Search engine optimization (SEO) is the primary reason why most law firms hire marketing agencies, but let’s be honest – the sticker shock for legal SEO costs is real. Good SEO – the type that improves your rankings – protects your brand and website, and can cost more than you expect. A lot more.
This is because not every person who claims to be an SEO expert can handle everything the job actually calls for.
What an SEO Specialist Can Do for You
Imagine your fancy, expensive dishwasher breaks in the middle of the cycle. Do you call a plumber who has the tools to specifically fix dishwashers? Or do you call your neighbor, who comes over with a hammer and some towels?
Law firm SEO costs a lot because the work is highly specialized, and the tools it requires are expensive. Your SEO specialist has to manage many moving parts all at once. And they often have to do so at the whim of Google, which frequently changes the rules with little to no notice.
Why You Need an SEO Strategist to Handle Your Content Optimization
Let’s start with the part everyone thinks they understand: content optimization. Trust us – you need an SEO strategist for this part. This is because an SEO strategist is the person who :
- Conducts the necessary keyword research to determine the best content to create to make your services clear and to attract those who need them.
- Audits your existing content to find areas of improvement based on your goals and keyword research.
- Removes or revises any outdated or flat-out wrong content on your site.
- Analyzes your competition and their website’s authority to determine what is driving people to their sites.
- Builds links between your website and other reputable websites to improve your domain authority.
- Creates reports to identify your website’s pain points and then develops a strategy to resolve them.
Even if this was all there was to it (and it’s not-not by a long shot), it’s still time-intensive to do all the research and test new strategies on your own. And it’s not as though keywords are static either. Meaning that what’s popular today may not be popular six months from now, and that means you need to be prepared for – and make the time to – design an entirely new content strategy.
How SEO Affects Your Google Business Profile (GBP) Listing
In addition to content optimization, your SEO strategist also updates your Google Business Profile (GBP). Firms with offices in different cities should have multiple listings, and each needs to be tended to. Optimizing a listing consists of:
- Making sure profiles contain accurate information
- Adding photos of your office to each listing
- Generating new reviews (ideally good ones, but more reviews in general are better than fewer) and contesting fake reviews
- Frequently updating each listing with new articles, pages, blogs, and branded videos
You’d be surprised how many clients can come through a well-optimized GBP listing. Updating those listings needs to be a priority to ensure those leads keep on coming in.
Further, Google will suspend listings that it claims violate its terms, and those suspensions can take time to appeal and reverse. When a firm has multiple offices, and so multiple listings, keeping those listings in good standing can be a full-time job. And it’s much easier to hire someone else to work a full-time job than to work two of them yourself.
“Technical” SEO Is the Backbone of Good Strategy
Here’s where law firms truly get what they pay for: the “backend,” or technical SEO. Tech SEO is a highly specialized field. You need to know a little about coding, a little about design, a decent amount about user experience, and a LOT about your clients to do proper technical SEO work.
Technical SEO not only tells Google how to read and index your website, but it also improves the load time of your website, ensures appropriate filenames and schema markups – basically, it wears a lot of hats. Think of tech SEO as creating a dance routine: it’s not enough to know the steps; you have to know the order, which dancers can perform them, and what will happen if they’re performed incorrectly.
High-quality SEO requires a specialist who understands how your website runs, what Google expects of it, how people interact with websites like yours, and what your competitors are doing. It also requires someone who can adapt on the fly to changes in algorithms and popular search terms. Search engine optimization requires hours of research and a commitment to intricate, detailed work, which justifies the high cost of the right content marketing tools.
Let’s Go Back to Paid Ads for a Second
Paid ads like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Local Service Ads (LSAs) are critical components of digital marketing and account for about 40% of all digital advertising. Each of these services can cost thousands of dollars each month, and those costs increase if you’re practicing in certain areas (like major cities) or providing certain legal services (like personal injury, which has the most expensive keywords in existence).
Paid advertising is typically handled by a PPC specialist. This is not the same person as your SEO specialist – nor should it be. These campaigns run in tandem with your SEO strategy, and you need to have someone keeping an eye on what’s working and what’s not so they can make adjustments in real time.
Because these ads can be costly, your PPC specialist also has to adjust campaigns based on the cost-per-acquisition, so that, for example, it doesn’t cost a firm $20,000 to land a $25,000 case. Note that this is different from social media ads. There are additional costs and expenses associated with running campaigns on Facebook, for instance.
MeanPug Can Help You Minimize Your Legal SEO Costs and Maximize Your Bottom Line
The thing about SEO work is that it’s an ongoing process (read as: recurring cost). You should be aware of what those costs could be, give or take some wiggle room, especially for paid ads. Ultimately, it’s important to remember that hiring an SEO team is a long-term investment, not a quick fix.
One of the benefits of hiring a company like MeanPug is that we have an entire team of people who can help build and maintain your website, manage your brand, and build high-performing paid ad campaigns. We keep our billing transparent so you know what you’re paying for at all times.
The team you choose is important – not only to your overall success but to your bottom line too. MeanPug Digital operates exclusively in the legal vertical, so we understand exactly what it takes to build a successful SEO strategy for law firms. Call or contact us today to schedule your SEO audit.
