SEO Audits For Law Firms

Whether you’ve implemented law firm SEO in the past or are just getting started, auditing your law firm website is one of the best ways to determine how your site measures up when it comes to SEO.

Does your law firm need an SEO audit? Find out below.

What is a law firm website SEO audit?

A law firm search engine optimization (SEO) audit is an assessment of how your law firm website performs in terms of on-page, technical, and off-page SEO. The purpose is to identify issues or gaps that may be contributing to your brand’s organic rankings and traffic.

During an SEO audit, Hennessey Digital will assess your site’s technical structure, content performance, backlink profile, user experience, and a range of other factors that influence organic search rankings. Many of these factors align with Google’s known SEO ranking factors.

Why is an SEO Audit Valuable?

SEO audits are valuable to law firms because they surface important SEO issues to be addressed and where organic growth opportunities exist. Without an SEO audit, it is difficult to determine which SEO activities are most important for a given website or whether its existing infrastructure can support those changes.

An SEO audit for your law firm website can reveal:

• Technical site issues, like broken links, canonicalization issues, orphaned pages, etc.
• Content performance issues, like missing metadata, unoptimized metadata, or thin content
• Backlink toxicity issues, broken backlinks, missing backlinks, or untapped backlink opportunities
• Page experience issues, such as slow site speed, poor mobile responsiveness, or Core Web Vitals issues

Many of these SEO issues must be addressed in order to see organic improvement. An SEO audit will help you identify the issues, prioritize law firm SEO activities, and start implementing the updates.

Multi-Point SEO Audit Checklist

At Hennessey Digital, our law firm SEO audits assess websites across 50+ points to get a comprehensive picture of your site’s overall performance.
Most of these factors can be categorized into a few key areas of SEO: Technical, On-Page, Off-Page, and User Experience (UX).

Technical Analysis

These factors assess your site’s technical infrastructure and crawlability. These factors may include:

• Site speed
• Mobile-friendliness
• URL structure
• Indexing issues
• XML sitemaps
• Duplicate content
• Incorrect use of canonical tags
• Improper URL structure
• Issues with robots.txt file
• Poorly implemented schema markup
• SSL certificate and HTTPS configuration problems
• Server and hosting issues
• Inconsistent or missing structured data
• Pagination problems
• Improper implementation of hreflang tags

On-Page Optimization

Our assessment also covers the on-site elements, including content and meta tags. Some of the factors we look out for include:

• Poor keyword optimization
• Thin or low-quality content
• Missing or poorly optimized title tags
• Inadequate heading tags (H1, H2, etc.)
• Absence of alt attributes for images
• Overuse or stuffing of keywords
• Unoptimized or lengthy URL slugs
• Lack of proper use of anchor text
• Lack of social sharing buttons or optimization
• Poorly formatted or unreadable content
• Ignoring user intent and search intent

Off-Page Analysis

“Off-page” refers to the SEO factors that exist outside of your website, such as backlinks from other websites or the optimization of your directory listings. A law firm SEO audit typically looks at:

• Low quantity or quality of backlinks
• Irrelevant, spammy, or toxic backlinks
• Unnatural anchor text distribution
• Paid or manipulative link schemes
• Lack of brand mentions or citations
• Absence of social signals (likes, shares, comments)
• Negative online reviews
• Poor presence on social media platforms
• Ineffective or inactive social media profiles

User Experience

We also look at how your website measures up in terms of user performance, conversion, and navigation. This section of the assessment considers:

• Poor mobile responsiveness
• Difficult navigation and site structure
• Lack of clear call-to-action (CTA) elements
• Inconsistent or confusing user interface (UI)
• Overwhelming or cluttered website design
• Lack of visual appeal or aesthetics
• Broken or dysfunctional website elements
• Ineffective use of multimedia (images, videos, etc.)
• Lack of search functionality
• Frustrating or excessive use of pop-ups
• Non-responsive or unhelpful error pages
• Insufficient accessibility for users with disabilities

Resolution of these SEO issues can improve organic visibility and performance, and provide a better experience for users

So, Why Aren’t You Ranking?

An SEO audit will identify any issues that may be hindering your brand’s organic rankings and performance. Note that this could be due to a combination of factors, so it is important to get a comprehensive assessment so you get the full picture of your SEO status.

There are a few common reasons why you aren’t ranking:
Bad content – Thin content, poorly-written content, and generic content often does not perform well in the search results. Users want to read helpful, informative content from experts. At the same time, Google wants to see that your content is well-optimized for your target keywords. Many law firms struggle in this area due to having dull or unoptimized content.

Bad metadata – Your metadata (description, title, and headings) tells Google what your web pages and blog posts are about. Without it, you won’t rank particularly well in the search results. Your metadata should be optimized for your target keyword(s) in mind and communicate to Google (and users) what your content is about.

Indexation issues – There may be technical issues that are preventing Google from crawling and indexing your site. If your web pages have noindex tags, Google won’t be able to find you. An SEO audit can easily identify these issues and set you on the right track.

Low-quality backlinks – Not enough backlinks or having too many toxic backlinks can hurt your site’s domain authority. A successful SEO strategy depends on earning a decent amount of high-quality, relevant backlinks to your site. A toxic backlink score can cause Google to “punish” your site and not rank it high (or at all) in the search results.

Audit Your Site for Valuable SEO Insights

The best way to identify SEO growth areas for your website is to audit its existing performance. At Hennessey Digital, we offer SEO audit services to help you identify issues holding your website back from ranking higher and reaching its full potential in search engines. Get started with a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of your law firm’s SEO status!