Actionable content strategies for law firms

When it comes to seeking out business reviews and recommendations, Google’s share of the search market remains dominant. In fact, 81% of consumers in the United States use Google to evaluate local businesses, including law firms in their area.

For law firms that want to increase their online visibility and grow their business, getting and keeping Google’s attention is always top of mind. And while the specifics of its search algorithms remain a secret, there are several proven content tactics your firm can employ to garner Google’s attention.

In a recent webcast, digital marketing experts from FindLaw shared information on steps law firms can take to win Google’s favor. Below, we provide additional ways firms can prime their content to get Google’s attention using E-E-A-T guidelines and topic modeling, as well as advice on how to optimize content for Google AI overviews and snippets.

Create people-first content with E-E-A-T guidelines

Google uses the E-E-A-T criteria to evaluate and measure the experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of business websites. Google evaluates business websites based on these qualities and rewards sites that are tailored to human beings, not solely search engines.

• Experience: Highlight your law firm’s experience by including detailed information as well as comprehensive bios that include years of practice for every attorney at your firm. It’s also a good idea to include mentions of special certifications attorneys hold, awards your firm has won, and the specific niche practice areas in which each attorney specializes.

• Expertise: Showcase your firm’s legal expertise by including detailed case studies on specific legal topics and blog posts where you distill and drill down into complex legal issues. Additionally, listing pertinent cases you’ve won and positive reviews from clients all point to your legal expertise.

• Authority: Demonstrate your authority by creating high-quality, reliable, and engaging content that showcases your law firm’s experience and unique perspective. Also include relevant internal links to other pages on your website to enhance navigation and work to build a strong online presence by promoting your content on social media.

• Trust: Demonstrate trust by taking steps to prove your firm’s legitimacy and reliability and your website’s security.

• Legitimacy: Make sure your website prominently displays information like your firm’s address, contact information, detailed attorney bios, testimonials, and privacy policies.

• Reliability: Provide content on your website that’s unique, factual, and helpful. It can also be beneficial to include mentions of recent relevant legal happenings and court rulings.

• Security: Make sure that your website incorporates design and user experience (UX) best practices and other applicable certifications and security badges.

Use topic modeling

Topic modeling is a term that describes how search engines like Google work to find, understand, and connect related themes and information across multiple pages. It’s also a strategic way for your law firm to identify specific topics and themes that potential clients care about, and to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise on several related and nuanced legal topics.

For example, say you’re a family law attorney in Minnesota and want to develop content around the topic of “how to get a divorce in Minnesota.” Using topic modeling, the content you write on this subject becomes your pillar page. You’ll then want to come up with a list of related topics, called a topic cluster, that someone who is interested in your pillar page topic may also want to learn more about.

Your topic cluster could cover topics like:

• How much does a divorce in Minnesota cost?

• Getting divorced when you have kids

• Communicating with your soon-to-be ex during divorce

• Life after divorce

Once you develop your topic cluster, create separate content on each topic and link back to your pillar page on “how to get a divorce in Minnesota.”

Keep AI Overviews in mind

Google’s AI Overviews use generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to synthesize information from multiple sources. AI Overviews provide concise AI-generated summaries that typically include source links and appear at the top of a search results page.

While there’s nothing specific your firm needs to do to create an AI Overview, it’s helpful to ensure your content is unique, tailored to your audience, and presented in a way that’s easy to scan and digest.

Optimize content for snippets

Google’s snippet feature is a short excerpt of text with a source link that appears at the top of a search results page. A snippet is tailored to a person’s specific search query and provides a concise summary of what someone can expect to learn by reading a webpage.

To create a snippet, Google scans and culls content from a webpage including the meta description so law firms would be wise to create content on each page that’s unique, concise and informative.

Tune in to our on-demand webcast to learn more about the digital content and components your law firm needs to get noticed by Google.