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5 Game-Changing Divorce Lawyer SEO Strategies You Need Now!

The legal industry is one of the most competitive sectors, especially when it comes to gaining visibility online. Experienced, skilled Lawyers, whether they specialize in family law, separation, or custody, are known for being incredibly savvy about marketing and maintaining a strong professional online presence. They must advise on marriage and spousal matters like alimony and child support; this is particularly true for divorce and family lawyers, who must differentiate themselves in an already crowded space. They often represent clients facing contested litigation over assets and property in court, working toward a final settlement or decree, sometimes through mediation.

After years of experience spent reviewing and finalizing SEO strategies, we’ve gained valuable knowledge into what works best for our clients. Not every strategy delivers successful results, and not all approaches are suitable for every legal practice. We emphasize that a thorough consultation is key before an attorney can file a petition. The firm’s fee structure and case load are managed by dedicated and responsive counsel, who must maintain effective communication. For our divorce lawyer clients, whose retainer covers their affordable legal fees, we’ve had to get creative and think outside the box to help them stand out and gain an edge over competitors in the highly competitive local SEO landscape. They often negotiate terms like visitation or prenup agreements, and may even advocate for the protection of children’s interests.

SEO for Family Law Firms – Our Top 5 Tactics:

We’re sharing 5 of our top SEO strategies specifically tailored to divorce and family law practices. These strategies are designed to improve visibility, attract more clients, and ensure long-term success in a competitive market. Let’s dive in:

  1. Setting Your Google Business Profile’s Primary Category
  2. The Power of Service Area Pages in SEO for Family Lawyers
  3. Consider Consolidating Your Divorce Page With Your Homepage for Your Divorce Lawyer SEO Efforts
  4. Don’t Underestimate The Use of Long-Tail Divorce Keywords
  5. Create A Calculator Page to Boost Your Family Law SEO Efforts

1. Setting Your Google Business Profile’s Primary Category

GBP Insights top seo strategies for family lawyers for gbp listings

It cannot be overemphasized how important it is to choose the correct primary category for your Google business profile. Logic would suggest that a family lawyer should use the category ‘family law attorney’ as their primary category for their Google Business Profile. We have, however, seen fantastic results by switching the primary category from ‘family law attorney’ to ‘divorce lawyer.’ This change saw an almost automatic boost in rankings for divorce terms without negatively impacting rankings for family law terms. When it comes to SEO for family law, divorce keywords drive the majority of traffic to those listings since divorce is the service people are looking for most often, so those are the main keywords for which the listing should be optimized.

2. The Power of Service Area Pages in SEO for Family Lawyers

The family law market isn’t as saturated as other industries such as dental when it comes to service and location pages. By creating service area pages, we have found a great way to gain visibility for our SEO divorce lawyer clients in areas where they do not have a physical office.

Some important steps to consider with this strategy:

  • When choosing the city/town/community to create a service area page for, make sure it’s in a state where you are licensed to practice law and that your office is close enough that it would be feasible that someone from that area would hire you.
  • If possible, include reviews from people you helped who live in that area. Also, include driving directions from the community to your law office.
  • It is helpful to include content that discusses specific laws that the city has around family law/divorce.

This strategy can be particularly powerful if you create service area pages for smaller communities nearby to the urban center you work out of that may not have a family law practicing within the town limits. Since divorce keywords are what drive the majority of traffic to a family lawyer’s site and their Google Business Profile, this strategy is one of the few ways to continue to expand reach once a local market has been dominated.

3. Consider Consolidating Your Divorce Page With Your Homepage for Your Divorce Lawyer SEO Efforts

As we have mentioned above, divorce terms are by far the most popular search keyword when it comes to the family law profession. We had a client whose divorce page was competing with his homepage for those coveted divorce keywords. This was causing cannibalization and ultimately hurting his divorce lawyer SEO efforts. By consolidating the content from the divorce page and moving it over to the homepage, we ended up seeing a boost in organic ranking for their main targeted keyword without a negative impact. We have always found that it is better to work with Google than waster time fighting against them, and sometimes it is easier to make small changes on your site that help Google understand the relevance and importance of each page.

GBP Insights top seo strategies for family lawyers for gbp listings consolidation of pages for targeted keywords

It is important to note that this is not a one size fits all strategy and should be examined before implementation.

4. Don’t Underestimate The Use of Long-Tail Divorce Keywords

Because the majority of the traffic is coming from divorce keywords, it is important to see how you can utilize long-tail keywords that target different types of divorce terms. For example: military divorce, men’s divorce, woman’s divorce, LGBTQ+ divorce, uncontested divorce, etc.

5. Create A Calculator Page to Boost Your Family Law SEO Efforts

Through our search analysis for family law lawyers, we have found that calculator keyword terms see a lot of traffic. People are interested in getting a sense of what they can expect to pay for items like spousal support or child support. We have created a number of calculator pages for our family law SEO clients, and these pages are always the top source of organic traffic and, more importantly, they also convert.

Expert SEO Services for Divorce Lawyers: Enhance Your Online Presence

If you’re a family lawyer who needs help with your Google Business Profile listing, review strategy, or online presence on Google and other search engines, at Sterling Sky, we can help. We offer SEO auditsconsulting, or monthly local SEO services. Whether you’re interested in improving your divorce lawyer SEO or need specialized SEO for family law firms, our team has the expertise to tailor strategies to your unique needs. Contact our office today for more information.

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Joy Hawkins

Joy is the owner of the Local Search Forum, LocalU, and Sterling Sky, a Local SEO agency in Canada & the USA. She has been working in the industry since 2006, writes for publications such as Search Engine Land, and enjoys speaking regularly at marketing conferences such as MozCon, LocalU, Pubcon, SearchLove, and State of Search. You can find her on Twitter or volunteering as a Product Expert on the Google Business Profile Forum.

This Post Has 8 Comments

    1. These 5 proven strategies have led to increased visibility and conversions for our divorce lawyer SEO clients. While 4 of the 5 strategies refer to onsite optimization, making your Google Business Profile’s primary category as Divorce lawyer and consolidating your divorce content with your homepage helps strengthen your association with your chosen GBP primary category. Your local (and maybe knowledge panel) and organic placement factors into two prominent locations on the search result page.

    1. While everyone wants to rank #1 for divorce lawyer or divorce attorney, it is important to also consider long-tail divorce keywords for divorce lawyer SEO. Longer-tail searches (e.g. military divorce, uncontested divorce, etc.) are more specific to an immediate need and usually convert at a higher rate than a more generic keyword (divorce). Utilize your Google Search Console data to see what longer-tail searches you are getting and look to add relative content for those search terms.

    1. These 5 proven strategies have led to increased visibility and conversions for our divorce lawyer SEO clients. While 4 of the 5 strategies refer to onsite optimization, making your Google Business Profile’s primary category as Divorce lawyer and consolidating your divorce content with your homepage helps strengthen your association with your chosen GBP primary category. Your local (and maybe knowledge panel) and organic placement factors into two prominent locations on the search result page.

    1. While everyone wants to rank #1 for divorce lawyer or divorce attorney, it is important to also consider long-tail divorce keywords for divorce lawyer SEO. Longer-tail searches (e.g. military divorce, uncontested divorce, etc.) are more specific to an immediate need and usually convert at a higher rate than a more generic keyword (divorce). Utilize your Google Search Console data to see what longer-tail searches you are getting and look to add relative content for those search terms.

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