Higher Rankings = More New Clients.

Overcome the market dominance of your competitors and larger law firms with this SEO guide tailored for criminal defense and DUI attorneys. Despite what you may believe, you can absolutely compete effectively in organic search engine rankings with a reasonable and realistic budget.

When it comes to SEO, there is a long list of technical information believed in the industry to produce results. And while this information has merit, there are actually just two key elements that will produce 80%+ of your SEO results.

To gain and maintain a competitive advantage over your competitors, you need to learn and stay focused on these two key elements. You DO NOT need to outspend your competitors. You simply need outmaneuver them.

This guide provides a blueprint for achieving higher visibility in search results for criminal defense attorneys by explaining what these key elements are, and how you can make sure your SEO efforts remain focused on them. It provides criminal defense lawyers and law firms with the actionable steps needed to finally start beating their competitors in online search results.

Let this guide empower you to either take charge of your SEO journey or collaborate with an agency with confidence, knowing precisely what you need to focus on and what you may need to spend in order to dominate the search engine rankings in your geographic service area(s).

SEO 101: Understanding the Basics – 5 Key Elements

While there are certainly many “deep in the woods” technical aspects of SEO, to have a successful SEO campaign, you really need to focus on just five key elements. These are:

• Website Structure

• Content Strategy

• On-Page Optimization

• Backlinks

• Google Maps & Local SEO

Initial efforts need to be made on setting up the on-page SEO and site structure correctly, but once these foundations are in place, it really just comes down to content and backlinks. This is where you should be focusing a majority of your resources and efforts.

The intricacies of algorithms, keyword density, and the myriad of SEO tools out there can distract from these core components. However, consistently creating valuable content and establishing a strong backlink profile are the main drivers that will propel a criminal defense law firm’s website to the top of search engine results.

In this section, we’ll demystify SEO for criminal defense lawyers and break down these elements so you can understand and leverage them to your law firm’s benefit.

Key Element 1: Website Structure

A strategically and correctly structured website with dedicated service and location pages is critical to high search engine rankings for criminal defense law firms.

Google’s algorithm has evolved to favor content that aligns closely with user queries and more specifically, a user’s intent. This means a well-organized site that clearly delineates specific services and caters to specific localities is more likely to outperform a generic homepage that is trying to cover all keywords.

For example, if someone is in need help with DUI charges, they are far more likely to search the keyword “dui attorney near me” than they are “defense attorney” or “criminal lawyer.” If your website only has one page dedicated to criminal defense law in general, you are almost certainly not going to rank on page 1 when this person is looking for your legal services.

Creating Targeted Landing Pages

Your website should have a dedicated page for each specific type of criminal defense client you represent (i.e. dui, assault, drug charges, theft, etc.). If you’re a criminal defense attorney in Seattle, that would look something like this:

• yourwebsite.com/dui-defense-lawyer-seattle-washington
• yourwebsite.com/assault-and-battery-defense-attorney-seattle-washington
• yourwebsite.com/drug-charges-defense-lawyer-seattle-washington

Taking this one step further, if you are wanting to reach potential clients outside of Seattle in the surrounding cities and towns, you would want another page for each of those specific areas, which would look something like this:

• yourwebsite.com/dui-defense-lawyer-bellevue-washington
• yourwebsite.com/assault-and-battery-defense-attorney-bellevue-washington
• yourwebsite.com/drug-charges-defense-lawyer-bellevue-washington

This structure allows for targeting a wider geographic area and range of relevant search terms and improves the user experience by more quickly directing potential clients to the information they seek (precisely what Google wants to provide for their users).

Real Search Result Example:

(notice that the top 3 results are “DUI Lawyer” specific pages and not a homepage)

DUI Lawyer Search Results Example

Key Element 2: Content Strategy and Building Topical Authority

A solid content strategy is key for criminal defense lawyers aiming for SEO success. It’s not just about being found on search engines; it’s about being seen as a go-to source for criminal defense legal matters in your geographic service area.

 Creating content is one of two key elements that will produce 80%+ of SEO results

Key Aspects of a Successful Content Strategy

1. 1. Align with Search Intent: Understand what your prospective clients are looking for and tailor your content to answer their questions and address their common concerns. This makes your site a valuable resource, which search engines love.
   2. Consistent Traffic & Engagement: Keep adding fresh, relevant content. It keeps visitors coming back, and search engines take notice, improving your rankings.
   3. Building Topical Authority: Establish yourself as an expert by focusing on criminal defense issues and topics.

Importance of Developing Topical Authority

Topical authority means being a specialist in your field online. It’s crucial for SEO because Google prefers sites that show deep, authoritative knowledge in a specific area.

Furthermore, our own survey found that your prospective clients are looking for attorneys who “specialize” in their needed area of law, making topical authority extremely important for not only ranking well in search engines, but also for converting prospective clients after they’ve found your website.

Survey Question 4: What factors would be most important to you when deciding on which attorney to hire (rank in order of importance, 1 being the most important and 5 being the least important)

Our Legal Consumer Survey Results

Benefits of Topical Authority

• • Relevance and Accuracy: More in-depth content on criminal defense means Google sees your site as a more relevant result for your target keywords.
  • Expertise and Trustworthiness: Showcasing extensive knowledge builds trust – with both Google and potential clients.
  • User Satisfaction and Engagement: Covering various aspects of criminal defense keeps users interested and on your site longer, which Google rewards.
  • Keyword Coverage and Context: More content equals more chances to include relevant keywords, helping Google understand and rank your site better.
  • Backlink Potential: Quality content attracts links from other reputable sites, a critical element of SEO success.

Focus on Quality over Quantity

The quality of your content matters more than quantity. Google can tell if you’re just churning out pages without much value. Focus on well-researched, engaging content. Less high-quality content is preferable to a lot of low-quality pages and blog posts.

Creating a Content Strategy for Topical Authority

Leverage analytics tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs Keyword Generator, and Moz Keyword Explorer to conduct keyword research and to gain insights into what your competition is doing. Then, use this data in combination with an understanding of your prospective clients questions and concerns to shape a content strategy that resonates with potential clients and boosts your SEO efforts.

Leveraging Social Media in Your SEO Efforts

Social media platforms are great ways to increase the visibility of your criminal defense practice. Here’s how leveraging social media can bolster your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts:

Boosting Engagement and Traffic

Social media drives engagement by promoting interactive content that resonates with your target audience. By sharing informative articles, insightful infographics, or compelling stories about your criminal defense practice and services, you increase the likelihood of shares and clicks back to your website. This surge in traffic serves as a signal to search engines that your content is valuable, which can potentially improving your rankings.

Enhancing Brand Awareness

Creating a strong social media presence establishes your brand as a thought leader in the criminal defense space. As your content is liked, shared, and commented on, your brand’s reach grows, leading to increased recognition. People who know your brand are more likely to search for you directly using your brand name. This type of branded search traffic is another positive SEO signal.

Encouraging Social Sharing Signals

While the direct impact of social sharing on SEO rankings is often debated, it’s undeniable that social shares increase visibility, which in turn can lead to more direct traffic, longer dwell times on your site, and additional backlinks (all positive signals to search engines).

Integrating social media into your SEO efforts isn’t just about posting regularly; it’s about creating a cohesive strategy that amplifies your online presence and complements your SEO efforts. By engaging authentically with your audience on social media, you can drive traffic, improve your search engine rankings, and ultimately, attract more clients to your criminal defense legal practice.

Bonus Tip: Leveraging Video Content for SEO

Video content is an extremely under tapped SEO tool. Video content can play a significant role in boosting key metrics considered by Google for search engine rankings. Among these metrics, the duration users spend on your website and the quantity of backlinks to your domain are paramount for SEO success.

Incorporating video typically enhances both these aspects. Research indicates that pages with videos hold visitors’ attention more than twice as long as those without. Additionally, high-quality video content increases the likelihood of earning backlinks.

Therefore, video contributes to SEO in a twofold manner. It not only has a potential direct impact on your rankings but also positively affects other critical factors considered in Google’s ranking algorithm.

Furthermore, for criminal defense attorneys, high quality videos can enhance your brand appeal to prospective clients while also introducing yourself to them, making your firm feel more approachable. Both factors can go a long way in increasing your conversion rates.

Key Element 3: On-Page Optimization

In SEO, on-page optimization refers to the practice of optimizing the elements on your website’s individual pages to improve their ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

On-page elements are critical for SEO as they help search engines understand and rank your content. These include titles, headings, meta descriptions, and the content itself. Each element plays a specific role: titles attract attention in search results, meta descriptions provide a brief overview enticing users to click, and headings structure your content for easy readability.

Effective use of on-page SEO not only boosts your site’s visibility but also enhances the user experience, increasing the likelihood of turning website visitors into clients.

Elements of On-Page SEO

• • Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Craft title tags that are both keyword-rich and compelling to encourage clicks. Meta descriptions should offer a concise preview of the page’s content, utilizing call-to-action language where appropriate to drive engagement.
  • Header Tags: Use header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to structure your content logically. Your H1 should include your primary keyword and draw the reader in, while subsequent headers help organize content into digestible sections, integrating secondary keywords.
  • Internal Linking: Develop a web of internal links that help users navigate your content easily. Linking to relevant articles and service pages can enhance user engagement and time on site, both positive signals to search engines.
  • Image Optimization: Images enhance user experience, but they must be optimized for SEO. This means using descriptive file names, adding alt text with keywords, and compressing images to improve page load speeds.
  • Content Structure: Ensure your content is easy to read, with short paragraphs, bullet points, and multimedia elements like images and videos to break up text. This helps retain user attention and reduce bounce rates.

By focusing on these on-page factors, criminal defense attorneys can create a website that not only appeals to potential clients but also satisfies search engine algorithms, leading to better rankings and more website traffic.

Key Element 4: Backlinks

A backlink is simply a link on one website that points to another website. Imagine it like a citation in an academic paper: when one website links to another, it’s essentially saying “this source is relevant and worth checking out.”

Backlinks are pivotal for SEO success as they serve as trust signals to search engines like Google. A site with a robust portfolio of backlinks is typically viewed as more authoritative, which is a key factor in search engine algorithms. Prioritizing backlinks can give you an edge over your competitors, driving more potential clients to your website.

Building backlinks is one of two key elements that will produce 80%+ of SEO results.

Assessment of Backlink Needs

Understanding what you’re up against is essential to creating an SEO budget and focusing your efforts. By analyzing the backlinks of the top-ranking criminal defense law firms in your geographic service area, you can gauge the approximate number of backlinks you’ll need to get your website to rank on the first page of search engine results. And while more backlinks won’t automatically move you ahead of a competitor, there is a very strong correlation.

You can utilize SEO tools such as Ahrefs to assess your competitor’s backlink profiles. This strategic approach will help you allocate your SEO budget more effectively.

Competitor Backlink Analysis Report Example

Quality Over Quantity

High-quality links from reputable, high-authority sites such as prominent news sites (think Forbes, Bloomberg, Reuters, and local news stations), educational institutions, and legal publications can elevate your site’s status more than numerous low-quality links. They tell search engines that your site is a trusted resource, thus helping to increase your visibility in search results.

Investing in activities that attract these types of backlinks such as content creation and digital PR is a wise use of resources, as these backlinks yield significantly better results.

Diversity in Backlink Profiles

Diversifying your backlink profile is akin to diversifying an investment portfolio—it spreads risk and increases the potential for reward. A diverse backlink profile indicates a natural and healthy link ecosystem to search engines, improving your site’s trust and authority.

This strategy improves the overall strength of your site and can lead to multiple pages ranking for their respective keywords.

Types of Backlinks: Citation vs. Editorial

There are two main types of backlinks, each serving a different purpose:

• • Citation Backlinks: Think of these as listings in a digital phone book. They can be easily acquired by registering with legal directories. These directory listings can also help potential clients find your firm directly as well.
  • Editorial Backlinks: These are the highest value backlinks. Acquired by producing good content that others want to share, they solidify your website’s reputation for quality information. They require more effort to acquire, but can significantly bolster your authority and search engine rankings.

Backlink Anchor Text and SEO

Anchor text—the clickable text in a hyperlink—is also an important part of your backlink profile. It should be relevant and keyword-rich, providing search engines with context about the content of the linked page. Properly optimized anchor text can enhance your site’s relevance for specific keyword search terms, which can translate to higher rankings and more targeted traffic.

Practical Ways to Aquire Backlinks

There are several strategies for attorneys and law firms to obtain backlinks:

• • Legal Directories: Being listed on multiple directory websites like Avvo, Justia, and Lawyers.com can yield citation backlinks. You can find more legal directories to list your criminal defense law firm in here.
  • Guest Blogging: Writing articles for other sites can result in valuable editorial backlinks.
  • Link Magnets: Informative blog posts, infographics, surveys, and e-books naturally attract backlinks and can establish your firm as a thought leader.
  • Local Organizations and Partnerships: Getting links through your local network like the Chamber of Commerce, or vendors and referral partners such as a local marriage counselor.
  • Media Outlets: A very quick and easy way to start engaging with media outlets and getting more media mentions is through the use of platforms like HARO (now called Connectively) and Featured.com. These platforms can connect attorneys with journalists who are seeking expert opinions and quotes for their stories. This in turn can enhance a law firm’s visibility and help establish their expertise and credibility online through media exposure.

Key Element 5: Google Maps and Local SEO

A solid organic SEO strategy is the foundation upon which your Google Maps visibility is built. By optimizing your website content for search engines, you not only improve your position in traditional search results but also enhance your visibility in local Maps listings.

This is essential because when your firm ranks highly on search engine results pages (SERPs), it signals to Google that your website is a credible source of information, which translates to higher Google Maps rankings. Conversely, a prominent position in Google Maps can boost your organic search presence by confirming your physical location’s legitimacy and relevance to local searchers.

Google Maps Results for “Criminal Defense Attorney San Diego”

Boosting Local SEO with Client Reviews

Positive reviews on your Google Business listing not only enhances your firm’s credibility but also signals to Google the trustworthiness of your services leading to improved Maps rankings.

Actively managing your online reputation by gathering positive reviews can lead to a cycle of increased visibility and more clients. It’s one of the biggest quick wins in criminal defense digital marketing.

The Power of Local Backlinks in Google Maps Rankings

As mentioned in Key Element 4 above, backlinks from local sources such as legal and nonlegal directories, community sites, or local news outlets act as local SEO enhancers. They help establish your firm’s presence within a specific geographical area, which is important for high Google Maps rankings.

Tracking SEO Success and Measuring ROI for Criminal & DUI Defense Law Firms

Key Metrics for Tracking SEO Progress

To ensure your SEO efforts are paying off, focus on these three essential metrics:

1. Keyword Rankings: Use tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush to monitor the positions of your targeted keywords in search engine results to gauge if your SEO campaign is moving in the right direction.
2. Website Traffic: Use tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track the volume of visitors coming to your site from search engines, indicating the reach and impact of your SEO.
3. Conversions: To truly know the effectiveness of your SEO campaign and to measure your ROI, you must be tracking conversions. These include phone calls and contact form submissions from visitors who found you via search engines.

Free Conversion Tracking with Google Analytics: Google Analytics is invaluable for measuring SEO campaign effectiveness. It provides insights into website traffic sources and can also track conversions. For free conversion tracking with Google Analytics, you can easily set up contact form submissions, along with clicks to a mobile “click to call” button for phone call conversions.

Google Analytics Conversion Tracking Report Example

Paid Conversion Tracking Tools: For more detailed tracking (particularly for phone call conversions) consider integrating tools such as CallRail or WhatConverts in combination with Google Analytics. This setup will give you a clearer picture of the phone calls you are receiving. These tools also further allow for the attribution of phone calls to specific marketing activities, highlighting which ads, keywords, or campaigns are driving new client consultations. Furthermore, these paid call tracking tools can be used to track traditional media marketing campaigns as well such as billboards, mailers, and TV commercials.

From there, you simply need to account for the lead and lead source in a CRM (client management) system. With these two elements in place, you can then start to track your exact (not a guess or an estimate) ROI from most marketing channels.

By focusing on these key metrics and using the right tools, you can not only track the success of your SEO campaign but also measure the ROI effectively.

This will ensure that your investment in SEO aligns with your firm’s goal of acquiring new clients and growing revenue. It can also empower you to make more informed, data driven decisions when it comes to allocating your marketing budget.

The Cost of SEO for Criminal Defense Attorneys and Creating a Budget

Price Range for SEO Services

For criminal defense attorneys, SEO service costs can vary widely. While some providers offer reasonable rates, others may charge exorbitantly high fees. I know of agencies charging as little as $500 per month, while others are charging $2,500+. It’s important to understand that a higher price doesn’t always equate to better results. But, what it should equate to at a minimum is more resources.

In my opinion, the entry price for effective SEO services for criminal defense lawyers starts around $1,000 per month.

This amount will vary depending on the geographic market and overall competition, but in general is enough for us to effectively target a keyword group (i.e. dui lawyer, assault and battery attorney, domestic violence attorney, etc.) in one geographic area.

By increasing your budget, you increase the resources available to go after more keyword groups and in more geographic service areas. You can also influence the speed at which you see results based on your budget. The more quality content that is created for your website, and the more high-value backlinks you obtain, in most instances will produce results more quickly.

One thing to always keep in mind, is there are never any guarantees when it comes to SEO. Each individual keyword and geographic market is different with varying levels of competition, this can yield different results over different timelines.

But, if substantial progress isn’t observed within 3-6 months, it’s probably time to reevaluate the strategy being employed by your SEO provider.

Contracts and Commitments

Many SEO service providers require a 12-month contract, but caution is advised when committing to long-term agreements. While some agencies legitimately require contracts due to the initial heavy lifting associated with SEO work, others may use them to lock in clients without having to worry about producing results.

These agencies are in the sales business, not the SEO business (and unfortunately there are many of them). When considering an SEO agency to work with, be sure to thoroughly vet their approach and reputation before committing. This will help to ensure they are in the business of delivering results, not just making sales.

Our recommendation is to opt for SEO services that don’t require long-term contracts, providing you with the flexibility to assess the effectiveness and ROI from the outset.

Furthermore, by combining SEO with a PPC (Google Ads) strategy, some agencies (such as ours), aim to start delivering new clients quickly. An approach such as this can potentially cover the cost of SEO services from day one. The idea being to produce immediate ROI while the long-term benefits of SEO build over time.

Conclusion: Capitalizing on the Opportunity SEO Offers to Criminal Defense Attorneys

Your path to more clients and higher revenue via Search Engine Optimization is now clear. This guide has cut through the noise of SEO and turned it into actionable insights for you. You now understand that focusing on just two key elements (content and backlinks) will yield over 80% of your results.

With a very realistic budget, SEO can deliver one of the highest returns of any marketing activity for your firm. And remember, effective SEO is scalable — as your firm grows, your SEO strategy can expand to capture broader audiences and more specific keyword groups. It doesn’t have to be an “all or nothing” approach.

The tools and strategies covered here are not just theoretical; we’ve used them time and again to produce page 1 rankings for our own clients. They’re your guide to improved search rankings, increased leads, and measurable growth for your criminal defense legal practice. Use this knowledge to focus on what truly moves the needle and watch as your law firm rises in the search engine rankings.

The time to act is now. For a detailed strategy that fits your firm’s unique needs, schedule an SEO strategy session with us today. Let us put these principles to work for you to increase your firm’s revenue so that you can grow it at the pace that you want.