Top Legal Directories for 2020
One of the essential cornerstones to any legal website’s SEO strategy is citations and backlinks in Google. These placements in search give your site traffic and some domain authority, but it’s mostly important to build citations back to your legal website.
These citations in legal directories include the name of your business, address, website URL, and phone number, as well as other information about your law firm and field.
Most legal directories help you earn more placements in Google search results. However, not all legal directories are created equal, and there are some that you should avoid if you find their website to be too “scammy” or riddled with ads.
We’ll show you the key points to using legal directories and how you can set up your citations to boost your website’s SEO easily.
What are Legal Directories?
A legal directory is simply a site that lists law firms and other legal websites for people to find. These work much like a “Yellow Pages for Law Firms.”
Typically, these directories have multiple categories, badges, and other features that help people discern what law firm they should pick. In other cases, directories may also have review capabilities.
Today’s directories are eager to sign up new law firms and other legal counseling businesses, and that’s just the problem. Not all of them are reputable. We’ll show you how to spot the good legal directories below.
Some are free, but many reputable directories require law firms to pay an annual fee that can range between $9/year to $500+/month. It varies depending on the website and value of their listings.
Why Are Legal Directories Important For SEO?
Legal directories are important for SEO because of citations or the profiles you create for your law firm. These build up in search results and add to your ranking signals as crucial backlinks.
While the backlink is only valuable if on a highly-ranking legal directory, people use all kinds of legal directories to find law firms and attorneys to work with.
Legal directories also verify your law firm’s name, address, phone, and website URL. You may also get accolades and badges that you can use to post on your website as trust symbols as well.
Simply put, placing your law firm in reputable legal directories tells Google that you should likely rank for a multitude of legal keywords, which can help your overall traffic and domain authority.
What Information is Typically Included in a Legal Directory Listing?
When you create a listing on any directory, you’re really creating a citation or mention of business name, address, and phone number (NAP). However, this is just your basic law firm information. Most directories allow you to add all kinds of information, such as:
- Law firm name
- Law firm description
- Fields of practice
- Contact information
- Firm location
- Reviews or client testimonials
- Logos and photos
- Website URL
- Social media URLs
- Email address
- Other links and information
If possible, you should include your top keywords naturally in your citations. For example, you may want to use “criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles” for a location keyword. There are also specific state legal directories that make this easier to rank for locally for law firms.
How Do You Spot a Bad Legal Directory?
Bad legal directories have the same “old internet” look with pop-up ads, blinking text, and difficult navigation. Instead of trying to spot bad legal directories, just remember these characters of good legal directories:
Backlinks
Not every legal directory allows you to add your website URL, and if they do, you should check to see if it’s a “nofollow” link. You can update your profile, then right-click and view source. Hit CTRL+F to open find and search “nofollow” to see if your link has been blocked.
Domain Authority of the Directory
The best sites for referrals and citations have actual website traffic. Meaning that they will generate referral traffic.
Keyword Rankings
You can also look at the volume of keyword placements on the directory site. If you find that a site has 100,000 legal keywords, then it’s safe to assume that the site receives tons of traffic over a legal site with only 20,000 keywords. You can check site’s keywords with tools like SEMrush, Keywords Everywhere, and Moz.
Paid vs. Free Legal Directories
You don’t want to pay any fees to list your citations unless the directory is highly reputable and within your field. If the directory is one that is guaranteed to bring you business, then you may want to pay. However, we’ve seen some ridiculous fees of over $500/month to $1000/year. You shouldn’t have to pay so much just to list your website on another website.
Where Should You List Your Law Firm Online?
We have a list of reputable legal directories that also have pretty high domain authority.
These include:
- Justia.com
- AVVO.com
- Hg.org
- FindLaw.com
- NOLO.com
- BestLawyers.com
- USLegal.com
- Lawyers.com
- Lawinfo.com
- SuperLawyers.com
- Lawyer.com
- LawyerLegion.com
- Mediate.com
- Martindale.com
- PublicLegal.com
- LawLink.com
You may also want to look into directories that are specifically for your field. For example, there are many personal injury directories, such as Enjuris or even FindaPersonalnjury.com. However, these often have higher costs just trying to list a citation.
What’s Next for Your Law Firm SEO?
If you need help with your law firm’s search performance, don’t hesitate to ask questions and get advice from the experts. We’re here to make it easy for your site to rank.