In every metro area, criminal defense attorneys are in high demand. That doesn’t mean that all defense practices are successful, though. More than in any other legal field, being successful in criminal defense depends on whether potential clients believe you’re the best.
Here’s what we mean by that:
If someone hires the wrong real estate lawyer or tax attorney, they may regret it. They may end up with a shoddy purchase contract or paying too much in taxes. But if they hire the wrong criminal defense attorney,
they may spend their life in prison. When the stakes are high, people accused of serious crimes want the very best.
If you’re just getting started in criminal defense, you may be at a loss as to how to establish yourself as premier. Even if you’ve won every case and have the best legal mind in town, you won’t get the clients you want unless you can effectively market yourself that way. Before you decide to buy billboard space, understand that we’re not talking about that type of marketing.
Here’s the truth about traditional marketing: It’s never,
ever coming back. You can paste your face on a cheesy billboard or commission an unforgettable radio jingle, but it won’t change the reality.
The vast majority of your future clients will have found you through a simple online search.
Don’t get us wrong: Traditional advertising can increase your name recognition and give you some added clout around town. But any leads it nets are a drop in the bucket compared to the ones you’ll capture online. That’s why the smartest lawyers and professionals across industries choose to focus their efforts on digital marketing and, specifically, SEO.
If you’ve read this far, we’re willing to bet that you’re still searching for the right digital marketing strategy for your practice. Luckily, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll explain everything you need to know about SEO for criminal defense attorneys, the best practices and strategies and why Fuelist Digital is the partner to take you to the top.
“If you want more leads than you know what to do with, Fuelist is the place to go! Eric is an SEO expert. He taught me that my website is not just a business card, it’s a tool!” – Nikole Mackenzie
Google Doesn’t Care About Your Brand—Only Your Products.
If you’re here, you probably know that SEO is all about getting your website to rank as high as possible in Google’s search results. However, you may not understand how Google makes those decisions or the metrics involved.
Before we go any further, let’s get one thing out of the way: Google ranks websites based on numerous factors and your brand isn’t one of them. It doesn’t care about your name, your slogan or your neat logo.
Google only cares about the quality of your products.
When we talk about products, we’re obviously not talking about tangible items. Search engines deal in the digital world, and to them, your ‘products’ are all of your online assets, from your law firm website to service listings to backlinks. Google judges the quality of your online assets by whether they can meet its ROI requirements through metrics like page speed, structured data, keyword target content and core web vitals.
As you can see, Google’s assessment of your website isn’t based on superficial, indeterminate factors but on measurable metrics.
But isn’t it important to be perceived as the best by potential clients? Absolutely. Here’s where it gets a little meta.
Google arranges search results according to what it deems the best-fitting, high-quality websites, and by optimizing your digital assets, we position your website to be more favorably ranked by Google. Internet users, by and large, not only prefer websites near the top of their search results, but also view them with more authority.
At Fuelist Digital, we think of SEO as
superior product marketing based on measurable factors. By analyzing your competitors KPIs to pinpoint specific deficiencies in your digital presence, we optimize your site to rise through the ranks to ensure more leads, better clients and greater online presence and authority.
Paying for Leads Isn’t Sustainable.
Even if you’ve never participated in SEO, there’s a good chance you’ve participated in some sort of digital marketing. Maybe you commissioned a photoshoot to freshen up your website, paid for an ad campaign or tried marketing yourself on social media.
Regardless of which avenue you explored, there’s a good chance you encountered the same results: a temporary uptick in website traffic and a few more leads. But if you’re like the majority of lawyers who come to us, those results were short-lived and expensive.
If this was your experience, rest assured you’re not alone. Many criminal defense attorneys go through the digital marketing ringer before finally trying SEO. If you’re one of the lucky few who didn’t, let us explain why you’ve made the right decision.
Simply put,
paying for leads is never going to be a cost-effective approach for long-term growth. That’s because it does nothing to increase your website’s value or incentivize Google to rank it higher in the search results. Instead, the majority of paid channels offer you the worst of both worlds: short-lived results at exorbitant rates.
SEO, on the other hand, is all about increasing the worth of your digital capital. It makes your online products more attractive to Google and increases your ROI over time. It is hands-down the best digital marketing strategy for your practice’s sustained growth, especially when you partner with the right company.
There’s a Reason That Fuelist Digital Dominates Legal SEO.
Life happens online. Despite the limitless possibilities every time an internet user opens a browser, 70% of all online interactions start with a simple search. And of those searches, 46% are inquiring about local services.
That means that when a person accused of a crime searches for a criminal defense attorney in their area, they’re likely to use keyword phrases like “criminal defense lawyer near me” or “defense attorney in _______.” Google will then provide what it deems are the best-fitting, high-quality attorney websites, and it’s essential that yours is among them, preferably at the top.
Luckily, Fuelist Digital has the expertise to get you there.
After conducting thorough research, we target your exact services within your local areas and start pushing the keywords that are most relevant to your practice area. We construct our strategy around all the factors that matter most to Google, from trust and credibility to schema and local reviews, so that we can position your practice as the best answer to online queries.
For the SEO specialists at Fuelist Digital, it’s simple: Google wants to provide its users with the best local information and services, so we work to position YOU as the best answer. That’s why local SEO is the best law firm marketing tool to funnel more relevant, viable leads directly to your door.
“Eric and Logan were insightful in pointing out to me how I could improve my presence on Google. I would not have known how to do this without their help. I greatly appreciate the expertise that they brought to me and to my business, Writer For Hire, in helping me gain better visibility!” –
Pat Kramer
A Winning SEO Campaign Starts Here.
If you’re looking for a quick hit of leads, you might as well pay for clicks. But beware: The spike in your website traffic will dissipate as quickly as it appeared. Maybe you’ll get a client out of it, maybe you won’t; either way, you’ll pay a small fortune for the chance.
In contrast, a smart SEO strategy gains momentum over time by optimizing your online assets so that they will be prioritized by Google. As a full-spectrum, sustainable approach to online dominance, SEO for criminal defense attorneys isn’t about one technique; it requires a multi-tiered approach that considers every important metric. At Fuelist, we focus on the five most vital factors: local SEO, content, page speed, schema and backlinks.
Local SEO
When you do a Google search for “best chinese food near me” or “bookstores in (your city)”—or any search for a local service—Google provides a little something extra. At the top of the search results page, Google will prominently display three businesses with their locations pinpointed in Google Maps. These websites appear in what’s known as the Map Pack, and they receive considerably more clicks than other results. Local SEO is your key to getting there.
Content
In terms of SEO, content is the writing that populates your website, from articles to blog posts to landing pages. However, SEO-optimized content involves a lot more than just high-quality writing. Each page is your opportunity to work in the keywords that will help your website rank for your desired search terms. SEO-optimized content is a crucial part of identifying your practice to Google and solidifying you as an authority in criminal defense.
Page Speed
No one wants to wait for a slow, glitchy webpage to load. In fact, most internet users only expect to wait for between two to three seconds for a page to fully load. In addition to increasing your website’s bounce rate and frustrating visitors, a slow-loading page can get your website penalized by Google. Remember: Google strives to provide the highest quality search results to users. If it deems your website as a bad user experience, it will deprioritize you in its results.
Schema
We tend to forget that despite being seemingly all-knowing, Google doesn’t speak a human language. It needs help understanding your website’s information (specifically the meaning and relationship between entities), which is why developers use schema. Schema markups are codes that tell Google how to interpret and categorize your website. It understands 32 types of schema, and each one represents a chance for you to add greater clarity and authority to your offerings.
Backlinks
Backlinks are links that point from one page on a website to a page on a different website. When they come from high-quality, relevant sites, they add authority to the site they point to. However, when they come from poor-quality irrelevant sites, they can tank your rankings. To be a useful part of your SEO strategy, backlinks must come from top-tier, authoritative websites. An experienced SEO strategist can help you pursue the ideal type and quantity of backlinks.
Rise Above the Competition with Fuelist Digital.
Marketing is never an exact science. However, SEO gets closer than anything else.
That’s because rather than dealing in trends and aesthetics, SEO concerns itself with measurable progress. By accessing trackable data and metrics, experienced SEO analysts can hone in on weak spots in your online presence and apply proven strategies to bolster them.
If you want clients to choose you, you need Google to choose you first. Luckily, that’s exactly the work that Fuelist Digital specializes in providing. The sooner you get started, the sooner you can start to see real, actionable results. So why wait? Start your SEO journey today by contacting us to schedule your
free SEO consultation.
