SEO For Immigration Lawyers

by Venchito Tampon Jr | Last Updated on October 18, 2023

People search on Google when looking for immigration lawyers. 

So, if you want to increase quality leads to your legal practice through SEO, here’s a step-by-step guide.

SEO For Immigration Lawyers

SEO for immigration lawyers depends on your target audience. 

If you’re targeting local clients, you only need local SEO. You must optimize your site for national keywords (e.g., US audience) if it’s a national audience. 

Unlike plain SEO, local SEO isn’t limited to improving rankings in the regular Google’s SERPs. It also focused on getting your business to climb the top of local business map packs displayed on top of search results pages. 

You can rank for both Google Business Map packs and organic search listings if you want greater visibility. 

Imagine having your website appear on Google Map Packs while they could still see your brand in organic search engine listings as they scroll the page. 

Now, let’s get into how to rank your immigration law firm for Google Map packs and organic search listings. 

How to Rank Your Immigration Law Firm? 

1. NAP Consistency   

NAP represents business name, address, and phone number (NAP), the three most essential elements of a local SEO campaign. 

By consistently placing it across prominent places on your site and other sites for citations, you help Google identify your brand and associate it with its geographic location. 

Include NAP in your About Us page or sitewise in your website’s footer or header sections.  

2. Claim Your Google Business Profile 

Google Business Profile is a free Google service that allows you to create a business listing online. 

When search users look for your business, your Google Business Profile will display its map location, image, and other general business information.

Create your Google Business Profile here. Fill out the fields in your account, even the ones with optional fields. This would allow you to get ahead and outrank your competitors. 

Write a detailed business description. 

Add original photos of your office, staff, and any relevant business pictures. 

Ensure you accurately input the correct category. Google has now added specific categories in Google Business Profile. 

Link to your social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter (X), Linkedin, and TikTok. It’s a feature of Google Business Profile where you can add more trust signals to your business/site. 

And lastly, get genuine reviews. You can ask your clients to leave reviews on your Google Business Profile. This would help your GBP to rank higher on Google Map Packs and increase conversions from potential clients checking social proof of your site. 

3. Be Strategic in Your Keyword Research 

Ranking for immigration lawyer keyword isn’t an easy feat.

Take a look at how competitive local SEO is in the legal space. 

However, you still have a fighting chance if you take a different approach to keyword research given that keyword difficulty shouldn’t be your sole indicator for search competition. 

By looking at Google’s SERPs for your target keyword, you’ll then see who are the top-ranking pages and what are their current domain authority. 

For instance, if you do a Google search for “immigration lawyer in St. Louis”, you’ll that some of the ranking websites have Ahrefs’ Domain Rating of less than 30. 

It shows you have a high chance to rank for this keyphrase even if you have a new website.  

Target Long-Tail Immigration Lawyer Keywords 

If you have a specialized service, i.e., immigration legal service for Filipinos, you may target a more specific keyphrase, “Filipino immigration lawyer Chicago”. 

This type of keyword typically has a low search volume but a high intent of converting into clients and has lower competition. 

Aside from creating landing pages that target your head terms, “immigration lawyer in Chicago”, you can publish more landing pages that optimize for “Filipino immigration lawyer Chicago”.

Publish Informational Content Around Your Target Keywords 

One of the best ways to rank for keywords is to build topical authority. Topical authority refers to gaining a level of authority within a specific expertise or area in the industry that Google recognizes you as an expert/authority in that niche. 

Start creating blog content for people asking questions related to your legal service. 

Enter the keyword in Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer. Go to Questions. 

Though most of these keywords have low search volume, the traffic you’ll get from ranking for these long-tail keywords will pile up and help build your site’s topical authority. 

Steal Traffic From Other Immigration Lawyers Websites

Reverse engineering your competitors’ sites would reveal keyword insights you can also rank for (and hopefully steal the traffic from by outranking their sites).

Enter Competitors’ Domain in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer – Organic Keywords. Then, filter results by “Top 10” and Keyword Difficulty of 15.

Here are interesting findings from this keyword research exercise: 

• More specific keywords to target additional landing pages (deportation defense lawyer, green card lawyer NYC, fiancée visa lawyer New York, removal defense attorney)
• Informational keywords to attract more traffic (e.g., “k1 visa did not marry”).
• “immigration lawyer reviews” – you can optimize your client reviews page for this keyword.

I’m only scratching the surface. There are a couple of more keywords you can find from doing competitor keyword research. 

4. Localize On-page SEO Elements

On-page SEO for local legal services needs to reflect the target geography in the following fields:

• Title tags – indicate what your immigration law firm is serving.
• Meta descriptions – help increase CTR, so better mention your target location.
• H1 text – the main headline text of the page must be marked by the H1 HTML tag.
• Body text – mention the country, city, or area you’re targeting in the body of your content as you naturally write the content. 
• Entitles and LSI – include variations of keywords and entities (businesses or personality names) when appropriate in your content copy. 

5. Localize Content

A big chunk of local SEO is crafting localized content targeted to an audience within a geographic setting.

Write content that is applicable and specific to your target area. For instance, if you’re writing content to possible clients’ questions, such as, “How Long Does It Take to Get a Green Card Through Marriage?”, mention entities specific to your target location.

You may include the policies, laws, and culture of that city. This way, you send rich signals to Google that you are relevant to that location. 

6. Build Foundational Links

One big mistake most SEOs make is acquiring inbound links without building the right off-page trust signals to their websites.

Before doing guest blogging, resource page link building, or digital PR, begin with the basics.

Social Profiles

Place your links on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social sites to initiate link building campaign. 

Optimize profiles by filling out all information, uploading images, and posting content on these social platforms. 

This is what a real company does with their social accounts, so gaining trust signals by building your social profiles. 

Get Listed on Legal Directories

Legal directories tend to rank for your target head terms like “immigration lawyer in New York”, as these pages satisfy the search intent of providing more options for legal services to search users.

With the recent Google algorithm updates, you’ll notice two or more pages ranking from the same domain. For this Google’s SERPs for “immigration lawyer in New York Google Search”, you see two pages from Justia ranking for the key phrase. 

Though these SERP patterns may change, being listed on legal directories is a colossal advantage that helps improve your brand’s visibility for people directly visiting these directory sites.

While these directory links help improve the ranking power of your website. 

Resource Lists

If you are part of any advocacy groups or non-profit organizations, they may have specific resource lists where your immigration lawyer site can be listed.

Reach out to them and get direct link placements from their dedicated pages for attorneys. 

Advanced SEO For Immigration Lawyers

If you have covered the SEO basics, there may be a few optimizations you can make to your legal site to dominate rankings for your target local keyword. Here are some of the legal SEO strategies you can test. 

Steal Link Building Ideas From Immigration Lawyers in Bigger Cities

You may have noticed I’m using immigration lawyers from New York as my examples. The reason is that most optimizations, including link acquisition, are heavily invested in these bigger cities. 

Steal the best ideas for link building from immigration lawyers in bigger cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. 

You’ll find creative link building ideas that aren’t only applicable to their dedicated cities but for your geographic area, as well.

Replicate their link building strategies to acquire local links for your legal site. 

Execute Digital PR Campaign

Legal isn’t a sexy niche. However, there are ways to utilize legal brand stories that would allow you to attract contextual links from local newspapers and authoritative publications naturally.

Take a look at this link from the New York Times, which one immigration lawyer was able to acquire. 

The expertise of the lawyer on the topic becomes the reason for journalists to cite him in their content. 

Digital PR isn’t scalable, particularly for legal space. However, if you can partner with legal experts if you’re doing SEO for legal clients, acquiring links your local competitors in your space can’t build would be a creative strategy. 

Conclusion

SEO for immigration lawyers helps improve your branding visibility and increase quality leads looking for legal services. Contact us today if you need help with link building or full SEO campaigns for law firms.