Link Building for Lawyers: Best White Hat Strategies and Techniques

But where do you get these links? Should you submit your site to legal directories? Write guest articles? Ask for mentions? We’ll give you answers to all these questions in today’s guide. If you want more cases for your practice without risking your rankings, keep reading. We’ll show you what works and what doesn’t and give you a step-by-step guide on how to build links the right way.

What Is Link Building for Lawyers?

Link building for lawyers is the process of getting other websites in your niche to link to you. Such links tell search engines that your law firm is a reliable and trusted source of legal information. They are also one of the main ranking signals that Google uses.

Data shows that the top-ranking pages on Google have 3.8 times more backlinks than those in lower positions. This proves that link building is an essential strategy for law firms that want better rankings and more visibility in search engine results.

Do Law Firm Websites Need Backlinks?

Law practices with backlinks from respected sites consistently get more organic traffic and generate more leads. But that’s not all. Below, we’ll list some of the biggest benefits of link building for a legal website.

Higher Authority with Search Engines

Google looks at backlinks to judge the quality of your content and your site’s trustworthiness. The more relevant mentions you get, the more it signals to search engines that your content is reliable.

If we take a look at the screenshot below, we can see the top-ranking pages for “car accident lawyers in Chicago.” Notice how the websites in the prominent positions all have well-established backlink profiles.

Law firms that want to compete for the same keywords but don’t invest in a link building strategy will find it difficult to reach the top search rankings. So, website owners should work on their backlink profiles and try to get mentions from high-quality sites to have a better chance of ranking above competitors.

Better Local Rankings

When someone searches for an attorney, Google shows them results based on where they are located. One of the ways lawyers can improve their rankings in such results is by getting backlinks from established sources in their area. These links show search engines that a firm is connected to a specific location.

For example, if a law office in Denver is mentioned in a local newspaper or listed in a bar association directory, it reinforces its presence in that city. The more signals pointing to a firm’s location, the easier it is for search engines to recognize it as a top choice for people searching nearby.

That means businesses with local links are more likely to appear in Google’s Local 3-Pack and also get more calls, website visits, and booked consultations.

More Referral Traffic

People don’t just rely on Google when looking for legal help. They also browse third-party websites and directories to compare their options. So, when they see your law firm referenced as a trusted source, they’re far more likely to click through and get in touch.

What’s Considered a High-Quality Backlink for the Legal Industry?

We hear the term “high-quality backlink” a lot, but what exactly does it mean? Essentially, it’s how much “link juice” or power this hyperlink can pass to your page.

In link building for a law firm, the value you get depends on how relevant the linking page is to your topic, its authority, and the overall credibility of the website. Let’s break down these factors, and a few more, in detail below.

1. Topical Relevance

Backlinks should come from authoritative sites that make sense for your industry. Here’s what Google’s John Muller has said about it:

“We try to understand what is relevant for a website, how much should we weigh these individual links, and their total number doesn’t matter at all. Because you could go off and create millions of connections across millions of websites if you wanted to, and we could just ignore them all.”

John Muller

So, in your link building efforts, aim for websites with which you share a target audience and also the ones that are in line with the services you offer. These could be bar associations, legal directories, or law-related sites. Even if you only get a single mention from such sources, it’ll be worth far more than a dozen random links that don’t fit.

2. Organic Traffic

You need to plan link placement on websites that get a consistent flow of visitors from search engines. If a site ranks well in Google, it’s a good indicator that the domain is trusted and credible. Backlinks from such websites carry more weight.

Additionally, it helps you assess the potential for referral traffic from these websites and see the overall impact they could make on the visibility of your law firm website.

For your law firm’s link building strategy, look for websites with steady or growing visitor numbers. You can find out how much organic traffic the website is getting with the help of SEO tools like Ahrefs, SE Ranking, or Semrush.

3. Positive Traffic and Keyword Trends

The site’s traffic and keyword positions where you plan to place links should be growing or stable. If a website is losing rankings, it may indicate penalties or poor quality. A backlink from a declining website can signal to Google that your site is connected to low-quality content, and you wouldn’t want that.

The best approach you can take in your link building strategies for law firm is to look for websites with consistent or increasing rankings for relevant keywords. Again, SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or SE Ranking can help you analyze it.

4. Domain Rating (DR)

Domain Rating (DR) is a metric developed by Ahrefs that measures the strength of a website’s backlink profile on a scale from 0 to 100. A higher score generally means the site has more relevant backlinks.

Backlinko found that a site’s link authority, or in other words, DR, strongly correlates with higher search engine rankings. So, when you assess backlink sources for your practice, look at websites with a high domain rating.

5. Growing Backlink Profile

If your law firm’s website keeps getting new links, it means people still find it useful and important. This helps search engines see your site as a credible source of legal information, which can improve your reputation and visibility online over time.

6. Positive Correlation of Referring Domains to Linked Domains

A healthy ratio between referring domains (sites linking to yours) and linked domains (sites you link to) is crucial for SEO. If a site links out excessively or has a 1:1 ratio, it may lack authority or be involved in link schemes, risking penalties. Focus on earning backlinks from sites with more referring domains than linked domains for stronger, safer SEO value.

7. Permanent Link

Some websites remove links eventually, so they become obsolete for long-term success. If a link won’t last, it’s not worth having it in the first place.

Links that are placed in editorial content, guest posts, and legal directories will be live for a longer time. But it’s always a good idea to look at whether or not a site regularly deletes old links before taking the time to get a backlink from them.

8. Do-follow Backlinks

Do-follow links are more valuable for a law firm’s website because they tell search engines to pass authority from one site to another. No-follow links, on the other hand, don’t pass ranking power.

Even though a do-follow backlink has the most impact on rankings, a no-follow counterpart still serves a purpose. If a site only has do-follow links, it can look suspicious, as if the connections were built with the help of manipulative tactics. So it’s better to mix both do-follow and no-follow hyperlinks in your law firm link building strategy to make your site’s backlink profile look more genuine.

9. Relevant Anchor Text

The anchor text is the clickable part of a link. According to Google’s documentation, it needs to be descriptive, fairly concise, and relevant to the page that it links to. Readers should also be able to understand where exactly the hyperlink will take them.

10. Relation Attributes

Rel or relation attributes are used in HTML to show Google the relationship between the web page a link is on and the page it links to. Any legal website must add these attributes so that they don’t violate Google’s spam policies. We’ve mentioned a no-follow tag in the earlier section, so now let’s review two other important ones that were introduced in 2019:

• UGC links: These usually appear in blog comments, forums, and discussion boards.
• Sponsored links: As the name suggests, these are used for paid placements.

It’s important to understand that these connections do not pass ranking value the way editorial backlinks do. Still, they can be helpful for brand awareness and lead generation for lawyers.

Quality Link Building for Lawyers

We help website owners increase their search rankings and attract more clients with our link building services. Our lawyer SEO experts will come up with a custom strategy for your practice to help:

• Improve your firm’s credibility
• Increase Domain Rating
• Outrank competitors

Book a free consultation

4 Ways to Build Links

Now that you know what can be considered a high-quality link, let’s look at the four main ways you can build them.

1. Add Links Manually

There are a few sources you can use to direct people to your site. These are third-party websites like business directories and social media.

Additionally, a Google Business Profile is also a directory, and it’s a must for local businesses. So, if you haven’t yet set it up or completed it, now is a good time to do it.

2. Ask Relevant Websites for Links

Simply asking for a backlink is another common way to get a backlink, but it rarely works. Webmasters get dozens of link requests daily, and most are ignored. To increase your chances, you could try the following strategies:

• Guest post on legal blogs related to your field
• Use the Skyscraper method, where you update and improve existing content
• Try broken link building, where you replace outdated links with your own. You can use a number of different tools for this purpose.

3. Buy Links

If you engage in large-scale paid link schemes, your site could face penalties or even be demoted, as this goes against Google’s policies. While some websites take this approach, it carries significant risks and can lead to lower rankings over time.

Our recommendation is to focus on sustainable, white-hat link building strategies. There are many legitimate ways to earn great backlinks, and we’ll show these techniques in the later sections.

4. Earn Links

The best possible way to get backlinks for your law firm SEO is by earning them. You could conduct an industry study or publish relevant legal statistics. This type of content often attracts links naturally, which is one of the tips for writing legal content.

On top of that, you could build useful tools that your target audience might be interested in and spread the word about them so more people can find and reference them. Examples of such tools include a child support calculator, a personal injury settlement estimator, or a contract template generator.

13 Strategies for Building High-Authority Backlinks

Below, we’ll break down the best ways to get backlinks that will help your site rank on search engine results pages. Some are classic methods that law firms have used for years, whereas others are more creative and often overlooked.

1. Guest Posting

Guest posting is at the top of our list as one of the most effective link building strategies for law firms. It is also simple to implement. You write a piece of content for another website and get a backlink from them in return. This strategy positions you as an expert in the legal field and gets you more exposure.

In general, your guest posts need to offer quality information that would be valuable to the audience of the website you’re writing for. For example, you could share:

• Legal tips and advice
• Breakdowns of new laws or policy updates
• Helpful guides that simplify legal processes

When it comes to which websites to submit guest posts to, it’s best to choose the ones that have a similar target audience. You could also check how engaged their readers are. An active audience that shares or comments on posts is usually a good sign.

2. Local Websites

The next strategy law firms can benefit from is getting backlinks from local news sites, bar associations, and community pages. A mention on these platforms strengthens credibility and also helps potential clients find your lawyer services in their area.

There are plenty of ways to earn these links. Law practices can collaborate with local news publishers, sponsor events within their area, or join business associations that list members on their sites. Even something as simple as speaking at a local seminar or contributing to a local cause can lead to a backlink.

3. Directories

Legal directories have been around for years, and they continue to be an easy way to build backlinks. Many of these sites already rank well in search results, which makes them a good place to list your law firm. On top of that, free directories help establish your credibility and show potential clients that your firm is trustworthy.

Before submitting your practice to a directory, it’s important to check a few things. The site should have high-quality listings and good search visibility. The ones that match these criteria are Justia, Avvo, FindLaw, and Nolo.

When it comes to Avvo, the recent survey that was conducted by ABA showed that 33% of legal firms out of those surveyed had listings there. Clearly, this directory has a good reputation and is constantly getting a flow of people who are looking for legal services.

4. Partnerships

Plenty of businesses and professionals work with lawyers or refer clients to them. You just need to find out the ones that are the most relevant to your specific services and get a partnership with them. This could be a mention on a real estate agency, medical practice, financial advisory, or even other law firms you have connections with.

There are a few ways to secure these links. You could write a guest article, be featured in a partner’s resources section, or collaborate on a webinar or event. If you’re a personal injury lawyer, you could contribute an article to a chiropractor’s website about the legal steps to take after an accident.

5. Social Media

Although social media links don’t help with search engine rankings, they can still be beneficial. If you promote your blog posts on LinkedIn, X (Twitter), or Facebook, they could reach more people and get in front of journalists or business owners who might link to it.

It’s also a great way to start conversations and connect with others in your field. You could comment on relevant posts, engage with potential clients, and build relationships that, over time, could lead to backlink opportunities.

6. Legal Industry Influencers and Publications

People who look for legal services in Google search often read up content from influencers or turn to publications for information. That makes these places a natural choice when it comes to backlinks. In contrast to guest posting, where you submit articles yourself, this strategy is when other sources cite your expertise.

One way to get mention from such sources is by engaging with legal influencers on LinkedIn or participating in industry panels. Attorneys who regularly offer valuable perspectives are more likely to be quoted in such places, as they often look for expert opinions to include in their content.

7. Unlinked Brand Mentions

Law firms are often mentioned online without a link back to their website. These unlinked brand mentions could be some of the easiest backlinks for you to secure. If a website has already referenced your firm, they’re likely open to adding a link.

The best way to find these mentions is with the help of Google Alerts, BrandWatch, or SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. You could also check past press features and event listings. If you find an unlinked mention, reach out to the site owner or journalist with a short, polite email. Thank them for the mention and also ask if they could add a link.

8. Third-Party Platforms

You could also utilize third-party blogging platforms for your law firm link building efforts. The best options are Medium, LinkedIn Articles, or Substack. These platforms give you full control of what and where to post.

On top of that, you can also link from them back to your site. Although some of these backlinks do not have a direct effect on rankings, they can contribute to more natural links from other sites.

9. Haro and Journalist Outreach

Journalists often look for legal professionals and law firms that respond to these requests can secure high-authority backlinks. One of the most well-known platforms for this was Help a Reporter Out (HARO), but it recently shut down.

As for the alternatives, there is Qwoted and Featured, which also connect reporters with expert sources. You can sign up for these platforms, monitor requests related to your practice area, and submit responses. If a journalist uses your response, they’ll normally include a backlink to the firm’s website.

10. Scholarship Programs

Colleges, universities, and student websites often list scholarship opportunities, and when they do, they usually include a link to the sponsor’s website. Since .edu domains are highly trusted by search engines, backlinks from these sites can strengthen your firm’s link profile.

To make this work, your firm can create a page for law-related scholarships for students pursuing degrees in pre-law, criminal justice, or related fields. From there, you can reach out to schools and scholarship directories to get it listed.

11. Podcasts

Not many law firms know that podcasts, too, can be a great way to get backlinks. Many podcast hosts publish guest bios and often include a link to the guest’s site. Additionally, appearing on relevant shows can help lawyers reach more people who might be interested in their legal services.

It does take a bit of research to find suitable podcasts. One helpful tool you can use is SparkToro. Here, you can find the type of podcasts your target audience is listening to. Another thing you could do is go through the Podcasts app to find even more shows in the legal industry.

12. Content that Earns Backlinks Naturally

One of the best ways to get backlinks for law firms is by creating content that people want to reference. If your law firm publishes something useful, it increases the chances of other reputable websites linking to it.

Here are some types of content that work best for this:

1. Legal guides: Many legal topics are confusing, and people search online for answers to them. A well-written guide that explains common accident claims, for example, can get linked by blogs, local businesses, and legal resource websites. This content type is also commonly used in marketing strategies for personal injury lawyers.
2. Original research and statistics: Writers and reporters often look for numbers to include in their articles to support their statements. A law firm that collects and organizes data like divorce rates by state can become a go-to source.
3. Legal templates and ebooks: Law firms handle complex legal matters every day, but most people don’t have access to this knowledge in a way that’s easy to understand. Publishing an ebook that breaks down legal topics in simple terms can turn your firm into a trusted resource. Nonprofits and educational sites often link to practical resources like these.

13. Blogging

Last but not least on our list of link building strategies for lawyers is blogging. The research we’ve done for our legal industry marketing statistics has shown that 29% of law firms have gained clients through their blog posts. In addition to the fact that you can engage more clients with this tactic, other websites may link to your pages as a resource.

So, what can you blog about? Start with the legal questions you answer all the time. Legal updates, practical advice, and successes of your previous are also good choices. Overall, the more you focus on blogging for lawyers and write about legal issues people are actively searching for, the better your chances of earning backlinks from other websites.

The Importance of a Strategic Approach in Link Building

For your link building efforts to work and bring you the results you want, they need to be strategically planned. Below, we’ll look at the steps of how you can do it.

Do the Research

Before you reach out for backlinks, it’s important to first do a law firm SEO audit to check your website’s current performance. You’ll also need to identify which pages should earn links. It could be your homepage or service pages that are of high priority.

Then, you’ll need to find relevant sites that would be good link sources. Legal blogs, news sites, bar associations, and industry directories are good places to start.

Understand How to Evaluate Link Effectiveness and Stay in Line with Google’s Updates

Earlier, we explained what makes a high-quality backlink. We recommend keeping an eye on that section to check if a link is worth pursuing. The most important thing to remember is that you should focus on trusted, authoritative websites that are relevant to your practice area.

Additionally, you need to remember that search algorithms constantly change and new trends appear in legal practice SEO. This means you’ll need to follow industry updates and adjust your law firm link building strategy to keep it effective.

Monitor Your Backlinks Over Time

Backlinks come and go. Some websites remove hyperlinks over time, whereas others might link to you without notice. To check on it regularly, you can use tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Google Search Console. They help you see where your links are coming from and if any should be removed.

Keep an Eye on Competitors

Other law firms are building backlinks too, and keeping an eye on their strategies can help you find low-hanging fruit. Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Majestic can show you where competitors are getting their links, which websites mention them most often, and how those links might be affecting their rankings. You can then reach out to the same websites and see if they can link to you, too.

Maintain a Natural and Diverse Backlink Profile

A healthy backlink profile has links from different sources, like editorial mentions, legal directories, guest posts, and local citations. If too many links come from the same place or appear overnight, search engines may view it as manipulative link building strategies rather than genuine growth.

The safest approach is to build links at a steady pace from reputable and relevant websites. A mix of high-quality sources will look more natural and help you avoid penalties.

Remember that Quality Matters More than Quantity

Link building for attorneys, or any other industry, is always about quality. Search engines value links from authoritative websites, and even one such link can do more for your credibility than hundreds of low-quality ones.

These hyperlinks aren’t always easy to get, but they’re worth the effort. Prioritizing relevant, well-respected sources over quick, easy backlinks will help strengthen your website’s reputation and keep it in good standing with search engines.

Disavow Bad Links

Not all links are good for your site. Links from spam sites, low-quality directories, or unrelated blogs can make your website look untrustworthy. So, you need to check where your links come from.

If a bad link appears, the best option is to have it removed. When that’s not possible, Google’s Disavow Tool lets you ask search engines to ignore it. This helps prevent spammy links from affecting your site’s performance.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Law Firm Link Building

Below, we’ll share some of the mistakes law firms make when building backlinks. Try to avoid them in your strategy to stay on good terms with search engines and keep high search engine rankings.

Buying Low-Quality Backlinks

Some companies sell backlinks at cheap prices. Although it might seem like a quick way to improve rankings, it rarely works. Google actively penalizes sites that use unethical strategies, and if your site is flagged, you could lose search rankings.

In addition to the penalties from search engines, paid links also damage your site’s reputation. So, beware of this mistake in your link building efforts.

Use of Black Hat Tactics

By black hat tactics, we mean automated link building, link exchanges, private blog networks (PBNs), and other manipulative strategies. All of these are against search engine policies, just like buying links. If you get caught using them, your rankings can be lowered, and in certain cases, your website can be de-listed from search entirely.

Unnatural Anchor Text Patterns

Anchor text is important, but you should remember to add some variety when writing it. If your anchors contain the same keyword-heavy phrases across multiple backlinks, it can make your link profile look unnatural.

Search engines can notice this, and it can raise some red flags and impact your positions in search results. So, try to vary your anchor texts to make them look more organic.

Wrapping Up

As you can see from our guide, link building for lawyers and attorneys is not a simple task. The entire process of researching, reaching out, and getting backlinks does take time, effort, and expertise.

To get the best results in this endeavor, it’s worth partnering with an expert agency like SeoProfy. Established outreach professionals know how to negotiate the placement of links and will find the best linking opportunities for your site.

At our SEO company for law firms, we specialize in acquiring high-quality backlinks for lawyers from relevant and authoritative websites. Reach out to us today, and our team will map out a custom strategy for your practice so you can improve your rankings on search engines and attract more clients.

Author

Andrew Shum

Andrew is the Head of SEO at SeoProfy, leading a team of more than 20 experienced SEO specialists. He has been involved in search engine optimization and digital marketing since 2016, gaining hands-on experience across various niches and regions. Andrew possesses strong analytical and strategic skills, particularly in planning SEO strategies for highly competitive projects.