In the last post in my series on keyword research for lawyers, I talked about the two basic types of keyword phrases for law firm websites: provider-based terms and information-based terms. Now it’s time to get our hands dirty and start preparing a seed list. This post will focus on compiling the initial list. The next post will help you expand your list to include phrases that you may not have considered.
Putting Together a Seed List for Provider-Based Terms
Putting together your seed list of provider-based terms is fairly straightforward. It will involve a combination of your practice area and descriptive terms that people use to look for lawyers. The formula for a basic provider-based seed list would look like this:
Practice Area + Provider (e.g., Bankruptcy Attorney, Bankruptcy Attorney, Bankruptcy Lawyers, Bankruptcy Law Firm)
If your practice is limited to a specific geographic area, your seed list could also incorporate those geographic terms. A local seed list would be structured around one or more of these formulas:
State + Area of Law + Provider (Louisiana Bankruptcy Attorney, etc.)
City + State + Practice Area + Provider (New Orleans Louisiana Bankruptcy Attorney, etc.)
When putting together compound keyword phrases like this, I like to use SEO Book’s free keyword list generator. This tool allows you to separate out the variations of each component of your keyword, then combines them into a comprehensive list. (If have been doing this manually using find-and-replace, you will probably want to send me chocolate for letting you know about this tool.)
To use the tool, simply enter your keywords into the various Word List boxes (be sure to follow the directions—comma separated with no new spaces or lines between keywords), then click Generate.
This will give your initial seed keyword list. Don’t worry about being comprehensive at this stage. You will have opportunity to flesh out and refine your list using the tools described in the next sections.
Note: Later, we will learn how to identify top keywords based on actual search volume. Depending on your local area, there may not be enough local search volume to give you any actionable data. In other words, incorporating the city and state-specific keywords may be too restrictive. If that is the case, simply eliminate those Word Lists from the Keyword List Generator.
Putting Together a Seed List of Information-Based Terms
Your list of information-based terms will require a bit of good old-fashioned brainstorming. Think about the types of questions that clients most often ask, the subspecialties of your practice area, and the names of the court proceedings or documents most often used in your practice. This should give you a basic list.
Again, don’t be too concerned at this point about missing a term or two. You will have opportunities to expand your list as the process moves on.
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