If you've been following the SEO space for, even a handful of years, you know that there's this recurring suggestion that "SEO is dead." In fact, if you go search for "seo is dead" in Google, the results are comical. Despite all of the attempts to kill-off SEO, it still remains one of the most efficient ways to earn meaningful attention.
Recently, at least in some of the law firm SEO corners I lurk in, there has been an uptick in the death of SEO proclamations. Maybe it's the recent algorithm updates. Maybe it's changes made to Google Ads. Maybe it's just that time of year.
The image at the top of this post is a Google Search Console performance report for a website published by a law firm. It's comparing organic clicks from the last three months with the prior year (approximately October to December 2019 versus same period in 2018). As you can see, year over year, clicks have essentially doubled.
We can debate SEO strategies and tactics all day, every day. And we should. It's a dynamic environment and is changing all of the time. But if someone is telling you that "SEO is dead," and they intend to imply something like, "all the clicks go to ads," they're either misinformed, or unfortunately more likely, intentionally misleading you.
Some people say, "SEO is dead," to imply that it's really hard to rank for competitive queries. If that's the implication, then I agree. However, it's still seems misleading to say that it's dead. Instead, why not say, "it's really hard to rank for competitive queries?"
For those wondering what the secret is for generating 100K+ organic clicks over a three month time period, I say to you: Meh, links.
But seriously though, it really comes down to three things:
For those wondering, this site doesn't have a Google My Business listing. None of these clicks come from the local pack.
That's not to suggest that local SEO isn't important. It is.
The problem is that local SEO, particularly ranking in the local pack for category terms, isn't the only game in town.
In fact, on a sheer volume of queries basis, research queries command a much larger share of the total search pie. This really shouldn't be that hard to comprehend. Think about how you use search. Do you only use it for business look-ups? Of course not. The same is true for legal services consumers.
Hopefully, if any of this resonates with you, you will at least consider the chance that SEO is not dead for law firms, or most other businesses for that matter.
Instead of abandoning all hope and dumping all of your marketing / advertising time and money into paid ads, consider changing your approach to SEO. You probably don't even need to generate results like the example in this post. Depending on your practice, even hundreds of qualified clicks can add real value to your firm.
Here's a recent Google SERP for "𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘄𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗮." Ads? ❌LSAs? ❌Local Pack? ❌Links? ❌ 🔷 AI Overview? ✅ 6 firms listed. Only one tiny 🔗. Click the 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 button? 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁: Here's a more detailed look at some of these firms: THE PEARCE LAW FIRM, P.C.Edith Pearce, […]
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Meh, links! All things being equal, links still tend to move the dial more than any other factor in legal SERPs. Maybe links are having a diminishing impact internet-wide. But in my experience, quality links, especially relevant links (both topically and geographically), tend to improve law firm visibility in search more than most everything else. […]
