5-point Quality Checklist
Your website needs to pass this simple, 5-point Quality Checklist to meet the minimum requirements to satisfy the search engines (Google), as well as your audience. And these are also key to growing your website’s authority and reach.
And if you plan to build your firm for more than 3-5 years, then having a powerful website is a must. If your horizon is less than 5 years and you are not pursuing a succession plan, then all of this is likely too much time and energy to be worth it.
But if your timeline is 5+ years, then having a continually growing and evolving site is a must. At LegalLeads Digital, we support the approach of having a lead generation machine to keep inbound leads at a consistent pace. However, you also need to be building a foundation that runs in parallel to your lead flow! That foundation is an always-improving website as well as your social profiles.
This 5-point checklist gives you a quick overview to make sure your website is achieving basic requirements to grow traffic and authority.
1
Clean Look and Navigation
Make sure you have a progressive, clean look and navigation. It does not matter how flashy things are. Too flashy is not good.
You just want a clean, professional look with convenient navigation (clickable links to all your pages) so it’s easy to find things.
Might sound basic, but most lawyers’ sites do not pass this test. Their framing is off – where the page is too wide or navigation links don’t work correctly. And Google does not like this!
2
Social Connected to Your Website
You want to make sure that you have your social profiles connected to your website. You can add the respective icon, and then link to that profile.
You can connect them in the very top of the website (header), and also in the very bottom of your site (footer). A good rule about what social profiles to have, is to only connect what you will stay active on. There is no sense in connecting social profiles that you never post on.
The most important social platforms today are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. And even though you may think that your firm has nothing to do with videos, it’s still a good idea to have a YouTube channel. The reason? Google owns YouTube and so it will help the authority of your website.
Also, TikTok is becoming an increasingly prevalent and powerful platform, so if you don’t have a TikTok account we recommend creating one so you can lock down your brand name as your handle.
3
Consistently Add Quality Content to Your Website
Make sure that you consistently add content to your website. If you have a static website that is never evolving and growing, the search engines will discount anything that you do with your website. And the content needs to be top quality that adds value to the visitor.
But if you are consistently adding content and adding value each month, your website will continue to increase in authority and power. So if you are in this for the long term, it’s imperative to make sure that your website is active and evolving on a continuous basis.
Digital reach will only become more and more important with time, so make sure that your website is in step with your firm’s growth goals. We so often see established firms with poor websites that are inactive (static sites), and would never pass this 5-point quality checklist.
PRO TIP:
Make sure your URL’s are on the root domain. What does this mean? If you add a post about “When to Call an Attorney?” —
Make sure the URL is this….
www.myfirm.com/when-to-call-an-attorney/
And not this….
www.myfirm.com/blog/when-to-call-an-attorney/
You’ve got a much better chance of getting that visitor to your website because it is more SEO-friendly!
4
Make a Point to Add Videos From Your YouTube Channel to Your Website
Videos are becoming increasingly important in the digital world. So make sure you have a quality YouTube channel, and make sure to add some of those videos to your website.
You can embed YouTube videos very easily on most website platforms, and they are not only informative but will also help you with website rankings and improving your site’s authority.
5
Links to Your Website
The single most important ranking factor continues to be the links to your website. And this will only continue to grow with time, as it is the best measure of your website’s authority. So make sure that you have a strategy for building links to your website.
If you have a company that is overseeing your digital management on a monthly basis, then make absolutely certain that they have a link building strategy as part of their overall approach. You can build great content and stay active on social and tell everyone you know about your website, but if you’re not building consistent links it will remain stuck on page 10 of Google. That is a simple fact.
There are many ways to build links to make sure other websites are linking to your website. But it needs done in a pure and above board manner, or a lot of damage can be done in a short time. If you have questions about this, make sure to contact us for a free evaluation.
