Marketing trends are constantly changing. Trying to stay on top of the latest search engine marketing techniques to gain clients can require frequent research. But sometimes there is misleading or outdated advice online that can steer your firm’s marketing in the wrong direction. So how will you know what is the real advice is and what advice is actually hurting your marketing efforts? We’ve compiled a list of the worst legal marketing advice we’ve heard to help you sort the good from the bad.

You need to use keywords “X# of times” for your content to rank well.

While you want to mention the keyword or phases you’d like your firm’s new blog post to rank for at least a couple of times, you don’t want to over do it. Keyword stuffing is viewed as a black hat tactic and can negatively impact your SEO. Google cares more about the quality of the article over the quantity of keywords within the blog. An example of keyword stuffing would be as follows:

If you were rear-ended, you may want to talk to a personal injury attorney that takes rear-end cases. Rear-end claims can be tough to handle on your own. Lawyers who handle rear-end claims will have helped those who have been rear-ended have successful rear-end claims. Contact a lawyer who can help your rear-end claim today.

Once you publish your content, you’re done.

Even if you write an amazing piece of content on what medical documents can best support a Social Security disability claim, that doesn’t mean claimants will immediately find your article online. Optimize your firm’s content to make it more visible on search results. Add an image with an alt text description and a meta description. Link build with the article if you think it could be a good resource for others. These will all help boost how the article does on Google search results.

Your firm’s site doesn’t need to be mobile friendly.

According to Search Engine Land, around 50%* of all searches are from mobile. If your firm’s site isn’t optimized for mobile use, you can be losing mobile traffic to your site. On mobile searches, Google takes into consideration if your site is mobile friendly. Plus, when someone clicks on your firm’s site on a mobile device, if it is not optimized for mobile then it may take a while to load. A user may also find a skewed or dysfunctional layout if you haven’t optimized your firm’s site for mobile. This can cause a high bounce rate as many will click off your firm’s site and find another law firm to contact.

The shorter the form, the better.

Though shorter forms tend to have a higher conversion rate, a short form may not always be the right choice for your firm. There are different factors you need to determine how long your form should be. For example, if you are a Social Security disability firm, you’ll likely need a longer form to understand the details of the case and if it is one your firm would like to take.

By evaluating your marketing efforts and considering what's important to your firm, you'll begin to weed out the marketing advice and efforts that aren't beneficial to your firm and focus on what will help you achieve your firm's marketing goals.

*https://searchengineland.com/report-nearly-60-percent-searches-now-mobile-devices-255025