Frequently, prospective clients will ask us why a particular lawyer or law firm in their area or local association is ranked high on the first page. It is a legitimate question – the best way to start marketing your law firm online is to find out who your competitors are.

Over the years, here are some of the reasons we have discovered.

Age

Most commonly, the cause of the high ranking over a law firm that is new to marketing online is due to the competing firm having a more established presence on the Internet. Law firms that have had an active website for 3-5 years have an advantage over newer sites.

Media

A little attention from the media helps your search engine optimization. Sometimes, law firms that maintain strong relationships with their local news organizations get a boost in their ranking. When a news outlet writes an article in their paper or reports a story on television, they also include the article on their website. News organizations generally have high ranking websites so by maintaining strong relationships with your local news outlets, you can get some strong links pointing to your firm’s website.

More than Age

It certainly takes a lot more effort than just existing to make it to the first page. For example, a law firm in your practice area that sets up a website and does nothing with it (in terms of link building or onsite SEO), is going to rank just as low five years from now as they do the day they go live.

From the time your website goes up, content should be written and distributed with links back to your site, social networks should be pointing to your website, and your onsite blog should be syndicated; a variety of inbound links should start pointing to your law firm’s website from the time it is visible to the public.

So with a little time (which can be greatly reduced with a strong inbound linking strategy), some distributed content and inbound links consistently pointing to your website, your law firm can compete with Internet elders.

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer

Tags: attorney marketing, attorney website, attorney websites, Law Firm Marketing, law firm search engine optimization, Law Firm Web Design, legal marketing

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 11:26 am and is filed under Law Firm Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.