Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
How does Google handle fractions in titles?
Which is better practice, using 1/2" or ½"? The keyword research suggests people search for "1 2" with the space being the "/". How does Google handle fractions? Would ½ be the same as 1/2?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Choice2 -
Best SEO for table in mobile view
I'm wondering what the best way to present a table for mobile view in terms of SEO? It's a complicated table (not simple rows & columns but also col spans) which doesn't work with any responsive techniques I can find. I can offer different content for desktop / mobile so desktop is OK. But what's the best way forward with Google for mobile? I could offer a jpg or simply an explanation to revisit the page on desktop, but neither of those options seem particularly Google-friendly?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ann640 -
How to integrate two websites, post-merger?
One of my clients has just been bought by a much larger company and thus will be losing their website and brand name. My client's site has built up a lot of traffic and authority in its space, so we are very nervous about losing all of this after the sale has gone through. The purchasing company intends for my client's services to be represented on its own website, so I am wondering, from a technical standpoint, what the best way is of going ahead with this, since my client will continue to work with the new company and would like to keep us onboard. Should we doing an 80/20 analysis, recreate our most valuable pages (eg. 70%+ of traffic is to home page) on the new site, then 301 each of these pages individually to its equivalent on the new site, while retaining as much of the old pages' on-page content/structure as possible? One thing I am concerned about is the fact that a large chunk of traffic is from brand searches. Again, should we simply recreate the home page with a page title of e.g. "X company is now part of Y company" in order that we'll still rank highly for the old company's brand name? Any advice on how to go about this is much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | zakkyg0 -
What is the difference between Multilingual and multiregional websites?
Hi all, So, I have studied about multilingual and multiregional websites. As soon as possible, we will expand the website languages to english and spanish. The urls will be like this: http://example.com/pt-br
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mobic
http://example.com/en-us
http://example.com/es-ar Thereby, the tags will be like this: Great! But my doubt is: To /es-ar/ The indexing will be only to spanish languages in Argentina? What about the other countries that speak the same language, like Spain, Mexico, etc.I don't know if it will be possible develop a Spanish languages especially for each region. Should I do an multiregional website or only multilingual? How Google sees this case? Thanks for any advice!!1 -
Duplicate content on recruitment website
Hi everyone, It seems that Panda 4.2 has hit some industries more than others. I just started working on a website, that has no manual action, but the organic traffic has dropped massively in the last few months. Their external linking profile seems to be fine, but I suspect usability issues, especially the duplication may be the reason. The website is a recruitment website in a specific industry only. However, they posts jobs for their clients, that can be very similar, and in the same time they can have 20 jobs with the same title and very similar job descriptions. The website currently have over 200 pages with potential duplicate content. Additionally, these jobs get posted on job portals, with the same content (Happens automatically through a feed). The questions here are: How bad would this be for the website usability, and would it be the reason the traffic went down? Is this the affect of Panda 4.2 that is still rolling What can be done to resolve these issues? Thank you in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iQi0 -
Image URLs - best practice
Hi - I'm assuming image URL best practice follows same principles as non image URLs (not too many files and so on) - I notice alot of web devs putting photos in subdomains, so wonder if I'm missing something (I usually avoid subdomains like the plague)!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart1 -
Mobile website on a different URL address?
My client has an old eCommerce website that is ranking high in Google. The website is not responsive for mobile devices. The client wants to create a responsive design mobile version of the website and put it on a different URL address. There would be a link on the current page pointing to the external mobile website. Is this approach ok or not? The reason why the client does not want to change the design of the current website is because he does not have the budget to do so and there are a lot of pages that would need to be moved to the new design. Any advice would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andypatalak0 -
Export Website into XML File
Hi, I am having an agency optimize the content on my sites. I need to create XML Schema before I export the content into XML. What is best way to export content including meta tags for an entire site along with the steps on how to?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Melia0