SEO promotion for a company providing legal services for IT

The basis of search engine optimization is the Client’s website. The purpose of creating the website is sales. But first, you need to make sure that potential customers know about the company and its website. Not only those who know about the business from the recommendations of those who have already used the services of this company, because their number is limited, but also those who seek to use the services online and are looking for a provider on the Internet. And there are many more of these users.

How to attract them? How can we make sure that a warm audience, who is on the way to finding a provider of the service they need, ends up on our specialized website? These tasks are carried out by search engine promotion.

Then, according to certain user queries, over time, the website appears on the first page of the search, the most effective one. Therefore, the goal of SEO website promotion is to obtain higher positions in the TOP 10 search results for targeted queries, which in turn brings more warm visitors to the site. And a significant part of these users become clients, that is, in this way, the site brings sales to the business owner.

Getting into the TOP 10 for commercial queries was the goal of promotion that the client set for us.

Our Client - the company providing legal services for IT companies and businesses

Our customer is a B2B business aimed at finding IT companies that need legal business support.

The Client provides all types of legal services for business:

• Public offer User Agreement | Terms of Use.
• Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy.
• Software development agreement: with customers and contractors.
• Agreement on the provision of IT services: with clients and team.
• NDA/Non-Disclosure Agreement/NCA/Non-Compete Agreement.
• IT business structuring.
• Pre-trial resolution of disputes in IT.
• Protection of intellectual property of an IT company Registration of intellectual property
• Software license.
• GDPR Compliance.
• Registration of an IT company abroad.
• monetary consulting and tax audits.
• Crypto business and cryptocurrency investment.
• Services for IT Gamedev.

The customer works with businesses from Ukraine, European countries and overseas.

The owner of a law firm contacted ITForce in September 2021. He found us through reviews on one of the service websites.

Getting started with the Client's website

The Client tried to work with SEO on his own - we saw attempts to optimize metadata on the website pages.

Organic traffic (website visits via search) at the beginning of work (August 2021) was approximately 26 people per day:

Fig. 1 – Traffic at the beginning of work, legal niche for IT business

The Client’s primary task was to optimize and correct technical errors on the website of the company providing legal services for IT.

We begin our search engine promotion work with a technical audit of the resource. A technical audit gives us an understanding of how much preparatory work we need to do before SEO promotion. After all, at first, it is advisable to correct existing errors on the site, and only then promote a correctly working website in searches.

Information on the technical audit of the website:

• errors in the robots.txt file;
• errors with language versions of the website (hreflang tags are incorrectly configured);
• there are duplicates of the main site mirror and internal pages;
• low loading speed of the mobile version of the site;
• there is no micro-marking of breadcrumbs;
• errors in FAQ and organization type markup;
• pages were found with a response code of 404 (i.e. there are no pages);
• absence of the rel="canonical" tag on the site pages;
• duplicates of Title, Description meta tags and H1 header were found;
• lack of properly configured pagination on site pages;
• not all pages contain correct URLs (friendly URLs);
• problems with displaying external links;
• alts for images on the site are entered incorrectly.

Within 2-3 months, together with the client’s programmer, we corrected all critical errors. It should be noted that we are still working on technical audit tasks because as the site develops, new optimization tasks arise.

Nuances of working with a website for legal services for IT

There are very few commercial queries in the legal niche; the main ones are: IT lawyer, legal services for IT business, legal services for IT, etc. Other queries on the topic are mainly informational or mixed.

An analysis of competitors confirmed this information - there are quite a few commercial queries in the niche, and the emphasis is mainly on informational ones, which we can reveal with the help of a blog.

We developed the main page of the website and service pages. To do this, we collected and clustered semantics, and after its approval, we prepared metadata and, if necessary, corrected the URL. We processed existing information queries in the Blog - we paid attention to the complexity of phrases and used phrases of no higher than average complexity.

We first developed articles that had already been published on the blog. If we had semantics for existing topics, we updated them to enrich this article with useful keys and also worked on adjusting the metadata of such an article and URL if necessary.

Next, according to the semantic clusters, the SEO specialist compiled technical specifications for new content for the blog pages. Thus, subsequently, we had a certain number of SEO articles that showed the Client’s expertise in the legal niche. That is, part of the blog articles is updated content, and the other part is new articles.

After writing and posting the content, we worked with page indexing and analyzed positions. By position, we took a guideline in priorities for external SEO.

As for the design and structure of the site, we did not make any changes there. However, subsequently, a section with cases and a section for publications in the media appeared on the website.

Link building in the legal niche for IT and business

SEO promotion involves working with links. The legal niche is narrow and does not have a large selection of sites for placement. Our client is quite attentive and demanding and has his wishes regarding the selection of links and resources for their placement. So sometimes we have issues with link placements and budgets. But we come to an agreement with the Client. Therefore, we work with all white-hat link-building methods, including crowding and working with exchange links.

We test different approaches and, according to the approved budget, select different links, taking into account SEO requirements and client wishes. When selecting stock exchange links, we always take into account the niche of the resource for placement and ask you to indicate the author of the article if the site provides this option. After all, authorship emphasizes the customer’s experience and expertise in the legal field.

SERM marketing in the legal niche

In the niche of IT lawyers, expertise and reputation play a big role, so working with content takes up a significant part of the allocated time for search engine promotion of the project.

Our client needs to position himself as a brand on the Internet, so we pay a lot of attention to the texts that the client’s copywriter writes. Everything that is to be published on external or internal sites undergoes a thorough check, and this is:

• published content (the client’s copywriter writes articles that the client proofreads);
• websites and sections that are selected for placement (the Client always approves them personally);
• authorship of the article (the posting platform should agree to indicate the author of the article, because the client writes his own unique and interesting content, often with real cases).

As a result, we get truly high-quality content that is at the same time relevant to user queries. It takes us a lot of time to work with external placement, but we established this process together with the Client and his copywriter.

We do:

• constant monitoring of the technical condition of the site using ScreamingFrogSEOSpider;
• analysis in Google Search Console – based on the errors found, correction tasks are issued to the programmer;
• weekly monitoring of positions in SE Ranking.

Events allow us to respond on time to changes in Google search results and algorithm updates.

Results of cooperation

Let's see how effective our joint work with the Client is.

Link building strategy

The Client has extensive experience in the legal niche for IT and business. The website also contains a section called Media Publications. In this section, you can find articles posted by the Client on external resources, and this emphasizes his expertise.

In addition, for mutually beneficial cooperation in the first months of SEO work, we have prepared a list of resources for processing guest postings. This task is quite extensive, so sometimes we receive links through an affiliate agreement.

Link profile growth:

Fig. 2 – Link profile growth

The number of referring domains increased from 46 to 111. Pages – from 285 to 667.

The number of domains and pages linking to the promoted site contributes to the visibility and authority of the resource. This is how search engines understand that the website is trustworthy since trusted sites link to it. This is how the website has a chance to get a higher percentage of impressions in searches.

Website traffic for legal services for business and IT

It should be noted that at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the project went on pause for a month (it was March 2022). We have continued our work since April. Yes, since the start of the war we have lost some organic traffic, but then, thanks to our united work, we returned and increased the activities on the search website.

Comparison of organic traffic from the beginning of work and now (September 2021 – January 2023):

Fig. 3 – Traffic growth (September 2021 – January 2023)

Traffic increased 2.2 times. As of January 2023, we have an average of 49 visitors daily (at the start of work in August 2021, the attendance was 26 people per day). Please note that we do not focus on the average session length and bounce rate. The main metrics are the number of visitors and achieved commercial goals.

We are also working to improve the behavioral factors of the site. How exactly:

• worked out recommendations on usability (this is the convenience of the user website);
• in November/December 2022, we created a Google Analytics 4 account and, together with the client, worked out the events that need to be set up for tracking on the site;
• The Client’s website contains a significant amount of useful, highly specialized information and cases (the Client’s practical experience, his experience in the niche), which attract attention and keep the potential client on the site.

All of the above work helps increase the time users spend on the website. This is how we improve the behavioral characteristics of our Client’s resource. Which in turn affected its visibility and ranking in Google search results.

The Client’s great merit is working with content, and the Client’s copywriter creates high-quality content that helps the site grow in search results.

Ranked Keywords

Let's look at the progress of the query positions by which users find our client's site from the beginning of work with the website until today. Let's take the first data that the SE Ranking service gives us - this is October 2021. Our cooperation has been going on for almost 2 months (since September 2022).

Fig. 4 – Number of queries for which the client’s website is ranked over 1.5 months of cooperation

During this time our results:

• 21 – the number of keywords in the TOP 10 (i.e., for 20 queries, the client’s site gets into the TOP 10, and this is the first page of Google);
• 53 – average position of the website in the search results (means that for certain queries the Client’s website is on average displayed on page 6 of the search);
• 4 – the number 4 means that the service predicts an increase in traffic by 4;
• 1 – visibility of the website in the search engine (i.e., out of 100%, the site is shown in 1% of the results);
• 0 – search elements (these are special Google search elements found in search results for the tracked keyword; in our case, no such elements were found);
• 1% of keys in the TOP 10 (this is our 21 keys from the first page by which the Client’s website is ranked).

Now let's look at the results for January 2023:

Fig. 5 – Number of queries for which the Client’s website is ranked in early January

• 618 – the number of keywords in the TOP 10 for which the Client’s website is shown on the first page of Google;
• 23 – average position of a website for legal services for IT in search results (this is page 3 of Google);
• 456 – predicted traffic growth (it should be noted that this forecast is valid for all existing semantics, which we have significantly expanded since the start of cooperation);
• 13.6 visibility of the Client’s website in search (for certain queries, the site is shown in 13.6% of search results out of 100% in legal topics);
• 6 – the client has the best result in Google Images (29 pictures from the Client’s website are included in the search for certain queries);

Fig. 6 – Search Elements and Client Website

• 41% of the keys in the TOP 10 are from the Client’s website.

We regularly updated the semantics and added new keys. The customer came to us with a request to bring the site into the TOP 10 by the maximum number of keys. This is what we have achieved through our joint efforts.

Now let’s see how the growth in requests has changed since the start of work with the project:

Fig. 7 – Comparison of progress with keys, middle position

The numbers we see in the screenshot are the generalized average position of the Client’s website in organic search results for all collected queries. The SE Ranking service takes into account all the client’s semantics present on the site, which the SEO specialist added to the service to track dynamics.

At the time of the start of work with the project, the client’s website for Ukrainian queries was in Google’s 58th position, now the average position is 35. The up or down arrows next to the number are the dynamics that the service shows at the time of cutting positions. That is, over the past 3 months the site has risen by 8 positions. In general - in 23 positions, which means page 3 of Google, and not 6, as it was at the beginning.

Regarding queries in Russian, at the start, the website was in the 36th position, today it is in the 19th position. Over the past 3 months, the site has risen by 1 position, and before that by 7. That is, on average, from the 4th page of the search results, the site has grown to the 2nd.

It should be understood that the achieved figures are the average semantic indicators for both versions of the resource. We cannot publicly display the collected semantics and position of each key query in the case, because this is private client information. That is, if we look at queries in more detail, falling into clusters of keys, then we have a significant number of groups of queries that belong to the TOP-1 and TOP-10.

For example, the growth of positions from a group of queries in Russian:

Fig. 8 – Increasing query rankings

We see how many positions the groups of commercial keywords used to promote the client’s website have grown.

Content strategy

The developed content strategy for a legal website for IT worked as we expected:

Fig. 9 – Website page traffic

We see that the Blog (and these are informational and mixed queries) brings more organic traffic. Visitors come to the client’s website for information to deal with issues that are difficult for them because not everyone understands the legal niche. The Client's website provides relevant, useful information to users.

So the main results we achieved from August 2021 to December 2022:

• +138% traffic growth;
• 111 referring domains;
• 38 key queries in TOP-1;
• 13.6% site visibility.

The main task of subsequent periods is to develop and finalize the English version of the website.

We continue to update semantics and select sites for placing links, strengthen the presence of the Client’s website in search results, and improve the link-building strategy.

At the same time, the website requires timely improvements on the technical side, so we regularly conduct technical audits to meet all the requirements of search algorithms.