Believe it or not, Google has limited resources when it comes to crawling the entire web. There are so many pages and websites – many of them duplicate – so it can be difficult for Google to find every page. This “crawl budget,” as it’s called, can have several implications for your law firm website.
Understanding how crawl budget works for law firm websites is crucial to avoid missing out on higher search rankings due to Google’s inability to crawl your site effectively.
With this in mind, there are a few law firm SEO tactics you should employ to capitalize on Google’s crawl budget and get more traffic to your website. Let’s dig in.
What is “Crawling”?
“Crawling” is an SEO term that refers to the process of search engine bots scanning a website for content, data, and information. Through “crawling,” search engines like Google are able to “read” what a website is about and determine whether its content is a good match for what a user is searching for.
Faster crawling is facilitated by SEO improvements. Very often, search engines may be intentionally or unintentionally blocked from crawling your site, which can impact your site’s traffic. If you want your content to get found by users, then you’ll want to make sure your website is well-optimized and “crawlable.”
How Crawling Works
The concept of “crawling” becomes less complicated when you imagine that search engine bots are working to “read” a website and interpret its content. Though this is an algorithmic process, it is really quite simple:
- Search engine bots scan the web for unique web addresses or sitemaps from past crawls in order to find new/updated websites or URLs.
- The search engine bots (“crawlers”) then visit these URLs to retrieve the web pages.
- The crawlers analyze the content, follow the links to other pages on the website, and identify the content types (text, images, etc.).
- Once the information on the web pages is processed, it is then “indexed.” This means the URLs are essentially saved in the search engine’s database and the data is used to generate the search results.
- The crawlers revisit sites periodically to detect changes and update the index accordingly.
For law firm business owners (and all business owners, in fact), it is important to know how crawling works because it plays a role in the indexation and ranking of your website. There are steps you can take to improve your site’s crawlability which can improve your organic traffic.
Why Does This Matter for Law Firms?
In a nutshell, crawling matters for law firms because Google is only able to “allocate” a certain amount of its time to crawling your website. “Crawl budget”, then, is the limit of how many pages Google is willing to crawl and index. This is facilitated by (or limited by) the level of accessibility and optimization of your web pages.
Crawl budget is defined by two things according to Google:
- Crawl capacity: Google’s maximum number of simultaneous parallel connections that Googlebot can use to crawl a website. Google sets this capacity limit in order to avoid overloading its servers.
- Crawl demand: Google tries to determine the URLs that are in most need of crawling. This comes down to factors such as website structure, freshness, and popularity.
Google doesn’t want to waste its time crawling duplicate, low content, or irrelevant pages. It also doesn’t have the time to find and crawl pages that are buried deep on your website. Your goal is to make it super easy for Google to find the pages that matter most to your business and clients.
Factors That Impact Crawl Velocity
The crawling or crawl velocity of a website—how quickly and frequently a search engine’s bot crawls a site—can be influenced by several factors. As a business owner, you have the ability to optimize for many of these factors in order to improve your organic traffic
Website Structure
Websites that lack hierarchy or otherwise make it difficult for crawlers to navigate the pages can experience lower crawlability, impacting their traffic. Alternatively, websites with a clear hierarchy and sitemap are easier to crawl and index.
Robots.txt File
A robots.txt file tells crawlers which parts of the website can be crawled and which parts should not be crawled. Blocking pages via your robots.txt file can slow down or hinder crawling.
Page Load Speed
A fast-loading website can help facilitate faster crawling, as crawlers are able to crawl and process pages more quickly. Fast page speed is also an important factor when it comes to user friendliness.
Content Freshness
Frequently updated websites are often crawled more often compared to out-of-date/stagnant websites, as search engines aim to ensure their index is as current as possible.
Server Speed
If a website’s server is fast and reliable, crawlers can work more efficiently without causing downtime.
Links
Both the quantity and quality of inbound and internal links can impact crawl frequency and depth, as inbound links can lend authority to a website and internal links make the other web pages easier to find.
Site Errors
A high number of 404/broken links or other server errors can reduce crawl velocity. These issues signal to crawlers that the site may not be well-maintained.
Duplicate Content
If a site has a lot of duplicate content, crawlers might reduce the crawl rate to avoid crawling the same content multiple times.
How to Increase Crawl Velocity on Your Law Firm Website
If you want to increase the crawl velocity on your website, it’s important to make sure search engines can easily access and index your content. This will improve your site’s visibility and can lead to better search rankings.
Learn how to optimize your site for search engine crawlers:
Prioritize Technical SEO
First, start by addressing the technical SEO components of your website. Ensure your website’s structure is logical and straightforward, with a clear hierarchy that search engines can follow. Implement a comprehensive sitemap and use robots.txt wisely to direct crawlers to your most important pages.
Improve Website Performance
Site speed is a critical factor for crawl rate. Optimize images, minify code, and leverage browser caching to improve load times. A faster website not only enhances user experience but also encourages search engines to crawl more pages in less time.
Update Your Content on a Regular Basis
Fresh, relevant content can signal to search engines that your website is valuable and up-to-date. Update your blog and web pages so that Google continues to crawl your site and see it as active.
Add Internal Links
An intentional internal linking structure can help search engines discover new content and navigate to other pages on your website. Use descriptive anchor text and link to important pages where relevant.
Audit Your Site for Errors
Keep an eye on Google Search Console and other SEO tools to check for any crawl errors. Fixing broken links, incorrect redirects, and server errors will help you maintain an efficient crawling velocity.
Earn More Backlinks
High-quality backlinks from reputable websites can boost your site’s authority and crawl rate. Focus on building relationships in your industry to earn links that will drive both referral traffic and crawler attention.
Hire SEO Experts
Optimizing for crawl budget can be complicated, especially if you don’t have the technical know-how to modify different components of your site. If that’s the case for you, consider partnering with an SEO agency that specializes in law firm websites. They can provide expert advice on increasing crawl velocity and overall online visibility.
Law Practice SEO services with Hennessey Digital
Hennessey Digital founder Jason Hennessey wrote the book on law firm SEO (literally!) and brings 20+ years of experience helping law firms achieve massive growth. Contact us today to learn more about our law firm SEO services.
Jason Hennessey wrote the book on law firm SEO (literally!). With 20+ years of SEO experience, we help law firms achieve massive growth goals by getting more quality leads and signed cases.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do you measure a crawl budget?
Crawl budget refers to the number of pages a search engine bot will crawl and index on a site within a given timeframe. To actually measure it, you would need to analyze server log files to see how often and how many pages search engine crawlers are visiting. Tools like Google Search Console can provide insights into the frequency of crawls and the number of pages crawled per day. You can also work with a trusted SEO expert to analyze your log files for you and determine how effectively your law firm’s website is being crawled.
How do you manage a crawl budget?
Managing your crawl budget effectively ensures that the most important pages of your law firm’s website are crawled and indexed. To do this, be sure that your site hierarchy prioritizes your content so that the most important pages are crawled first. This can be done by optimizing site structure and navigation, and by using a sitemap. Limiting duplicate content, reducing redirect chains, and fixing broken links can also help. Regularly monitoring and optimizing these factors using tools like Google Search Console will help you stay on top of your crawl budget and maximize the visibility of your site.
What is a good crawl depth?
In essence, a “good” crawl depth means that a search engine can find web pages that are several layers deep within your website without difficulty. For a law firm’s website, ensuring that important pages such as practice areas, attorney profiles, and contact information are within three clicks from the homepage can facilitate a good crawl depth. This makes it easier for search engines to discover and index these pages.