovered online by the markets that are looking for legal advice, or may not yet be ready to engage a lawyer but would benefit greatly from it.
How Clients Find & Choose Lawyers and Law Firms
As you well know, a portion of clients will come to you from your referral network. But for those that don’t come through those avenues, they discover lawyers and firms in other ways. One key way is through searching online. Yes, they might search by your job title, generating a list of results (search rankings), but as you well know, not everyone sees the value in engaging a lawyer immediately.
Across all areas of law, and the types of matters you offer, there will be degrees of urgency. If someone has been arrested they will want a criminal lawyer fairly quickly. Whereas someone who’s thinking about separating from their spouse may not be in as much of a hurry to call a family lawyer or see a need for pre-separation advice.
Whatever areas of law you practice, we see two distinct markets:
- The ‘Ready to Engage’ market; &
- The ‘Not Yet Ready to Engage’ market.
While the first market might seem like the best market to attract, it’s the second market that is the most untapped and therefore has the most potential.
In case you might be thinking that the ‘Not Yet Ready to Engage Market’ are those that might want to avoid engaging a lawyer, more often than not, there is a segment of any firm’s target market are either:
- Unaware that early advice will be most beneficial or
- Genuinely unaware that a lawyer could help them resolve whatever it is they are facing.
Here are just a few examples:
A separating couple who agree that they should “keep the lawyers out of it” won’t be searching for a ‘family lawyer’ in their town or city…
Someone who is grieving the loss of someone special to them and is also the Executor of the estate isn’t always searching for “deceased estate administration” or “probate lawyer”…
A person who has been married before is thinking about moving in with their partner and wants to protect their assets, often won’t be typing “prenup lawyers” into Google…
and…
A business owner with a challenging employee won’t always think they would benefit from speaking to an employment lawyer.
To attract the ‘ready to engage’ market an SEO strategy is essential. To attract the ‘not yet ready to engage market’, an SEO strategy is also essential. A firm is only able to attract a consistent flow of quality clients if they are visible in search results, which means the website and its content must tick the boxes to be credible, and therefore ranked higher.
Key Factors That Influence Law Firm Search Engine Rankings
Search engines like Google and Bing use complex algorithms to decide which websites appear at the top of search results. Generally speaking, the rankings are based on:
- Relevancy
- Authority
- User Experience
For law firms, several key factors play a significant role in determining these rankings including, but not limited to:
- Strategic keyword use to match user needs
- Helpful content (articles, news, FAQ’s etc)
- High quality backlinks
- User experience; &
- Mobile friendliness.
Relevancy
▸Keywords and Content Strategy
Keywords and high quality content are the cornerstones of an effective On Page SEO strategy for law firms. Search engines evaluate the relevance of your website based on keywords—like “SEO for law firms” or “law firm search engine ranking factors.”
To optimise the content on your website:
- Include relevant keywords naturally in titles, meta descriptions, headers, and body text.
- Ensure the content is valuable and directly addresses the needs of your audience.
- Regularly publish well researched articles, blog posts and guides that provide insights into legal issues and answer common client questions.
By focusing on content that serves your audience well (helpful content) that keeps them on your webpage for longer to learn and build trust/online rapport, which also incorporates the use of the right keywords is how you can make big inroads here.
Easy to read and highly informative content (that isn’t legal advice but develops trust) can establish your law firm as an authority, which over time, contributes to boosting your firm website visibility in search results.
▸Backlinking Strategy to Indicate Relevancy
Backlinks are links from other trusted websites to specific pages of your website. They effectively act as endorsements of your law firm’s credibility and authority.
To strengthen your law firm rankings in search results:
- Focus on earning high quality backlinks from reputable sources within the legal industry or related fields
- Avoid low-quality or irrelevant links that could harm your ranking.
Authority
Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines ranking factor ‘A’ from the E-E-A-T framework stands for authoritativeness. Essentially it relates to how much authority a firm’s website holds. That is, to what extent you have added important and highly relevant information about your areas of expertise or specialty.
That’s why in the most competitive of practice areas in one town or city, it is possible to supersede the most established and well known practices in search results.
Some of the core authoritativeness factors will crossover with other areas but here’s a list of what is considered:
- Direct Authority signals (domain authority, site authority metrics & other trust signals)
- Quality & quantity of backlinks (including citations and links from high quality publishers)
- Quality of backlinks to external, credible sources
- Topic coverage depth
- Uniqueness of content
- Demonstrated expertise
- Qualifications, accreditation & recognitions clearly detailed
User Experience & Technical SEO Considerations
The ‘Experience’ part of E-E-A-T relates to a website interface (what you use when you visit the site across devices), ease of use and website performance indicators.
To help your law firm website rank higher on search engines like Google, you need to focus beyond what your website says (content) and what others infer about it (backlinks) and the ease of use (User Experience), but also on how it is built and maintained. These are the technical aspects of your website and they can make a big difference in how easy it is for search engines to find and display your site in search results.
What Are The Technical SEO Elements Search Engines Monitor That Contribute To Law Firm Rankings?
Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines take into account how:
- Mobile friendly your site is
- How quickly pages load; &
- How easy it is for users to find what they are looking for (1, 2, 3 or more clicks?)
▸Optimal Website User Experience To Improve Law Firm Rankings in Search Results
A positive User eXperience (UX) is vital in improving law firm visibility online. Search Engines assess user engagement metrics, such as:
- Page load speed – Faster loading pages reduce bounce rates (users exiting the page quickly)
- Time on page – Engaging content encourages visitors to stay longer
- Navigation – A clear, intuitive site structure improves usability and retains visitors.
Improving these elements can significantly impact your website’s ranking by “ticking the boxes” that search engines want to indicate your site offers a positive user experience.
Accessibility considerations such as colour contrast for colour blind or vision impaired users is also another element that can indicate that a website provides an optimal user experience for all of the search engines users.
▸Maximising Website Mobile Friendliness
With the majority of online searches conducted on mobile devices, mobile friendliness is a crucial contributor to improved law firm rankings.
Most law firm website traffic is at least 50% via mobile phones, and depending on the practice areas you offer, it can be significantly more than 50%. You can find out the percentage of mobile, desktop or tablet users your website gets if you have a Google Analytics account set up.
Search engines like Google use something called mobile first indexing. This means that it organises all of the information online into rankings, based on how good the functionality of your website is on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
By optimising your site for ease of use on mobile devices, you are one step closer to improving your chances of ranking higher and reaching potential clients searching for legal services.
▸Optimised Page Speed & Website Performance
Site speed is a crucial factor in search engine rankings. A slow loading website can negatively impact user experience, leading to higher bounce rates (people leaving your page before reading the content) and lower engagement.
These are signals that search engines interpret as a lack of relevance or quality. To optimise a website’s speed and performance, here are some steps that can be taken to improve performance metrics:
- Reduce file sizes: Make sure images and other files are not too large, so they load quickly.
- Allow faster access: Use tools that help browsers save a copy of your site for quicker loading next time (known as browser caching).
- Use a network of servers: Consider using a service that spreads your website across multiple servers around the world, so it loads faster for everyone.
A faster website with good content keeps visitors on the site for longer. The time users spend on different pages on your website, indicates to search engines that your site is valuable and relevant to the users’ query.
▸Optimised URL Structure and Meta Tags
The structure of your website’s addresses (URLs) and the brief descriptions behind the scenes (meta tags) help search engines understand what your pages are about.
Search engines are looking for:
- The use of clear, descriptive URLs: Use clear, concise URLs that include relevant keywords and avoid irrelevant letters or numbers. For example, use “yourfirm.com.au/criminal-defence-lawyers-melbourne” instead of “yourfirm.com.au/criminal-lawyers-1”.
- The use of effective meta tags Each page on your site should have a unique title and description that includes the most relevant keywords. One example of a meta tag is the short description you see in search results. These paragraphs summarise what the page is about and helps users decide if they want to click on your link.
- Well organised content with headers Use headings (titles and subtitles) to break up content into sections and ensure they are tagged as H1’s (page title), H2’s (Subheadings) etc, not only larger in size. This helps both visitors and search engines understand your page better.
These are just some of the steps that can be taken that help search engines find your site and make it more visible to people searching online.
▸Optimal Website Security
- SSL Certificate / Use of HTTPS: Ensure your website uses HTTPS (a secure version of the web address) to show visitors that their information is safe.
- Website Access Control Measures – Strong website backend access controls such as 2FA (2 factor authentication or encrypted usernames (not email addresses).
- Regular Updates – Updates of WordPress (or other web platform) as well as site integrations/plugins as they roll out.
- Firewall (Web Application) – Inclusion of a firewall – a filter of malicious traffic (web site visits & attacks)
By prioritising security, your site builds trust with search engines, and coupled with helpful content, improving your chances of achieving higher rankings.
Local SEO Standing Out in Local Searches
A focus on Local SEO is about enhancing your online presence to ensure your firm appears prominently when potential clients search for legal services in your area. For any law firm, attracting clients within your local area is an obvious one but most don’t appear in the top rankings for more than one phrase. For example, a firm might rank well for ‘Cairns Wills Lawyer’ but not ‘Estate Planning Solicitor Cairns’ or ‘Probate Lawyer Cairns’, amongst numerous other potential keyphrases.
There are a number of tools and strategies you can use to improve your law firm rankings.
They include:
- Google Business Profile optimisation
- Backlinks to your site from other credible websites
How Your Google Business Profile Impacts Your Law Firm’s Rankings Locally
A key tool for making local SEO gains is your Google Business Profile (GBP). This is a free listing that shows up when someone searches for a lawyer or law firm in their area. Once set up you can edit your profile to ensure key details about your firm, such as your location, contact information, office hours and more are up to date. It’s also where online reviews are found and replied to. Bing has an equivalent business profile listing called Bing Places. Similarly, you can claim the account and update your business details. There’s even the ability to connect up Bing Places to your Google Business Profile so it auto-updates
Here’s how you can make the most of these free tools:
- Claim and Verify Your Profile: Make sure your Google Business Profile is claimed, verified, and complete. This helps Google know your firm is legitimate and improves your chances of appearing in local search results.
- Keep Information Accurate and Up to Date: Regularly check that your address, phone number, and other details are correct. Consistency is key—any discrepancies can confuse search engines and harm your ranking.
- Encourage Positive Reviews: Ask satisfied clients to leave positive reviews on your GBP. Reviews are a strong signal to Google about the quality and credibility of your services.
By optimising your Google Business Profile, you increase your chances of showing up in the “local pack”—the top three local results displayed on Google Maps and search results pages.
Backlinks, Local Citations & Online Reviews
Local citations and online reviews are other essential elements that can boost your firm’s visibility in local searches. A citation is any mention of your law firm’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) online, such as in relevant online local directories, legal websites or social media profiles.
To maximise the impact of local citations/directory sites:
- Ensure Consistency: Your firm’s NAP information should be consistent across all platforms. Inconsistencies can confuse search engines and reduce your ranking potential.
- Build Citations in Relevant Directories: List your firm name in reputable legal and local business directories. This increases your online presence and signals to search engines that your firm is a trusted entity in the local community. Some are no- or low-cost and others require payment.
- Encourage Clients to Leave Reviews: Ask clients to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and specialised legal review sites. Positive reviews not only attract potential clients but also signal to search engines that your firm is credible and authoritative.
- Respond to All Reviews: Engage with both positive and negative reviews by responding professionally and courteously. This shows you value client feedback and helps build trust with potential clients.
