It's official—your law firm is either online or not in business.

There's no middle ground anymore.

70% of law firms get new cases from their websites.

So, you need authoritative legal backlinks to drive your website's growth and keep your business in front of your most valuable clients.

The truth is that the best backlinks are hard-won and I'm going to show you how to get them.

What Makes for Quality Legal Backlinks?

Peter Drucker says, "You can't manage what you can't measure."

In context, your link building effort isn't successful unless you can track it. Authoritative legal backlinks aren't some pie-in-the-sky idea.

The key metrics for measuring authoritative backlinks are:

  • Link diversity
  • Link velocity
  • Page and Domain Strength
  • Anchor text ratio
  • Link relevance

How do these metrics influence your chances of winning legal backlinks that command search engine money, power and respect?

The search engines care about the degree of diversity in backlink profiles.

So you'd do well to have links from a range of places including authoritative press and news websites, directories (including local, regional and free or paid legal directories), social media sites, other law-related sites that have strong SEO metrics, government websites and university websites.

Link velocity is the rate at which your backlink profile is growing with time. That is, how fast other websites are linking back to your site.

Let's take for instance that your new site gets 100 backlinks a month. Depending on where these links are coming from, Google may perceive them as spam or as good.

It's ok to have a lot of legal directories and social media sites linking to your website within a short period of time. But if you're putting out something like 60 guest posts a month with backlinks to your site, Google might perceive that as excessive and spammy.

Page and Domain Strength

Page Strength predicts how well specific pages will rank on search engines. Domain Strength predicts how well a website will rank. Both metrics scale from one to 100.

You want to gain legal backlinks from relevant domains with high Domain Strength scores, and from pages in those domains with high Page Strength.

You can view both the Domain and Page Strength of your backlinks from your SEOptimer dashboard. You'll notice from the image below that some websites have high Domain Strength, but links from pages with low Page Strength.

check domain strength

A good benchmark to aim for is having websites with Domain Strength above 30, and pages with Page Strength above 40, linking to your content and site.

Anchor Text Ratio

An anchor text is a link-carrying text like this one.

Anchor text

The ratio of exact keyword match anchor texts to all your anchor texts should be 4% or fewer. Above that percentage, you'd be attracting search engine penalties.

If you have 1,000 backlinks to your site, for example, and your site's main keyword is "reputation management lawyer," you want a maximum of only 40 of those 1,000 backlinks carrying that exact keyword match in their anchor texts.

Other anchor texts should simply carry your law firm's name, your name, your website URL and other generic phrases to avoid appearing spammy.

This powerful metric measures how tightly relevant your links are. The rule here is simple, give and attract links from relevant and authoritative sites.

To rank your pages for highly competitive keywords, 85% of your legal backlinks must come from authoritative law-related websites.

Search engines treat top-level domains (TLDs) relevant to your location as more important than those from other places. So if your firm is based in the UK, domains ending in .co.uk would do you more good than those ending in .co.za.

Don't Ignore Backlinking Basics

Don't get too excited about these six tactics I'll be sharing and then ignore the age-old power of legal backlink basics. Always take care of the fundamentals first.

Create Content That's Worth Authoritative Backlinks

You'll need great content that attracts readers or don't bother thinking of backlinks at all!

Your content must stand out from the crowd. This is not optional, especially when on WordPress alone, 77 million blog posts go live monthly.

Content Checklist

The internet teems with expert advice on what great content should feel, read, look and smell like. But here's a quick checklist you can use:

1. Is this content original?

2. Ask yourself, "Can this headline save a dying publication?"

3. Is this insanely actionable?

4. Does this content answer your readers' questions, address their pains and honor their aspirations?

5. Have you backed up your claims with authoritative facts and stats? Don't make stuff up!

6. Did you tell relevant stories? Everyone loves a little entertainment. Don't be boring.

7. Is this content visual? People love images and videos—a lot.

8. Are your paragraphs short, sharp and simple to read?

9. Will your competitors feel uneasy with this content? It should be something they can't match.

Talking of competitors. Do you even know them?

Know Your Competitors

Not knowing your competitors, where they get their links from, the backlink metrics of these link sources and all is like fighting a monster in the dark, blindfolded. Instead, use SEOptimer to arm yourself to the teeth.

Log in and click on the Backlink Research tab and add your competitor's domain.

backlink research seoptimer

Once you've added your competitors' websites, you'll be able to view their entire backlink profile. You'll get a full breakdown of each competitor link, as seen in the image below.

backlink research tool

For each competitor link, you'll see its Domain Strength, Page Strength, whether the link is a dofollow or nofollow, the URL the link is coming from and where it's linking to, and the anchor text of the URL.

Knowing your competitors' backlink data is like having their secret sauce.

It also saves you a lot of resources, time and money. You know what websites to pitch for backlinks and the kinds of content that'll resonate with them. You can focus your energy on what works and leave guesswork out of the equation.

Your competitors' backlink data informs your link building campaigns and helps you target the most viable link building sources.

Get Featured in Local and Legal Directories

This option includes both paid and free directories. You can easily start with free directories—some will give you dofollow links and others will be nofollow.

But dofollows and nofollows shouldn't be your only metric for choosing a directory. Is the directory in good standing with search engines? Does it receive a sizable amount of traffic? If the answer to these questions is yes, get on them!

Free directories you may consider include Justia Lawyers, Avvo, FindLaw and HG.org. Free local directories like Yelp and Thumbtack are worth looking into, too.

I've compiled a list of more than 100 directories, both free and paid, that you can get on right away.

SEOptimer Legal Backlinks Directory

Get the free download here.

Leverage Social Media Outreach and Presence

According to Larry Bodine on the Business of Law Blog, "Social proof is necessary to generate leads [for law firms because] potential clients spend 16 minutes of every hour [on social media sites]."

In short, you can't leave your social media outreach and presence to chance. And this doesn't stop at just Facebook and Twitter.

LinkedIn alone drives 45% of law firms' site traffic. And more traffic means increased potential for backlinks!

You can also find and reach out to relevant social influencers to share or retweet your posts to their audiences.

6 Tactics for Authoritative Legal Backlinks

Now, let's deep dive into the six tactics for magnetizing legal backlinks.

Tactic #1: Offer Opportunities

Who doesn't like opportunities? Give the right audiences the opportunities to advance their lives, and you'll attract authoritative backlinks like flies.

What opportunities can you give?

Any opportunity that gets the attention of big media and relevant websites in your city and beyond would do. Specifically, you can offer:

  1. Scholarship opportunities for college students
  2. Invitations for guest posts by adding a "Write for Us" page
  3. A Jobs page listing available positions you plan to fill
  4. Free consultations in exchange for relevant legal backlinks

In fact, offering free legal services aligns with Rule 6.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which says:

Every lawyer has a professional responsibility to provide legal services to those unable to pay.

Offering opportunities can help you honor your social responsibility. Profitably.

Case Studies and Guides: Offering Opportunities Profitably

Christian Schwaner, a Colorado Springs criminal lawyer, offers scholarships to candidates interested in a career in the legal fields.

legal-backlinks

High-authority websites with Domain Strength scores over 60 picked up and published this scholarship on their websites. For example, College Express has a Domain Strength score of 78.

legal-backlinks

College Express Domain and Page Strength

Although the Page Strength score is low, at only 17 out of 100, this is still a great link considering the Domain Strength score of the site.

You can use SEOptimer's Backlink Research tool to check the Domain and Page Strength scores of sites you're targeting for legal backlinks.

SmartScholar also featured the scholarship.

legal-backlinks

This time, the feature page has a Page Strength score, at 11. And the Domain Strength score is good too, at 64.

SmartScholar Domain and Page Strength

And then came the Denver Post link! This one hit the search engines in the jugular.

legal-backlinks

The Denver Post website has an attractive 90 Domain Strength score, and the page linking to the scholarship has a 24 Page Strength score.

What else would a legal-backlink-seeking lawyer want?

Denver Post Domain Score

Legal directory HG.org (Domain Strength score of 65) also picked it up. The Page Strength score of the page that featured the scholarship is 40.
HG.org
 
HG.org Domain Score

Other authoritative law-related websites featured the scholarship, too, including Above the Law.

Another way to offer opportunities in exchange for backlinks is to create a "Write for Us" page and offer an attractive rate for submissions that you publish.

If you're not offering a payment, you'll attract less attention. The goal of this opportunity is to get your website featured on resource lists for free.

You can also offer non-paid guest posting opportunities to influencers with large email lists, as this can create beneficial backlink ripples too.

Savvy law-related websites are already doing this sort of thing, and you can borrow ideas from them.

For example, Nolo offers attorneys an opportunity to write for them.

legal-backlinks

But they also have paid writing opportunities advertised on their Careers page.

Nolo Careers

Just like the "Write for Us" page, a Careers or Jobs page can land you backlinks from job listing and curating sites.

Nolo got placements on job platforms that get a ton of traffic, and of course, they get the backlinks too. For example, they have a dedicated page on FlexJobs.

legal-backlinks

FlexJobs has a Domain Strength score of 90, and the page linking to Nolo has a Page Strength score of 20.

FlexJobs Domain Score

So, how can you offer your own opportunities?

1. Create a page on your website dedicated to your open positions (it's ok if you're not filling these positions immediately). Call this your "Career Opportunities" page.

2. Create a "Write for Us" page to invite contributors. Incentivize them by paying for submissions you publish. Resource curators will find, publicize and link to your site for free.

3. Do your research and develop a newsworthy scholarship offering. Do your groundwork and make sure you adhere to IRS and other regulations, depending on your state.

4. Create a ready, editable press announcement template to ease the work of broadcasters.

5. Send outreach emails to get the word out. Target news and media website editors, law-related blog editors, law school website editors and legal directories.

6. Respond to questions and messages relating to the scholarship promptly.

7. Enjoy the feedback, and of course, your legal backlinks!

Tactic #2: Get Backlinks From University (.edu) and Government (.gov) Websites

University of Texas

Earning dofollow legal backlinks from institutions whose websites end in .edu or .gov is a tough one but worth the trouble.

Why?

Websites with the .edu or .gov TLD are pristine.

Organizations with these domain names go through a serious vetting process and paperwork, and neither .edu nor .gov domain names are available on the open market.

So how do you earn these coveted backlinks?

Case Studies and Guides: Winning Legal Backlinks From University and Government Websites

It's your lucky day! I have several ways to go about this. So success is your only option on this one.

Law School or Student Scholarships

We've touched a bit on this under tactic #1. I want to give specifics here.

You want to gain legal backlinks—that's the goal. Start by finding relevant scholarship pages on .edu and .gov domains with high PA, before you create the scholarship. You want to design your scholarship offerings to match those pages.

Use one or more search strings from those I've listed below, or their variants:

  • site:.edu "private scholarships"
  • site:.edu "law + scholarships"
  • site:.edu "law school scholarships"
  • site:.edu "scholarship list"
  • site:.edu "legal + scholarships"
  • site:.edu "third-party law scholarships"
  • site:.edu "outside agency scholarships"
  • site:.edu "college scholarships"
  • site:.edu "law students scholarships"
  • site:.edu "list of scholarships"

For government websites, follow the same search string but use .gov instead of .edu.

I put one of them in Google search. All the results look good!

Google Search Law Scholarships

I checked the Page Strength scores of each page I got.

Washington and Lee University School of Law's external scholarships listing page has a Page Strength of 35, but their Domain Strength score stood at 85.

WLE Domain Score

New England Law's external scholarships listing page has a Page Strength of 36 and the website's Domain Strength score is 72.

New England Law Domain Score

The outside scholarships listing page of AccessLex Institute has a Page Strength score of 26. The site's Domain Strength score is 73.
AccessLexInstitute Domain Strength
And finally Berkeley Law, has a Domain Strength of 95 and a Page Strength of 26.

Berkeley Law Domain Score

It's exciting that you can have one scholarship featured on multiple .edu websites. In fact, you can garner dozens of legal backlinks from this tactic alone!

An easy example here is the Reiff Law Firm Legal Scholarship, which is for just $1,000. The scholarship features on two out of the three university websites I mentioned here: Yale and WLU.

Reiff Law Firm Scholarship

If you want to increase your chances of getting a yes from a particular university, you can create a scholarship specifically for them. Albeit, a general scholarship should get you links too.

Now that you know what you want, you can create a scholarship opportunity page that clearly communicates:

  • The amount you're awarding
  • How you'll disburse the money (directly to the winner or through the winner's school)
  • The number of people who can win, and the frequency of the scholarship
  • How you'll receive submissions (online via a form, or a PDF submission, or both)
  • The deadline
  • Scholarship requirements

You can use the Christian A. Schwaner, P.C. Scholarship and Reiff Law Firm Legal Scholarship as templates.

Finally, send messages out to the institutions you've listed and let them start announcing the scholarship on their sites.

Remember That Free Consultation?

This is where you can get the best ROI from giving free, or discounted, consultations.

You can offer discounted services or free consultations to government workers or student and faculty members of select universities in your city.

Universities and local governments will often list local businesses that offer them a discount, like the University of Texas and their Employee Discount Program.

Here's how to earn legal backlinks from this tactic.

Find .edu and .gov pages that list discounts by searching for phrases like:

  • site:.edu "staff discounts"
  • site:.edu "student discounts"
  • site:.edu "employee discount program"
  • site:.gov "staff discounts"
  • site:.gov "employee discount program"

I used one of the search strings.

Employee Discount Google Search

Then, look through the SERP to find the most relevant options for you.

legal-backlinks

Since you have backlinks at the front of your mind, focus on schools that have an open list and give dofollow links. From my search results, Case Western Reserve University fits that description.

legal-backlinks

This page has an attractive Page Strength score of 34, and the website has a Domain Strength score of 90.

Case Western Reserve Domain and Page Strength

Once you've found a list of relevant .edu and .gov discount programs, get the contact details of the person in charge of the programs, and contact them to find out the requirements of offering your legal service for free or at a discount to their employees or students.

Get on Your City's Events Pages

This is a great one to get backlinks from government websites, in particular. You just need to be able to put together and host an event in your local community (more on this in tactic #6).

I started my search with the following search string:

site:.gov "submit event" free

Submit Event Google Search

Here's what I found from this search.

legal-backlinks

The city of Seattle's website, Seattle.gov, which has a Domain Strength of 86.41 (and lots of other cities you'll find from using the search string I gave you above), will actually let you post your events on their government website (just make sure to follow their guidelines).

You'll get a backlink to your website in your event's description page.

legal-backlinks

Want even more relevant .gov backlinks? You can try super-specific strings by city, and even add "law" or "legal" to your searches, like these ones below:

  • site:.gov law [city] "submit event"
  • site:.gov law [city] "add event"
  • site:.gov law "add event"
  • site:.gov [city] "add event"
  • site:.gov legal [city] "submit your event"
  • site:.gov legal "submit meetups"
  • site:.gov [city] "submit meetups"

So I decided to get even more relevant legal backlinks from .gov websites using these search strings above. My search focused on the city of San Francisco.

San Francisco Submit Event Google Search

I found this super-relevant events submission opportunity from the Office for Victims of Crime. This .gov website has a Domain Strength score of 90.

legal-backlinks

OVC is one of the most under-tapped link building opportunities I found.

They accept submissions from the public (even law-related commercial entities), but I found only one commercial entity on their list during my research!

For better event-powered link building, use webinars. Online events remove the shackles of being location-specific. Anyone can attend your event online and you can spread your message across a wide range of relevant events submission websites.

Oh, and the backlinks will follow too.

Alumni Profiles and News

Hey, you graduated law school and probably also have a postgraduate degree for good measure. Now's payback time—time to get the backlink!

Use these search strings to crawl up your school's alumni profile pages (if your school provides them) and alumni news pages:

  • site:theschoolwebsite.edu “alumni records”
  • site:theschoolwebsite.edu "alumni profiles"

You want to find out if your alma mater profiles their alumni. Here's how.

Enter the "alumni records" search string into a Google search box with your school's website substituting for "theschoolwebsite.edu." Let's use ucla.edu in our example.

legal-backlinks

Find the appropriate link from the SERP.

legal-backlinks

Click through to fill in the form and add your profile.

legal-backlinks

Most universities have this offer for alumni. If you'd entered Harvard in your Google search, you'd get a page like this one.

legal-backlinks

Here's an example of a well-written profile linking to your website.

legal-backlinks

If you attended other institutions with an .edu TLD in their domain name, you can add your profile and get in the news there, too. Some alumni profiles allow you to promote your trade—even your books and videos!

On his London Business School profile, Henri Arslanian linked to his book on Amazon and his TED talk.

legal-backlinks

You can also get an .edu backlink if you're featured on the school's alumni news.

Use the search string site:theschoolwebsite.edu “alumni news” to find your school's alumni news page.

Vermont Law News Google Search

Find your school's alumni news page and click to see if you can send them your news.

Vermont Law School News

In this example, Vermont Law School accepts news pieces from their alumni.

legal-backlinks

Success! Then, your next step would be to submit news that focuses on your website to your alumni association or department.

Law School Blogs Recognition

I thought of calling this strategy "pat on the back for backlinks." Everyone likes a pat on the back. Do this for your favorite 15 law schools and get premium legal backlinks in return!

The strategy is to set up a Law School Blogs Award. Here's how to do it.

Find .edu law school blogs that are active, have a contact you can reach and give dofollow external links. Use these search strings to get qualifying blogs:

  • site:.edu "law" "faculty blogs"
  • site:.edu "law" "post comment"
  • site:.edu "law" "blog posts"
  • site:.edu "law" "staff blogs"
  • site:.edu inurl:blog
  • site:.edu "law" "student blogs"

You can also use the search variant "legal" in place of "law" during your search.

Law Faculty Blogs Google Search

Use the SERP to find appropriate blogs to feature.

legal-backlinks

Make sure you visit each blog to see if they receive regular updates, because you want to focus on blogs that do. You want blogs that were last updated at least in the past month or two. The more recent the posts, the better.

legal-backlinks

Find the contact information of the key contributor or editor of each blog you want to feature.

Then, once you've found a sufficient number of blogs, create an awards list on your website. Include the blogger's information and their picture, as well as a brief bio of their blog and work, and link to their best article.

Something like this:

legal-backlinks

You can also borrow inspiration from Clawbies and the ABA Journal.

The Clawbies Canadian Law Blog Awards page has a Page Strength of 40 and outperforms the Domain Strength of the website, which is 47.

Clawbies

Clawbies Domain and Page Strength

The ABA Journal's Blawg 100 Archive page has a Page Strength of 33, and a Domain Strength score of 88.

ABA Blawg

ABA Journal Domain and Page Strength

As a comparison, the ABA Journal's homepage has a Page Strength of 52.

In short, the page might have a higher number of websites linking to it and also more authoritative links than the homepage. The page outperforms the rest of the website.

That's how powerful this strategy can get.

Resource Page Legal Backlinks

Some university and government websites have resource pages. Resource pages have just one purpose—to give backlinks!

Assuming the resource page is in good standing with Google, your job is to get whoever's in charge of the page to link to your site.

How do you do it?

Use these search phrases to find relevant legal or law resource pages:

  • site:.edu law + inurl:links
  • site:.edu legal + inurl:resources
  • site:.edu law + inurl:resources
  • site:.edu legal + inurl:links
  • site:.gov law + inurl:links
  • site:.gov legal + inurl:resources
  • site:.gov law + inurl:resources
  • site:.gov legal + inurl:links
Legal Resources Google Search

The SERP shows a good list of .edu law resource pages.

legal-backlinks

Open the most relevant results from your search. For this example, I used Pacific Lutheran University.

Pacific Lutheran University Law Resources Page

You'll first want to verify that they link to commercial websites (not just other .edu and .gov resources). This improves your chances of getting a link.
 
The resource page is also in good standing with search engines. It has a fair Page Strength score of 19.
PLU Resources Domain and Page Strength

Sometimes, finding a great resource page might need a little digging. That's the case with Kent University's legal resource page. Although I found them in my search, I had to click a couple of times to find the commercial sites.

Kent University Resources Page

A downside to this deep page is that Page Strength score suffers. But if you still want the link for Kent's Domain Strength score of 88, then go for it!

Kent University Domain and Page Strength

To get on their resource page, reach out and send them a personalized email. This is a numbers game, so you want to contact as many relevant .edu and .gov law resource page editors as you can.

Tactic #3: Use HARO

HARO is a community that helps journalists get story leads, and helps people with newsworthy stories find journalists.

Journalists use HARO to find expert voices for their stories, and will often give backlinks as credit for quotes. Here's a sample HARO query:

legal-backlinks

HARO is free to use, and you can sign up for a premium account too. Content sourced from HARO gets on large media platforms, including Gannet, Fox News and Associated Press.

So, how do you use this juicy tactic?

Case Study and Guide: Using HARO to Gain Authoritative Legal Backlinks

HARO is relatively straightforward to use, but these methods will bring you even juicier results and better user experience.

Move in on Opportunities Lightning-fast

Requests come with deadlines. But the faster you respond to opportunities, the greater your chances of getting featured by the requesting journalist. In fact, treat responses as though they'll expire in the next two hours or less.

Here's the experience of Garry Frisch, of Swordfish Communications:

legal-backlinks

Know Exactly What the Journalist Wants

If the journalist wants answers right in the email message and instead of providing the answers there, you invite them to call you for answers, then you've missed the boat.

You want to be sure if the request is seeking answers right away or asking for leads to interview at a later time. If the journalist wants immediate answers, provide them in the body of your email message.

For an interview, get it ready and send it through as fast as you can. If the interview is over the phone or Skype, arrange for it and give a range of available dates and times on your calendar.

Responses should always include your bio, a link to your website's homepage (or other relevant resources on your site), and state clearly why you're the right person to provide the answers.

Reread Requests and Double-check Your Answers

Journalists on HARO almost always ask questions that demand precise answers. Be attentive to details while reading and answering the requests. Provide only relevant answers and remove fluff.

Double-check your answers to be sure you've addressed the journalist's needs, concerns and requirements.

If you can't answer part of the question, address that too. You could say something like, "I can't speak for lawyers in the UK, but as a senior attorney in a US law firm, I..."

Since reporters curate answers, other qualified respondents are likely to cover any areas that you can't.

Tactic #4: Give Testimonials

This is probably the most straightforward of all six tactics. You have a website and probably use other professional and marketing tools for your business. This tactic is about converting those services into valuable legal backlinks.

Case Study and Guide: Give Testimonials, Get Legal Backlinks

Make a list of professional and marketing services you already use as part of your work. Focus on those with high Domain Strength websites.

Your goal is to make a list of 10 to 20 services and products that you regularly use or interact with, and to get a backlink from the companies that provide those products and services.

To find out if the company already has a testimonials page, you can use these search strings:

  • site:[the site] "testimonials"
  • site:[the site] "testimonial"
  • site:[the site] "reviews"
  • site:[the site] "feedback"

Testimonials Google Search

Just replace [the site] with the company's website.

Get their contact details, which you can usually find on their websites. You want to find the contact of the key decision maker or someone with the authority to grant your request.

Write a personalized email. Tell them how you've enjoyed using their tool or service, and how your law firm can directly attribute specific success to the use of their tool or service.

Ask them if you can write them a testimonial and if they'd link back to your firm.

Here's Clicky's example. The site has a Domain Stregnth of 87.92 and takes testimonials from their users with live links to users' websites.

They actively invite testimonials, too!

Clicky Testimonials

Tactic #5: Be the Weird Lawyer or Law Firm

All authority links come from four sources: the media, academia, government and successful organizations (businesses and non-profits).

This tactic is a media stunt.

You want attention. And then links... more links. I'll show you how these two lawyers pulled their stunts, to inspire yours.

Case Study and Guide: Find a Way to Stand Out

Adam Reposa. Not your average lawyer. He calls himself "the bad ass lawyer."

Now, I'm not going to recommend that you do exactly what Reposa did. I'd suggest that you find a twist that won't earn as much hate as it earns praise.

This lawyer did something rather extreme. But it worked.

Reposa pulled his stunt by running posters on storefronts across Austin, Texas that read:

Exclusively for white people. Maximum of 5 colored customers, colored BOH (Back of House) staff accepted.

Guess what happened next?

A sea of media attention flooded his business. And then those legal backlinks followed.

Adam Reposa says he was trying to get some attention for East Austin's gentrification. Just how much media attention did Reposa gain?

And other media sites.

Of course, Reposa's actions received a lot more hate than love, so many media sites didn't link back.

But some did. KXAN has a 69.62 Domain Strength score and linked to Reposa's law website.

legal-backlinks

You'll probably want both media attention and love from the public. Reposa's approach to media stunts isn't a sustainable link building strategy, but he did grab lots of media eyeballs for a short period.

Even the government paid attention!

The second weird lawyer is James Casino, a lawyer from Savannah, Georgia.

His 2014 Super Bowl ad attracted lots of media attention and powerful legal backlinks. Rolling Stone, New York Daily News, Law.com, Time.com, Above the Law and People.com all featured his ad.

Now, it's your turn. What would you do for authoritative legal backlinks?

Tactic #6: Use Events and Meetups

This is an extensive strategy on its own. Local events can be used to win almost all types of hard-to-win legal backlinks. So I'll just cover enough to get you enjoying its benefits.

First, set up an event that's held at least once a month. You can do this on Meetup or another events website. You'll want to set up an event around a topic that your audience cares about, or that targets law school students or law professionals in your city.

The goal of the event is to bring people together around a common theme or topic.

It's in promoting your event that the links will follow.

This isn't just a link building strategy, although it's worth the trouble if it's for gaining authoritative legal backlinks alone.

Local events, if you do them well, will establish your authority in your practice and give you a voice and influence, powerful friends and a constant stream of clients.

A Brief Guide to Getting Links Through Meetups and Events

Start an event and set up a specific page for it on your website and on Meetup. You can tailor your events towards helping law students or faculties in law schools close to you, or helping other law firms with solutions you've figured out.

Find link building opportunities for your event using these search strings:

  • law [city] "add a meetup"
  • legal [city] "submit an event"
  • law [city] "add meetup"
  • legal [city] "submit your event"
  • law [city] "add event"
  • legal [city] "add your meetup"
  • law [city] "submit event"
  • legal [city] "add an event"
  • law [city] "submit meetup"
  • legal [city] "add your event"

My own Denver-based search gave me some good leads.

legal-backlinks

Among those leads is the University of Mississippi. Here, you can organize events to benefit law students by filling out a form on the university website. If approved, your event will be featured on the Law School's calendar.

University of Mississippi Submit An Event Page

 

Holding events that focus on law schools has the ripple effect of winning you relationships that can translate into backlinks from their .edu websites.

Of course, that's a side benefit—the goal of holding the events is to gain legal backlinks from other authoritative sources beyond academic environments.

The ultimate low-hanging fruit for gaining backlinks to your site's events page is authoritative events websites. I've listed a few below where you can submit your events page:

If you put in the time, you can find and post your events to hundreds of high-quality events posting sites.

And the Best Part?

A key advantage of these tactics is that you can enjoy the network effect.

Success in one or a few of them can automatically attract the benefits of other link building tactics without any extra effort on your part.

Say, for example, you decide to avail a $1,000 scholarship fund in your firm's name to colleges in your city.

So, you announce it via a press release after the arrangements have been made with these colleges.

The colleges announce your opportunity to their students on their website. You earn their backlink.

Other news and media websites pick up your announcement as news, earning you even more authoritative backlinks. You can also use HARO to make this news available to journalists.

And just like that, you'll start to see the effects of your work snowball.

It's time to start earning your legal backlinks.