9 Key Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Law Firm SEO Agency

Hiring a law firm SEO agency is challenging. It requires doing a lot of homework, a list of questionnaires for interviews, and somewhat your knowledge of search engine optimization.

If you’ve ever hired a law firm SEO professional or attempted DIY SEO practices before, choosing an agency will be a bit easier. Anyway, your attempt to hire an SEO services company means your legal business will grow faster than ever.

Why? According to AccuRanker, the legal niche is the most competitive and has barriers when it comes to SEO. By hiring a good law firm SEO company, you’ll be able to overcome this challenge.

Look at these 9 questions you should ask when hiring a law firm SEO company.

Questions to Ask Before Hiring Any Law Firm SEO Agency

1. What have you achieved for your previous law firm clients?
2. What is your area of expertise as a law firm SEO company?
3. What methods do you use to improve law firm SEO?
4. Do you provide pay-for-performance SEO services for Lawyers?
5. How do you conduct keyword research?
6. How do you approach link-building marketing?
7. What tools do you use for SEO law firms?
8. How will you increase the Page Authority of my law firm?
9. How do you calculate SEO ROI and measure success?

What Have You Achieved for Your Previous Law Firm Clients?

See the achievements of the company before hiring them. For this, ask for their work portfolios and case studies of previous clients they have served.

For instance, ResultFirst has worked with over 100 top law firms and attorneys.

By checking the achievements of the service provider, you’ll have a good idea of what sorts of results the agency can achieve for you and whether or not its approach is a good fit for your firm.

What is your area of expertise as an SEO company for a law firm?

Just because the agency you want to hire offers search engine optimization services doesn’t mean it will be the right fit. Lawyer SEO is exceptionally competitive.

So, hire a company that uses a well-rounded approach in your niche.

For example,

• If you deal in corporate law, you need to hire an agency that has experience with corporate law SEO.
• Similarly, criminal defence legal service providers must look for an agency that does a lot of SEO for defence counsel.

What Methods Do You Use to Improve Law Firm SEO?

This is another question you must include in your questionnaire. Know what methods the agency employs to improve its clients’ online visibility.

Many experts focus on keyword research, on-page and off-page optimization, or link building. But the right mix of strategies depends on the specific needs and goals of the legal company.

The agency must customize its SEO strategies to meet your business requirements.

Related: SEO Strategies for Law Firm Marketing

Do You Provide Pay-for-performance SEO for Lawyers?

Pay-for-performance SEO is a unique model that lets you pay for the results you achieve. Sometimes known as performance-based SEO or pay-on-results SEO, the Pay-for-performance model guarantees faster and better results than traditional SEO companies.

Unlike retainer SEO, this model works on client-oriented interests and sets data-driven strategies. Also, PFP SEO experts analyze both quantitative and qualitative data. So, if an agency offers pay-for-performance SEO, it’s a bonus.

Related: Pay-for-Performance SEO vs. Retainer SEO Programs

How Do You Conduct Keyword Research?

A million-dollar question to ask your SEO professionals! Keyword research has evolved with search engines. And search engines are becoming more sophisticated with each passing day. They often update algorithms and ranking policies.

Experts at an SEO agency for attorneys remain updated with the latest algorithms. They customize strategies and use advanced keyword research tools (SEMrush, SEO PowerSuite, Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Google Keyword Planner).

Try to understand their process when you ask about their keyword research method. Typically, SEO specialists follow these steps:

• Check the top-ranking sites (competitors) in legal niche
• Notice what blogs and practice area pages they’ve created
• Get a good pool of keywords from top-ranking sites to start with
• Analyze those keywords in the future and see if they’ve any search volume opportunity

For each of your service areas, experts will help you identify relevant keywords with

• Commercial intent (corporate law firm, personal injury lawyer, social security disability counsel)
• Research intent (questions to ask an attorney )
• Localized intent (Florida legal company, Los Angeles law firm)

They try to know how your clients think as well as determine the value of specific keywords. They focus on user intent factors and integrate them into their content marketing funnel.

How Do You Approach Link-Building Marketing?

A good company never promises to get thousands of links within a month. If an agency is claiming the same, their links won’t be of high quality.

Check whether the company is focusing on building quality links or many links.

Best agencies describe link-building as link-earning. They prioritize providing high-quality content instead of a bulk of low-quality links. Plus, they focus on driving incoming links organically.

Related: 5 Types of Quality Backlinks You Need to Know for SEO

What Tools Do You Use for SEO Law Firms?

Knowing what tools an SEO service provider uses for keyword research or SEO strategies could be worthless.

However, knowing why they use these tools to improve law firm rankings is worthwhile.

Ask these four questions to learn what tools the SEO service provider uses and why.

• What tool do you use to monitor rankings and backlinks, and why?
• What SEO techniques do you use for keyword research, and why?
• What crawler do you use, and why?
• How do you monitor competitor websites, and what tool do you use for this?

While asking these questions, focus on why SEO companies use those specific tools or programs.

Know More: 25+ Free SEO Tools List

How Will You Increase the Page Authority of My Law Firm?

Optimizing law firm content should not be the core focus of SEO experts. Ranking high on Google search engine result pages (SERPs) requires more than content optimization. Your agency must focus on increasing the page authority (PA) of your website.

To achieve this, many agencies purchase low-quality links. This is not effective. So, find a company that guarantees high-quality links from credible sites to increase page authority.

The below image contains 6 questions that you need to ask the agency:

1. What is your process for link building?
2. How do you track page authority?
3. How do you build relationships with high-authority pages?
4. What do you do to create backlink signals?
5. How do you use internal linking to build page authority across a website?
6. How do you monitor and remove harmful links to our website?

How Do You Calculate SEO ROI and Measure Success?

Finally, ask the agency how they calculate SEO ROI and measure success.

• Do they focus solely on improving your ranking in search results?
• Do they look at other factors like website traffic and conversion rates?

Go with an agency that helps you calculate SEO ROI and measure success. The consultant must provide you with detailed reports showing how your SEO campaign is performing.

Bottom Line

Choosing an agency for law firm SEO is a big decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. By asking the right questions, you can find specialists with the experience and expertise necessary to help improve your law firm’s online visibility.

Do your research and ask these questions before signing the dotted line with a law firm SEO agency—it’ll be worth it in the long run!

Read more:

Why Law Firm SEO Is Essential for Lawyers