How to optimize a law firm website to attract high net worth clients

If you want to get more high-dollar legal cases, this article is for you. My client just reported that she landed a $100,000 retainer for a divorce case after just 1,467 visitors to the website last month.

In fact, business has been rising steadily to the point where the firm had to raise prices to $700 per hour. They even removed their free consultation.

The following is a step by step guide that shows the approach I used to grow the law firm’s website visits by 35.5% year over year. It also increased call volume and chats by 37.9% leading to a six figure retainer. Keep reading and you will learn exactly how to optimize a lawyer website to attract higher-net worth clients.

The law firm’s office is situated in a wealthy community within a mid-sized town in Connecticut. With a population of about 30,000 residents, there should be enough business to keep them busy.

But many of the calls they were getting were for simple cases. Family law attorneys get paid by the hour so the more complex the legal matter is, the more they make.

Because the town is flush with rich folks, there are tons of lawyers in the area. Competition is tough.

This client wanted more high dollar cases. Their website was not ranking well and they wanted to do something about it.

Before you can start attracting big dollar clients you need to take a step back and make sure your website does not have any content gaps.

Google is not going to rank you well for terms that attract high net-worth clients if you don’t have the general content they expect to find about the core topic.

Would you build a house with million dollar views on a weak foundation?

You need to fix that first.

I have said this before, content drives traffic to lawyer websites. Most law firm websites have insufficient pages to get a lot of visitors.

That may be because it takes a lot of time and effort to carefully craft a page that will rank well and encourage visitors to contact you.

A lot of SEO agencies charge hundreds of dollars for each page of content. And most attorneys don’t want to pay that. Particularly solo practitioners. It’s hard to shell out cash for something when you don’t see immediate benefit.

Here is a summary of what you might see when you look at your competition’s websites.

Content on family law websites typically falls into one of three types:

A single practice area page – Often a law firm has several practice areas and there will be one page for each. Ie Family Law, Personal Injury, Real Estate. These pages may go into a bit of detail on subtopics such as divorce or alimony but that is it.

Here is an example of a website that practices family law with literally 3 sentences about the topic.

No wonder the law firm’s listing comes up #15 in Google’s map results in a town with a population of only 2,700.

Poorly optimized websites like these often have trouble ranking, as Google just doesn’t have enough information to properly evaluate if they are relevant. Google wants to show the best results to satisfy every search. So people come back again and again.

Google would rather show a result for a reputable lawyer from further away than take a chance on one they don’t know much about.

One page for each topic – Law firms that try to step it up a notch will often have one page of content for each primary topic. A family law attorney may have the following topics covered:

• Family law
• Divorce
• Child custody
• Child support
• Alimony

In this example you can see the attorney has several family law related topics covered on the website. But it only has one page on divorce. And, nothing on mediation. We’ll look at that coming up.

This type of law firm website usually does fairly well at attracting visitors and new clients. But a lot of factors will impact that.

• How populated is the area?
• How many competing law firms are nearby?
• What is the depth of content on each page?
• How well is the topic covered?
• External factors such as time in practice

And much more.

The site above actually ranks for some search terms outside of the town where the lawyer’s office is located.

Google feels confident this lawyer handles divorce cases and other family law topics.

Lots of detailed pages for each topic – Attorneys who have their act together will have lots of detailed content pages. They cover each topic in great depth. Their website answers all of the potential client questions. Visitors to the attorney’s website won’t need to leave as they are satisfied with the information they just found. In fact, the searcher is getting more information than they thought they might need.

In the example below, the law firm website includes loads of detailed pages on the divorce topic. Notice how many aspects of divorce law are covered such as choosing an attorney, mediation and even post divorce.

This family law attorney ranks in one of the top two spots of Google for nearly every search.

The content is so deep that visitors looking for information on getting divorce will find unique pages for many questions. This keeps them sticking around for a long time. And that leads to calls and cases.

When Google recognizes that they have satisfied a searcher’s intent, they reward that website with higher rankings.

My client fell into category #2. The law firm had some decent pages on family law topics. But they are located in a competitive area in Connecticut with a lot of other law firms. Their website was not ranking well at all.

And, most of the searches that did land on the website were for the attorney’s names.

So we started with a rewrite of some of the base pages including:

• Home
• Family Law
• Divorce

These pages were reformatted into hub pages that provided a broad overview of many subtopics. As a visitor reads the page they think “oh, that’s important too. I have to look at that next”.

That keeps them sticking around on your site.

Next some new content was added to dive deeper into common divorce issues:

• Mediation
• Arbitration
• Litigation
• Child Support
• Dispute Resolution

Now you won’t find a load of people searching for a divorce litigation attorney. But people do want to understand the process if it gets to that.

So starting them on a general divorce page will get them on your website. And then providing lots of detail on what happens if you go to court, keeps them around. Not to mention, a lengthy litigation process means big bucks to a law firm.

Earlier I mentioned how this client had to be convinced to add a page on mediation. A lot of attorneys don’t want much to do with mediation. A few sessions and the divorce is final.

But often couples that attempt to settle a divorce in mediation end up going into litigation anyway. So the attorney actually makes even more money. My client saw the light and added the page.

After three months, the client started to see a significant increase in website visitors. That was enough to inspire her to dig deeper.

Increasing traffic to a lawyers website alone is not enough to drive big dollar clients. Sure, it usually means more business but there are different types of searches. Not all of them are ready to be clients.

Branded Searches

A branded search happens when someone searches for the attorney’s name. This can happen for a variety of reasons. A few examples include:

• The attorney may be well known
• There may have been a referral
• It could be a prior client

You want to make sure each attorney has their own page on your website. This should include an in depth bio, photo and practice areas.

PRO-TIP - For attorneys who have a common name (ie. Mike Smith), make sure you add some links back to this page.
Also, vary the anchor text to include terms that may be used in search such as attorney, lawyer, ESQ.

Informational Searches

Informational searches occur when someone has a question they want answered. The person may not be looking for a lawyer right now, just looking for answers. For example:

• What is the divorce process?
• How long does a divorce take?
• Who keeps the house in a divorce?

You may want to have detailed answers to these types of questions included on your website. As someone collects this information and sees your site keeps coming up, you will naturally be the one they turn to when it is time to take the next step.

Commercial Searches

A commercial search will happen when someone needs an attorney right now. These folks are looking for a simple validation and a phone number.

• Divorce lawyer New Brunswick, NJ
• Divorce attorney near me
• Best divorce lawyer in Middlesex New Jersey

You want to make sure your website is optimized for these valuable searches. Add your phone number in the upper right corner. Include calls to action throughout your pages. Provide multiple means of contact.

PRO-TIP – Another way your potential clients will validate you before contacting you is by reading a few reviews. Be sure to continuously collect new quality reviews of your service. More on this later.

Now that the website is performing much better and getting more visitors, it’s time to focus on getting clients who will pay the bigger bucks.

If you just skipped to this section to cut to the chase, you will have missed the most critical part of the process to getting high net worth clients.

That would be similar to me saying I am an SEO expert for lawyers without sharing detailed examples of my work like this article. Would you believe me? Would you pay me a lot of money?

The fact is, you will get some new clients from people searching for the first time. But a lot of them will be referrals. They got your name and want to check you out before contacting you (more on this coming up).

So the first thing they may do is search for divorce attorney [city name] and see if you show up. If all they see is a competitor and their website looks promising, well you may have lost that big dollar client. Even though you had a referral.

Family law attorneys typically make money by the hour. The more complex the case, the more they make.

Divorcing couples with lots of money will typically have more complex cases as there are more things to consider. A variety of assets. Complex property valuations. Children involved in many activities.

Often couples with a lot of money have one spouse who is a big wage earner, and one who takes care of family and household.

High asset individuals typically have vacation homes, collections, inheritances and expansive retirement plans.

So it is important to understand all of the issues they may face. Then provide information to let them know you can help them.

Let’s break down the topics a wealthy individual may care about if considering divorce.

• High net worth divorce
• Complex child custody
• Private schools
• Clubs and organizations
• Caregivers (nanny)
• Who gets the house
• Protecting a business
• Valuing a business
• Divorce and inheritance
• Alimony
• Retirement Plans

For this client we built pages on each of these topics.

When you create a new page for high net worth divorce, don’t expect to get many new visitors. There are just not that many people searching for terms like that. But the few that do arrive on the page will be quality leads.

For the topic of high net worth divorce you want to be sure to optimize for many other terms.

• High asset divorce
• Complex divorce
• Celebrity divorce
• Hidden assets
• Asset valuation
• Equitable division
• Marital assets
• Tax consequences
• Mediation

This information could all be included on one page or you may want to write separate pages for each topic.

Having many pages on a similar topic does allow you to add more internal links back to the main page. Just be sure you are providing a quality resource. Each page should have substance.

Let’s take a detailed look at how to optimize the content for Child Custody to attract high asset clients

As I noted earlier, lawyers typically make more money by spending more time on a case. The more complex the matter, the more time it will take.

A basic child custody page may cover topics such as:

• Types of custody (physical, legal, joint)
• How child custody is determined
• Visitation
• Modifications to a custody order

However, wealthy families often have their children involved in many activities such as clubs, sports, education and philanthropic groups.

Parents with money looking to part ways will want to make sure their kid’s lives are not disrupted any more than they have to be. That means keeping as many of those activities as possible.

But that can create a series of challenges.

How will the child be transported to events

Who pays for participation

What if one parent move further away

What about siblings

As an attorney looking to attract more high dollar cases you had better make sure these concerns are addressed on your website.

This information is what separates you from every other attorney out there.

Let’s look at exactly how to do this.

You could just start creating a page to address some of the challenges that rich folks face. That would be better than almost every attorney out there.

But a better approach is to build and measure results. Then build and measure some more. This way you know exactly what produced the results you get.

For the child custody example, start by jotting down all of the issues you face with complex cases. For example:

• Complex child custody
• Private schools
• Clubs and organizations
• Elite sports teams
• Caregivers (nanny)
• Relocation
• Friends
• Volunteer work

This is a list that can go on and on. Wealthy families often take great care to get their children involved. All these memberships help them to gain social skills, develop friendships and are required with admissions to top-tier colleges.

Most wealthy folks won’t want to disrupt that.

Now that you have a lengthy list of topics, you’ll want to create a hub page that directs visitors to the right spot on your website. Having a page on “Complex Child Custody” is a good way to go here.

So your site map breakdown may look like this:

Home > Child Custody > Complex Child Custody > Co-parenting with Sports

If a potential client has a basic question on child custody, or their child is not a member of a prestigious country club, or was not selected to the elite soccer team, then there is no need for them to go to this page.

But if someone has a child who is a member and they see your content. Caching! You have exactly what they need.

Here is how to create a topic page.

Creating in depth support pages helps build authority

Do a quick search on Google for “sports child custody” and a variety of similar terms. Within a few minutes I was able to discover the following issues that parents face with sports and child custody:

• Travel sports and divorce
• Scheduling
• Communication
• Expenses
• Transportation
• Logistics (passing along uniforms and equipment)
• Sports injuries
• Dangerous sports
• Parent refuses to take child to sports
• Can a co-parent stop child from playing sports

All of these topics together would make a fantastic page of content. In fact, the first topic (travel sports and divorce) could make a unique page all on its own.

As an attorney, you would be thrilled to discuss this in detail with parents. It might mean a parenting plan, and visitation schedule. If there is a major conflict that can’t be mediated, you may have to go to court.

Google will also recognize that you now have a comprehensive guide to a child custody issue involving sports. This content is unique. And if you put a little effort into your research it should include information that many people are searching for.

When you have a page like this on your website, you clearly understand your potential client’s issue. There is no reason for them to go anywhere else.

This is how you get calls on complex legal issues.

Every law firm and website is different. Some attorneys may not need to go this much in depth. But you start with one page and keep going until you get the desired result.

Developing the precise content your visitors are searching for is a huge part of what it takes to attract high net worth legal cases. But there are a few more steps that will get your website working like a well oiled machine.

PRO-TIP – You can add an FAQ section to the bottom of each page. As you get questions you have not covered, add them here with a brief answer.

The client I worked on to get a $100,000 retainer and many other high net worth cases is from the small state of Connecticut.

While it may take a while to drive from Stamford to New London, the distance is not that great. For the right attorney, someone may be willing to travel even further.

In fact, with many states and practice areas, most if not all of the cases can be handled remotely.

So in order to broaden the reach of potential clients, we optimized the site for statewide searches and not just local.

This was done by adding the state name and state code on headers, titles, and throughout content on the website.

The truth is, this tactic won’t necessarily work for any law firm. We handpicked pages that had low competition and optimized them properly to rank well.

In addition, several community pages were added to highlight the lawyers unique affiliation with each location. This included legal associations, clubs and organizations as well as residency.

This helped to promote to Google and potential clients that the law firm had ties to many communities throughout the state. In other words, a statewide firm.

While this technique may sound like a magic bullet, it is not going to be right for most attorney websites. Few clients are going to be willing to drive across the state to reach your office. However for this legal team, it helped to build some authority and make the firm seem larger.

What happens next though is something every law firm should do.

Google tends to already know a lot about you. They crawl the internet, follow links and build relations.

But sometimes Google uses information that you provide to guide them.

This includes information you include on your Google Business Profile (GBP).

If you are not familiar with a Google Business Profile, it is the results that appear next to the map when you complete a local search on Google.

The GBP does not show up for every search, just when you are looking for a local business or service. When you are hungry and search for “pizza shop near me”, Google shows popular spots that are closest to you.

The same holds true for law firms. Most folks just want a local lawyer to help them out.

If you want your firm to show up in these results you need to have a GBP listing and make sure it is fully optimized.

Here is what we did for my divorce lawyer client that helps them win big retainers.

Added in-depth services (with descriptions) – This is a pain. But it is worth it. I actually completed thorough tests on this and was able to get lawyer websites to show up in Google’s local results by only adding a service to the GBP.

It is not a very strong ranking factor, but you want to put as many things in your favor as possible.

Typically, if you have the exact service that someone searches, Google will add a justification notice on the search results. It is just an added feature that may help someone click through to your website, or give you a call.

For this client we added a huge laundry list of services related to divorce and family law. Then, painstakingly added a brief summary for each one.

PRO-TIP – If you search on a mobile device, you can see what services were added for your competition. Check out a bunch of competitor websites and make sure you include all the services that you handle.

Added products – Google has a GBP feature where you can highlight your products with a photo, description and price. So why not use it.

We added various products such as prenuptial agreements, modifications, legal separations and more.

Photos that matter (show personality of firm) – Adding the right photos to a GBP listing is one area where most law firms fail. Is it that hard to use your phone to snap a few photos of your office and team?

Google wants to show searchers legitimate businesses. So this is one simple way to make your law firm stand out.

• Take lots of pictures of your office from the outside including:
• The parking lot
• Sign of the building showing your firm name
• The door where clients walk in
• The elevator
• The reception area
• Your conference rooms
• The office where you work

Add photos of everyone you work with such as:

• Group shots
• Serious photos at work
• Fun photos including social events or your team laughing

Your clients want to deal with real people and will have some relief knowing that it won’t be scary to work with you.

My client went above and beyond by hiring a photographer to take a video of the office which Google recommends.

Google Posts – A Google Post is just a photo with a sentence or two highlighting some feature of your business. You can link to a page or article.

Posts are a good way to highlight events, relevant news, new team members, legal updates, and client success stories.

This client showed off updates to their office, awards won, speaking engagements and a few personal notes.

When someone searches for your service, recent posts will show up on the side panel and within your profile, allowing your law firm to take up more of Google’s search results page. You will see just how important that is next.

When it comes to law firms getting high dollar cases, a lot of business comes from referrals.

But those potential clients who heard about your firm still search the internet for validation. And sometimes just to get your phone number.

They may check out some reviews, see how easy it is to find you, and evaluate the appearance of your website.

Do you have content on the issue they are having? Is it easy to contact you?

Getting business from high net worth clients is an ongoing process of building and refining your online presence to develop that sweet spot.

Google LSA offers high visibility

For this client, we signed up for Google’s Local Search Ads (LSA) program. These are the thumbnail photos that appear at the very top of some local searches.

I’ll get into how to set up LSA ads in another post, but the important thing to know for now is that the divorce lawyer was able to get to the top of the results.

By doing this, they were able to appear at the top of Google’s search results, in the 3-pack maps listing and in the organic results below!

Now the LSA program does cost money and requires some effort to manage. But you can place limits on your ads and keep your spend to a minimum. You can also get a credit for any contacts that are not a true lead.

Local community pages show up in organic results

Another feature we added to this website was a handful of custom community pages. The divorce law firm’s office was located near many other affluent towns.

So we created six other pages on the website to talk about the connections to those communities.

The idea here was not to expect much search traffic to those pages. Instead, it was just to have the attorney’s website show up.

When the client did get a referral from someone outside of their immediate location, that person would still see their website in the results.

The truth is, some of the towns were so small the law firm’s website showed up in the maps results anyway.

A word of caution with this tactic. Don’t go overboard. Too many pages will dilute the power of the rest of your website.

To build these pages, the client took some quality photos of each town. She then provided a few paragraphs on how the firm’s staff was associated with those towns.

Finally, information was added on the divorce attorney services offered to residents of those communities.

Combine this strategy with a little promotion and you will begin to earn the big cases.

If you didn’t know it already, Google relies on following links from other websites to learn about your pages.

Links and mentions from higher quality websites go a long way to improving your rankings. So it is important to get the word out.

This client did a small series of PR pieces in some local online newspapers in the communities they served. The association with the towns helped to build their authority and reputation in Google’s eyes.

We also added listings in some local online directories and prepared a series of related GBP posts.

Show Value

When a potential wealthy client does land on your website, you want to hook them right away. Here are a few things your clients will look for.

Awards show experience – There are many online awards for attorneys. And they are not hard to get. Supper Lawyers, Avvo, and Expertise are a few examples.

Make sure you are listed on these websites and others. Then grab the badge and add it to your website near the top of your home page.

These simple awards help build trust, and promote you as experienced.

Reviews to create clicks – When someone starts searching for a lawyer, they likely will know nothing about you.

The only thing your potential legal clients may have to go on is reviews from your prior clients.

If these are great, they are a sign for someone to take the next step. If they are poor, or non-existent, then hiring you may be a risk.

Getting reviews is easy. Just ask your happy customers. Give them a link to your reviews page from your Google Business Profile.

Also, it is a good idea to set up a Yelp listing and get a few reviews there.

Do this on a regular basis and you will be on your way to some big dollar cases.

Conclusion

So there you have it. A step by step guide how to optimize a law firm website to get high asset clients.

Wealthy folks have lots of stuff and want to keep it even after a divorce. You need to let them know you understand everything there is to know about dealing with a complex divorce. The content on your website must match their needs.

By continuously adding value to your website and building your brand across the internet you will begin to show up regularly for the searches that high asset clients are doing.