Selecting the Right Domain for Your Law Firm Website

When it comes to choosing a name for your law firm website, it is important to consider what message you want to send to potential clients and help your law firm be more easily found online. Believe it or not, picking the right domain name is very important for legal marketing and SEO.

What is a domain? Your domain name is the address of your website on the internet and is the URL that you type it to navigate to your website. Your domain name and your website name don’t have to be the same but your domain is essentially your online address for your business.

We’re here to answer some common questions our law firm marketing clients have asked about buying a domain name for their law firm and how it can help you build a better law firm website.

How Should I Pick My Law Firm Domain?

When you register a domain name for your law firm, you want to keep your domain as simple as possible for your users to find. Your domain name should be fairly easy for your searchers to find. There are ways to do that such as:

• Make it easy to spell. If people often have trouble spelling your name or the name of your firm you may want to choose a different name.
• Make it easy to type. If you want your searchers to be able to easily find your law firm on the internet your domain name should be easy for them to type. Avoid using hyphens and punctuation if you are able to.
• Make it brief. Choosing a domain that is brief and simple to type may be more favored over long domain names. If your domain name isn’t easy to type, searchers may not even bother trying to find it.
• Make it your name. Searchers may remember names more than anything else. If no one else has taken the domain name, you may consider using your own name or name of your law firm as the domain.
• Use hyphens. If you have a very common name and find that your domain name is taken, you can use hyphens or add things like “LLC” or “PLLC” at the end.
• Use middle initials. If you still find that your name may be taken, you can try inserting middle initials for the domain name.

The biggest takeaway for choosing a law firm domain name is to not make it something outrageous or difficult to find. If searchers have a hard time looking up your website because of the domain name, chances are they will never visit your site again. Your domain name should aid the process of getting quality leads, not make it more challenging.

Common Questions About Law Firm Domains

Should I Buy a Keyword-Heavy Law Firm Domain?

We’ve been asked time and time again if buying a keyword-rich domain for a law firm is a good idea. When it comes to law firm marketing it is no secret that keywords on your website can help you rank higher in Google search and make your website more relevant to potential clients. But what about a keyword-rich URL for your law firm?

Buying a keyword-focused domain can be problematic so there are a few things to keep in mind before you decide to buy your domain.

Moz writes about keyword-rich domains: “[In] recent years Google has made several changes that have deprioritized sites with keyword-rich domains that aren't otherwise high-quality. Having a keyword in your domain can still be beneficial, but it can also lead to closer scrutiny and a possible negative ranking effect from search engines, so tread carefully.”

In other words, if you don’t take care of SEO to begin with and are looking for a quick win with a keyword-rich domain, it’s not likely to give you the boost you’re looking for. However, if you plan on investing in SEO and are looking for a small boost, a keyword-heavy domain can be worthwhile if you’re in a competitive practice area and region.

Often, keyword-rich domains are often a temporary strategy that has a shelf-life. Changing your domain often isn’t usually a good idea because it can be a headache and expensive to reprint promotional materials, business cards, and letterhead.

Keywords and searcher intent may change over time, which may have an impact on your domain and the way your website is viewed on the internet. In other words, if people looking for your practice area change how they search for it, you could be using an outdated keyword-rich domain. A combination of practice area related keywords may help you rank today but not in six months.

A more common issue is that law firms change over time. Your law firm might change core focuses or add practice areas as you grow. A keyword-specific domain may no longer be relevant a few years from now.

For instance, if your firm brings on an associate who expands your bankruptcy practice into disability claims, having a bankruptcy-keyword domain limits how your law firm is perceived and makes it harder to bring in disability related clients.

Should I Buy a Keyword-Rich Domain and Redirect It to My Real Domain?

One question we’re often asked is if buying up keyword rich domains and redirecting them to your real web address can help your website rank. While you might think it’s a great idea to buy lots of new domains related to your practice area, they won’t impact your website’s rankings at a different domain.

The benefit to buying up domains is to prevent other people from owning them, not to boost your SEO. If you’re buying a domain just for keyword power but won’t use it as the address of your site, it can be a waste of money. (On the other hand, buying a website from someone else is a different matter that can have SEO value that is attached to the domain.)

We recommend that if you must use a keyword-rich domain, purchase your name or law firm name and redirect that domain to your keyword-rich domain. The name-related domain won’t appear in search results but if someone types it directly into the address bar, they will still be able to get to your website easily if you set up a redirect.

Should I Use Partner Names in Our Firm’s Domain?

The ABA model rules provide insight into domain names in addition to law firm names but you should also check with your state Bar and ethics board to understand if there are more specific interpretations of the model rules for law firm names in your state.

Generally speaking, your law firm’s domain should be very similar to the name your firm uses in client-facing marketing materials. However, this can be tricky if the name of your firm contains partners with common last names. In some cases, your firm’s name might be taken by another firm in another state. When this happens, using additional characters can help you get a domain similar to your firm name.

Does having the same firm name as another firm affect search traffic? Sometimes, but in most cases law firms serve clients in their region and Google will filter search results to show the law firm closer to them that has similar or identical names. If you’re geographically distanced from the similar or identically named firm, most people in your area looking for your firm on Google will find you without a problem.

Keep in mind that using partner names can be difficult when you’re trying to future proof your law firm. Partners can change over time or even leave the practice to start a new firm.

Partnerships today need to consider what will happen to the SEO value of the domain, website content, and links from other websites should the partnership dissolve in addition to who gets to keep the property of the firm’s domain.

Should I Buy a .com or a Legal TLD?

Top level domains (TLD) are what comes after the DOT in a website URL. This includes, .com, .net, .gov, .org and others that are marketed to specific business niches. There are a handful of legal specific TLDs, including .law, .legal, .lawyer, .esq, and .abogado.

Despite misconceptions, there is no SEO advantage to one TLD over another and Google confirms that they treat niched TLDs the same as any other TLD. Instead, the SEO of a domain has more to do with the on-page and off-page value of the website than the TLD.

However, using different and unique TLDs isn't always the best choice for your firm's domain identity. Although they seem like they might uniquely identify your domain, .com domains often seem more credible and are easily understood by prospective clients.

What Should I Do if Someone Else Owns the Domain I Want?

If you’re lucky, your domain that you want for your law firm is available and it’s as simple as buying the domain from a registrar. But you might find when searching for the domain you want for your firm that someone else already owns it.

If another person or company owns your desired domain and is using it, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to buy it from them. But if the domain is unused or the website is inactive, there’s a good chance that you may be able to purchase the domain from the owner—but it can get really expensive.

Domain speculators often buy up names that they think they can sell to someone else, sometimes even buying names of existing companies in an effort to force a sale. What can happen is a domain speculator bought the domain name of your firm with the intention of selling it to you later at a high price.

Buying a domain from someone else can be a complex process and some registrars offer services to help you through the process of acquiring a domain from someone else.

Keep in mind that if you purchase a domain name, the SEO value of the domain does follow with it. If the domain was used for spammy purposes, it could hurt your firm’s SEO. Before buying an existing domain, you’ll want to check the price and get an SEO pro to check for any SEO issues that may come with the domain.

Need Help With Your Law Firm Website?

If you find that choosing a domain name seems to be more time consuming or more difficult than you expected it to be, we can help guide you in the right direction to help find a domain that works for your firm as part of our website services.

At Orsanna, we help our clients determine what domain name fits their practice, their SEO goals, and how they want to market their firm. Contact us for a free consultation to learn more about how your domain name can affect your SEO and how to choose the right one for your firm.