Whether you are targeting direct conversion keywords such as “Toulouse urban planning lawyer” or whether you are looking to build a more elaborate strategy on specialized keywords such as “partnership with a brand” or “universal transfer of assets”, the ultimate goal of SEO is not a number of visitors, but a number of conversions.
Depending on the strategy and the granularity of the keyword, we will target different conversions: subscription to a training course, collection of professional contact details to organize a future callback or a request for an appointment. In any case, SEO serves the development of your professional activity, directly or indirectly.
The creation of a digital heritage
Before discussing the benefits that SEO can bring associated with a suitable website, SEO should be well conceptualized. Unlike other marketing actions, advertisements, events or participation in magazines, SEO does not disappear when the budget stops being spent. Better, when an SEO strategy is well carried out, each passing day reinforces it.
Your website becomes a real asset of your business: an element of your professional heritage that continues to grow. SEO is one of the few actions that enjoys the snowball effect.
The different strategies to choose
The basis of SEO strategy is keyword research. “construction lawyer”, “Montpellier real estate lawyer”, “estate concealment”all these phrases typed into the Google search bar produce results in which you can appear.
Choosing the right keywords is one of the first steps in your marketing strategy. They will define the structure of your site, the content you publish on it and the expected conversion.
The keywords and their semantics will define an intention which itself will define a customer profile: Individual? Professional ? Lawyer ? Searching for a lawyer ? Looking for simple legal information? Is he currently having a problem? Is he setting up a project that will require your skills? I invite you to read this article to learn more.
Win customers in your catchment area
This is the most obvious strategy. It is mainly based on the name of your activity + the name of your city/region: “Strasbourg town planning lawyer” for example. While this strategy is certain, it can be difficult to apply. Indeed, all your direct competitors seek to position themselves on these terms: these are the ones your clients are looking for to select a lawyer for your legal matter.
The competition is fierce, but the volume of contact requests is very high, it is definitely a strategy to integrate, not necessarily to prioritize.
Select this strategy if:
– your website has already been the subject of an SEO + backlinks strategy
– you do not have an extremely precise target, but rather target a broad legal matter: construction law or labor law, for example.
What conversion to expect?
In this strategy, your goal is direct conversion. Your prospect has a problem and is looking for a specialist lawyer like you. Insert a contact form or make an appointment online. In such a situation, it is interesting to indicate the legal aid and the price of a consultation, you avoid useless calls.
Develop a multi-local network
This strategy is the same as the previous one, but applies to practices located in several cities. You seek to position yourself on your commercial keywords in each of them.
It’s an expensive strategy that involves a heavy investment in SEO. In addition, you face tough competition on several places, you must rethink the mesh of your website to create logical semantic cocoons around the place and the targeted service.
Please also note that depending on your coverage of the national territory, you can target two types of requests: local keywords such as “narbonne construction lawyer” and national keywords such as “construction lawyer”. The second is much more competitive than the first. No rule is absolute. One of my clients now receives 30% of its new contacts through this strategy with only six major cities covered.
Select this strategy if:
– you depend on local traffic located in several places
– you are ready to spend several thousand, even several tens of thousands of euros on a multi-local strategy.
What conversion to expect?
Here again the expected conversion is direct. However, depending on the nature of your legal matter, you may be required to work remotely. Consider integrating video conferencing appointment scheduling features and online payment modules to facilitate your transactions.
Increase the popularity of its specialized content
This strategy is aimed more at hyper-specialized lawyers. You are not just targeting a legal subject, but a sub-area of it. You are a corporate law lawyer, but have a real specialty in management packages, for example. You will also not target one or more locations. You target specific issues for which your customers are ready to call on you remotely.
The keywords will bring less traffic, you will receive fewer files, but will be able to justify higher prices: all your content will serve your positioning as an expert.
Such a strategy is aimed at lawyers who target individuals with specific problems such as notarial liability and lawyers who target specific people in a company: DAF, CFO or even CEO in the hotel and restaurant industry, for example.
The keyword and its lexical structure make it possible to very precisely target an interlocutor of a company. The degree of technical precision of a request will make it possible to target a simple layman, a professional, or even a specialist. That’s what I’m describing on this page.
In fact, a double content will be preferred: content that targets user requests, intended to position itself in search results and specific content, little sought after, but which brings a lot of value to a specific customer profile.
Let’s illustrate this method with an example: you will seek to attract your prospects to the keyword “SCCV”, a particularly sought-after search term. This page will have to position itself on the search results and then bring you visitors. You will then create several child pages such as “sccv taxation” or “sccv for a property dealer”. These pages will not aim to position themselves on Google, but to convert your visitors: you make them want to contact you by responding to certain specific issues.
This strategy is called inbound marketing. You no longer canvass your prospects, but attract them to you through SEO.
This allows you to retrieve the contact details of your visitors and to have precise information about their problem: the request that led your prospect to contact you guides you in your future commercial relationship.
- Select this strategy if:
– you are starting a new site
– you target a very specific clientele with specific needs
– you do not have a site popular and powerful enough to position yourself on commercial requests - What type of conversion to expect:
- You will target an indirect conversion. Your prospect is not always aware of his problem. He explores and seeks answers to his questions. If you manage to provide them with these answers, you can get them to subscribe to a webinar, training or even a digital guide. From then on, you recover his contact details and can call him back to create a first commercial contact.
Launch additional offers and services
This strategy is powerful in the event that you launch new services. Lawyers often innovate in their service offer: professional training, new advisory functions, etc.
SEO becomes a formidable ally when launching these new service offers: an already powerful and well-referenced website will facilitate the positioning of your future keywords. You can quite easily attract hundreds, even thousands of potential prospects.
Which strategy to choose?
In the best of all worlds, choose them all. In reality, ask yourself these questions:
- Am I a generalist?
- Am I specialized in a legal subject?
- Do I have solid expertise in a specific subject?
- Can I work remotely? Do I want it?
- Do you mainly practice litigation or advice?
Sometimes your answers will lead you to choose local SEO associated with expert SEO. Let’s take the example of real estate law: you can support any problem while possessing considerable expertise in AirBnB and seasonal rentals.
Remember, SEO enjoys the snowball effect, each action adds a stone to the building and then makes your next strategy easier to deploy.