SEO for DUI Attorneys

What data should DUI attorneys pay attention to in Google Analytics and Google Search Console?

The most important data that you’re going to want to evaluate in Google Analytics is (a) traffic by source and (b) goal completion by source.

There are TONS of other reports and data sets that you can mine in Google Analytics if you have the time. Still, for most attorneys, traffic by source and goals by source are the most important to understand and monitor in Google Analytics.

Traffic by source is a report that shows how traffic to your site changes over time based on what marketing channel (or source) is driving traffic to your website. Note that in Google Analytics, you’ll see both the terms ‘channel’ and ‘source’ used. They essentially mean the same thing, although typically, ‘Channel’ refers to a broader category of marketing drivers, and ‘Source’ refers to the more granular marketing drivers. 

For example, your law firm website could receive Channel traffic from “Organic Search” and Source traffic from “Google.” The Channel traffic report for Organic Search will include Google’s search engine, as well as Bing’s and other popular ones online.

From your initial dashboard, click on Reports in the left sidebar menu.

From Reports, goto Business objectives > Generate leads

And then click on Traffic acquisition.

Once there, you should see the traffic performance over a recent period. The default should be 28 days. You’ll see other data such as the number of Users (unique devices that have visited your site) and Sessions (how many occurrences where someone has browsed your site), and behavioral metrics such as Session Duration, Engagement rate, Event Count, and more.

It’s good to familiarize yourself with these report views and what the particular reporting elements mean. The more knowledgeable you are, the more you’ll be able to interact and provide feedback on an SEO campaign for your law practice.

There are plenty of really helpful reports for Google Search Console, ranging from error reports (which identify problems with how Google perceives your site) to ranking reports. The latter is the most important to get comfortable with if you’re just starting out in SEO for your DUI practice.  

How do you check that out?

Once you’ve logged into Google Search Console, simply click on the ‘Performance’ tab in the left-hand menu, and you’ll see a dashboard like this one:

In the Performance tab, you’ll get a few things featured that are really helpful to keep an eye on throughout your SEO campaign: 

1. Watch your Click-Through-Rate (presented as ‘Average CTR’ in the top tile). This shows how many times users ‘choose’ (through Clicks) your search results listing when they view it (Impressions).
2. Watch your Average position. This is your averaged ranking inside of Google search results. Note that the average position CAN go down in a good SEO campaign. How? Ranking on the right keywords is more important than ranking. So trading higher positions on some terms for lower positions on other terms could be really successful from a lead generation standpoint. A good law firm-focused SEO agency can help you pick the right keywords or phrases to target.
3. Lower on the Performance page, you’ll see a section with tabs like “Queries” or “Pages” or “Countries.” Queries and Pages are really crucial to monitor. Queries is the actual search phrases you’re ranking on and getting impressions or clicks for, and pages is the pages that are ranking for those terms.

As part of our ongoing SEO campaigns for law firms, we’ll provide up to date reporting for you, as well as provide you access to a custom dashboard that summarizes all this information in a single spot.

Top of the list has to be Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly known as Google My Business. You can create a Google Business Profile page for your business. A GBP shows up in a lot of different spots in Google and can help with your ranking regionally in several different areas:

1. The traditional search results page text listings.

2. The local map listings (in most search queries that Google considers to be local, map listings will show up over the traditional text listings).

3. Featured snippets.

4. The Knowledge Panel.

Here are some screenshots of those in action.

Traditional search results listings.

Map listings

Featured Snippets

Knowledge Panel or Google Business Profile

Google Business Profiles show up most often when someone is searching in Google Maps, when someone is searching for a business type that Google prefers to show local results for, or when someone is searching for your business specifically.

Claiming, optimizing, and monitoring your Google Business Profile will help you show up more frequently, and it also gives you a greater degree of control over what is published about your business. Google lets anyone submit a business to Google Maps, so there’s a good chance that your practice is already present in search results. However, without a Google Business Profile, you’re unlikely to have prompt control over what that profile shows. Many law firms will have old contact phone numbers, bad reviews, incorrect hours, and more because they haven’t claimed their Google Business Profile and aren’t monitoring it.

Further, bad actors (either black hat SEO agencies, or shady attorneys) frequently edit other businesses’  profiles to redirect your prospective clients to their phone lines, or to mark businesses like yours as closed.

If you have claimed your GBP listing, you’re in a position to monitor and approve many of those changes.

This link explains the process of claiming your Google Business Profile page.

Once you’ve claimed that listing, and you’re in control, here are a few of the basic things that you’ll want to update:

• Ensure the name of your business is accurately represented, AND include keywords in your business name. Google requires that those keywords are actually a part of your business name and will verify that. Setting up a DBA can be a good idea for that reason.
• Make sure your website is correctly linked.
• Update your hours.
• Double-check your contact information.
• Upload some photos of your office and your office building or other nearby landmarks.
• Write a short description of your law firm and your practice focus areas. Make sure to include keywords naturally.
• Set up a calendar reminder to make shorter, social media-like posts on GBP periodically.
• Share promotions or other discounts or incentives that you’re running.
• Reach out to past clients and ask them to leave reviews on your GBP listing.
• Continually ask for positive reviews from your satisfied clients. People are naturally more inclined to leave negative reviews, so make sure to ask your average client for a positive review. Review text and ratings can also play a role in certain rankings.

Once you have your Google Business Profile listing up to date and optimized for keywords, consider spending some time claiming and updating the following profiles:

• Yelp
• Facebook
• Apple Maps
• LinkedIn
• Bing Places
• Attorney directory sites, like Avvo, Superlawyer, Findlaw, etc.
  

We’ve included links above to help you on your way. All open in new tabs!

A few things to remember as you set up each of these-

1. Write keyword-optimized, unique content for each of them. Make that content unique (don’t cross-populate) and targeted towards likely users of those sites.

2. Make sure your contact information is consistent- try and avoid variations on your domain name, hours, email address, etc.

3. FULLY populate each- most search tools on these websites or apps will favor businesses that have fully completed and up-to-date listings.

4. Track the logins for each. So many Coalition clients come to us having lost their logins for older profiles and it really can create unneeded headaches.

As with step 1, if you’re tired already, then go ahead and shoot us an email at [email protected], and our Strategy team can start working with you on a budget for your practice.

Here are the basic SEO rules for content optimization:

1. Prioritize prominence.

2. Stay focused.

3. Stay unique.

4. Be client-centric.

Prioritizing prominence means you want to ensure that the most visually prominent areas of your website and content are the ones that are best optimized. What constitutes visual prominence?

• Content that is higher on a page is more likely to be read, therefore it’s more prominent. Think about what kind of text and content you have above the fold on each page- is it keyword-rich? Does it clearly communicate the purpose of the page and what I want its audience to do?
• Content that is more frequently visited or accessed by your clients or prospective clients is more prominent. For instance, your home page is more likely to be read than most other pages on your site, so its content optimizations will generally matter more to your SEO.
• Content that is styled to stand out, is likely to draw the users’ eyes. Has it been optimized for your SEO objectives? Or your conversion objectives?

Stay focused is a principle that means you want each page to have a clear purpose. This page is all about SEO for DUI attorneys, so it covers an exhaustive set of tips specific to DUI lawyers. 

Each page of your site should focus on a clear topic and purpose, and that should be evidenced in specific keywords being assigned thematically to certain pages. 

Google fields millions of unique queries every day often expressing specific user intent based on the way that keywords are put together to form phrases. More focused content often helps you rank better on long tail (longer, more specific) keywords faster.

Staying unique means not re-using copy and content from page to page. Many lawyers run short on time and end up deciding to copy and paste big chunks of copy throughout their site- don’t do it. Google doesn’t like it and nor do your clients. 

If you need help writing unique, keyword-optimized copy, contact Coalition’s SEO team.

Finally, be client-centric. This should be pretty obvious, but lots of SEO companies lead their clients astray by getting them to write copy that is only for search engines. Great SEO copy ranks better because it helps to answer and address specific DUI client questions, concerns, and needs. Google is quite capable of helping to match user intent to content that addresses that intent. Content that is accessible and readable goes a lot further than keyword-stuffed SEO copy.

Here are a few basic content and website optimization rules to consider:

• Make sure title tags are optimized for the specific search terms that page is related to. Title tags are usually edited from the administrative side of your content management system. These short sentences or phrases typically appear at the top of your browser window or tab and also in search results as the blue hyperlinked text. Try to keep the title tag under 60 characters whenever possible. If you can, put the keyword early in the title tag as well.
• Meta descriptions are also a key bit of SEO content. These short, one to two sentence lines of text appear nowhere except under the title tag in search results pages. Like title tags, feature your keyword early in the meta description and prominently. Write these as appeals to search audiences to visit your site- what’s interesting or helpful about this page? Why should someone visit your firm’s website over another lawyer’s? Keep these under 160 characters.
• Page titles are usually the most prominently positioned, and styled text. Sometimes they will be marked up with an H1 tag. Keep page titles clear, concise, and keyword-optimized.
• Body copy is important on most pages of your site. Clients WILL read what you write if you put something in front of them. Make it useful and relevant to the page’s purpose. Try and target 250+ words per page, where it makes sense.
• Mix up body copy with imagery and other media content to help keep it engaging.
• Create helpful, keyword-optimized links between different pages of your site periodically. This helps Google index more of your content, establish the relationship between pages, and helps your site visitors learn more.