Law offices need websites if they are to attract new clients. If a potential client hears about your firm and wants to find out more about it, the first thing they’ll do is type the name into a search engine and locate your website that way.

However, if a potential client is looking for a lawyer in their area, but they don’t know the first thing about your law firm, you’re going to need SEO elements if you hope to get that individual to visit your site. SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to techniques you can use to get your site to sit at or near the very pinnacle of the Google results.

There are some particular SEO elements pertaining to law firms that the Google algorithm uses to determine where your site should rank. If you need your law firm’s website to rank highly on the Google results, you should know about those elements. We’ll discuss a few of them now.

Outgoing Links

You should understand that when it ranks a law firm’s website, the Google algorithm looks at over 200 factors. That should indicate to you how complex it is. You should also know that the algorithm is not static. Instead, it’s constantly changing as Google updates and refines it.

Google does not reveal all the algorithm details. They don’t want the public to know that since it’s proprietary information. You can garner some details about the algorithm, though, by studying it and looking at what websites consistently stay at the top of the rankings.

Outgoing links are one of the factors that Google uses when ranking law firm sites, and indeed, websites in general. A link is something you click on that directs you elsewhere. If you feature outgoing links on your law office’s website, and someone clicks on one of them, that will lead them to a site outside and apart from your own.

You might think that it’s counterproductive to direct a potential client away from your site. The thing is, though, Google ranks sites higher when they feature outbound links.

Remember, though, your outbound links should be relevant, and they should only go to sites with excellent domain authority. Spammy sites or ones that don’t have great domain authority will cause your site to sink lower in the SERPs instead of rising.

Inbound Links

Your law office’s site should also feature inbound links. Inbound links, when someone clicks on them, will send that site visitor to another web page within your site.

Just like outgoing links, the Google algorithm prizes inbound links. If you have a few of them, that’s a way of fleshing out your website map in a way the algorithm appreciates.

If you can set up a logical inbound linking system within your site, your website visitors will like that as well, since it will make it easier on them as they try to navigate the site and find the pages they need. If you have the technical skill to set up those links, you can do so yourself, or you can always hire a web designer to do it for you.

User Interaction Time

Google looks at user interaction time in determining whether to rank your law firm’s site highly or whether to drop it down. User interaction time connects to something that SEO experts call your site’s bounce rate.

If someone arrives at your website and does not like what they see there for whatever reason, they might immediately leave the site. They “bounce” away from the site instead of spending any time there.

If you can get individuals who visit your site to stay there for as long as possible, that’s one of the factors Google uses to determine whether your site is popular or not. If you have a very lower average user interaction time, or a high bounce rate, that sends Google the signal that people don’t like your site and don’t want to spend any time there.

Google will then drop your site lower in the rankings accordingly. To stop this from happening, you must do all you can to make your site more interesting and compelling to users. If you can’t figure out how to do that, your site will stay low in the SERPs.

Visual Elements

Google knows that humans like visual elements, such as pictures, logos, and videos. If you think about it objectively, that makes sense. What could be more boring than visiting a site that doesn’t have any of those things and only has long text blocks instead?

By contrast, if you load up your site with some strategic visual elements, that will make it seem a lot more appealing to the people who choose to visit it. You don’t want to clutter the site, but you need to take some original pictures and videos, and you should feature them prominently. You might also come up with a logo for your law firm, which will help with your branding effort in addition to boosting your site ranking.

You should not use stock images when decorating your site. If you do, the average visitor will recognize that, and they will think you’re running a second-rate law firm.

You can definitely hire a professional photographer or videographer to take the pictures and videos to put on your site. Once you do that, you make it more likely visitors will stay there longer, and your bounce rate will quickly diminish.

You can think of Google like your law firm’s silent partner. Whether you like it or not, you're partners with them since many of your site visitors will use Google to locate your website and click on it for the first time.

You can’t count on people hearing about your law firm. If that’s the only way you get new customers, and you’re not relying on Google traffic to some extent, you’re probably missing out on many potential clients.