Lawyer Monthly - January 2022 Edition

Use online tools to test your website page speed and ensure they are loading quickly. Slow pages will turn off potential clients, leading to higher bounce rates – as much as 32% – and lost clients. So even if you write great content and your site looks fantastic, if it is not loading within ten seconds you need to spend some time fixing it. Ideally, you will want to hit a page load speed of around three seconds. Checking your page speed Allowing visitors to get the most out of your site no matter which device they are viewing it on is essential in an age where more and more visitors look at websites on their mobiles. Often ignored, this is a vital tool in your arsenal and one that is very easy to check. Simply view your own website on your mobile device and see how it looks. Are pages cropped? Buttons missing? If so, then you need to look at creating either a more responsive website or a mobile-friendly mode. If your potential clients are not seeing your website in a good light, they will look unfavourably on your law firm. Making your website responsive for mobile and tablet Content is and always will be king online. Google’s E-A-T (Expertise - Authoratativeness – Trust) algorithm received some updates this year, but its fundamentals remain the same. Avoid short blog posts that have no value and concentrate on writing content that answers a search query with expertise and authority, and you will gain the trust of the search engines – and your website visitors. When you write content, imagine that you are answering a client’s question and impart your expertise so they can understand exactly what is happening, what it means and what actions they need to take. By following that simple tactic, you will invariably improve your content. Writing good content SEO can seem scary, but it really does not have to be. To simplify it, SEO is making your website more appealing to search engines. But how? Well, a combination of good content, keyword research and use and backlinks will certainly help. Look into keywords that your target audience will look for and produce content on that subject. You can use different types of keywords too, so if on your homepage you describe yourself as a divorce lawyer in London, look at the transactional queries such as “divorce lawyer London”, “London’s best divorce lawyer” etc. to target those looking for your services. On your blogs, focus on informational and educational search queries such as “How do you get divorced in England?” By finding those queries that match what your target audience is searching and implementing them across various Working on your SEO spaces on your website, such as in URLs, headings, content and quotes, you will increase your SEO and your online visibility. An additional element to consider is looking to increase your number of links to reputable websites. When a reputable website publishes a link to your site, it is similar to a client referral or a positive review, telling Google that your website has good information and thereby giving you more authority with the search engines and improving your rankings. To increase your backlinks, focus on writing good content and then promoting that to other websites so they feature it. Include quality information and infographics that are easy for people to share so they can link back to your original content. 37 JAN 2022 | WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM