Search Engine Optimisation
SEO, is as simple as it sounds - Making your law firm’s website more attractive to search engines, by following SEO guidelines.
Google is no mind reader, neither is Yahoo or Bing (whatever they are). In day-to-day life, it’s easy to assume that someone understands what you mean, but your message can get lost in translation. SEO is your way of making sure that your website, and content, can’t be misinterpreted.
Keywords and How to Use Them
Your keywords are essentially the words you would use to describe your services. If you want people to know you offer Conveyancing and Employment services, then Conveyancing and Employment are your keywords. The more you make it obvious, the more the search engines understand that you are offering these services.
For example, let’s compare these two sentences;
S1 - Let’s go to the café on Church Street.
S2 - Let’s meet at Starbucks café on Church Street at 1 pm today, we can have lunch.
S1 has one piece of key information – the name of the street – but nothing more. Which café? When? For what reason?
Whereas S2 tells you all that you need to know, it’s clear and concise, whilst leaving no room for confusion.
Now, what if we compare two industry-specific statements
S1 - We offer all legal services to help you with your problems!
S2 - We are a no-win no-fee London-based firm that specialises in legal disputes.
The words in S2 give you information that you otherwise wouldn’t have known. Therefore, think of these as keywords.
Keywords (or phrases) are the search terms you want your firm to appear under. Therefore, you want to prioritise using these phrases in your content titles and service pages. You can do this by including them in your page headings i.e., H1, H2 and H3.
How to Use Headings – A Basic Guide
So what do I mean by H1, H2 and H3? H itself stands for heading and can most easily be described by the diagram below.
H1 stands for the title of your page, article, or content. You should only have one H1 per page, the title of your page, having two will only confuse the search engine.
H2 is your subheading – you can have multiple subheadings but to try and avoid too many, you can create H3’s underneath your H2s.
H3 is your sub-subheadings. These can be used to separate your topics within each paragraph.
Just like when you are structuring a document in Microsoft Word.
Meta Tags and Meta Descriptions – What and Why?
Your meta tag and description are the simplest tools you can use to make sure that your page is ranking highly and visible.
When you search a phrase on your search engine, the below image shows you the results table.
Meta-Title Meta-Description
By making sure your Meta Title and Meta Description both include your keyword – you are increasing your visibility to the search engines.
Summary of these SEO Basics
These SEO basics really are exactly that, and there is a lot more to learn – but if you’re looking to get started and cover your basics then these tips and tricks should set you on your way.
For an in-depth explanation or for more help managing your SEO email sales@conscious.co.uk or call 0117 325 0200 so we can get our SEO experts to help you.
If you want to see how your SEO is currently performing, then why not complete our free Local SEO audit to see where you could improve.