It's been established that Google constantly updates its algorithm to provide users with the ultimate experience. One of the essential algorithms that your law firm should focus on is the RankBrain. Google stated that RankBrain is its third most important ranking signal. What does this mean to your law firm and what can you do to improve your rankings? Here's what you need to know about Understanding RankBrain for legal SEO what you can do to boost your ranking.
What is Google RankBrain?
Before Google RankBrain, 100% of the Google algorithm was done manually or hand-coded. RankBrain employs artificial intelligence and machine learning to sort the search results. Google RankBrain helps the search engine process and understand search queries by watching how people respond. This algorithm learns the meaning behind the search query and the data that people look for. Launched in October 2015, Google RankBrain was created to help the search engine process the nearly 15% of queries entered daily that Google has never encountered.
Understanding RankBrain for legal SEO
RankBrain understands the search queries and measures how people interact with the search results. Before RankBrain, Google would have a hard time interpreting new search queries. Google would scan pages to check if the page has matching keywords that users are searching for. Since the queries (keywords) are brand new, Google doesn't know what the searchers wanted so they make a guess.
For example, when you enter divorce lawyer in Metairie, Google would chop these words and return divorce, lawyer and Metairie as a result. Google relies on links and other signals to fetch the most relevant answers even if it is not the desired output of the searchers. It is for this reason that some practitioners stuff their content with plenty of keywords AKA keyword stuffing.
Understanding RankBrain for legal SEO involves targeting users’ intent. Google RankBrain can figure out the searcher's queries and return almost the same results. Google RankBrain matches the new keywords to queries that Google has encountered before. Consider RankBrain as a pre-screening process. When a keyword is entered into Google, the search algorithm matches this against the user intent. In short, RankBrain fetches a set of search results that they think you want based on intent. RankBrain pays attention to the following:
- Bounce Rate
- Organic Click-Through-Rate
- Dwell Time
- Pogo-Sticking
Bounce Rate
You don't convert visitors that bounce from your law firm website. A bounce rate is the percentage of all visitors that leave a webpage without taking an action such as making a purchase or clicking a link. Having a high bounce rate could mean that the users are not satisfied with the content on your webpage. Bounce rate can also be used by Google as its ranking factor. There are plenty of reasons your visitors could bounce from your website. One of these reasons could be your content. A high bounce rate signals Google that your content is not relevant to a user's query. One way to improve your bounce rate is to provide contextual content that is valuable and relevant to your target traffic search.
Organic Click-Through-Rate
Organic CTR refers to the percentage of searchers that click on your website as it appeared on search engine results. It is influenced by plenty of factors particularly the SERP layout. Certain search queries can fetch different types of SERP layouts. Hence, you must optimize your title tags, meta descriptions, URL, and most especially the Rich Snippet.
Dwell Time
Dwell time is defined as the actual time a searcher spends on your web page after they've clicked your URL on a SERP Page but before returning to the SERPs. Theoretically, the more time the visitors on a page, the better it is for your law firm website. A long dwell time indicates that the users have read or consumed most of the content on a page before it gets back to the SERP or conducts another action. Besides producing quality and relevant content, a great way to improve dwell time is to use logical internal linking. It is also important to revisit your website design specially scrolling design and navigation.
Pogo-Sticking
Almost similar to bounce rate, Pogo-sticking is the going back and forth from SERP to a webpage. In short, pogo-sticking is when your visitors click on your URL and then immediately click the back button and then chooses another result from the SERP. You can avoid pogo-sticking by ensuring that you produce the right content for your target traffic. Don't mislead your audience.
How to optimize for RankBrain
It pays to optimize your law firm website for RankBrain to help Google pick up your website when it fetches search queries. Here are great ways you can do to optimize your law firm website for Google RankBrain.
Establish your reputation
What type of content would you like your target audience to read? Are you providing them? Spend your time understanding your audience’s needs and the topics they resonate with. Consider writing case studies and blogs to obtain quality links and build your reputation. You can also author content and publish it on other authoritative websites. This will widen your reach, build quality backlinks and increase your website visibility. Diversifying content is also a great way to engage your audience and boost your reputation. Considering including videos and other forms of media into your law firm website.
Optimize for Medium Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords may be a thing in the past with how RankBrain works. Google used to generate results based on the exact keywords used which means users may get different results for a defense attorney in Metairie and Metairie defense attorney. Pay attention to your medium-tail keywords for automatic optimization.
Address your Users Intent
Your law firm website can easily get a great web ranking if you have good content. It's not just about relevant keywords, it is also more about contextual content. Misleading your target traffic will drop your CTR. Visitors won't come back to your law firm website, resulting in a lower RankBrain rank. Quality content should be your priority, focusing on user intent will increase your CTR.
The Takeaway
You can optimize your law firm website for RankBrain by producing quality content that matches your target audience's intent. The more positive user signals you give to RankBrain, the better your ranking becomes.