“What is a keyword,” you may be asking yourself. SEO is full of a lot of buzzwords, not all of which make sense. “Keyword” doesn’t grammatically make sense, because a keyword may actually be a phrase. In fact, relatively few keyword searches are only going to be a single word.
Regardless of length, a keyword is the phrase entered into the Google search bar before you hit “enter” or hit the search button.
Short Tail vs Long Tail And Why They Matter To Law Firms
SEOs (those who practice the magical arts of SEO) typically break keywords down into two categories, which we call “short tail” and “long tail” keywords. Bear with us, because this matters when it comes to law firm SEO.
Short tail keywords contain relatively few words in the phrase. A “longer tail” version of that keyword has more words in the phrase.
Here’s an example of a short tail keyword search:
“Law firms”
Here’s how adding a couple of words increases the “tail length”:
“Law firms in Charleston, SC”
Doesn’t that look a bit more specific? Why does specificity matter: relevance. The longer the keyword tail, the more specific it is, and the more opportunity there is to position yourself as a relevant and authoritative resource on the subject.
Now let’s try this:
“Bankruptcy law firm in Charleston, SC”
Voila! Magically we have added further stipulations to really refine what we’re looking for.
Defining Practice Areas in Keyword Terms
I do some work with corporate clients, and one of the best things I can do for them is what I call “keyword alignment,” aligning corporate brand language (products or services) with the market’s search language. “Okay, that is what you call your product or service, but what do your customers call it?” The further this gap, the less successful any investment in SEO will be.
Attorneys can fall into this trap, as well. Law school ingrained you with the language of the legal profession. The problem is, the person using their device to find an attorney to meet their needs didn’t go to law school. If they were golfing buddies with a lawyer, they wouldn’t be searching, either. For many, an initial free consultation may be their first real interaction with a lawyer.
The most common error: building a practice around “family law.”
Yes, you practice family law. However, if someone is getting divorced, they aren’t likely searching for “family lawyer,” or “family law firm.”
The above Google Trends report illustrates this point precisely, showing the search interest over the past 5 years for four different keywords. “Divorce attorney” was searched roughly 12.5 times more than “family law firm.”
Key Takeaway
It is critically important that your law firm or practice understands this fundamental keyword importance. Using the market’s language, not the legal community’s verbiage, is critical to positioning your practice in that search space.
Failure to align your practice areas with market-driven keywords can make all the difference as to whether or not your law firm can even compete for your primary practice areas.
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Next Chapter: The Importance of Infrastructure to Law Firm SEO