Inbound Linking For Your Law Firm 

How many backlinks does your law firm’s website have? The average criminal defense law firm website has anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000. This sounds like a lot, right? Well, in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t. The average website has almost 19,000 backlinks. This shouldn’t be surprising; the legal industry is notoriously slow at adopting and utilizing new technology trends. So, if your law firm’s website is falling behind on the backlinks, you have come to the right place. It is time to learn about inbound linking for your law firm.

The American Bar Association produced a report in 2021 that reveals some valuable facts about the lack of blogging done by law firms. For example, event sponsorship is the most popular marketing tactic used by law firms. However, this is an antiquated approach and completely neglects online lead sourcing. 

A measly 27% of law firms maintain a regular blog. This means regularly posting for an extended period of time. Only 5% of lawyers maintain a personal blog. This means that the majority of law firms and lawyers are missing out on a valuable opportunity for branding and SEO presence. This is a shame because 46% of those who blog state that they regularly obtain clients because of their blogging activity. 

From my experience, I can state that there is a lack of understanding among lawyers. Many fail to see the value in blogging. This is understandable, as it tends to get a bad reputation. The food, mommy, and travel bloggers get all of the attention. Influencers can skew the perception of blogging. Lawyers need to look beyond this and consider the evidence. 

For example, do you know why you need to blog? Among lawyers who blog, 65% do so for client development, 65% for career development, 42% for improved site performance, and 39% for the pure joy of writing. 

Writing blog posts is an integral part of website SEO performance. If you want people to find your law firm online, you need to rank well in Google search results. You need to improve your search engine optimization (SEO) to rank well. How do you do this? By meeting Google’s algorithm criteria. An integral part of this formula is backlinks (links from other domains that link to your website). You need content worthy of people linking to your website to get backlinks. Regularly posting blog content creates this link-worthy content. 

As your law firm’s website ranks better, you develop a stronger online presence. This contributes to the overall reputation of your firm within the legal community while also contributing to increased client acquisition. 

To cultivate inbound linking for your law firm, you need to use multiple tactics. The first is to simply create great content that other people want to link to. It should be clear, easy to understand, and factually accurate. The next step is to decide what type of inbound link you want. Once you have these things, you can start cultivating links.

When lawyers consider cross-marketing and collaboration, they tend to not think big enough. They focus on opportunities within the legal industry. They reach out to other lawyers and organizations within the legal sector. This is limiting and doesn’t really fully address the law firm’s goals. For example, a personal injury attorney could collaborate with a physician. This is someone the lawyer works with when representing clients who get injured. The lawyer can collaborate to create meaningful and informative content if the lawyer carefully follows ethics rules. 

An estate planning attorney could collaborate with an investment banker, accountant, or another financial professional. The two could do a series on creating the appropriate financial accounts to protect and secure your financial future. A real estate attorney could collaborate with a local real estate broker, investor, or commercial real estate developer. They could collaborate on local real estate trends, property development, or how to retain real estate value. 

Not all backlinks are created equally. Directory backlinks are easy to get, so they are not worth much. In addition, people aren’t regularly and actively returning to directories and spending time on those websites. So while getting directory backlinks can be helpful to round out your backlink profile, they shouldn’t be your only source of backlinks. 

People linking to your social media content do not contribute to your backlink or SEO performance directly. However, sharing your blog content on social media and other people sharing links does increase your website traffic. Increased traffic does improve your SEO performance. Sharing your blog content can also increase the chance of someone seeing your content and reaching out for an opportunity to guest post, collaborate, or provide another avenue for backlinking. 

It sounds simple, but the best way to develop quality backlinks is to create consistently high-quality content. People know when and what to expect from your law firm’s blog. Over time, you develop your firm’s reputation for quality and knowledge. People begin to trust your firm and will link to it as a source of authority. Think of this as the long game of inbound linking for your law firm. 

As I stated earlier, not all backlinks are created the same. The best backlinks are from high-quality websites with high domain authority and traffic. Blindly reaching out for these backlinks will require a ridiculous amount of time and effort. A simpler solution is to use Help A Reporter Out (HARO). Reporters will submit requests from experts through the HARO website. You can then submit a quote. If the reporter uses your quote, they typically include a link to your law firm’s website. Focus on reputable, prominent websites in the industry, and authoritative. 

The first step to your inbound linking strategy should be to begin producing top-quality content. That is where I come in. My education and experience with the law enable me to write clearly and accurately about complex legal topics. I adapt my writing to suit your law firm’s tone and voice while ensuring the blog post is engaging and understandable for the target audience.