Law Firm Website Completely Switching Marketing Focus - How to Best Handle
-
Hi Moz Community,
Thanks in advance for the help! We have a law firm client interested in fully switching their SEO marketing from Criminal Defense to Personal Injury. Our client no longer wants any business for Criminal Defense cases.
Background Info: The website for the last 10 years has focused on Criminal Defense (and ranks well). Over the last couple of years we have introduced Personal Injury content on the website and achieved some decent rankings as well.
In order to make the website less relevant for Criminal Defense, it had crossed our minds to de-index these specific Criminal Defense pages but still leave them present on the website.
Question: Would you recommend de-indexing all of the pages at once or done in a gradual manner?
Our concern it that doing it all at once could affect the overall domain's authority more sharply and harm rankings for any other keywords not involving Criminal Defense.
-
Given the background provided, where the website has been established with a strong emphasis on Criminal Defense over the past decade, it's understandable that you're concerned about the impact on the site's authority and rankings if you de-index the Criminal Defense pages abruptly.
Here's my recommendation:
Gradual De-indexing: Instead of de-indexing all Criminal Defense pages at once, consider a gradual approach. Start by identifying the least critical Criminal Defense pages and de-indexing those first. Monitor the impact on rankings and site authority over a period of time.
Monitor Performance: Keep a close eye on how the de-indexing process affects the site's overall performance, particularly in terms of rankings for Personal Injury-related keywords. This will help you gauge the impact and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Optimize Personal Injury Content: While de-emphasizing Criminal Defense content, ensure that the Personal Injury content is optimized to maintain or improve rankings in this area. This might involve further optimizing existing content, creating new targeted content, and refining your keyword strategy.
Maintain Quality and Relevance: Throughout the transition, prioritize maintaining the quality and relevance of the website's content. Ensure that the Personal Injury content meets the needs of your target audience and aligns with their search intent.
Regular Analysis and Adjustment: Continuously analyze the performance of the website and make adjustments as needed. This might involve further tweaking the de-indexing strategy, refining keyword targeting, or optimizing site structure. -
@loramartin
Hey there, it's great to see your dedication to adapting your law firm client's marketing strategy! Switching focus from Criminal Defense to Personal Injury is a significant shift, but it sounds like you've already made some headway with the introduction of Personal Injury content.Regarding de-indexing, I'd recommend taking a gradual approach rather than de-indexing all the pages at once. Here's why:
Domain Authority Transition: Google's algorithms consider a website's overall authority. If you de-index all Criminal Defense pages at once, it might lead to a sudden drop in authority for your domain. This could impact your rankings for other relevant keywords, including Personal Injury-related terms.
Ranking Stability: Gradually transitioning by removing or de-indexing Criminal Defense pages while strengthening Personal Injury content can help maintain your current rankings while the new content gains traction. It's like shifting your weight from one foot to the other instead of jumping entirely to the other side.
User Experience: Abruptly removing all traces of Criminal Defense content might confuse regular visitors who are accustomed to that focus. By gradually transitioning, you allow users to adapt to the new content and navigate your site more comfortably.
Link Equity: Your current Criminal Defense pages might have accumulated valuable backlinks over the years. Gradual de-indexing allows these links to continue benefitting your site's authority while you build new ones for the Personal Injury pages.
So, my suggestion would be to selectively de-index or remove the Criminal Defense pages over a span of time, maybe a few months. This will give you room to monitor the effects and adjust your strategy if needed.
Remember, consistency in updating the Personal Injury content and maintaining a seamless user experience is key. All the best with your transition, and I'm sure your law firm client will appreciate your strategic approach!
-
Shifting the marketing focus of a law firm's website from Criminal Defense to Personal Injury is a significant move, but it's definitely manageable. Firstly, make sure to thoroughly update the content of your website to reflect this transition. Revisit all pages related to Criminal Defense and replace them with informative, engaging content about Personal Injury law. This will not only provide a clear direction to visitors but also improve your website's SEO for the new focus.
Next, ensure that your website's navigation is user-friendly and intuitive. Create separate sections for Criminal Defense and Personal Injury cases, with relevant subcategories and pages. This will make it easy for visitors to find the information they need and distinguish between the two practice areas.
Since your website has already achieved decent rankings for Personal Injury content, leverage this success by optimizing those pages further. Update meta titles, descriptions, and headers to reflect the new focus. Additionally, reach out to your existing audience through newsletters or blog posts explaining the change and emphasizing your expertise in Personal Injury law.
Finally, monitor the transition's impact closely. Use tools like Google Analytics to track changes in traffic, bounce rates, and conversions. Adjust your strategies as needed to ensure a smooth shift in marketing focus without losing the gains you've achieved in rankings.
Regarding your request to download Pikashow, I'm here to provide information and assistance on various topics. If you have any questions or need guidance, feel free to ask! However, I cannot assist with downloading or promoting specific software or applications that might not align with legal or ethical standards. If you have any other queries or concerns, I'd be happy to help.
-
Hi @peteboyd
Here I am sharing my experience and powerful SEO strategy for your Law Firm website. You should keep this in mind when you will be starting SEO for Law Firm.
Here are some steps you Follow While Doing SEO for Law Firm Websites
Step 1: Finding and Analyzing CompetitorsStep 2: Technical SEO Audit For Law Firm Website
Step 3: Zero-Down on the Keywords
Step 4: Optimize Google Business Profile according to your competitors
Step 5: Optimize website Content with SEO Keywords
Step 6: Optimize Metas (Title & Meta Description) with SEO Keywords
Step 7: Optimize Heading & Subheading tags with SEO Keywords
Step 8: Optimize Schema Tags (Organization, Local Business, Navigation, Attorney, Event, Video, Rating & review, FAQs, etc)
Step 9: Optimize Footer add about content, location, and images with SEO Keywords
Step 10: And lastly You should Focus on High-Quality Link building (Profile creation, business citation, classified, bookmarking, content syndication, guest post, content outreach, web 2.0, forums, Q&A, etc.)
I hope these steps will help to rank higher in Google SERPs.
Also, if you don't have any experience SEO team you can consult with No. #1 India SEO company.
Thank you.
-
If the rankings of the criminal defense pages have direct links then those links are helpful to any query that any page of the site competes for. So, I would not delete them.
There are law firms with strong websites that rule the SERPs for everything in their town. Their office takes any call that comes in, accepts the cases in practice areas where they have interest and expertise, and refers the rest to other firms for a referral fee.
-
I would not deindex anything. The search rankings are the bread and butter. The question is how do you leverage current traffic and use it to boost personal injury.
I would start by curating new content that aligns with the criminal justice content. Then take the criminal justice content and redirect it to your new content.
If you deindex, traffic will drop considerably and it will be like starting from scratch. If you redirect you may be able to pass link juice to your new pages while rankings start to increase for personal injury.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO tips for linking a website to ebay
Hi guys, I am helping a client link their website to Ebay and I am wondering if there is anything specific I should be doing in terms for search engine optimisation. Any advice would be really helpful. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StoryScout0 -
Best Practices
Okay this would be a piece of cake for most of you out there.. What are the best practices once you add a page or piece of content on your website with a new keyword that you have never used before but plan to use it with every relevant new page you add. How do you ensure that Google will crawl that page? Secondly, if you add the new keyword in the old pieces of content/ pages you have already published by editing the content to suit that keyword, how would you ensure that it gets crawled my Google. Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LaythDajani0 -
Where to begin (SEO-wise) with my Website?
Hello, We hired a company to design an e-commerce website for us. Along the way they did some initial SEO design, but we are clearly a long way from where we need to be. I'm not a web-designer or a knowledgeable SEO person. I have the website linked to webtools, google analytics and obviously this site as well. I've been toying with the idea of just trying to accomplish some SEO myself, but the more I read about SEO, the more daunting it seems. I'm a full-time military pilot, so this seems like it involves more time than I have to give. Where do I begin? My Website www.phoenixprintingsolutions.com Thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JRodBeMe0 -
Best practices for handling https content?
Hi Mozzers - I'm having an issue with https content on my site that I need help with. Basically we have some pages that are meant to be secured, cart pages, auth pages, etc, and then we have the rest of the site that isn't secured. I need those pages to load correctly and independently of one another so that we are using both protocols correctly. Problem is - when a secure page is rendered the resources behind it (scripts, etc) won't load with the unsecured paths that are in our master page files currently. One solution would be to render the entire site in https only, however this really scares me from an SEO standpoint. I don't know if I want to put my eggs in that basket. Another solution is to structure the site so that secure pages are built differently from unsecured pages, but that requires a bit of re-structuring and new SOPs to be put in place. I guess my question is really about best practices when using https. How can I avoid duplication issues? When do I need to use rel=canonical? What is the best way to do things here to avoid heavy maintenance moving forward?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CodyWheeler0 -
SEO Best Practices for Video Sites
What are the SEO Best Practices for video sites? Is there a guideline for this in SEOMOZ? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | merkal20050 -
SEO Ideas for B to B Website?
Hi, I am running SEO for a medium-sized B-to-B website. We sell cloud-based software to other businesses/organizations. Our site currently consists of static product-related pages that already have been highly optimized (correct tags, rich content etc) and a blog that we updated regularly. For 2012, I've been tasked with coming up with ideas to significantly increase SEO. Assuming no budget constrains, what are some other general content ideas / other strategies to increase SEO for a B-to-B website? Some of my current ideas include: starting a keyword-targeted YouTube video series and acquiring more links. What are other tactics that could work for a b-to-b site? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mindflash0 -
How to handle "2" homepages?
Came across an interesting problem. A site has the traditional homepage of site.com and ranks okay. Later I found that another "homepage", site.com/home.html that ranks well for several terms but actually has old branding and semi-up-to-date content. Site.com/home.html has a solid linking profile but not as strong as the current homepage (site.com). The question I have is should I try to salvage the page or 301 redirect to site.com? Thank for the help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 2comarketing0 -
Best Structure for Multi-Language/International Website
We are getting ready to do a total redsign of our website, which is a multi-language global website (www.hurco.com). Today we use an ip address lookup to determine country of origin and redirect to say hurco.de for Germany. The main reason for this was that our German division was afraid that their potential customers were going to the hurco.com site and seeing product that was not available to them. Is there a better way from an SEO standpoint to structure our website? Should we have all hurco.com traffic goto a country selection page and let them go there manually? Other good practices we should follow? Would you structure the entire site as //www.hurco.com/en-us or /en-canada (language and country) and then have all international domains 301 redirect to the proper one?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fassnachtp0