Whether your firm takes cases nationwide or just in one city, optimizing your firm’s site for local search is vital for obtaining new cases. But this can be a challenge for those taking cases in multiple areas. If you’re looking to optimize for local search in multiple locations, check out these tips:
Location-Specific Landing Pages
Make a landing page for each area that your firm takes cases in. This doesn’t mean make a landing page for each and every town or city, but rather the major cities or areas. For example, if you take cases all over the Northeast, you can make landing pages for the greater Boston area, New York City, Philadelphia, etc. Each page can include location specific content, including reviews from those in that area. When you do create multiple pages, don’t just change the location name. The content on each page needs to be unique so that your firm is not penalized for duplicate content.
Only Use One Domain
Do not make a new domain for each area your law firm takes cases in. Have each landing page on the same domain rather than creating separate domains. For example, instead of smithlawfirm-boston.com and smithlawfirm-newyork.com do smithlawfirm.com/locations/boston and smithlawfirm.com/locations/newyork. This way, any SEO efforts will link to one domain rather than different domains.
Claim Your Google My Business Listing
Claiming your My Business listing is free and an easy way to optimize for local search. You can add different locations to then appear in specific locations’ search results. Make sure any address you upload is up to date.
Optimize Local Keywords
As you upload location specific content, add keyword optimizations for that location. For example, Boston attorneys may also want to add in keywords like “Suffolk County lawyers” or “Massachusetts law firm.” You want these to appear naturally in the article, rather than seem like you are keyword stuffing, which is a black hat tactic.
Meta Data
One way to tell Google what locations your firm takes cases in is through meta data. You can add meta descriptions to your pages that say something along the lines of “We help those applying for disability benefits in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.” If you are uploading location specific content, adding the city in your meta and title tags can help Google and other search engines understand which area you’re targeting.
Link Building
Try to build backlinks to each of your location-specific pages. As a ranking factor for Google, having people link back to your firm’s location pages can help boost its rankings in the search results. You can build these links by sponsoring local events to build local backlinks as well as guest blogging and including these links to your location pages in your blog.
Monitor Traffic
As you optimize for local search, monitor traffic to your firm’s site. You can see which local landing pages yield more traffic than others. If one page has more traffic than others, you can compare the pages to see what the top-performing page has that others don’t. In Google Analytics, you can also sort your traffic by city, state (listed as region), and metro-area (for example, one metro location listed is Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne FL). Monitoring the different traffic trends can help you prioritize which areas to optimize your firm’s site for.