We cover all the bases of search engine optimization for DUI law firms: links, keyword research, content, design, and development. It enables them to dominate SERPs for lucrative DUI keywords and get more DUI cases.
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DUI lawyer SEO establishes and grows your visibility in search engine results through a repertoire of strategies, including keyword research, quality content creation, online reputation management, Google Business Profile (formerly “Google My Business”) optimization, and link building.
It sounds like a lot, but remember that you’ll need every opportunity you can get to outperform competitors, appear in the relevant online searches, like “DUI lawyer near me” or “Miami DUI defense lawyer.”
SEO takes time and commitment to get results — but your rewards include a more prominent law firm brand and a recurring stream of search engine traffic. This is better for faster and more sustainable growth in the long term. Not to mention that internet users are predisposed to avoid paid listings and jump straight to the organic, “real” search engine results.
While SEO helps you reach Google’s first page after a few months, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can get you to the top of search results in a matter of days. This will help your DUI law firm gain quick visibility through search ads. On the flip side, you have to pay for every click you get, making PPC less profitable than SEO in the long run.
If you have the budget, go for both SEO and PPC to capture your share of prospective clients who are searching for DUI attorneys online.
Similar to PPC, social media marketing will also help your law firm gain traction faster than SEO. It can help you raise brand awareness, build an engaged follower base, and turn views into leads along the way.
Social media marketing also enables you to build a more authoritative and trustworthy brand in the legal industry, which is something search engines like Google look for when determining rankings.
Without further ado, here are seven local SEO strategies for DUI attorneys:
Claim your Google Business Profile to give your DUI law firm a shot at appearing in Google’s local 3-Pack. This refers to the attention-grabbing section near the top of organic search results that highlights the location, ratings, contact information, and website links of relevant businesses.
Setting up your Google Business Profile is straightforward and can be completed in less than an hour. You just need to enter your complete business information, upload high-quality images that showcase your law firm’s culture, and ensure you pick “Law firm” as your primary category and “Criminal justice attorney” as your secondary category — unless you cover a broader range of practice areas and can find a category that fits them all more accurately.
Don’t forget to add your website URL to your Google Business Profile. Not only will this help prospects figure out where to go next, but it also enables Google to tie your profile’s presence to your website’s ranking potential.
Get listed in relevant online directories and citation sites to expose your law firm website to more prospects.
Citations are a ranking factor that can boost your law firm website’s rankings in local search, like “Columbia DUI lawyer” and “DUI attorney Sacramento.” Of course, getting listed also exposes your firm to new clients who come to those directories to look for legal services.
To help with this step, use local listing management tools like BrightLocal, LocalFX, and Moz Local. These tools track your existing citations, find opportunities for new listings, and simplify the submission of your law firm’s business information.
Create a captivating criminal defense attorney website that can capture leads through search results and provide the content they need to move forward.
The first order of business is to make sure your website loads fast, works well on mobile screens, and looks unmistakably professional.
You can take inspiration from some of the best law firm websites we’ve created.
Your law firm website design should also have all the elements needed to help potential clients make a hiring decision. We’re talking about your phone number, contact form, CTA buttons, and other useful resources.
Here are a few design tips for your law firm website:
“We wrote some amazing content for the website, and, before you knew it, we grew from six to 13 people from January 2021 to January 2022,” says Rossen Law Firm founder and CEO, Adam Rossen. “We tripled our revenue that year.”
Create landing pages on your website that can educate prospects about your practice areas and encourage them to hire you.
Practice area landing pages need a quick rundown of everything clients need before hiring an attorney. This includes information about DUI laws in your state, what your legal services entail, and various types of social proof — including your professional achievements and media appearances.
Most importantly, your DUI landing page should include visible, actionable elements that encourage potential clients to reach out. Some examples are your phone number, call-to-action (CTA) buttons, and a contact form.
You also need to build a diverse pool of target keywords that can bring valuable organic traffic to your DUI lawyer website.
Tools like Semrush and Ahrefs make this happen by expanding a broad keyword into hundreds — if not thousands — of “long-tail” keyword variations. These are less competitive, more specific, and targeted at a narrower audience.
For example, if you enter “DUI lawyer” in Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer tool and filter the keywords to include the term “Miami,” you’ll get the following ideas:
Take a look at how Ferguson Hill Filous Attorneys at Law contextually embed keywords in their website, like “Tucson DUI attorney,” “Tucson DUI charge,” and “DUI defense.”
One way to build backlinks is to submit guest posts to relevant websites, which allows you to create the backlinks yourself. You can find websites that accept guest posts by running a Google search with a target keyword and a “guest blogging footprint,” like “become an author,” “write for us,” or “guest post by.”
Here’s an example of a guest post by a DUI lawyer attorney:
To accelerate your guest blogging efforts, here are five websites in the legal industry that accept guest posts:
Finally, remember that DUI attorney SEO is an ongoing process.
To make sure you’re getting positive results, use tools like TrackRight to monitor every aspect of your local SEO marketing campaign. This includes your local keyword rankings, presence on Google Maps, and content performance analytics.
By tracking your keyword rankings over time, you can accurately gauge the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. It’s also a great way to discover your best and worst keywords in terms of rankings — allowing you to adjust your optimization and link building priorities.
TrackRight can also show you what’s working in your content strategy. This will help you determine the keywords, topics, and content types that perform well for your website.
Aside from TrackRight, another must-have tool for DUI lawyers is Google Analytics. It’s a free tool from Google that analyzes traffic on your website, including your top-performing pages, target audience demographics, conversion rate, and other user engagement metrics.
In a nutshell, TrackRight can help you track the direct results of your SEO—be it through search engine rankings and traffic. Google Analytics, on the other hand, can show you how your SEO and marketing efforts translate to lead engagement and conversions.
Ready to get your feet wet in the DUI lawyer SEO landscape?
Here are 50 DUI attorney keywords to get the ball rolling:
Matching Keywords | Volume | CPC |
dui lawyer | 15,000 | $15.00 |
dui attorney | 15,000 | $70.00 |
dui attorney near me | 7,900 | $45.00 |
dui accident lawyer | 6,600 | $50.00 |
dui lawyer near me | 6,000 | $7.00 |
drunk driving lawyer | 5,300 | $14.00 |
dwi lawyer near me | 3,900 | $7.00 |
best dui lawyer near me | 1,800 | $4.50 |
dui defense attorney | 1,000 | $17.00 |
dui lawyer cost | 900 | $4.50 |
dwi defense attorney | 800 | $40.00 |
dui law firm | 800 | $14.00 |
dwi law firm | 700 | $25.00 |
dwi defense case | 300 | $0.00 |
how much is a dui lawyer | 300 | $3.50 |
average dui cost | 250 | $1.70 |
dwi defense lawsuit | 250 | $0.00 |
going to court for dui without a lawyer | 200 | $2.50 |
dwi defense lawyers | 200 | $30.00 |
drunk driving defense attorney | 200 | $15.00 |
dui defense lawyer near me | 200 | $12.00 |
felony dui lawyer | 150 | $20.00 |
lawyer dui near me | 150 | $6.00 |
good dui attorney | 150 | $4.50 |
dui defense law firm | 150 | $0.00 |
lawyer dui | 150 | $13.00 |
dui lawyer free consultation | 100 | $5.00 |
free dui lawyer | 80 | $4.50 |
how to fight a dui without a lawyer | 80 | $3.00 |
average dui lawyer cost | 70 | $4.50 |
what is a dui lawyer | 70 | $10.00 |
how to pick a good dui lawyer | 60 | $9.00 |
dui expungement lawyer | 50 | $9.00 |
how much is a lawyer for a dui | 50 | $5.00 |
why do you need a lawyer for a dui | 50 | $0.00 |
how much does a good dui lawyer cost | 50 | $2.50 |
dui dwi lawyer | 40 | $9.00 |
Cheap dwi attorney | 30 | $35.00 |
Top dui attorneys | 30 | $80.00 |
how to find a good dui lawyer | 30 | $9.00 |
criminal charge dui attorney | 30 | $30.00 |
lawyers near me dui | 20 | $45.00 |
should i get a lawyer for dui | 20 | $7.00 |
what can a lawyer do for a dui | 20 | $4.00 |
how to find a dui lawyer | 20 | $0.00 |
what can a dui lawyer do for you | 10 | $3.50 |
how much will a dui lawyer cost | 10 | $3.50 |
Experienced marketers will know that SEO is an ever-changing landscape. But for law firms, there are a handful of SEO trends you should watch out for.
First of all, Google puts more emphasis on a brand’s image and authority now more than ever. This isn’t a surprise since the legal SEO industry had hints from years ago, including Google’s “helpful content update” and the E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness) quality rater guidelines.
A recent leak from Google’s Content API Warehouse revealed that the search engine tracks “entities” for tracking and analyzing a website’s brand. This includes their social media accounts, reviews, directory listings, and citations from other authoritative sources.
Google then factors in these entities to determine the website’s rankings. That said, law firms also need to invest in digital PR and build their online presence outside of just link building and on-page optimization to succeed.
Other than building citations and growing your social media presence, law firms also need to dive into other Google products for better online visibility.
Lastly, Google started rolling out “AI Overviews” in May 2024 to serve answers directly to question-based queries.
This is problematic for law firms who do SEO since, rather than clicking on your website, users immediately get the answers they’re looking for without needing to check the organic results. Not to mention that Google’s AI scrapes information from websites that should be getting clicks in the first place.
The good news is, Google quickly pulled down AI Overviews just a month later due to issues with the quality and accuracy of answers. But it’s only reasonable to expect the feature’s return once Google finishes ironing out the creases.
For now, you should focus your SEO efforts on “transactional” and “commercial” keywords. These are keywords that contain terms and phrases like “hire,” “best,” and “near me.”
Transactional and commercial keywords are used by searchers who are ready to take action. That’s a segment that Google’s AI Overview feature can’t steal from law firm websites.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of doing SEO yourself vs hiring an agency:
DIY SEO | Hiring an Agency |
Do your own research for keywords, content ideas, and link building opportunities. | Approve done-for-you keywords and content topics. |
Buy your own tools for on-page optimization, SEO research, and analytics. | Complete SEO toolkit (just worry about analyzing reports) |
Trial-and-error SEO strategies. | Proven SEO strategies with proven results for other law firms. |
Handle on-page optimization yourself. | Get well-optimized pages created for you. |
Takes longer to see results (to account for self-learning, research, and manual SEO tasks) | See results in 3-12 months. |
Costs $500-$2,500 per month | Costs $1,500-$10,000+ per month |
Here at On The Map marketing, we know the legal SEO landscape inside and out. Contact us here to request a free audit and discover what our holistic SEO and marketing services can do for you!