Technical SEO Tips for Real Estate Law Firm Websites

Intro

Technical SEO for real estate law firm websites is a crucial element in the digital marketing strategy. It ensures that your site is easily accessible and understandable by search engines.

But before we get into it, consider the difference between legal tech and law firm websites at a high level.

Many real estate law firm websites are dry and bland, whereas legal tech companies often try to stand out. Compare some law firm websites with this legal tech website. Which one looks better?

If you run a real estate law firm website, why can’t you make your website look more like a legal tech one? Just a little extra effort will go a long way.

Key Points:

• Optimize for mobile
• Ensure fast load times
• Use secure connections (HTTPS)
• Implement structured data (schema markup)
• Focus on URL structure
• Optimize images
• Improve internal linking
• Use canonical tags
• Regularly check for crawl errors

Optimize for Mobile

More users browse the web on mobile devices, so real estate lawyers must ensure their websites are mobile-friendly. A responsive design adjusts the layout based on the device's screen size.

Google's Mobile-Friendly Test can help you check your site's compatibility. Avoid large images and complex layouts that slow down mobile load times.

Ensure Fast Load Times

Site speed is critical. It affects user experience and search rankings. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to evaluate your site's performance. Compress images and enable browser caching. Minimize JavaScript and CSS files. Fast-loading sites retain visitors, reducing bounce rates.

This is quite technical, so you should hire someone on a website like Upwork to make this improvement for you. It’s probably not something a real estate lawyer would know how to do.

Use Secure Connections (HTTPS)

Security is paramount, especially for legal websites. HTTPS encrypts data between the browser and the server.

It builds trust with visitors and improves SEO. Google considers HTTPS a ranking factor. Obtain an SSL certificate and migrate your site from HTTP to HTTPS.

Implement Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Structured data helps search engines understand your content. For real estate lawyers, it can highlight services, office locations, and more.

Use schema markup to provide detailed information about your business. Enhancing your search results with rich snippets can improve click-through rates.

Again, this is probably too technical for most lawyers, so it’s best to outsource it to your web development team.

Focus on URL Structure

Clean, descriptive URLs are more accessible for search engines and users to understand. Include keywords related to real estate law and remote hearings. Avoid long, complex URLs with unnecessary parameters.

Use hyphens to separate words. Consistent URL structure aids in better indexing.

Optimize Images

Images enhance your site's visual appeal but can slow it down. Optimize images by reducing their file size without compromising quality. Use descriptive filenames and alt text with relevant keywords.

This helps with SEO and makes your site accessible to visually impaired users.

Improve Internal Linking

Internal links guide users to relevant content within your site. They also help search engines understand your site's structure—link to important pages using keyword-rich anchor text.

This can improve your site's authority and make it easier for users to find information about remote hearings.

This isn’t technical, but it’s tedious and repetitive work you could hire a marketing company (or person on Upwork) to do.

Use Canonical Tags

Canonical tags play a crucial role in managing duplicate content on websites. In the world of SEO, duplicate content can confuse search engines and dilute the value of your pages.

Implementing canonical tags helps maintain the integrity of your site's content, ensuring that search engines understand which page version is the original, authoritative source.

Canonical tags, or "rel=canonical," are snippets of HTML code placed within a web page's <head> section. They specify the preferred version of a webpage when multiple versions with similar or identical content exist.

Canonical tags signal to search engines which page should be indexed and ranked, consolidating the SEO value and avoiding penalties associated with duplicate content.

How Canonical Tags Work

When search engines encounter canonical tags, they follow the URL specified in the tag and treat it as the main version of the content. Even if other pages contain similar content, the SEO value—link equity, page authority, and relevance—gets transferred to the canonical version.

Essentially, canonical tags act as a guide, directing search engines to prioritize certain pages over others.

Canonical tags are especially important for real estate law firm websites due to the potential for duplicate content. Legal websites often feature similar content across multiple pages, such as service descriptions, case studies, or articles about remote hearings.

Without canonical tags, search engines might struggle to determine which page to rank, potentially lowering the visibility of all related pages.

Regularly Check for Crawl Errors

Crawl errors prevent search engines from accessing your site. Use tools like Google Search Console to identify and fix these errors. Monitor your site's crawl stats regularly. Promptly resolve issues like broken links, server errors, and blocked resources.

You can automatically have these errors sent to you via email (from Google). Then, you can forward them to your website dev team.

Crawl errors hinder search engine indexing. They occur when search engines like Google attempt to access a page on your site but fail to do so. Addressing these errors is crucial to maintaining your site's visibility and ranking.

Use Google Search Console to identify crawl errors. This tool provides a detailed report on the health of your website. Navigate to the "Coverage" section to see a list of errors affecting your site's indexing. Google categorizes these errors into different types, including:

404 Errors: These occur when a page is not found. This can happen if a page is deleted or if there is a broken link.

500 Server Errors: These indicate an issue with the server, preventing the page from loading. Common causes include server overload, misconfigurations, or coding errors.

DNS Errors occur when the domain name system (DNS) fails to connect with the server, often due to DNS configuration issues.

Blocked Resources: This happens when your site's robots.txt file blocks specific resources (like images or scripts), hindering the page's ability to load correctly.

Fixing Crawl Errors

Fix these errors promptly to ensure your site is fully indexed:

404 Errors:

• Check the URL for typos.
• If the page was moved, set up a 301 redirect to the new URL.
• Consider creating a custom 404 page for permanently removed pages that guide users to other relevant content.

500 Server Errors:

• Review server logs to identify the cause.
• This may involve contacting your hosting provider for support.
• Ensure your server is configured correctly and optimized to handle traffic.

DNS Errors:

• Verify your DNS settings.
• Ensure your domain is correctly pointed to your server's IP address.
• This might require assistance from your domain registrar or hosting provider.

Blocked Resources:

• Review your robots.txt file to ensure essential resources aren't blocked.
• Allow search engines to access all necessary files to render the page correctly.

Conclusion

Incorporating these technical SEO tips will enhance your real estate law firm's online presence.

Focus on mobile optimization, site speed, security, structured data, URL structure, image optimization, internal linking, canonical tags, and resolving crawl errors.