7 Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid

As a law firm in the digital age, having an effective Search Engine Optimization strategy is part of running a profitable business these days. It’s an essential marketing channel that helps drive more brand awareness and ultimately generate more revenue for the firm via new signed cases from those potential clients who are doing their due diligence on firms in their market. 

A well-executed SEO strategy helps law firms not only rank high in search engine results but also reach potential clients who are actively seeking legal services. At DIGITIC, we specialize in offering top-tier SEO services to law firms, and part of our job is to help you avoid the most common pitfalls.

However, without a clear understanding of SEO best practices, law firms can potentially hurt their online visibility and SEO more than help it.  

This post will analyze seven common SEO mistakes that you should avoid at all costs when starting to implement a positioning strategy for your law firm.

1. Not Having a Clear SEO Strategy

One of the biggest errors law firms often commit is embarking on their SEO journey without a clear, comprehensive strategy. It’s not unusual for firms to dive into content creation or link building without a coherent plan, leading to inefficient use of resources and structural issues such as keyword stuffing.

A successful strategy involves a deep understanding of your firm’s unique selling proposition, a clear identification of your target audience, and the establishment of specific, measurable goals. It’s essential to formulate a roadmap to guide your SEO efforts, including content creation, keyword targeting, link building, and performance tracking.

An effective SEO strategy involves:

• Understanding your firm’s unique selling proposition
• Clearly identifying your target audience
• Establishing specific, measurable goals
• Developing a roadmap to guide your SEO initiatives, which includes: Content creation, keyword targeting, link building, optimization, and performance tracking.

For example, understanding and leveraging Google’s “People Also Ask” feature can give your firm a significant strategic advantage. Check out our guide on how to rank for legal topics using the ‘People Also Ask’ feature for some valuable insights on using this tool effectively.

2. Creating Low-Quality Content

High-quality, value-laden content forms the key to any successful SEO strategy. Many law firms, however, succumb to the pitfall of creating content that lacks real value for their audience or even fall into the temptation of using AI-generated content without any human intervention. 

But remember, search engines prioritize content that is informative, relevant, engaging, and that offers a first-hand experience on the topic.

For your firm to excel in SEO, you need to create content that directly addresses your audience’s queries, provides solutions to their issues, and cements your authority in your field of law. But also, you need to create content that allows you to sell your services, which is the main goal behind this whole strategy. 

For example, if your law firm is focused on personal injury, you may want to write topics such as how to file a personal injury claim, or what to do after a car accident. We suggest going to your website and reading your content. Does it align with your standards? Is it 100% accurate? Is it outdated? Are there typos that need to be edited and fixed?

3. Focusing on the Wrong Keywords

The choice of keywords plays a pivotal role in SEO. Yet, many firms misdirect their focus to unsuitable keywords—typically, ones that are excessively competitive or irrelevant to their audience. 

The keywords your law firm chooses should align closely with your area of expertise and mirror the search queries potential clients are likely to use. Your investment in SEO should manifest in your prudent choice of keywords and in the successful execution of your overall strategy.

As a rule, you can look for keywords with low keyword difficulty. And if the existing results for these queries are incomplete, wrong, or updated, you’ll have more chances to compete if you’re able to create good and relevant content that satisfies the search intent. 

4. Ignoring Geo-Targeting 

While it’s critical to target broad keywords relevant to your area of law, neglecting local geo-targeting SEO is another common mistake. This involves optimizing your online presence to attract attention from local searches in your geographical area. This can include expanding into other highly populated cities outside of your main office location. For example, if you’re office is located in Atlanta, GA and your website is 100% focused on this single market, you could be missing out on traffic and leads from potential clients located in other nearby cities, such as Alpharetta, Marietta, Fayetteville, etc.

By overlooking the potential of local SEO, you miss out on the chance to connect with clients who are in your immediate vicinity and actively seeking your services.

5. Using Duplicate or Thin Content

Search engines like Google penalize websites with duplicate or thin content. Such content provides little value to users and can significantly harm your site’s rankings. It’s essential that each piece of content on your site is original, detailed, and provides tangible value to your audience. 

If your content is seen as duplicated or lacking depth, your overall SEO performance will suffer because you’ll be competing against yourself, sometimes called cannibalization, and therefore not competing at all.

6. Not Working on Mobile Optimization

In today’s world, mobile optimization isn’t optional—it’s a prerequisite if we consider that half of the global internet traffic originates from mobile devices. With a large portion of search queries originating from mobile devices, a website that isn’t mobile-friendly risks losing a significant amount of potential traffic. 

Mobile optimization is not just about fitting your site on a smaller screen; it’s about delivering an exceptional user experience tailored to mobile users. Here are some vital aspects to consider:

• Responsive Design: Ensure your site has a responsive layout that automatically adjusts to fit the screen size of any device, whether it’s a desktop, tablet, or smartphone. This feature is crucial for providing a seamless user experience across different devices.
• Fast Loading Times: Mobile users often browse on the go and value speed and efficiency. Hence, your mobile site should have fast loading times. Employ strategies such as compressing images and minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML to speed up load times.
• Easy Navigation: The design and layout of your mobile site should facilitate effortless navigation. Links and buttons should be easily clickable, and the menu options streamlined for mobile users to ensure a clean, user-friendly interface.

7. Not Measuring and Tracking SEO Performance

Monitoring your SEO performance is as crucial as implementing your strategy. If you fail to measure your results, you won’t know which strategies are working and which ones need refinement. 

Leverage analytics tools to track your rankings, website traffic, and conversion rates, and use this data to continually refine and adjust your SEO strategy. 

We’ve seen instances where a business “feels” they aren’t getting the ROI they are paying for. When digging into the data, their ROI is actually off the charts. Vice versa as well – there can be instances where a business “feels” their website performance is doing really well, but might be only looking at one or two data points that don’t reflect the entire picture. Most law firms ultimately care most about Cost-per-lead and Cost-per-acquistion of a new, signed client. 

But what happens when you simply can’t grow online regardless of your efforts? 

If that’s your case, chances are you’re having a structural problem that needs the attention of an SEO professional who can help you change your outcomes and reach more clients.

At DIGITIC, we work to help you refine your SEO strategy and find more clients in your area. Don’t hesitate in contacting us to audit your site and build a solid strategy that will boost your online presence.