As explained in our recent white paper entitled "The Top Ten SEO Best Practices for Law Firm Websites," the copy in your title and description tags is used by Google and other search engines as the "anchor text" and descriptive text when your link is displayed in a search engine result. As such, if you want to maximize the clickthroughs on links to your law firm website displayed by search engines, you need to invest in crafting enticing title and description tags for your website pages.
An excellent blog post on the subject of title tag composition recently appeared on SEO Book, a blog published by SEO expert Aaron Wall.
Wall observes that there are three main types of successful headlines:
- Those that appeal to self interest - i.e., they offer the reader benefits that they want, and they can get from you (example: RETIRE AT 30).
- Those with a news angle - humans are pre-disposed to seek out what is new and different in their environment (example: NEW, CHEAPER IPHONE CALL PLANS RELEASED)
- Those that appeal to our curious nature (example: LOST: $1 BILLION DOLLARS)
Wall says that headlines appealing to self-interest are by far the most effective. Therefore, he recommends that you compose title tags with this principle in mind.
As an example, Wall takes the keyword "high speed routers," and offers 3 different title tags for a page on a website about "high speed routers" using the various headline approaches noted above:
- High Speed Routers- How To Get Routers At Half Price (appeal to self interest)
- High Speed Routers- Latest Features To Insist On (news, with a hint of self interest)
- High Speed Routers- How We Blew Our Budget (Curiosity)
Obviously, Wall thinks the first choice is the best. And any of the above are certainly better than a title tag that simply says "High Speed Routers", all by itself.
How does this all apply to law firms? Well, consider the title tag for the "Attorney" page on your website where you display links to bio pages for all of the firm's lawyers. Further assume that your firm is based in Maryland. Which title tag do you think will capture higher quality clickthroughs should this page display in the search engines: "Attorneys" or "Maryland's Leading Lawyers?"
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