How are search engines like Golden Retrievers? They both want to bring you things they think will please you. While your dog’s instincts about what you value may be a little crude (dirty sock, squirrel carcass they found in the yard), search engines like Google are constantly refining their techniques for figuring out what you want and dropping it at your (virtual) feet as quickly as possible. How do they sniff out the right results? A big part of the answer lies in the websites’ technical SEO. 

What is Technical SEO?

As you probably know, SEO stands for “search engine optimization,” and it refers broadly to the practice of improving a website so that it will rank better with search engines. The higher a site’s rank, the more traffic it is likely to get. While more website traffic doesn’t automatically convert to more customers, it’s obviously good to have more eyes on your website—especially if those eyes belong to your target market.

There are three kinds of SEO:

• On-page SEO: This is the type with which most people are familiar. On-page SEO includes keywords, links to other pages, and even appropriate imagery on the pages of your website.

• Off-page SEO: These are things you do outside of your website, such as guest blogging on another site that links back to yours and social media marketing. 

• Technical SEO: Technical SEO involves improving the technical aspects of your website so that it is more visible to search engines and performs better, improving user experience.

As Paige Silver, Online Marketing Manager at the Marketing Firm observes, “Without technical SEO, it doesn’t matter how good your website content is, because Google won’t find it. Organic traffic will suffer.”

If you’re now convinced that technical SEO for law firms is important, keep reading to learn how it works.

Spiders and Crawlers and Bots, Oh, My!

Search engine bots, also called spiders, crawl through webpages following links to other webpages, in a never-ending quest to gather information. The more efficiently spiders can crawl your law firm’s website, analyzing your content, metadata, and structure, the better for technical SEO. 

What do search engines do with the information these bots gather? They organize it and store it in an index. When someone enters a search request, the search engine goes through its index, bringing up the results it identifies as most relevant. Just as you can find a file more easily in a file cabinet that is clearly labeled, tidy, and well-organized, search engines can more easily retrieve (and highly rank) web pages with good technical SEO. 

Site Architecture and Technical SEO for Law Firm Websites

When we talk about “site architecture,” we’re talking about the way your website is structured. Good site architecture makes it easier for bots to crawl a website efficiently. A properly organized site makes sense not only to human users, but to bots, improving your law firm website’s search ranking.

Your site architecture should be logical, with a hierarchy that makes sense. It should be relatively flat, meaning that any page on your website is just a few clicks away from the homepage. Breadcrumb navigation shows where a user is within the site (e.g. Home > Family Law > Divorce) and is helpful to both human visitors and crawlers, letting them know where they are within the site and how they got there. Making your sitemaps accessible to search engines helps them get the “lay of the land” regarding your law firm website and improves your technical SEO.

Internal linking is another important component of site architecture. Links should (obviously) be in working order and take users to the correct page. Ideally, every page on your law firm website will be linked to from at least one other page on the site; it’s difficult for search engines to find “orphan pages” that contain no internal links.

The Need for Speed (and Performance)

A third component of technical SEO is the speed and performance of your website. Search engines reward websites that are optimized for quick page loading. Compressing images and using the proper image formats can speed up loading. Server response rates are also key here; the longer it takes your  server to respond to a request, the worse your user experience and the higher your bounce rate.

Mobile responsive design is also essential. More and more people are using phones, tablets, and other devices to search the internet; responsive design ensures that your law firm website can be viewed easily on any device. Lastly, don’t ignore security. Secure websites often load faster, which improves search rankings. Furthermore, proper security settings allow spiders to crawl your website without interference, allowing pages to be indexed.

Technical SEO for Validation Websites

Most of what we’ve had to say about technical SEO for law firm websites has had to do with marketing—making sure potential clients looking for a lawyer online can find your website in search results. But what if, like many law firms, your practice gets most of its business from referrals. Do you still need to care about technical SEO?

The answer is an emphatic yes, and the reason is simple: the measures that you take to improve technical SEO for search engines tend to enhance user experience for human beings, too. Positive user experience (UX) makes it more likely that those leads who have been referred to you will spend more time on your website, absorbing the valuable content you have provided and confirming the positive impression they have been given of your firm.

Another advantage of focusing on technical SEO is that doing so is likely to improve website accessibility. That’s good for your users with disabilities, and keeps you in compliance with the law. In short, there’s no downside to focusing on technical SEO, even if your law firm isn’t actively marketing now. You might decide you want to do so later, and in the meantime, your site will be easier to find for referring professionals, potential employees, and others. 

How TMF Helps With Technical SEO for Law Firms

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably convinced of the value of technical SEO for attorneys’ websites. But many lawyers lack the experience, time, or both, to deal with technical SEO for their law firm. If you’re one of them, no worries: The Modern Firm has you covered. 

We make sure that all of our websites adhere to Google’s best practices for technical SEO, including: 

• Mobile responsive design 
• Quick page load speeds
• Logical website layout 
• Consistent navigation menus
• Descriptive, search-engine friendly URLs with relevant keywords
• Canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues
• Strategic use of internal links and removal of broken links 
• SSL certificates and security issues
• Use of structured data such as title tags and meta data to help search engines understand page content
• Ensuring search engines can crawl pages that are intended appear in search rankings while concealing non-essential pages
• Creating XML sitemaps and submitting them to Google Search Console to help Google index sites; sitemaps are resubmitted on a regular basis as changes are made to TMF sites

The internet is dynamic, and it should not come as a surprise that technical SEO is not something you can “set and forget.” Our Online Marketing Managers (OMMs) conduct regular site audits for our clients who have contracted for SEO or SEO Lite packages. 

Paige points out that site audits should take place at least quarterly to be most effective. She notes that even though The Modern Firm’s OMMs are skilled in identifying and addressing technical SEO issues, some issues can be especially complex. Fortunately, when needed, the OMMs can enlist the help of The Modern Firm’s technology team, our law firm technical SEO experts, to help troubleshoot and resolve problems.

If you’ve gone to the trouble of creating a website to showcase your law practice, it’s important not to overlook the technical SEO that helps it get noticed. To learn more about technical SEO or to get help optimizing your law firm website, contact The Modern Firm to schedule a consultation.