Link Building Strategies for Lawyers: The Ultimate Guide

Link building for lawyers isn’t just an SEO strategy—it’s the foundation of a solid online presence for modern law firms.

In an industry where 92% of potential clients turn to Google for legal help, earning trusted, authoritative, and relevant backlinks is essential for enhancing your online presence, improving search rankings, driving traffic, and ultimately attracting new clients to grow a thriving legal practice.

But how can you get high-quality, relevant backlinks for your law firm’s website? Let’s look at why backlinks are important and how you can improve your link-building strategy to boost your firm’s digital presence.

Are you looking to attract high-intent clients in your area without exceeding your advertising budget? Use Clio’s Google’s Local Services Ads. This integration helps law firms attract highly-qualified leads by appearing when clients in their area search for the legal services they offer.

Why link building is important for lawyers

Link building is a powerful SEO tool that boosts search engine rankings and visibility, making it easier for potential clients to find your firm online. Here are just a few reasons why link building is important for lawyers.

Boosting search engine rankings

High-quality, relevant backlinks from reputable websites act as powerful endorsements, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable, authoritative, and trustworthy and, therefore, deserves higher rankings in search results.

According to a 2023 study by Backlinko, the #1 result in Google search results has, on average, 3.8 times more backlinks than the pages ranking in positions #2 through #10.

Why should lawyers care? For one, boosting your search engine rankings can help you attract new clients. When potential clients search for legal services online, they are most likely to click on one of the top results on Google search. The higher your web presence appears in search results, the more likely it is that prospective clients will find you.

Enhancing online visibility

Relevant backlinks from legal directories, blogs, and other applicable authoritative sources help increase your law firm’s online visibility. This increased visibility attracts organic referral traffic from potential clients actively searching for specific legal services online.

Supporting local SEO

Creating links from local directories, business websites, or organizations can enhance your law firm’s performance in local search results. This, in turn, can lead to increased foot traffic and more client inquiries as firms become more visible in local searches.

Key elements of a successful link building strategy for attorneys

A successful link-building strategy for your law firm starts with securing high-quality backlinks.

But, what makes a backlink “good”?

A good backlink comes from a website that meets these four important criteria:

• High domain authority: The referring site should have strong domain authority, signaling its credibility and influence in the eyes of search engines.
• Topical relevance: The website should be relevant to legal topics and align with your firm’s expertise and target audience.
• Strong organic traffic: A good backlink should come from a site with consistent organic traffic, as this demonstrates its ability to attract and engage visitors. It also indicates its health, trustworthiness, and ability to pass on SEO value and authority.
• A solid backlink profile: The linking site should have a healthy natural backlink profile, further amplifying the value of the referral.

But how do you get high-quality and relevant backlinks to your law firm’s website?

Identifying relevant and authoritative websites for link acquisition

Target legal directories, high-authority legal blogs, and reputable publications. For example, creating profiles on reputable legal directories like Justia, Avvo, and FindLaw earns you authoritative backlinks that drive referral traffic and boost your law firm’s online visibility.

Guest blogging platforms

Contributing articles to reputable guest blogging platforms like Law Technology Today and Attorney at Work allows legal professionals to include links to their firm’s website. These authoritative backlinks signal to search engines that your site is credible, improving your rankings.

Creating linkable assets

Developing high-quality, valuable, and engaging content—such as comprehensive guides, research papers, infographics, and case studies—can naturally attract backlinks when they are shared across the web.

Repurposing high-value content

Repurposing your law firm’s highly-backlinked content, such as blogs or guides, into formats like videos or infographics broadens your audience by catering to different content preferences. This increases the likelihood of earning additional backlinks from new audiences.

Providing free legal tools

Free tools like these free legal research resources can significantly enhance your law firm’s backlink profile. These tools provide substantial value to legal professionals, making them more likely to be shared and referenced by other websites.

Claiming unlinked brand mentions

When your brand is mentioned online without a hyperlink, it’s a chance to gain a backlink. You can reach out to the website owner or author and politely request they add a link to your site. This method is often successful since the content already references your brand, indicating recognition and relevance. Tools like Google Alerts and Brand24 can help you identify these unlinked mentions.

Building relationships with legal industry influencers and publications

Building connections with key players in the legal industry—such as influencers, bloggers, and reputable publications—is crucial for a successful link-building strategy.  Attend industry events and webinars to network, contribute guest articles to legal blogs, and collaborate on research projects. These efforts create opportunities for backlinks by featuring your expertise on authoritative platforms that link to your website. Engage on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter to foster relationships with influencers who may share your content, generating organic backlinks.

Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

Offer expert commentary through platforms like HARO, which connects you with journalists and publications seeking legal insights—leading to valuable mentions and authoritative backlinks from reputable news outlets and blogs.

Podcasts

Participating in podcasts, whether as a guest or host, can significantly boost your law firm’s online presence and backlink profile. Guest appearances often include bios with links to your website, boosting SEO and visibility. Hosting your podcast generates shareable content that others may link to and reciprocal links when guests promote their episodes.

Why is anchor text important?

• Search engine context: Anchor text provides search engines valuable context about the linked page’s content. Using descriptive anchor text like “personal injury attorney software” signals to search engines that the linked page is relevant to personal injury law software, improving its ranking for PI related keywords.

• User experience: Clear and relevant anchor text guides users, letting them know what they can expect from the linked page. For example, linking “legal billing software overview” to a detailed page about legal billing software ensures that users find exactly the information they need, creating a more seamless experience.

• Credibility and trust: Well-matched anchor text that aligns with the linked page’s content builds trust with users and search engines. For example, linking “client intake software for attorneys” to a feature page on legal intake software reassures users of the link’s reliability and reduces bounce rates.

Examples of anchor texts

• Descriptive anchor text: “Learn more about case management software for law firms.“
• Branded anchor text: “Explore the features of Clio Manage.“
• Generic anchor text: “Get started with our tools by clicking here.”
• Long-tail keyword anchor text: “Discover the benefits of free legal research tools for lawyers.“
• URL anchors: https://www.clio.com/

Placement of links on a page and its importance

The placement of links on a webpage is essential for SEO and user engagement. Strategically placed links can guide potential clients to key resources and drive engagement with your legal services.

Why link placement matters

1. Value: It’s widely believed that search engines like Google assign greater value to links placed prominently or higher up on a page. For example, placing a link in the first paragraph is more valuable, as it grabs the reader’s attention while signaling to search engines that the linked page is a vital resource.
2. User experience: Integrating links directly within your content provides immediate relevance and value to readers, encouraging them to click through for more information. In contrast, users often overlook links placed in footers or sidebars, perceiving them as less relevant or simply failing to notice them.
3. Link equity distribution: Links placed in visible areas, such as the main content, pass more “link equity” (SEO value) than those in less prominent spots like the footer or sidebars. This is because they are contextually relevant and more likely to be clicked by users, signaling to search engines that the linked content is important.
4. Click-through rates (CTR): Integrating links contextually within your content enhances their visibility and relevance, leading to higher click-through rates (CTR). High CTRs signal to search engines that your content is valuable and engaging which can positively influence your site’s search engine rankings.

Ethical link-building practices for lawyers

Lawyers must adhere to ethical link-building strategies to build a credible online presence. Here’s how:

Avoid “black hat” SEO techniques

Avoid buying links, participating in link schemes, or using automated tools to generate backlinks. These practices violate Google’s guidelines and can damage your website’s reputation, resulting in penalties or deindexing.

Understand Google’s guidelines for link building

Familiarize yourself with Google’s policies to ensure your link-building efforts are compliant. Rather than manipulative tactics, focus on earning links naturally through high-quality, valuable content, and linkable assets.

Maintain a natural and diverse backlink profile

Build links from various reputable sources, such as legal directories, blogs, partner sites, and local community websites. A natural backlink profile that includes a mix of branded, generic, and descriptive anchor text signals authenticity to search engines.

Tools and resources for effective link building

A successful link-building strategy needs effective tools for analysis, tracking, and optimization.

Tools for backlink analysis and competitor research

SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush offer features to help law firms build, track, and optimize an effective link strategy.

Ahrefs

This SEO software contains a ton of helpful SEO tools, including backlink analysis and competitor research. Particularly, their Site Explorer features allows you to examine competitors’ backlink profiles and identify high-quality domains, such as legal blogs or industry directories that link to them. Firms can understand competitors’ link-building strategies by analyzing anchor texts and referring domains.

Additionally, Ahrefs’ Content Explorer helps discover high-performing content in the legal niche that attracts backlinks, enabling firms to create similar linkable assets.

Semrush

Another great SEO tool is Semrush. We love their Backlink Analytics feature, which allows you to assess backlink quality using metrics like Authority Score, referring domains, and anchor texts. The Backlink Gap Tool allows firms to compare their backlink profile with up to four competitors, revealing link-building opportunities in authoritative directories like Justia or Avvo. The Domain Overview feature evaluates competitor backlink strength and identifies linking sources driving their traffic.

Link monitoring and tracking tools to measure the success of your campaigns

Both Ahrefs and Semrush offer various link monitoring and tracking tools that can help you track and measure the success of your campaigns. We’ll dive into those tools below.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers a variety of monitoring and tracking tools for online campaigns, including the following:

• New/lost referring domains: Ahrefs’ Site Explorer allows you to monitor new and lost referring domains over time. This feature helps identify which domains have recently started or stopped linking to your site, enabling you to assess the impact on your backlink profile.
• New/lost backlinks: Within Site Explorer, Ahrefs provides detailed reports on new and lost backlinks. You can view the URLs of the new or removed links, helping you understand which content is attracting links and where you may need to address link losses.
• Anchor text analysis: Ahrefs offers comprehensive anchor text analysis, allowing you to see the most common anchor texts used in backlinks to your site. This insight helps ensure a natural and diverse anchor text profile, essential for SEO health.

Semrush

Semrush’s monitoring and tracking offerings include:

• New/lost referring domains: Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool enables tracking new and lost referring domains. Analyzing these changes allows you to identify trends and potential issues in your link-building strategy.
• New/lost backlinks: The Backlink Audit feature in Semrush provides detailed information on new and lost backlinks, including the source URLs and the dates they were first and last seen. This allows for timely responses to significant changes in your backlink profile.
• Toxic score analysis: Semrush assesses the toxicity of your backlinks, identifying potentially harmful links that could negatively impact your website. This feature helps maintain a clean backlink profile by allowing you to disavow toxic links effectively.

Link building strategies for local SEO

Link building strategies for local SEO are essential for increasing your firm’s visibility and attracting clients in your community. These strategies include optimizing your Google My Business profile, securing listings in reputable local directories, and partnering with local organizations to earn high-quality backlinks.

Measuring the success of your link building efforts

You’ll want to ensure you’re leveraging the right metrics to track your link building efforts. This requires consideration of various key performance indicators (KPIs).

Defining key performance indicators for link building

Measuring the success of your law firm’s link-building efforts requires establishing clear KPIs. The following KPI metrics provide insights into the effectiveness of your strategies and can help guide future initiatives.

1. Number of backlinks acquired: Monitor the new backlinks obtained from your link-building initiatives over a specific period. An increase indicates successful outreach.
2. Quality of backlinks: Assess the authority of the linking domains. Backlinks from reputable legal directories or industry-specific sites are more valuable than those from unrelated or low-quality sources.
3. Referral traffic: Monitor the volume of visitors arriving at your website through these backlinks. High referral traffic suggests the links are placed on relevant platforms, attracting your target audience.
4. Organic search traffic: Track the number of visitors visiting your site through unpaid search engine results. An increase in organic traffic can indicate that your link-building efforts are improving your site’s authority and visibility in search engines.
5. Search engine rankings: Observe changes in your website’s rankings for targeted keywords. Effective link-building can lead to improved positions in search results, increasing visibility to potential clients.
6. Conversion rates: Evaluate the number of leads or clients generated from referral traffic. This KPI measures the direct business impact of your link-building efforts.

Regularly monitoring these KPIs allows your law firm to refine its link-building strategies to improve search engine rankings, attract more qualified leads, and drive measurable business growth.

Analyzing website traffic

Before starting a link-building campaign, understand how your website performs by noting how many people visit, where they come from (search engines or other websites), and how they interact with your pages. These baseline metrics give you a starting point to measure progress.

After implementing your strategy, look for increases in visits from other websites, search engines, and time spent on your site. These changes show your links are attracting the right audience. Tools like Google Analytics can help you track results and refine your approach for better outcomes.

Tracking conversions and client acquisition

Measuring how your link-building campaigns contribute to your firm’s growth is essential. Some clients may come directly from websites that link to you, while others may find you through improved search rankings driven by those links. Tools like Google Analytics can track these results and help you understand which efforts bring valuable client inquiries and leads.

Final thoughts on link building for lawyers

Effective link-building is a cornerstone of success for law firms looking to enhance their online presence. In the realm of link building, quality consistently outweighs quantity.

Backlinks from relevant and authoritative sources within the legal industry are far more valuable than accumulating numerous low-quality links. Search engines view these high-quality links as endorsements, boosting your firm’s credibility, driving organic traffic, and attracting potential clients.

As you strengthen your online visibility, don’t overlook the importance of optimizing your client intake process to match your growing audience. Clio Grow can help streamline this process by automating client intake, allowing your firm to focus on client engagement and strategic marketing. Schedule a Clio demo today to see how Clio Grow can elevate your firm’s growth and operational efficiency.

What are some link building strategies for lawyers?

Start by listing your firm on directories like Justia and Avvo for authoritative backlinks. Contribute guest articles to platforms like Law Technology Today to enhance credibility and rankings. Create valuable content, like guides or infographics, to attract links, and repurpose successful blogs into videos to expand your reach.

Offering free tools or resources encourages sharing and backlinks, while tools like Google Alerts help turn unlinked mentions into links. Build relationships with influencers through events, collaborations, and social media, and secure quality backlinks by appearing on podcasts or sharing insights through HARO.

We published this blog post in December 2024. Last updated: December 13, 2024.

Categorized in: Marketing