Law Firm Content Writing 101: Why Geo-Location Pages Are Important
Sarah
Your law firm’s website represents you and your firm online. But to function as a marketing tool, the law firm content writing you include on your website must connect to your physical location. Geo-location pages provide an effective way to help local clients find your firm.
What Is a Geo-Location Page?
When search engines like Google and Bing scan your website, they parse your content for information about your business. They use this information to index your website so the engine can rapidly retrieve it in response to a user’s search.
For example, a law firm website that includes multiple mentions of “car accident lawyers” will be indexed with other car accident lawyer websites. When a user searches for “car accident lawyers,” the search engine will return that firm’s website.
But this is not how most people search for lawyers. A potential client usually needs a lawyer who practices in a specific jurisdiction. Someone who wants to file a lawsuit in Texas needs a Texas law firm. As a result, potential clients tend to use search terms like “criminal lawyers near me” or “real estate law firms in Florida.”
A geo-location page tells the search engines your physical location. The search engines can then use this information when a user includes a location among their search terms. This strategy ensures that your law firm’s website will be indexed with the correct geographical data and will be retrieved when users look for lawyers in your area.
Benefits of Including a Geo-Location Page in Your Law Firm Content Writing
Once you incorporate geo-location into your law content writing, you can expect to see many benefits:
Improve Local Search Rankings
Getting indexed correctly by search engines is only part of the battle. You want to appear as high as possible in the search results. Law firms that appear on the first page of search results capture between 71% and 92% of search traffic. If you slip to the second page, only about 6% of users will see your website.
In some small markets, you might get away without working geographic information into your content pages. You will likely fall behind other firms using geo-location, but you could still appear on the first page.
But in competitive markets, the lack of geographic data could bury your site deep in the search results where potential clients will never see it. Law firms with many competitors in the same market need to use every available tool to rise to the top of search results pages.
Attract High-Quality Leads in Your Target Market
Attracting leads is important to your marketing strategy. But low-quality leads not only fail to convert into clients; they also siphon away your resources. Responding to these low-quality leads will occupy your staff’s time, preventing them from performing revenue-generating work.
To convert leads into legal fees, you need high-quality leads in your legal field and geographic area. The key to attracting high-quality leads is to match up with potential clients as closely as possible through their search engine results.
This means your content must accomplish two tasks: First, your site must show up when a user uses search terms relevant to your practice. Second, your site should not show up when a user searches for something irrelevant to your firm.
A geo-location page helps you show up on local searches and minimizes your firm’s likelihood of appearing in a nonlocal search.
Establishing Your Law Firm as a Trusted Authority in Your Area of Practice
Google has a complex algorithm for determining the quality of online information. Its goal is to provide accurate, true, and useful information to users from trusted authorities.
To become a trusted authority, you must have reliable content that demonstrates your experience and expertise on a topic. The more information you provide about yourself, your firm, and your area of practice, the more likely it is that Google will rate you as a trusted authority. One key to becoming a trusted authority is to provide a geo-location page.
The benefit of being a trusted authority is that you get ranked higher in search results. Additionally, your content might be picked for a snippet. A snippet is an excerpt that appears at the top of the results page in response to a search query.
For example, suppose that a potential client asks, “Can I sue my employer for making fun of my race?” If you are a trusted authority on employment law and have content that answers the question, a snippet from your page might appear at the top of the search results, guaranteeing that you will get at least some traffic.
How to Incorporate Geo-Location into Your Legal Content
Many law firms entrust their law firm content writing to digital marketing and writing agencies. These agencies’ legal content writers know how to produce accurate and reliable content while optimizing it for search terms and location.
As you work with a legal website content writer, look for ways to incorporate geographical information into your website. Some ways to create an effective geo-location page include:
Optimize for Local Keywords in a Specific City or Region
Some firms focus only on keywords for their practice area. Instead, you can incorporate keywords for your city or region to help you get indexed by search engines for a geographic area, such as:
- City, county, and state names
- Neighborhoods, districts, and other place names
- Landmarks
You can even develop entire pages dedicated to specific locations, like The Strip or Chinatown. These geo-targeted landing pages encourage search engines to return your website for a wider range of search terms.
Provide Valuable Content Specific to Individuals in the Area
Sometimes, the content itself can indirectly provide geographical data. Your firm’s website could include content that ties into:
- Significant locations
- Large local businesses and employers
- Important regional industries
Thus, a personal injury firm’s website could include a blog post about dangerous local intersections. Or a general litigation firm in Miami could write about how to get your money back after a cruise line cancels a cruise.
This content helps in two ways: First, it gives the search engine more terms to use when indexing your website. Second, it might give you a leg up on your competition when users search for answers to narrow legal questions.
Include Relevant Information About Your Law Firm’s Local Presence
Attorney and firm biographies, case results, and contact pages give you the perfect opportunity to throw in some geographical information. Some common ways to incorporate location data include:
- Talking about the communities you serve
- Listing local schools you attended and jurisdictions where you practice
- Giving directions to your office
As you look for places to incorporate location-related information, make sure that it flows naturally and bears some relevance to your content.
Boost Your Law Firm’s Website with Geo-Location Writing
Geo-location content can improve the quality of your leads while boosting your authority. Contact Write Collective to learn about lawyer content writing that optimizes your law firm’s website using geo-location pages.