Is your firm losing out on workers’ comp cases because you lack a solid SEO plan?
In one month alone, there were 16,000 searches nationwide for ‘workers compensation lawyer’ and 13,000 for ‘workers compensation attorney.’ Thousands more searched for a local version of the query.
When injured workers search for help filing claims or fighting against an unjust workers’ compensation denial, is your firm in the organic results? Is it in the map pack? Is it in the AI-driven search?
We Do Web strengthens your online presence through tailored legal SEO. We help firms of all sizes, from solo practitioners in a single market to large firms serving several markets, improve visibility online to increase leads and grow their business.
Why SEO Matters for workers’ comp firms
When workers suffer injuries and illnesses on the job, they need help fast. For many states, workers must report their injuries in a matter of weeks, and the claims process often commences shortly after.
But for many of those workers, the process is unfamiliar, intimidating, and overwhelming. They seek legal assistance by searching thousands of keyword queries every month. Here are just a few:
Source: Ahrefs
Wherever you are in the country, there are likely injured workers seeking legal assistance online. In large and mid-size cities, hundreds of people may search every month for a lawyer to help with their workers’ compensation case.
Source: Ahrefs
If you have the right SEO and digital marketing plan, you’ll be well-positioned to claim a share of that monthly volume for your firm. But to succeed, you’ll need a strategic plan that accounts for your market, budget, practice, and so much more.
Generic SEO strategies fail to gain traction for workers’ comp lawyers
Cookie-cutter SEO packages ignore or gloss over what really matters: the nuances of legal search behavior, the importance of geo-targeted strategies, and the trust-building elements that convert visitors into clients.
Out-of-the-box SEO fails to acknowledge your firm’s unique challenges. For example:
- Your website isn’t ranking locally, buried beneath bigger workers’ compensation firms or national injury firms with big marketing budgets.
- Your website ranks at the bottom of page 1 for the most lucrative queries in your market. You feel stuck.
- You’re getting some online leads, but they’re either of low quality or wholly from paid ads or your Google Business Profile. Your website isn’t generating organic or AI-driven visibility.
A templated package might deliver some rankings and traffic, but it will fail to generate consistent, qualified leads because it’s not accounting for your challenges, opportunities, and other nuances unique to your law firm.
Take two different workers’ compensation firms.
- Firm A: a small firm in a large market with a modest budget.
- Firm B: a large regional firm with a substantial budget that’s been investing in SEO for 10 years.
Firm A doesn’t have the domain authority to rank for high-competition terms like ‘workers compensation lawyer philadelphia.’ But if it’s based in Springfield, PA, it can realistically target ‘workers compensation lawyer near springfield pa,’ a lower-volume term (10 searches/month) but with significantly less competition.
Firm A needs foundational SEO work: tightening up its website, earning local citations and backlinks, and publishing content targeted at attainable, high-intent keywords.
Firm B, on the other hand, has strong domain authority and can pursue lucrative, competitive terms in its local market. This firm wants to scale. With the basics in place, it can focus on fine-tuning technical SEO, capturing competitive terms, and expanding into new geographic markets.
If your SEO roadmap isn’t tailored to your market, growth goals, and existing digital presence, you’re wasting time, money, and opportunity. Generic SEO doesn’t cut it.
On-Page SEO for workers’ compensation lawyers
Strong SEO starts on your site. It’s about what users experience the moment they land on your page and the impression they give of your firm’s credibility and capacity to solve their problem (i.e., get workers’ compensation benefits).
- Legal content that’s insightful, helpful, and aligns with user intent
- Internal linking that connects relevant pages and facilitates crawling
- Keyword-informed titles and headers
- Conversion-focused design that builds trust and encourages contacts
On-page SEO for workers’ comp lawyers doesn’t stop at content and design. It also includes technical elements that affect your website’s speed, crawlability, and user experience.
Technical SEO for workers’ compensation lawyers
Even the best content won’t rank if your site has technical issues holding it back. If your pages load slowly, frustrate mobile users, or make it difficult to crawl your site, your visibility and leads will suffer.
Technical SEO is multifaceted:
- Cleaning up site architecture and URLs so it’s easy for search engines to crawl and index your site
- Fixing broken links and redirect loops that harm user experience
- Improving your page speed by doing a full analysis, identifying issues slowing down your site, and implementing fixes
- Using schema markup to improve visibility in search results
These technical improvements might not be flashy, but they’re essential. Without a technically sound website, even your best content can fail to rank or convert users to leads.
Local SEO for workers’ compensation lawyers
Most people looking for a workers’ compensation lawyer are searching locally. They’re appending their city to their search query (e.g., ‘workers compensation lawyer atlanta’) and they’re clicking local results and looking at the Google Maps 3-pack at the top of the search results page.
How do you make sure your firm gets found in the local results? Local SEO for law firms includes:
- Creating a Google Business Profile (GBP) for every office location
- Ensuring consistent NAP (name, address, phone number) in your GBPs and all listings
- Adding high-quality, recent photos of your office, attorneys, and staff to your GBP
- Listing your legal services as product categories in your GBP listings
- Writing a short, office-specific description of your firm for your GBP listings
- Creating helpful content targeting local searches relevant to your market
Most importantly: get reviews. The workers’ compensation firms that perform best in the Google Maps 3-pack are typically those with a high rating and lots of client reviews.
Off-Page SEO for workers’ compensation lawyers
Technically, anything that takes place off your site is off-page SEO. That includes building and maintaining your Google Business Profile. But when we talk about off-page SEO, we’re typically referring to actions that build your website’s authority, such as acquiring backlinks.
The more high-quality, relevant backlinks your site earns, the more authority it gains and the better its chances of ranking for coveted search queries.
Backlinks for law firms could come from:
Local news outlets
- Legal directories
- Bar associations
- Industry publications
Backlinks don’t have to come from legal sites alone. Many types of websites can link to your firm’s content and boost your authority. Even without a link, brand mentions (instances where your firm is named on third-party sites) could still help your website. These mentions build credibility and may influence your visibility, including in AI-driven search.
Earning visibility in the AI-driven search results
Search is evolving. Visibility no longer ends with Google’s organic listings or the Google Maps 3-pack. AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and AI Mode, and Perplexity are changing how users discover law firms and how firms generate leads.
As the rules of AI visibility unfold, early indicators suggest that the fundamentals of strong SEO still apply:
- Authority driven by brand mentions, backlinks
- Helpful content that matches user intent and offers unique insights
- Client reviews and high ratings in Google Business Profile
- Safe, secure, and user-friendly websites
Still, SEOs are watching closely: which workers’ compensation firms are winning visibility in the AI results? Are the same firms ranking in traditional search? And what are the winners doing to earn that visibility?
We Do Web helps workers’ compensation firms drive leads
Whether you’re a solo attorney in a small market or a multi-location firm expanding statewide, your strategy should reflect that, and ours always does.
We Do Web has been helping law firms with SEO for over 15 years. You’ll get a dedicated team with 15+ years of legal SEO experience, a clear action plan, regular monthly meetings, and a shared focus on what really matters: signed cases and business growth.
If your current strategy isn’t delivering results, it’s time for something better.