What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is, quite simply, optimizing your website so it performs better on search engines. In other words, our goal is to make your company show up first in the search engine results pages when prospective clients are looking up certain keywords (like, in this case study, “Winnipeg defence lawyer”).
Why Is SEO Important For Lawyers?
SEO is important for all law firms, from massive firms like Kirkland & Ellis to firms focused on defending local clients. Why?
According to a 2019 report by Clio, 17% of legal consumers searched for a lawyer online. Outside of referrals, it’s the most used method for finding legal counsel – tied with the law firm’s own website.
And SEO does something that your website can’t do alone: it helps you acquire clients who are otherwise completely unaware that you even exist. What’s more, much of the work involved in SEO revolves around optimizing your website. That can increase conversion rates for the people who visit your website directly.
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By ranking higher in Google results, you’re winning on two fronts – you’re increasing your client acquisition, all while limiting the client acquisition of competing firms. The #1 search result for a keyword gets 10x as many clicks as the #10 results. What’s more, results on the second page are only clicked by 0.78% of Google users. The top 3 results get 75.1% of all clicks.
If you’re not on top, you’re losing out on a lot of potential clients. And that’s without even getting into Google Maps results (which we’ll talk about in a bit).
Everyone will need a lawyer, or knows someone who will need a lawyer at some point in their lives. That means if they’re not going to you, they’re going to your competitors.
Don’t let nearly 20% of your potential clients go to your competition. Start optimizing for search engines.
Case Study
This client came to us with an already established word-of-mouth presence as the top criminal lawyers in Winnipeg, but they wanted to grow their exposure by also dominating the Winnipeg SEO space.
In just over twelve months we took all of their high buyer intent keywords to position 1 and maintained their positioning.
As the rankings increased, so did the exposure for the client. As we can see, we grew the number of clicks their site received by over 200% and the number of impressions by over 300%!
The increased exposure then translated to a higher amount of traffic for the client. Alongside recurring users increasing, we can see that the number of new users also grew impressively. Our efforts in ranking at the top of search results generated an increase of over 142% in unique visits to the site and all from organic searches!
Alongside improvements in keyword rankings, we also increased the exposure for their Google My Business profile. As you can see in the last twelve months we evidently improved overall profile views both on organic and map search with SEO from just under 2,000 views to over 3,500 monthly views.
Specialized Search Marketing for Canadian Law Firms
We don’t use a “one-size-fits-all” approach. We build practice-specific revenue engines.
Effective Lawyer SEO requires more than just ranking for “lawyer near me.” It requires a deep understanding of the search intent behind high-value practice areas. Whether you are a Criminal Defense firm fighting for urgent leads or a Family Law practice building long-term trust, our strategies are customized to the specific client journey of your niche.
Ethical, Compliant, and Aggressive. We understand that your reputation is your license. We strictly adhere to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and Law Society advertising standards. We don’t use “blackhat” shortcuts that put your firm at risk. Instead, we use data-driven content, technical precision, and local authority building to secure sustainable top-tier rankings.
The result? You focus on the courtroom; we ensure the clients find you first.
Below, we’re pulling back the curtain. This is the exact 6-pillar methodology we use to take firms from invisible to #1.
The 6-Pillar SEO Approach for Attorneys
We’ve developed 6 pillars for our SEO strategy. Don’t accept any less – if your SEO agency isn’t doing all 6 of these things, they aren’t doing enough. The 6 pillars are:
Find the most searched, highest converting keywords, and optimize for them.
Optimize the backend of your website to make it easier for Googlebot (and users) to crawl and understand.
Optimizing the content on your page for keywords, semantic relevance, and appropriate schema.
Developing a network of connections to your website to increase its authority.
Optimizing your listing in the most powerful business directory in the world, Google My Business.
Creating relevant content to boost both your on-page and off-page SEO.
Seems simple enough when it’s written out like that, but we could write doctoral dissertations on every single one of those topics.
These pillars all work synergistically (what a great buzzword) to boost your ranking in Google. They stonewall your competitors and boost every point of your sales funnel, from awareness to conversion rates.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the pillars, and how they work together for our attorney SEO strategy.
Keyword Research for Law Firms
Keyword research is about figuring out:
- Which keywords are getting searched for the most often
- Which keywords have the highest conversion rates
- Which keywords are the most relevant to your niche
In the case of most attorneys and law firms, local keywords are the most relevant and the highest converting. Local keywords are anything that includes the name of your city/neighbourhood/region, or searches for lawyers “near me”.
Of course, the keywords themselves vary from niche to niche. While a defence attorney might do well to rank for “murder lawyer near me”, someone who specializes in business law might want to rank for “corporate restructuring your city”.
We don’t use guesswork to figure out which keywords will be useful. SEO is a data-driven practice. We use our existing client base to better understand which keywords tend to work for different niches – we work with a lot of attorneys and firms. We also use keyword analysis tools to see what’s being searched for – and what’s converting.
We’ll also reverse engineer what your competitors are ranking for, in an effort to intentionally disrupt their client acquisition. By ranking better than them for those keywords, we send clients that would have been theirs to you.
Technical SEO
Our next step is evaluating how well your website performs on various devices for a variety of users. Mobile searches are increasingly popular – even when people are looking for a lawyer.
We’ll optimize your site for Google’s Core Web Vitals metric, ensuring that every page:
- Loads quickly
- Is easy to interact with
- Is visually stable
As part of our SEO campaign, we’ll also ensure your site is secure through SSL certification. We’ll make duplicate pages invisible to search engines, so they won’t cannibalize your rank. We’ll improve the structure of your site, ensuring a shallow structure that’s easy to navigate – for robots and humans.
This technical work is essential – if your website isn’t easy for robots to crawl (and for users to surf), it won’t rank well.
Off-Page SEO
Precedent is key in law. There’s a similar principle in academics – when a paper is cited frequently by other papers, especially other well-reputed papers, it’s taken to be authoritative.
This principle applies to SEO, too. When your practice gets links from well-reputed publications and websites, you can see a substantial boost to your rank.
Without off-page SEO, your firm will not rank well. That’s where we come in. We’ve developed one of the most comprehensive off-page SEO strategies in the business.
We’re engaged in outreach efforts to respected publications. We’ll develop comprehensive resources for your website, and encourage those publications to link to your website – more on that in the “Blog management” section.
We’ll also do a competitor analysis to see which sites are linking to your competitors. We’ll develop resources that will blow your competitors out of the water, then ask the sites linking to other practices to link to yours instead.
As you can probably tell, our eye is always on moving the needle both ways – developing your SEO while hindering the efforts of your competition.
Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile (GBP) is the most powerful business directory in the world. It is a key piece for lawyer seo stratagies. Google wants its search engine to answer every question a person could have – including which law firm is the best in the city.
These are the first results when you look up “Law firms in Toronto” – they show up before the plain text organic search results. You can see the locations of the businesses, reviews, hours of operation, phone numbers, how many years they’ve been in business, and more.
Google Business Profile search results are incredibly valuable. (By the way, if you’re in Toronto, and you don’t see your firm in the top 3 results here, give us a call – we can help).
If you don’t have a GBP Profile set up, call us right away – we’ll set it up for you. They’re invaluable for law firms – if you don’t have a GBP Profile, you cannot show up in the results we displayed above.
Setting up a GBP is easy enough – optimizing it is trickier. We’ll do it for you. From weekly posts to off-page name, address, and phone number optimization, we’ll ensure your GBP is poised to get you in the coveted Map results – also known as the 3-Pack.
Blog Management
Last, but certainly not least, is blog management.
Google knows that you say you practice law. But what kind of law do you practice? Prospective clients may know that you practice law – but if they’re looking for information, and they’re not ready to hire a lawyer yet, how will they find you on Google?
That’s where our blog and content management comes in. It helps with on-page SEO, by creating quality content that’s relevant to keywords potential clients will look up. The content is also semantically relevant to your niche, giving Google a better idea of your areas of expertise.
Blog and content management is essential to off-page SEO, too. Want to get links from relevant websites in your area? Websites that are well-reputed, and associated with your niche?
You need content that they can link to. We’ll provide it.
First Rank is the Best Choice for Canadian Law Firms
You’ve seen the case study. You’ve read about how we do business. You know that SEO can seriously boost your client acquisition – it’s effective digital marketing for a fraction of the price of most traditional marketing.
The next step is simple. Give us a call. After all, we’re willing to wager you found this page on Google – and if we rank this well for a niche keyword like “lawyer SEO”, just imagine what we can do for your practice.
Frequently Asked Questions About Attorney SEO
How long does it take for SEO to generate leads for a law firm?
While technical fixes can show results within weeks, meaningful organic growth typically takes 3 to 6 months. For highly competitive practice areas like Personal Injury or Criminal Defense in major cities, achieving market dominance takes 6 to 12 months of consistent content publication and link acquisition. SEO is a compounding asset, not a quick fix.
Why isn't my law firm showing up in the Google Map Pack?
Google Maps rankings rely on three pillars: Relevance, Proximity, and Prominence. If you aren’t ranking, it is likely due to inconsistent Name-Address-Phone (NAP) data across the web, a lack of local reviews, or poorly optimized Google Business Profile categories. At First Rank, we audit your citations and review velocity to signal to Google that you are the authority in your specific local area.
Is your SEO strategy compliant with Law Society advertising rules?
Absolutely. We understand that legal marketing is held to a higher ethical standard. Our content strategies focus on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). We avoid hyperbolic claims (e.g., “Best Lawyer in Winnipeg”) that violate advertising codes, focusing instead on objective case results, client testimonials, and educational content that establishes your expertise safely.
What is the difference between Lawyer SEO and Google Ads (PPC)?
Google Ads (PPC) rents you traffic; SEO builds you equity. PPC stops generating leads the moment you stop paying. Lawyer SEO builds a permanent digital asset that continues to drive traffic years after the work is done. While we often recommend using both for maximum coverage, SEO offers a significantly higher ROI (Return on Investment) over the long term by lowering your average cost-per-acquisition.
Will SEO bring me qualified cases or just "tire kickers"?
Effective SEO targets search intent, not just traffic volume. We differentiate between “informational” searches (e.g., “what is a tort?”) and “commercial” searches (e.g., “hire injury lawyer near me”). By optimizing your service pages for high-intent keywords and creating detailed FAQs that filter out unqualified leads, we ensure your intake team spends time on cases that drive revenue, not free advice.
