Questions to Ask Before You Hire SEO for Your Law Firm

As a law firm, attracting clients online through local search and Google marketing is critical for growing your client base. With the majority of U.S. adults owning a smartphone and looking up information on the go, you need to come up in a local search exactly when they need you. This requires a responsive design website and a comprehensive SEO plan.

Before getting started, however, it is important to know what questions to ask. SEO can be the black hole of ambiguity with many people touting their expert status. In order to ensure that you receive quantifiable results (more clicks or prospective client calls) you need to be careful to hire the right SEO agency.

Questions to ask before hiring an SEO company

• Can you show me the money? It is important for any SEO firm to be able to show you results. Ask what they have done for other clients and how they quantify success. If they can’t show you that other clients have had positive results, then it is time to move on.
• Do you guarantee my ranking? If they do, be careful. There is no actual way to guarantee what ranking you will get with organic marketing. An SEO company can continue to make improvements to your ranking and help to optimize your website for additional keywords. For example, maybe you show up right now for “car accident lawyer in Long Island” but don’t come up at all for “personal injury lawyer Long Island” or “Long Island injury lawyer”. A good SEO firm will put you on the map and show consistent progress in regards to your ranking and how many search terms you rank for, in general. No one, however, can guarantee your exact placement in a local search.
• How do you measure success? It is critical that you hire someone who will measure how successful your SEO and organic marketing campaign is. Just like how Google marketing has success matrixes by monitoring how many clicks your ad gets, organic marketing and SEO can as well. Beyond ranking, you can monitor how many calls certain activities generate by using a call tracking number or watch how many users click through to your website, etc. Each SEO company will have a different way to measure success so ask this question and make sure that you are comfortable with the answer prior to getting started.
• Do you follow Google’s guidelines? This is a big one. There are SEO companies that are engaged in black hat activities that are not allowed or promoted by Google. You need to hire someone that runs their business in a way that Google would approve of so that you don’t have penalties and cleanup work down the road. You may also want to look for a Google Certified Partner in order to ensure that they are educated on the latest and greatest algorithm changes.

While Google marketing, local search, and organic marketing are all important to your overall online marketing strategy – hiring the right SEO company can make your efforts far more successful. Take the time to interview them before pulling the trigger. At Local SEO Sites, we are happy to answer all of your questions.