Lawyers have several options for finding new business and SEO is one of them. Finding the right SEO agency to hire for your law firm’s website is a huge job but when you find a great company it’s worth it. There are so many companies who provide SEO but how do you know which ones are the good ones and which ones are the bad ones?
Below are seven questions to ask a prospective SEO company before you hire them. You don’t want to make the mistake of hiring the wrong SEO agency for your law firm because you didn’t evaluate the company good enough before hiring. Not only could you be wasting thousands of dollars but it could also be damaging to your law firm’s website.
These questions aren’t the only questions you should ask an SEO agency while speaking with them but it’s a good start to weed out the bad companies pretty quickly.
1.) Do You Have Experience With Law Firms?
If their answer is “No” or if they hesitate and say they’ve had “a couple clients who are lawyers” then walk away from them. You want an SEO company who only works with law firms. While there are successful general SEO companies who work within many industries, if you’re spending several thousand dollars a month then you want a specialist in the legal industry.
CoFlex Marketing’s Answer: Our agency only works with law firms. We know law firms and attorneys like the back of our hand. We don’t work with any other type of business and SEO is our specialty.
2.) How Long Will It Take To See Results?
Make sure they also explain what types of results you will see. Will it be new cases, new phone calls, more website traffic, ranking increase for certain keywords, etc.
CoFlex Marketing’s Answer: For small to medium cities you should start seeing results (rank improvements, traffic increase, new clients, etc.) in about three months. If you’re in a medium to large city then usually six months. If you’re in a really big city or you’re targeting the state then you’re looking at about a year. These numbers are very rough and it could be quicker or longer. This also widely depends on your website’s current backlinks, citations, on-page SEO, age, and lots of other factors.
3.) Do You Work With Other Law Firms In My Area?
If they respond by saying they work with multiple lawyers in the same city then you need to walk away from them. They may try to act like it’s fine that they work with your competitors but it isn’t. How can a marketing company put forth 100% of their effort/work towards let’s say four lawyers in the same practice area in the same city? They can’t and you don’t want to work with a company who spreads themselves out like that.
CoFlex Marketing’s Answer: Our agency only works exclusively with one law firm in a certain practice area in a city. For example, if we had a current client in Dallas, Texas who practices personal injury law and a personal injury lawyer in Dallas comes to us wanting to hire our company. We would not work with them. Now let’s say a family law lawyer in Dallas comes to us wanting to hire us. That would be fine with us because it’s not a conflict of interest since they are not practicing personal injury law.
4.) What Type of Reporting Will You Do?
Will they send weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly reports? What will be on the reports? Will there be a monthly phone call? What metrics will they measure with your SEO campaign? What kind of data will they track?
CoFlex Marketing’s Answer: We send out monthly email reports to our clients which contains how many phone calls, email form submissions, number of potential clients that visited the website, and rankings of keywords. We also schedule a monthly call to go over our results for the past month and what our plan is for the next month. You can ask questions on the monthly phone call or you can email us anytime throughout the campaign with questions you have.
5.) How Long Is The Contract?
SEO is not an overnight success. SEO can take anywhere from 6 to 12-months to begin to see major results. However, you don’t want to be locked into a contract with a company ever (like Scorpion, FindLaw, Justia, etc). Honest and transparent SEO companies offer month to month contracts where you can quit at any time. Imagine getting locked into a 12-month contract with a nightmare company not getting you any results! If you are on a month-to-month contract then you can walk away at any time. Think about it: how does a 12-month contract benefit your law firm? It doesn’t. It only benefits the SEO agency because they are guaranteed to get paid no matter what.
CoFlex Marketing’s Answer: We only work on month-to-month contracts because we want our clients to be able to leave at any time if they feel they aren’t getting the results they want. We encourage our clients to wait at least three months after starting an SEO campaign before leaving us but if they aren’t happy they are free to leave whenever. Month-to-month contracts keep our agency accountable and it makes sure that we are working to get you new clients.
6.) How Much Do You Charge For SEO?
If they answer with anything less than $1,000, you might not want to hire them. That sounds weird though right? You may be thinking why should I hire a company who charges me $3,000 a month for SEO? That’s understandable why you may be thinking that but once you understand the ROI you will see why you want a company who knows what they’re doing and not undercharging. “SEO agencies” who charge less than $1,000 a month are the ones who are taking your money and probably not doing much work on your website. They undercut other legitimate companies in the industry just to get the sale. No legitimate SEO company charges less than $1,000 and most charge anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000 a month. For what you pay you will see a huge return on that investment.
Struggling To Find An SEO Agency?
Our agency, CoFlex Marketing, works exclusively with law firms like yours across the United States to generate new cases by providing web design and SEO Internet marketing services. Our work experience has significantly impacted the success of each SEO marketing campaign resulting in satisfied and loyal clients. Let us show you what we can do to help your firm increase your caseload. Let’s start working together so we can both grow together! Fill out this quick contact form and we’ll arrange a time to talk on the phone with you.
