Do you have a law firm website and it isn’t receiving the traffic it deserves? Are you interested in creating a law firm website to broaden your clientele? Creating and launching a law firm website requires a thorough plan. Your law firm website is a crucial business aspect and requires great attention to detail. Prior to building a website for your law firm, it is important to create a plan so you don’t walk into an important project without structure.
In order to reach your targeted audience, when creating, building, and maintaining a law firm website, you must strategize the right digital marketing methods. One digital marketing method that can significantly impact the performance of a law firm website is — search engine optimization (SEO.)
However, to enhance your law firm website SEO, we advise creating a website outline for law firm SEO. Why is this? Because to rank on search engines, web crawlers must be able to read and understand your website. With an effective website outline, web crawlers can do this, which leads to a high rank on search engines, and puts your law firm website in the eyes of your targeted audience.
Here is how to create a website outline for law firm SEO.
Table of Contents
What is a Law Firm Website Outline?
A law firm website outline is an outline, or map, and structure of the pages of your site. By separating the web pages on your law firm site, you are able to break down what is needed on your site so that search engines are able to find and understand your site.
A law firm website outline will consist of grouping content based on their topic. Topics allow search engines to easily crawl your site. Here is an example of a simple website law firm SEO outline.
There is no wrong way when it comes to choosing a template for your law firm website design. As long as the outline is focused on the website itself, it will provide search engines and web users with a sufficient website.
Why Does the Structure of the Site Matter for SEO?
The structure of your law firm website can help your site rank on search engines. It is an important search engine optimization factor. The structure of your website and its content and design matter when it comes to search engine ranking. The more structured a website is, the easier it is for search engines to understand your content.
A structured law firm website is beneficial because of the following:
- It provides Google with a better understanding of your website.
- A good website structure will help search engines, such as Google, find valuable websites and understand their content and information.
- It lowers bounce rates.
- As search engines read and comprehend your law firm website, they are able to determine which searchers would best benefit from your site. If search engines find it challenging to comprehend your site, they may display your website as a search result for the wrong type of audience. This can cause more bounce rates. With a structured website, your website will be displayed for relevant searches, and bounce rates will decrease.
- You have a higher chance of site links.
- With a structured law firm website, Google will begin to notice your website, and eventually develop enough trust to display it within the first pages of search results. This increases your chances of your practice areas being added to search results, which can increase your click-through rate.
Search engines start with your homepage and move throughout the links it discovers within your homepage when they crawl your website. A good law firm website structure allows search engines to understand how the pages throughout the site relate to each other and determine which pages are most important. Law firm websites have a higher chance to rank organically when search engine crawlers determine page relevancy and discover important content.
How to Create a Law Firm Website Outline for SEO
Now that we know what a website outline for law firm SEO is and why it is so important, we can dive deeper into how to create an effective website outline for law firm SEO. Though we have reviewed an example of a website outline, it is a little more complicated than the image presented.
Continue to read this article to learn the 5 steps of creating a website outline for law firm SEO.
Define the Purpose of Your Law Firm Website
Defining the purpose of your law firm website will dictate how the organization of your website will be throughout its existence. Additionally, it will help you determine the categories of each webpage on your website. Though most law firm websites have the same purpose — generate leads and increase clientele — this may not be the case for all. Some examples of website purposes for law firms are:
- To inform clients
- To generate leads and attract prospective clients
- To teach law students
Essentially, the purpose of your website should be directly related to your targeted audience.
Consider Needs and Requirements
When creating a website outline for law firm SEO it is important to consider both your prospective clients and the needs of your law firm business. Furthermore, you need to consider rules, regulations, and requirements as a legal professional.
Consider the following:
- Rules: Depending on the state you practice in, there may be rules when creating a law firm website. Certain states prohibit the use of certain words, terms, and advertisements. Ensure you do not violate any rules or guidelines.
- Business needs: Considering the needs of your business is important. What do you need to meet your law firm’s business goals?
- User needs: When prospective patients visit your site, what is it that you need them to do? Do you need them to call the office? Email your assistant? Do they need a website translator? The user’s needs will help you decide how the site will be mapped out to provide the best user experience.
- Budget: Building and maintaining a website can become pricey. Determine a website budget for your law firm and stick to the budget.
- Digital marketing: Once your website launches and you begin to generate website traffic, you may notice you need more help than you thought. Or you may consider additional help to enhance your website. Keep this in mind when you create a budget and note any discrepancies when you are creating your website so a digital marketing agency can handle these issues for you in the future.
Determining the above-mentioned components will allow you to create an efficient website, establish a solid website framework, and set realistic limitations.
Categorize Content
Categorize content and focus on the pages throughout your website. Create a list of everything you want to be included on your website. This should be everything you want your targeted audience to know: services, practice areas, disclaimers and agreements, biographies, resources, reviews, testimonials, case studies, blogs, FAQs, etc.
When creating your law firm website, the categories will be displayed on the menu, and the subcategories will fall under the relevant category.
Categorizing content will aid in the website creation process and allow you to meet the needs of your potential clients, and current clients.
Focus on the most important elements of your website that will enhance your legal business. Categorize your law firm business to make it easier for legal clients to find the services they are looking for.
Consider the following when creating categories for your law firm website:
The number of categories: The homepage of your law firm website, should allow users to swiftly navigate the site. Do not overcomplicate the site. Keep categories to a minimum and ensure web users can easily find what they are looking for. Here are a few category examples to include on your website for law firm SEO:
- About
- Practice areas
- Testimonials
- Locations
- Blog
- Contact us
This is just a general idea of what can be included on your law firm website. Categories will vary depending on the goals and needs of your law firm business. Take a look at the example below.
- Page depth: Page depth is the number of clicks it takes to navigate to a webpage from the homepage. You don’t want clients to have to click numerous times before reaching the desired web page on your site. If there are too many pages, clients will have a difficult time navigating your law firm’s website. Make sure categories and subcategories are organized and user-friendly.
- Relevancy: Create the categories and their subcategories of your homepage based on relevancy. This will allow web users to easily find the information they are looking for. You don’t want your ‘location’ page listed under the ‘practice areas’ category.
Most websites will use the category and subcategory method. Browse different law firm websites to get a better understanding of categorizing content.
Prior to Web Development, Plan Out a Hierarchy
Categorizing and subcategorizing will lead your site right to its website structure, also known as website hierarchy. Essentially, website hierarchy is the arrangement of categories and all of their subcategories on a map.
This is important for search engine crawlers because it allows them to easily read your site and determine the important pages, site categories, and subcategories. An effective site hierarchy allows search engines to identify the pages and their relevancy.
Though planning out the sitemap or hierarchy may seem simple, it can affect the way in which crawlers interpret your law firm website.
Here are site hierarchy tips for when you are planning out the development of your law firm website:
- Homepage: Simple and clean
- The homepage of your website is most likely the first place clients will browse. Welcome clients with a simple, clean, easy-to-navigate homepage. The homepage of your website is similar to a first impression when a client walks into your law firm.
- Categories: Consider importance and significance
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- Each law firm business has different practice areas, locations, skills, experience, etc. While many law firm websites have the basics on their homepage, others have included categories for their rewards and recognition or commercials and books they have partaken in. Consider what is not only important to your business but also important to clients. Map out which categories are most important to you and your legal clients from least to greatest. This is a great way to structure the menu on your law firm website.
- Subcategories: Relevance
- The subcategories must be relevant to the category under which they fall. If you come across a subcategory that doesn’t necessarily fit, it probably needs its own category. This makes it easy for users to navigate your law firm business, and easier for crawlers to understand.
For example, if you require masks within your law firm office and it is very important to you for clients to follow this rule, then it would be necessary to display it as a category. If this is a rule you implement but do not consider to be as important, you could mention your mask rule within the ‘location’ category.
Create a URL Structure
Each page of your website will have a distinct URL. The URL is also something that is crawled and should also be SEO friendly. Search engine crawlers can better understand your law firm website with effective URLs and permalinks.
Please keep in mind URLs and permalinks are different. A URL is a link that may be typed in to navigate to a page, while the permalink is a more detailed version of a URL.
Here are a few examples of URLs:
- .com/practice areas
- .com/biography
- .com/locations
The URLs are typically easier to remember. The category does not need to be included in every URL.
On the other hand, permalinks are more specific, with categories for search engines to crawl the site. Here are a few examples of permalinks:
- Com = practice areas
- Com / practice areas / personal injury = practice areas category, personal injury subcategory
- Com / practice areas / personal-injury = practice area category, personal injury subcategory
A website outline for law firm SEO shouldn’t take up too much of your time and should make website creation less stressful. The website outline doesn’t need to be perfect. It should represent how you envision your law firm website while keeping law firm SEO in mind. Here is an example of a website outline for law firm SEO.
Recap
The purpose of a website outline for law firm SEO is to map out the important SEO elements of a legal website. The outline should aid the creation and building process of the law firm’s website.
Though it requires time-consuming considerations and careful thinking, it will help the website building and development process. The website outline will allow you to walk through the process of creating a law firm SEO-friendly and user-friendly website.
FAQ
What is a Search Engine Ranking?
A search engine ranking is a rank that your website receives on search engines. Your law firm’s website will display on a certain page and certain positions within the pages of search results. This is your search engine ranking.
What is a Web Crawler?
A web crawler is a bot that scans, or indexes, websites so they can appear on search engines. Essentially, it reads the website to see if it will be a good match to display as a search result. If your law firm’s website has relevant content, the bot will recognize it and feel confident enough to display it for web searchers.
What is a Bounce Rate?
Not all website visitors will browse through your website or take action to become a client. Some of them may click on your website, realize it is not what they were looking for, and click out. This is called bounce rate and is measured in percentages. The lower the bounce rate percentage, the better.
