Expert SEO & Link Building Services with Proven ROI

Your target audience uses search engines to find information about their legal needs, so you need a strong search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. By ranking above other law firms for relevant keywords, you can be a potential client’s first choice when seeking legal services.

Part of SEO is high-quality links, which help you improve your domain authority (DA) and organic traffic. In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of backlinks and provide helpful tips to supercharge your link-building tactics.

What is Link Building?

Link-building is the process of finding quality backlinks that will point back to your law firm’s website. This is a crucial element of SEO for law firms because high-quality backlinks will improve your rankings by boosting your page ranks.

Additionally, having links from reputable websites will improve your reputation and authority while enhancing your referral traffic. When potential clients see your link and click on it, you have another chance to gain a new client. These clients will already trust you because they found your link from a trustworthy source, improving your conversion rates.

Understanding Backlinks

Backlinks, also called inbound links, are links from other websites that point back to your web pages. Unlike internal links, these are from outside of your website’s domain and must be placed there by the website owner.

Having a good link-building strategy is important because it improves your search rankings. The more quality links you have, the more search engines trust you, and the more frequently they will recommend you to potential clients.

The Role of Backlinks in SEO Success

When authoritative sites link to your website, your law firm’s online visibility will improve, and you can gain referral traffic from the linked page. Another reason that backlinks are important is link equity, also called link juice. With link juice, you can rely on the referring domain’s DA to improve your own. 

As such, your law firm’s website needs a good link-building strategy to improve search engine rankings and boost organic traffic. Finding linking domains with high domain authority will boost your website traffic while placing you higher on search engine results pages.

Why Link Building is Critical for Lawyers

The legal industry is highly competitive, so law firms must focus on attracting high-quality links from external websites. However, link-building has additional benefits, including improving reputation and driving referral traffic from other sites.

• Establishing Credibility and Authority

When authoritative sources link to your website, it serves as a recommendation, just like when another lawyer recommends you to a potential client. The more that quality websites link to you, the more credible you appear, both to users and search engines. 

• Driving Targeted Traffic

Your link-building efforts also improve traffic by helping clients find you. If they see you linked in reputable legal directories or a respected news outlet, they’ll be more willing to use you for legal services, as you’ve already built trust with them.

Additionally, the referring domains’ links can improve your search engine rankings. When you appear at the top of a Google search for a relevant keyword, you’ll gain more traffic than your competitors improve conversion rates. 

• Gaining a Competitive Edge

Your law firm’s website is competing with thousands of other firms across the country for top rankings. Even in smaller metropolitan areas, internet-based or national law firms are making it challenging for smaller agencies to get noticed on search engines.

Link-building can drastically enhance your online visibility by driving referral traffic and improving your domain authority. Through your link-building efforts, you can stand out in hot markets and outperform other firms that don’t have a solid strategy.

Types of Links Lawyers Should Focus On

The legal industry is slightly different than other niches, like e-commerce or the service industry. Your focus should be on high-value, keyword-rich content, and local citations to improve your local visibility. Editorial links, guest posts, local directories, and resource pages are all valuable link-building tactics. 

• Editorial Links

Editorial links are when websites link to you due to high-quality content. For example, if you have excellent blog posts that discuss different statutes in your jurisdiction, you may be linked to legal forums as a source. These natural links are very valuable, especially when they come from relevant websites. 

• Guest Post Links

Guest posting is about providing valuable content to the partner’s website, typically an authoritative legal blog or one that would appeal to your target audience. You will write an article that naturally links the linked page’s content with yours, citing yourself as a resource.

• Local Business Citations

You need the most visibility in your local marketplace, as your target audience is nearby users. Local citations, such as in free directories of local businesses or news outlets, help clarify your service area for search engines and will improve your rankings for local keywords. 

• Resource Page Links

Legal resource pages are another valuable element of link building, as they help you reach users who are already seeking law firms. For example, if you are a personal injury attorney, you can request that free directories that cater to sexual assault victims link you as a resource they can call if they need help.

Strategies for Effective Link Building for Lawyers

To build links for your law firm, you need to strengthen your local network, including past clients and legal colleagues. You must also have strong content marketing, as quality content is the basis of a good link-building strategy. By creating engaging material and leveraging your professional network, you can increase the reach of your web pages. 

• Content Marketing for Lawyers

Legal topics are often challenging for laypeople to understand, so you can attract many links by demystifying these concepts for the average person. Legal guides and FAQs will offer significant value to users, who will then share this content with others interested in the field.

Another reason that content is so important is that it satisfies the EEAT acronym Google uses when ranking websites. EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, all of which are also important for lawyers seeking to attract clients.

Demonstrate your experience and expertise by sharing previous case outcomes, including whether you were able to achieve a high settlement out of course. Authoritativeness refers to having well-researched material that directly answers user questions in an easy-to-understand way. 

Lastly, you can develop your trustworthiness by having other sites link to your content. The material itself will attract good links, but you can also perform link outreach by posting on social media, sharing the content with your colleagues, and reaching out to media outlets who may need resources for articles. 

For example, an employment law firm may explain the relevant labor laws in their state and answer questions about what an employee should do if they feel that their rights have been violated. A personal injury lawyer could discuss the settlement negotiation process in detail, such as explaining the difference between arbitration and mediation. 

When developing content, leverage your high-value keywords in the meta tags, like the title tag and meta description, and in the headers. Well-structured content with proper headers, short paragraphs, and bullet points will be easier to read and, therefore, more likely to be shared.

Reference local statutes to build the local connection and provide more value to nearby users who want advice. Link to peer-reviewed sources, well-respected news outlets, or government agencies to enhance the trustworthiness of your source.

• Networking with Legal Professionals

Relationships are at the heart of law firm link-building. You can contact your colleagues in the legal field to find mutual linking opportunities, where both of you will gain link equity by using one another as a resource. 

For example, if you are a personal injury lawyer and your colleague is an estate lawyer, you could reference them in a blog post about whether a person can sue an estate after a car accident. This creates a natural link between your two practice areas, which search engines view favorably.

To find these link opportunities, remain active in the legal field. Join the local bar association and attend events to network with others in the field. Ask your peers to introduce you to others who may be outside of your practice area but who share mutual interests with you. 

You can also find other lawyers through sites like LinkedIn, which can easily connect you to law firms around the world. When introducing yourself, discuss what your firms have in common and suggest opportunities to help one another through link-building. 

• Leveraging Testimonials

Testimonials can be a powerful link-building strategy. By providing recommendations for other services, law firms can build links while supporting fellow business owners. The company will happily link to a glowing review of its services, gaining you both a link and a strong working relationship. 

You may give a testimonial for software that your firm uses to keep track of appointments or share a review for a vendor you use for events. In the testimonial, be sure to include the name of your law firm and a link back to your website.

• Sponsoring Local Events

Sponsoring local events or having partnerships with other associations can build goodwill with your audience while earning you quality backlinks from event organizers. If a local law college is running a recruitment event, you may offer to sponsor the event in return for links on the event web page. 

Another option is to have a partnership with another local business, who will provide a link back to your site on theirs. For law firms, the partnership should be with something related to their practice area or public service, showing that they support the community.

Content Ideas for Link Building

Great content will naturally attract links over time. Journalists or other legal professionals may link to you as a resource, or consumers may suggest your content to their friends and relatives who need legal advice. By creating engaging and keyword-rich content, you can acquire high-quality backlinks without any link outreach. 

• Legal Blogs

Informative blog posts provide value to potential clients while enabling you to gather backlinks. This link-building strategy requires keyword research and an understanding of your ideal audience, which would be everyday people outside of the legal professional who are searching for legal help.

By providing helpful advice on aspects of your practice area, you can get backlinks from those sharing your page with relatives, friends, or others who are interested in your services. For example, a personal injury lawyer may write a step-by-step explanation of the car insurance claims process, which people may recommend to others who have recently been in a car accident.

Other blogs covering the topic or news articles discussing your practice area may also link to you as a reference. Your linked page should be highly informative and include references to demonstrate authority. 

When brainstorming content ideas, consider long-tail keywords, which often include a question and signify high search intent. Users want answers to their most pressing questions, and the firm that can provide them is more likely to earn their loyalty.

You should also review what other firms in the area are writing about on their blogs. By doing so, you can find new topics and then consider how to beat them in the rankings by adding new information or going into more detail. 

• Case Studies

Case studies give your readers an inside look at the legal process while building trust with your audience. Moreover, they can appear high in search engine results for related topics if you leverage the right keywords. 

To implement this link-building strategy, consider which audiences you are appealing to. This may be other law firms that want to use your case as a precedent or prospective clients who want to know what they could expect when they work with you. 

Ideally, your case study will appeal to both of these audiences by including enough detail to interest other lawyers while not boring the everyday person. Creating these case studies will require you to balance legal information with explanations of what it means.

Your case study should share details like the original argument between the plaintiff and defendant, the steps required to resolve the argument, the timeline, and the overall outcome, such as how much the plaintiff received in a settlement. 

• Infographics

Visual content can enhance your link-building strategy, as it is easy to share across multiple platforms and will attract more attention than a long post. These infographics can be things like the difference between state laws in your practice area, steps to take when you’ve gotten into an accident, or a person’s legal rights when accused of a crime.

Tools like Canva and Venngage make it easy to develop professional-looking graphics, even without graphic design knowledge. When hosting it on your site, you can embed a link to your homepage into the graphic or create a widget that will automatically add a link to your site when the image is shared on social media. 

Be sure to watermark your images with your URL. This way, those who see the infographic without an embedded link can easily attribute it to your law firm. 

• Legal Glossaries

Resources like legal glossaries can prove very helpful for consumers while also allowing you to leverage keywords easily. With this link-building strategy, you should focus on making complicated legal terms easy for the average person to understand. 

Local resource pages may use your link to help their audience, helping you acquire high-quality backlinks without manual outreach. For example, if you are an estate planning firm, a local council on aging may share your content to help senior citizens understand concepts like probate and living wills.

Local Link Building for Law Firms

Law firms that serve a specific geographic region need to show search engines where they serve. While geo-specific keywords form a major part of this, local backlinks are also important for improving visibility in a certain market. 

Common local link-building tactics include your Google Business Profile, local directories, and partnerships with local organizations. Not only do these help you acquire backlinks, but they also provide value to the community and connect you with interested users. 

• Optimizing Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is an essential element of local SEO. This local citation shows up at the top of Google search results for certain searches, like “personal injury lawyer near me,” and it will also show up on Google Maps when users look for legal terms.

Explore our Google Business Profile Optimixzation Services!

Google will automatically create a Google Business Profile when it identifies a business, but you need to claim and optimize it. To do so, you’ll have to prove that you are the business owner and set up an account. Once you have claimed the profile, you can select the correct business categories and attributes, such as whether you have bilingual services or if your office is accessible.

Next, develop a keyword-rich description that engages the audience. This description is short and should quickly describe your services, service area, and any achievements you have, such as being a Super Lawyer. 

Additionally, your Google Business Profile hosts your online reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the more likely you are to be ranked high on Google’s search engine results pages because these are considered recommendations from consumers. Be sure to ask satisfied customers to leave a review for you and provide the link to your profile. 

• Joining Local Directories

Legal directories and local business directories help you connect with potential clients, but they also improve your link-building strategy. These local backlinks will typically be from pages ranking high on search results for your area, which means you can gain link juice from them.

For links from legal directories, consider your local and state bar association, law firm aggregators like Justia, and outlets like US News and World Report. Local directories may include your city’s Chamber of Commerce, the city’s website, regional business alliances, or public works pages. 

• Partnering with Local Organizations

Partnerships with local organizations serve two purposes. First, they demonstrate you are a trustworthy firm that cares about the community, which enhances your reputation. Secondly, you can get valuable links from these trusted referring domains. 

When deciding which organization to partner with, consider what is naturally associated with your practice area. For example, a car accident lawyer may partner with a local nonprofit that focuses on building safer infrastructure, while a contract law firm may connect with a business alliance. 

Ensure they are reputable, too. You can look up charities, nonprofits, and other groups on sites like TrustPilot or Charity Navigator to check their track record of service. Next, propose a relationship by offering them something of value, such as sponsoring a charity event or running a cobranded Public Service Announcement campaign. 

Not only will you have associated your law firm with a trustworthy organization, but you’ll receive backlinks each time that you announce a collaboration. Law firms can also consider asking charities to simply list them as a resource on their website for those needing legal help.

Tools for Effective Link Building

Gathering and reviewing referring domains can be a time-consuming process if done manually. Thankfully, several valuable tools can speed up the process and improve your link outreach efforts. These include SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush, journalist outreach tools like HARO, and link intersect tools for competitor analysis.

• Ahrefs and SEMrush

Ahrefs has several tools, including its Web Explorer, that can make link prospecting easier. This tool can search for unlinked brand mentions and then contact the referring domain to ask that they include a link to your site. Additionally, it can search for websites that use specific keywords in their backlink profiles, which can be invaluable for finding guest posting opportunities.

Their Content Explorer can also help you find guest posting options. This tool enables you to find content on certain topics, such as your practice area or a specific topic, and then reach out to ask for a niche edit. 

A niche edit is when you suggest that the referring domain add a small paragraph that includes your link, which is a quick and cost-effective way to acquire more links. Because Content Explorer lets you search by author, you can quickly find contact information for bloggers that cover your topic.

SEMrush provides a link-building tool that finds new backlink options for you and gathers contact information so that you can easily contact the website owner for a guest posting opportunity. The Tool also allows you to monitor your backlinks to check their health and take action if a link has been removed. 

• HARO (Help a Reporter Out)

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) helps journalists connect with potential sources for their articles, and it can be a great link-building option for lawyers. When high-authority sites like news outlets link to your website, you’ll appear higher in search engines while boosting your image as a thought leader in the industry.

HARO is now known as CisionOne, and it includes a variety of other resources like media monitoring and social listening. To get started, make an account and begin browsing requests from journalists until you find one that matches your needs. 

Then, contact the journalist and pitch your expertise, explaining that you have worked on cases similar to their topic. Include a link to any resources you may have on your website, and ensure that the journalist includes a link to your website in the article. 

• Link Intersect Tools

Link intersect tools help you discover which websites link to your competitors, which can inspire you and give you options when finding backlink opportunities. SEMrush provides the Backlink Gap tool, which allows you to review the backlink profiles of up to five websites at once. 

From there, you can compare and contrast their profiles and identify which ones may be providing the most benefit to your competitors. If one website is providing links to all of your competitors, you can contact them to discuss a backlink opportunity with them. 

Ahrefs also has a specific Link Intersect tool that helps you review your competitors’ backlink profiles and see who they are all linking to. This tool lets you see linking patterns, such as if one website links to almost everything that your competitors post, and compare different link options based on their traffic and authority.

Common Link-Building Mistakes Lawyers Should Avoid

Not all links are created equally, and some may actually damage your rankings. When you build links, you should focus on creating a highly diversified backlink profile with a variety of resources and anchor text options. Avoid these common mistakes to ensure that you get the most benefit from your link-building efforts. 

• Purchasing Low-Quality Links

Link schemes like paid links manipulate search engine rankings and can lead to penalties from search engines, including removing you from relevant search results. Even if you are not penalized, having low-quality sites linked to your website may harm your DA, reduce your visibility, and waste money. 

Rather than buying links, find opportunities to help other websites through a partnership. Things like guest posts, where you provide content for another website in return for a link, will benefit both parties and create a natural connection between your domains. While this requires more effort than purchasing links, it also provides a better return on investment over time. 

• Ignoring Anchor Text Diversity

The anchor text you use will influence search engine rankings for high-value keywords, so you need to have diversified anchor text that will help you rank for different terms. Many law firms use the same anchor text for all their links, which significantly reduces their visibility.

Instead, use keyword research tools to find the most valuable terms for your niche, then craft different anchor text options for your referring domains to use. Even one or two words can make a significant difference in whether your link-building efforts help you rank for numerous keywords. 

• Overlooking Nofollow Links

While you want to have a large volume of high-quality dofollow links, nofollow links can also be great for driving more traffic to your law firm’s website. These links play a crucial role in developing a natural backlink profile that will not incur penalties from search engines or harm your search rankings. 

Additionally, nofollow links still improve brand visibility, even if they don’t offer link equity. The traffic derived from nofollow links can still turn into conversion opportunities, too. As such, don’t disavow nofollow links or insist that every linked page use a dofollow link. Having a mixture of both types will serve you better in the long run.

Measuring the Success of Link Building for Lawyers

Like with any SEO strategy, you need to regularly review your link-building plan to identify potential improvements and quickly fix any emerging issues. Things to consider include your website’s authority, referral traffic, and keyword rankings. 

Additionally, regularly reviewing your backlink profile will ensure that you do not lose valuable link opportunities or suffer from lower rankings due to a low-quality link. By paying close attention to your backlinks, you can ensure the highest rankings on search engines and drive more traffic to your page. 

• Monitoring Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is an informal metric calculated by Moz, an SEO provider. This metric looks at your website’s overall authority rather than specific pages. While DA is not a ranking factor itself, it can help you estimate your page’s PageRank with Google, which is known as a publicly identified metric.

Domain Ranking, provided by Ahrefs, is another way to quickly assess whether authoritative links are improving your website’s reputation. Both of these tools focus on the strength of your links, including the authority of linking sites. 

By tracking improvements in DA and DR, you can identify whether your links are providing link juice, which is authority passed from referring domains to the linked site. After you add a few new links, wait a few days, then check your DA and DR rankings again to see if they’ve improved. 

If they’ve dropped, you need to request that the link be turned into a nofollow link because the domain is actually dragging down your rankings. Regularly checking your rankings can also tell you which sites provide the most value so you can prioritize them in future link outreach. 

• Traffic Analysis

Referral traffic and organic traffic are both valuable data points, though they measure slightly different things. Referral traffic comes from a linked page, such as when a user clicks on your link in a news article about your firm. 

On the other hand, organic traffic comes from users finding you on search engines and clicking through to learn more about your services. Referral traffic helps you know whether a certain link is providing traffic, while organic traffic tells you that you’ve improved your search engine rankings and more people are finding you through relevant searches. 

SEO tools like Google Analytics 4 can help you measure both of these metrics. First, you can look at your organic traffic to see how many people are coming to you from organic search engine results. This lets you know that you’ve improved your rankings and are gaining visibility.

Next, look at the “Referrals” report. This shows you which links are offering you the most traffic, which helps you determine how to refine your link campaign for better results. For example, you might find that links to specific resources, such as articles about the insurance process, get better results when links to your homepage on legal directories. 

• Link Profile Audits

You should review your backlink profile at least quarterly to ensure that no low-quality links have slipped in. These can significantly impact your domain rating and need to be disavowed as soon as possible to avoid reputational damage.

Links naturally degrade over time as content becomes buried by fresher articles or posts. If you have a link that performed well in the past but is no longer offering strong link juice, you may acquire a new link from the same domain, or you may propose a niche edit with new resources or updated statistics. This will make the page relevant again and ensure the link juice keeps flowing.

Another reason links might degrade is if the referral partner’s own DA has dropped. This can happen if the domain owner abandons the site, changes its theme, or starts using paid links to boost its reputation. Depending on what specifically happened, these issues should be handled on a case-by-case basis.

By regularly checking your link profile, you can fix any issues that may have cropped up as soon as possible. Regular link audits also help you find new link opportunities by identifying well-performing sites so that you can seek more backlinks from them in the future.

Innovative Link-Building Trends for Lawyers

The SEO industry is always changing as technology improves and algorithms shift. By staying on the cutting edge of technology, you can stay ahead of other firms in your niche and get more attention from search engines. 

• Leveraging AI for Outreach

Artificial intelligence has been a game-changer for SEO. Law firms can now use AI tools to find new linking opportunities, research the referring domains based on metrics like search engine rankings, and then acquire contact information quickly.

However, it’s important to remember that a personal touch will make a big difference in whether you’re able to acquire a high-quality backlink. Though it may be tempting to leave everything up to AI, you still need to build a personal connection with the website owner.

Small details, such as mentioning the linked page’s content when requesting broken link building or discussing the website’s “about” statement, can show that you have done your research and help you acquire the link. 

• Interactive Content for Backlinks

Quizzes, calculators, and other interactive tools can help your users while also attracting new backlinks. A simple branded widget with social sharing buttons can spread quickly, especially if you promote it via your social media and use it as part of your link outreach. 

You might create a simple quiz that asks users about their legal knowledge or develop a settlement calculator to help those looking for a personal injury lawyer. Ensure that the widget is branded in case it is shared without attribution. 

For example, if you write a guest post for a link partner, linking to the calculator will engage users who are interested in learning more. Once they arrive at your page, adding additional content and providing links to other articles will encourage them to stay longer and contact you for a consultation. 

• Collaborating with Influencers in the Legal Space

Every field has influencers, including the legal space. Star lawyers, former prosecutors, legal analysts, and other professionals have made a name for themselves by breaking down high-profile cases or sharing details about previous cases. 

This is especially true given the popularity of the true crime genre, which draws both amateurs and professionals in. Even if you don’t work on criminal cases, there are still plenty of opportunities to leverage influencers for link juice.

When seeking out an influencer, review their platform and target audience. This may be fellow business owners, the general public, or contractors. If your audience aligns with theirs, you can propose a collaboration, such as discussing the legal nuances of a hot-topic case as it relates to your practice area. 

Not only will you gain a valuable backlink, but you will also improve your brand exposure and introduce yourself to thousands of potential clients. Having associated you with someone they already trust, these users will be more likely to consider you when seeking legal help in the future.

Ethical Considerations in Link Building for Lawyers

The legal industry is built on trust and credibility, so your SEO efforts should be, too. Ethical link-building improves your reputation and helps establish you as a leader in the field while also allowing you to naturally attract links over time. 

• Avoiding Black-Hat Techniques

Ethical link building will provide much more benefit than deceptively manipulating algorithms to improve your search engine rankings. Black-hat techniques, such as buying links or setting up link farms, can damage your search engine rankings and lead to penalties from search engines. 

Don’t buy links or engage in other manipulative link-building tactics like link farms. Instead, produce high-quality content that will naturally attract links and build relationships with other website owners so that they are more willing to host your content on their site. 

• Building Genuine Relationships

The best way to obtain links is to build relationships with relevant websites. By offering value to referring domains, you can often receive multiple links from the same domain, and the website owner may connect you with other sites that are relevant to your target audience. 

Getting Started with Link Building for Lawyers

A well-rounded link-building strategy can increase your reach and improve your authority in the online space. This authority will help you rank higher on search engines and drive more referral traffic to your site, increasing your conversion rate. 

To create a great link-building campaign, focus on offering value to users and building relationships with fellow professionals. Great content will attract backlinks on its own as people search for legal topics, and aligning yourself with well-respected websites can encourage others to link to you as well. 

Engaging, keyword-rich material like blogs, whitepapers, reports, and resources are all good options for your link-building campaign. Additionally, look for websites with high DA, large traffic, and good rankings. These should be relevant to your niche, as natural links are less likely to be penalized by search engines. 

If you’re struggling to develop a strong link-building strategy, Stellar SEO can help. We are a leading SEO agency that specializes in local SEO for law firms and other local companies seeking to boost visibility. Contact Stellar SEO today for a customized link-building plan that will help you get to the top of search results.