Search engines like Google are the first stop for most people whenever they need an attorney, which is why search engine optimization (SEO) is such an effective marketing channel for law firms. 

The proof?

According to a legal trends report by Cilo, 74% of people use search engines to find legal advice. Also, research by Ahrefs found that 12,000 people search for the keyword ‘lawyer near me’ each month. 

These stats prove that SEO and local SEO are necessities for law firms, and one of the most important factors for both is link-building. 

The goal of link-building is to obtain backlinks, which are links on external sites that point back to your site. 

On search engines like Google, getting backlinks from trusted websites in your niche is how you:

  1. Build trust and prove that your content is truly valuable 
  2. Rank higher in the search results 

In our experience, backlinks are one of the most crucial ranking factors on Google. 

Without a robust backlink profile, outranking your top competitors (i.e., other law firms in your area) will become extremely difficult. 

This is because backlinks act as mini-endorsements of your content’s quality and accuracy. A backlink is another website’s way of saying, “This resource is valuable and enhances our content, so we’d like to link to it.”

You can think of backlinks as gaining ‘trust by association’ on search engines. 

For example, if a major website like CNBC or Forbes links to your content, it signals to Google that your content is high-quality enough to get featured in major publications that have rigorous quality control measures and fact-checkers. 

As a result, it’ll become far easier to outrank competitors who don’t have backlinks coming from such prestigious websites. 

That’s why law firms have every incentive to master the link-building process, which is what we’re here to show you today. 

In this guide, we’ll cover:

  1. What backlinks are and how their quality differs 
  2. Why backlinks matter so much for legal SEO 
  3. Numerous techniques for building backlinks 
  4. How to monitor and maintain your backlink profile 

We’re about to teach you absolutely everything you need to know about building backlinks for legal websites, so stay tuned! 

What is Link-Building All About?

First, it’s integral to understand what link-building is and its place in the overall SEO process. 

Link-building is the act of generating backlinks for your website. 

As stated in the intro, backlinks are simply external links on other websites that direct ‘back’ to your content, hence the name. 

As a quick example, here’s one of our backlinks found on the blog Best Keyword Research Tools by Rank Math:

As you can see, our free keyword planner tool scored a spot on their list, and they included a backlink to it as a resource for their readers. 

What does this have to do with SEO?

A whole lot! 

On search engines like Google, backlinks (like the one above) act as endorsements of your content’s quality, trustworthiness, and reliability. 

The reason why stretches all the way back to Google’s inception in the late 90s. 

A brief history of backlinks and their importance 

In the early days of the internet, search engine results pages (SERPs) were riddled with low-quality, spammy content. This was because site owners had long figured out the search engine ranking algorithms of the day, which were almost entirely centered around keywords (the terms you enter in the search bar). 

The more a website would use target keywords in its content (like ‘best lawyer near me’), the higher it would rank on search engines at the time. 

Google’s founders wanted a way to only rank the highest quality, most trustworthy content to provide their users with the best experience possible. 

This prompted them to develop the concept of using backlinks as credibility votes. It’s similar to how academics cite sources to back up claims they make on term papers. 

The idea is that if a bunch of trustworthy websites link to your content, it’s a sign that your content must also be trustworthy. 

Think back to the examples of CNBC and Forbes. These respected sites have quality control teams and fact checkers to ensure they only link out to the highest quality content. After all, their reputation is on the line, so they wouldn’t want to link out to shady websites that may steal user’s information (or scam them out of money). 

This is how the concept of using backlinks as a ranking factor was born, and it’s still very much in effect today. 

As a result, top-ranked websites on Google always have strong backlink profiles, which presents the need for the link-building process. 

Research has proven this is true, too. 

Backlinko found that the #1 result on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2 – #10. 

So, if you want to rank in the top 3 on Google, you NEED to build backlinks. 

Why backlinks are essential for SEO 

Besides making it easier to achieve top rankings, backlinks provide a whole host of other SEO benefits. 

In addition to gaining more ranking power, backlinks also provide the following:

  • Chances to generate referral traffic. While most SEOs build backlinks to rank higher, you shouldn’t forget that a link on another website is a great way to drive more traffic to your site. This is especially true if the backlink you generate appears on an extremely popular site in your area of law. If you’re able to build high-quality backlinks for your most important legal pages, you’ll be able to use referral traffic to acquire new clients! 
  • Enhance credibility and boost your reputation. High-quality backlinks won’t just boost your reputation in the eyes of search engines; you’ll also gain clout with your target audience. Your readers will start to notice if your law firm begins appearing on the sites and social media platforms they frequent, which will help spread awareness. Backlinks from guest posts and helpful link insertions can also establish you as a thought leader in your area of law. This means that members of your target audience will come to your firm first whenever there’s a new development in your field (or when they need legal expertise), which is an extremely powerful position to hold. 

So, if you want to generate more traffic and become a trusted law firm online, you should invest in a comprehensive link-building campaign. 

Not All Backlinks are Created Equal: Targeting Quality Over Quantity 

Not every backlink will have a positive impact on your SEO. 

Backlinks coming from low-quality, irrelevant websites will have little-to-no impact on your rankings whatsoever. 

This is why it’s never a good idea to build lots of low-quality links, despite what other SEOs may tell you (some still swear by quantity over quality, but they’re usually trying to sell bulk packages of crappy links). 

Signs of a low-quality website include:

  • Clunky navigation and user interface 
  • Slow loading speed 
  • Junk content that’s either A) stolen, B) AI-generated, or C) nonsensical 
  • Infrequent updates 
  • No loyal followers/readers 

Should you notice any of these signs on a website you’re considering for a backlink, you should forget about it and look elsewhere. 

Google’s algorithm is quite adept at identifying low-quality (even spammy) backlinks, and it’s trained to devalue their impact. This means you won’t see any changes to your rankings, either good or bad. 

For this reason, it’s important to not freak out if you notice some lower-quality links pointing at your site (especially if you didn’t build them). 

It’s completely normal for websites to accrue backlinks of varying quality simply due to existing online, which is why Google’s algorithm ignores low-quality links. 

This is worth mentioning because some site owners panic when they see crappy backlinks in their profiles, which leads them to use Google’s Disavow Tool to get rid of them. 

However, the Disavow Tool should be a last resort, as it’s deceptively easy to misuse it and wreck your SEO as a result. Unless you had a direct hand in building a shady backlink (which would count as manipulation), you can simply ignore low-quality backlinks that appear in your profile. 

When it comes to the backlinks you build intentionally, though, you should stick to high-quality backlinks, which leads us to our next point. 

What makes a backlink high-quality for law firms?

In order to generate high-quality backlinks, you need to know what you’re looking for first. 

Here are the most important factors that make a backlink ‘high-quality’ to search engines like Google. 

Relevance

The first and most important factor is that your backlinks must hold some type of relevance to your legal practice. 

Even if a backlink comes from an extremely trusted domain, irrelevant backlinks are immediately devalued by Google’s algorithms. 

This is because an irrelevant link provides no value to readers and may cause confusion instead. For example, you wouldn’t want to build backlinks for your law firm on Amazon, because that would make no sense (even if Amazon is one of the largest websites in the world). 

Instead, you need to build backlinks that are directly relevant to your legal practice, which means targeting backlinks from:

  • Legal blogs 
  • Bar associations 
  • Legal directories 
  • Legal forums and social media pages 
  • News websites discussing stories related to your area of law 

As long as the site linking back to yours relates to what you do in some way (like a news story mentioning your legal area of expertise), then it’s fair game. 

Authority 

Next, the domain giving you a backlink must have authority, which refers to the ‘weight’ or trust given to a page in relation to the other pages trying to rank for the same keyword. 

The more authority your website has, the easier it will be to outrank your competitors. 

In the SEO world, there are a few ways to measure the amount of authority a domain has on search engines. 

The two most popular metrics are Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) and Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR). 

While they’re both third-party metrics (not from Google), they’re still great ways to measure the ‘ranking power’ of a domain before pursuing a backlink from it. 

The higher the authority score, the more likely a domain is to appear in Google’s search results. 

Both DA and DR scores are measured on a scale of 1 – 100, with scores of 100 being the most authoritative. 

For us, we like to check a domain’s DA and DR before we make the decision to pursue a backlink. 

This is because there are slight differences between the two metrics, which are:

  • Domain Rating strictly looks at a website’s backlink profile. If they have a diverse profile with plenty of strong backlinks, they’ll have a good DR score. 
  • Domain Authority takes into account more factors than backlinks. It also considers things like content quality, keyword usage, and social media presence. 

We find that checking both scores gives us the most comprehensive view of a domain’s ranking ability, which is why we encourage you to do the same. 

Naturalness and diversity

Here’s where link-building gets a tad tricky. 

In order to enjoy SEO success, you need a balanced, natural-looking backlink profile. 

We recently posted a blog focused entirely on the importance of natural backlinks, so don’t hesitate to check it out to learn more. 

Essentially, Google wants to make sure that you aren’t manipulating your search rankings by intentionally building backlinks from high-quality domains. 

But wait, isn’t that the entire point of link-building?

Yes, but Google has a famous love/hate relationship with most link-building tactics (and SEO in general). 

While they know they can’t stop businesses from engaging in SEO to market their products and services, manipulating the algorithm to rank higher (like by writing guest posts on high-quality websites) makes them nervous. 

This is because it could cause untrustworthy, low-quality content to rank high on Google’s search results, harming their reputation in the process. 

As an example, imagine if a website selling fake crypto was to buy loads of backlinks to artificially boost its search rankings. Suddenly, their scam would reach millions of people by ranking in the #1 spot, and Google would basically be complicit in it. 

This is why Google wants to see diverse backlink profiles. 

Whenever a website generates backlinks naturally due to the strength of its content, it’s normal for a few low-quality backlinks to appear, too. It’s also normal to see backlinks from forum comments, social media sites, and business directories. 

Building backlinks from a diverse range of sources and levels of quality will make your backlink appear natural, which is what you want. 

How Law Firms Can Build Backlinks 

Okay, now it’s time to start learning how law firms can begin building the backlinks they need to rank higher, generate more traffic, and attract new clients. 

There’s no shortage of link-building techniques available online, but we’re going to stick with the ones that generate the best results for our clients. 

In a nutshell, there are four ways you can build backlinks for your law firm, which are:

  • Adding backlinks manually. There are some websites, such as legal directories and forum comment sections, where you can manually add backlinks to your website. These types of backlinks tend to have minimal impact on search rankings, but they’re still good for generating referral traffic and building a diverse backlink portfolio. 
  • Asking for links (email outreach). Next, you can reach out to site owners via email to request that they place one of your links on their site. There are several ways you can use email outreach to build backlinks. First, you can email a site owner and request that they insert one of your backlinks in an existing piece of their content (like a link to one of your legal pages). You can also conduct outreach to pitch guest posts (another great way to build links), and to fix broken links you found (by replacing them with one of your backlinks). 
  • Earn backlinks. This is Google’s preferred method for site owners to build backlinks (it’s pretty much the only one they accept). It’s where you earn backlinks simply by publishing outstanding content that provides genuine value to your audience. If your content is truly valuable, others will notice, and you’ll start acquiring backlinks without doing any outreach. 
  • Buy backlinks. While buying backlinks technically violates Google’s search guidelines, it’s still a widely adopted practice by SEOs around the globe. There’s a right and a wrong way to go about buying backlinks, which we’ll discuss in more detail shortly. Do it right, and you’ll boost your search rankings without having to waste months conducting outreach. Do it wrong, and you could land a manual penalty that removes your content from Google’s SERPs. The risk is great, but so are the rewards. 

Let’s take a deep dive into each of these techniques and provide examples so that you can get a feel for how each method works. 

Method #1: Manually adding backlinks 

First, let’s explore all the ways you can manually add backlinks to relevant legal websites online. 

Most of the time, this means uploading one of your backlinks and your law firm’s NAP (name, address, and phone number) to a legal directory. However, it can also mean adding backlinks to social media profiles and forum comments. 

The top legal directories online 

We’ll start with legal directories, of which there are many, and they’re not all worth your time. 

However, you can and should upload your law firm’s information to highly regarded legal directories to build backlinks and boost your online authority. 

Here’s a list of the best legal directories:

  • Justia. Besides providing a legal directory, Justia also offers legal resources, meaning potential clients also frequent the website. 
  • FindLaw. Owned by Thomson Reuters, FindLaw is one of the biggest legal sites online, so you definitely want to get your law firm listed here if you can. 
  • Avvo. Out of all the options here, Avvo has the strongest user interface. It features in-depth lawyer profiles, client reviews, and a helpful rating system. 
  • Martindale-Hubbell. This is one of the oldest and most well-respected legal directories, and it’s highly regarded within the legal community. 
  • Super Lawyers. This is a prestigious directory that only lists top attorneys thanks to its rigorous selection process. 

Here are some legal directories specifically for personal injury attorneys:

  • Personal Injury Warriors. Based in Los Angeles, California, Personal Injury Warriors is a legal directory for medical providers and accident attorneys. 
  • The National Trial Lawyers. While this is a high-quality directory with a section dedicated to personal injury attorneys, it has rigorous standards and operates on an invite-only basis. Still, if you’re able to land a spot here, it’ll likely be worth the hassle (i.e., referral traffic and increased authority). 

Remember, legal directories are great for raising awareness and diversifying your backlink portfolio. Sure, you’ll probably get more raw ranking power out of a guest post on a top legal blog, but it’s equally as important to balance those links out with more ‘natural’ looking ones like these. 

Engaging in legal forums and social media groups 

Next, it’s beneficial to add backlinks to your website on forums like Reddit and social media groups on platforms like LinkedIn – but you have to go about it the right way. 

What you SHOULDN’T do is randomly plug your law firm on semi-related threads without any context and without building any rapport. 

What you SHOULD do is become an active member of these communities, regularly commenting and contributing original posts of your own. 

Whenever it’s truly appropriate, leave one of your backlinks as a helpful resource for a commenter or fellow group member. 

This will ensure that your comments don’t come off as spammy, which will land you in hot water with both forum admins and search engine algorithms. 

Here are some more tips for building backlinks on forums and social media sites.

Only link to your site when it truly adds value. 

The perfect time to insert one of your backlinks into a forum comment or social media post is when the link serves as a helpful resource for someone. 

For example, let’s say you’re posting on a Reddit thread related to your legal services, and a user that you regularly interact with is looking for a divorce attorney. 

This is the perfect time to provide a backlink to your divorce services (or family law) page. 

Another opportunity would be to link one of your blogs to help a user who is looking for information that you’ve written about before, like clarifying what a certain law means. 

Build trust first 

Before you start leaving backlinks all over the place, you should establish trust on the platform first. This means taking some time to get to know the regulars. Start commenting on posts, giving relevant legal advice, and engaging in friendly conversation wherever possible. 

Once you’ve built some rapport, then you can move on to adding backlinks to your legal pages. 

This step is crucial because it lets users know that you’re not just there to blindly plug your services. Instead, you’ll be a contributing member who adds real value to the community as a whole. That will increase the chances that users will take you seriously, and it will help you dodge any accusations of spam. 

Method #2: Asking for backlinks (manual outreach)  

Besides directories and forums, you won’t be able to manually add backlinks on other websites without getting the owner’s permission first (it’s a bummer, we know). 

So, in order to build backlinks on reputable legal websites, you’ll have to reach out and say hello. 

In particular, you need to conduct outreach for:

  • Guest posts 
  • Broken link-building 
  • Unlinked brand mentions 

These are all cornerstone link-building techniques, so let’s take a closer look at each one. 

Finding guest posting opportunities 

Guest posting is one of the oldest link-building tactics, and it continues to be one of the most effective. It’s also one of the most popular ways law firms build backlinks online.   

The technique involves reaching out to other websites to write guest blogs in order to:

  1. Leave a backlink to your law firm’s website 
  2. Expose your practice to potential clients 
  3. Generate referral traffic 

As you can see, there are plenty of upsides to writing guest posts, which is why it’s such a common practice. 

Here’s an example of a legal guest post:

Here, the author is writing about the risks of inappropriate usage of ChatGPT at law firms for Legal Insider, a website specializing in legal tech news.

Pro tip: If your firm specializes in technology cases, this website could be a viable guest post target for you (as they clearly accept guest posts). 

Directly underneath the title of the post, the site owner credits the author and leaves a backlink to their website, which was likely the reason they wrote the post in the first place. 

Now that you know what a guest post looks like, here are some tips on how to find relevant sites that accept them:

Use Google Search 

Google’s search operators are your best friend when looking for legal guest posting opportunities. 

By wrapping a phrase in quotes after a keyword, Google will only display websites that carry that text. 

An example would be searching for something like law firm “accepting guest posts” or law firm “write for us,” but there are lots of variations you can use. 

Here’s what happens when we search for law firm “write for us”:

Thanks to the search operator, the top 4 results are all legal websites that accept guest posts, which is exactly what we wanted! 

Other search operator terms to use in combination with ‘law firm’ include:

  • “Guest post”
  • “Write for me”
  • “Submit a guest post” 
  • “Guest article”
  • “Become a contributor”
  • “Contribute to our blog”

After using a few of these, you should have a long list of relevant legal websites to target for guest posts. 

Leverage your network

Search operators aren’t the only way you can find high-quality guest posting opportunities. You can also leverage your network of colleagues, referral partners, and fellow legal firms to find unique opportunities that aren’t as well advertised online (or at all).

Let your colleagues know that you’re interested in contributing an interesting post to a legal website. You never know what you may find, so it’s at least worth asking! 

Finding what to write about 

Once you find websites that accept guest posts, the challenge then becomes deciding what to write about. 

After all, if you don’t pitch an interesting topic to the site owner, the chances of them accepting it are slim to none. 

Luckily, we know several ways to ensure this doesn’t happen. 

Here are some tips for always finding relevant topics that site owners and readers care about:

  • Browse the website’s existing library of articles. First, you need to understand the kind of stories the website mainly publishes. Are they about hot legal cases in the news, or are they more concerned about educating readers on specific legal concepts? Poke around their blog’s archive to get a feel for their style. 
  • Do some relevant keyword research. The next step is to use some tools to find trending keywords related to the website’s overall topic. A good choice is our keyword planner tool since it’s completely free. Enter some terms related to what the website posts about, and see which keywords are getting the most hits (search volume). This will clue you in on the type of content the site’s audience currently wants to see. 
Using a keyword tool for research 

Here’s a quick example of how to use our keyword tool to find legal keywords for your guest posts.

Let’s say that you want to write a guest post for Legal Insider, the legal tech news website we mentioned earlier. 

Using our keyword tool, you could enter something like ‘legal tech’ to see what’s trending:

Here are the results:

The most important metrics to pay attention to here are search volume and search trend. 

Search volume refers to how many users are looking for each term on Google. Search trend refers to the line graph presented for each keyword, and it represents the level of interest in a keyword over time. 

You should target keywords that have high search volume and currently have an upward trend. 

Going further down the list, here’s an interesting keyword that you might target:

It has a relatively high search volume of 70, and it’s currently trending. As such, a guest post about the legality of veneer technicians would be a great idea to pitch to a site like Legal Insider. 

Broken link-building 

Another link-building technique centered around outreach is broken link-building. 

It’s where you find broken links on other legal websites so that you can fix them with your content, picking up a backlink in the process. 

No link is set in stone, and it’s normal for links to break over time. This is known as link rot, and, despite the unsettling name, you can use it to your advantage. 

For instance, let’s say one of your competitors wrote a guest post on a legal news site that now leads to a 404 Not Found page. 

Well, by reaching out to the site owner, you can request that they replace the broken link with one of your blog posts instead. 

As long as you target relevant websites for broken links, you can find great success with this tactic. 

Here are some quick tips for finding broken backlinks on legal websites:

  • Use a tool to make things easier. There are plenty of tools online that will display a website’s broken links for you. We recommend using Ahrefs’ free broken link checker tool, as it will definitely get the job done. Enter the URL of a legal website you want to check, and see if they have any broken links that you can easily replace. 
  • Prepare replacement content. Before you reach out to site owners, you should ensure you have replacement content at the ready. Most of the time, this means knowing which blog post you plan to use beforehand. This will save you the hassle of scrambling to get alternative content together after you’ve already contacted the site owner. 
  • Conduct outreach to site owners to replace broken links. The final step is to get in touch with site owners to request that they replace their broken links with your content. Site owners typically appreciate this, as no one likes having broken links on their website (they’re bad for user experience and SEO). We’ll dive into some specific email outreach tips in a bit. 

Unlinked brand mentions 

The last outreach-based technique we’ll look into is targeting unlinked brand mentions. 

What are those?

An unlinked brand mention occurs whenever another website mentions your brand but fails to include a backlink to your site. 

While it’s still great that they mentioned your law firm’s name on their website, the shout-out would mean a lot more if they hyperlinked it! 

The good news is there’s nothing stopping you from hunting down your unlinked brand mentions and turning them into linked brand mentions. 

Here’s how to hunt them down:

  • Ahrefs (paid method). If you have access to Ahrefs, you can use its Content Explorer tool to find unlinked mentions. Enter your brand name in quotes, and then use this formula to ensure your own website doesn’t appear in the results: -site:(yoursite).com

Here’s what it looks like when we do it for our website:

Hitting the search button will provide a list of all our brand mentions online. However, we want to take things a step further by only highlighting the unlinked mentions, which you can do by selecting this filter:

This will highlight the URL for unlinked brand mentions. After applying the filter, we found an unlinked brand mention for our website (which we need to fix, by the way):

  • Google (free method). You can also use Search Operators to use Google Search to find unlinked brand mentions. It involves using the same formula as you would on Ahrefs’ Content Explorer, just on Google Search. Simply enter “your brand -site:your brand.com” to bring up every website that mentions your brand. The only downside here is that you won’t have a way to filter the unlinked mentions out from the linked mentions, which can be a bit of a hassle. 

Like the other three methods, this is an outreach-heavy method, so let’s learn how you can perfect your outreach game. 

Email outreach tips 

Link-building has been important for SEO for a long time now, which means site owners receive hundreds (or even thousands) of backlink outreach emails each month. 

This means your outreach has to be particularly gripping in order to stand out from the crowd. 

Here are some of the best ways to do that:

  • Personalize each pitch. Little things like including the site owner’s name and mentioning a few of their interests can go a long way, so it’s important to personalize your outreach emails. Do some digging on their website’s About Us and their LinkedIn profiles to learn more about what makes them tick. Also, here’s a guide on how to track down site owner contact information if you’re having trouble. 
  • Be concise. It’s crucial not to overstay your welcome. You should A) politely greet the site owner, B) mention why you’re contacting them, and C) get out of there! 
  • Include a strong value add. This refers to the ‘why’ behind your email. In other words, present to the site owner in very clear terms how your backlink or guest post will improve their website. If it’s a guest post, mention how the topic is trending (backed up by your keyword research). If it’s a broken link, bring up how your replacement article is even better than the one before. 

Method #3: Earning backlinks 

Okay, the next method entails earning your backlinks through the sheer quality of your content. 

As stated before, this is Google’s preferred link-building method. This is because earning backlinks through the merit of your content greatly benefits Google’s reputation, which is why they’re all for it. 

As a bonus, you won’t have to constantly look over your shoulder for manual penalties whenever you earn your backlinks. 

Yet, it’s the least reliable form of link-building since you have no way of controlling whether others link to your content or not. All you can do is produce the highest quality, most relevant content that you can and hope for the best (which is never a bad thing). 

Here are some important tips for creating content worthy of generating natural backlinks:

Embody E-E-A-T in your content

Law is a YMYL (your money, your life) topic, meaning Google treats it with more scrutiny than other topics. 

This is because legal websites can potentially negatively impact someone’s finances, well-being, or mental health, which is why they fall under the YMYL umbrella. 

To ensure your content is of the highest quality in Google’s eyes, you should live by the E-E-A-T algorithm that they teach to their human team of quality raters. 

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Therefore, your content should include first-hand experiences, demonstrations of your expertise, and authoritative external links. Including these three factors will increase your trustworthiness, which will bring you full circle. 

Research every topic and create authoritative content 

Just like with guest posts, every post you write for your own blog should be backed up by keyword research. 

You can use our free keyword tool to uncover the hottest keywords in your area of legal expertise. 

After that, create authoritative, long-form content to educate and eventually convert your readers. 

The most popular types of ‘thought leader’ content include:

  • Long-form how-to’s and ‘ultimate guides’ 
  • FAQs based on real client questions 
  • Case studies exemplifying the legal problems you solve for clients 

These are all excellent content formats that will attract lots of shares. 

Use multimedia to make your content even more shareable 

Including visual content increases your sharing potential by 40%, so you should include high-resolution images, videos, and infographics in your posts. 

Also, legal podcasts are a goldmine for generating backlinks and referral traffic. 

There are hundreds of legal podcasts online, and appearing on them is a great way to boost your SEO. They’re also pretty easy to find, so you should be able to do some standard Google searches to find them. 

Here’s what happens when we search for ‘top legal podcasts’ on Google:

As you can see, Google itself has plenty of suggestions, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding the perfect podcast for your needs. 

Method #4: Buying backlinks 

Last but not least, you also have the option to buy backlinks, but this is by far the riskiest way to build links. 

That is unless you’re smart about it. 

We’ve written an extensive article about buying backlinks in the past, in which we reveal that most SEOs do it, even strictly white-hat marketers. 

The thing is, Google has no way of knowing whether you bought a backlink or built it naturally. 

So, if you’re smart and only buy high-quality backlinks from trusted vendors, you can get away with buying links if you release them one at a time. 

You see, lots of marketers get caught because they buy a bunch of cheap links in bulk and make them go live all at once. 

This is a surefire way to get in trouble. 

Instead, you should buy the backlinks that you need, but only release one or two at a time, and let several days (or weeks) pass in between. That will make it appear like you earned the backlinks instead of buying them, which is what you want. 

Monitoring Your Progress 

Now that you have plenty of ways to build backlinks, all that’s left is to monitor your progress to ensure you’re on track to meet your goals. 

Your best friends for tracking your progress are:

  1. Google Analytics (GA)
  2. Google Search Console (GSC)

Ahrefs is also invaluable if you have a paid subscription to it. This is because you can set up Ahrefs Alerts, which is a notification system that will email you every time you pick up a new backlink. 

The Links report in GSC will let you view your complete backlink profile (the way Google sees it). 

On Google Analytics, navigate to Report > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition. Here, you’ll get to see a breakdown of your most popular traffic channels. In particular, pay attention to how well your referral traffic is doing, as that’s the traffic that will come from your backlinks. 

Lastly, keep an eye on your keyword position rankings in GSC. If your backlinks are doing their duty, you should start to see an improvement to your rankings. If things remain stagnant, it could mean that you A) need to rethink your link-building strategy or B) something else with your SEO is off (such as the quality of your content). 

Master the Link-Building Process for Your Law Firm 

This has been a mammoth guide, so let’s briefly recap the main points:

  1. Backlinks are a major ranking factor on search engines like Google. 
  2. High-quality backlinks come from relevant, authoritative websites. 
  3. Adding backlinks to legal directories and forum comments helps diversify your link profile. 
  4. Conducting outreach to target guest posts, unlinked brand mentions, and broken links are some of the most popular ways to build backlinks. 
  5. Buying backlinks is risky but can be worth it when done properly. 
  6. It’s crucial to monitor your progress to ensure you’re meeting your SEO goals. 

Now that you know what to do, get out there and start building some high-authority backlinks for your law firm! 

Would you rather that we handle your link-building instead?

We’d love that, as HOTH X is our fully managed SEO service where we devise a complete strategy for your law firm (including link-building). Our experts know how to generate backlinks that deliver outstanding results, so don’t wait to reach out for a free consultation today!