Your agency has done everything right for your law firm client. The website is technically sound, the content is expertly written, and you’ve built some quality backlinks. Yet, their rankings are stuck, stubbornly trailing competitors who seem to have a secret advantage.
What if that advantage isn’t about keywords or links, but about identity?
In the high-stakes world of legal SEO, Google isn’t just ranking websites; it’s ranking reputations. For topics that fall under its “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) guidelines, the standards are incredibly high. Google needs to be absolutely certain that the information it provides comes from a trustworthy, authoritative source.
This is where many agencies hit a wall. They focus on building the authority of the law firm as a brand but overlook the single most powerful asset they have: the individual attorneys. Google doesn’t see “Smith & Jones Law” as an expert; it sees the decorated, experienced, and recognized lawyers who work there as the true experts.
The key is learning how to communicate that individual expertise directly to search engines.
Why E-E-A-T is Everything in Legal SEO
You’ve likely heard of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). Recently, Google added another “E” to the mix: Experience. Now, E-E-A-T is the gold standard for quality content, especially in YMYL fields like law.
- Experience: Does the author have real, first-hand experience with the topic? (e.g., a personal injury lawyer discussing case law).
- Expertise: Does the author have the necessary skills and knowledge? (e.g., credentials, education, professional affiliations).
- Authoritativeness: Is the author or website widely recognized as a go-to source in their field? (e.g., mentions in legal journals, speaking engagements).
- Trustworthiness: Is the information accurate, honest, and reliable? (e.g., positive reviews, secure website).
For a law firm, proving E-E-A-T isn’t just about having a well-written blog post. It’s about proving that the person behind the content is a legitimate, recognized legal professional. This requires a fundamental shift in strategy—from ranking a business to establishing an entity.
From Keywords to Entities: A New Way to Think About SEO
In modern SEO, an “entity” is any distinct and verifiable thing or concept—a person, place, organization, or idea. Google’s goal is no longer to simply match keywords; its Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms work to understand the relationships between these entities.
Think of it like building a web of facts. Google knows that Sandra Day O’Connor (person entity) attended Stanford Law School (organization entity). She was an Associate Justice (concept entity) of the Supreme Court (organization entity).
Google’s Knowledge Graph is its massive database of these interconnected entities and the relationships between them. When you can clearly define your attorneys as expert entities and connect them to their work, their education, and their accolades, you’re feeding the Knowledge Graph exactly what it needs to see them as authorities.
The most powerful tool for this? Schema markup.
What is Schema Markup?
Imagine schema markup as a digital translator. It’s a piece of code you add to your website that translates your human-readable content into a language that search engines like Google can fluently understand.
Instead of Google having to guess that “John Doe, J.D.” is a lawyer who graduated from Harvard and specializes in corporate law, you use schema to explicitly tell it:
- This is a Person.
- Their jobTitle is “Attorney”.
- Their alumniOf is “Harvard Law School”.
- They knowsAbout “Corporate Law”.
This removes all ambiguity and helps Google connect the dots, building a clear, authoritative profile for each attorney.
The Attorney Entity SEO Framework in Action
The framework focuses on establishing each attorney as a distinct, authoritative entity and connecting their expertise back to the law firm’s website and content.
Step 1: Create a Robust Attorney Bio Page
The attorney’s individual biography page is the central hub of their entity. This page should be more than a brief paragraph and a headshot; it needs to be a comprehensive resource that validates their E-E-A-T signals.
Essential elements for a powerful bio page:
- Detailed Professional Summary: Outline their experience and legal philosophy.
- Education: List all degrees, including the schools (alumniOf).
- Bar Admissions & Associations: Specify which states they are licensed in and list memberships in professional organizations (memberOf).
- Awards & Recognitions: Mention any honors, publications, or speaking engagements.
- Case Studies/Verdicts: Showcase real-world experience and successes.
- Published Works: Link to any articles, books, or legal journals they’ve contributed to.
Step 2: Implement Person Schema Markup
This is the technical backbone of the framework. On each attorney’s bio page, you’ll implement Person schema to define their entity for Google. While there are many properties you can use, some of the most impactful for lawyers include:
- @type: “Person”: Declares the entity as a person.
- name: The attorney’s full name.
- jobTitle: “Attorney,” “Partner,” etc.
- alumniOf: The educational institutions they attended. This connects them to other established entities.
- memberOf: Professional organizations like the American Bar Association.
- knowsAbout: A list of their legal specializations (e.g., “Personal Injury,” “Family Law”). This helps Google understand their specific areas of expertise.
- sameAs: This is critically important. It’s an array of URLs that link this entity to their other authoritative online profiles, such as their LinkedIn, Avvo, Justia, or state bar profile. This cross-references and validates their identity across the web.
By using more specific schema types like Attorney in conjunction with LegalService, you can provide even more granular detail that helps Google categorize the entity with precision.
Step 3: Connect Content to the Author Entity
Once you’ve established the attorney as an entity, the final step is to connect their expertise to the content they produce. You’ll do this using Article schema on every blog post, guide, or FAQ page they write.
The key properties here are author and reviewedBy.
- author: This property links directly back to the attorney’s bio page (the hub). It tells Google, “This article about negotiating a settlement was written by Jane Smith, the expert entity we defined over here.”
- reviewedBy: For content that needs the highest level of trust, you can add a reviewedBy property, pointing to another attorney at the firm who fact-checked the article. This adds another powerful layer of E-E-A-T.
This process transforms a generic blog post into a piece of content demonstrably authored by a recognized expert.
The Compounding Effect of Entity SEO
When you apply this framework across every attorney in a firm, the effect is exponential. You are not just building the authority of one person; you are creating a constellation of interconnected expert entities all associated with the law firm’s Organization schema.
This sends a powerful signal to Google: this isn’t just a business; it’s a hub of credentialed, experienced, and authoritative legal professionals. This is exactly the kind of trust signal that can break through ranking plateaus in the competitive legal space. Agencies that master this can offer a significant advantage, moving beyond conventional SEO tactics. Implementing such a detailed strategy at scale can be complex, which is why many firms look for an agency SEO partner to handle the technical execution.
For agencies juggling multiple clients, managing intricate schema rollouts and ensuring consistent E-E-A-T signaling can be overwhelming. That’s where specialized SEO outsourcing for agencies becomes a strategic advantage, allowing you to deliver advanced results without building a dedicated in-house team.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What exactly is schema markup?
Schema markup (or structured data) is a standardized vocabulary of code that you add to your website’s HTML. It doesn’t change how the page looks to a human visitor, but it gives search engines precise, structured information about the page’s content, making it easier for them to understand and index.
Is this difficult to implement?
While the concept is straightforward, the technical implementation requires careful attention to detail and a good understanding of JSON-LD (the preferred format for schema). There are plugins and tools that can help, but for a high-stakes legal client, manual, error-free implementation is crucial.
Why does this matter more for lawyers than for other businesses?
Law falls squarely into Google’s “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) category. Because the advice on a legal website can have a profound impact on a person’s life, liberty, and finances, Google’s algorithms apply the highest possible scrutiny to these sites, making E-E-A-T signals like those generated by entity SEO absolutely essential.
What’s the difference between E-A-T and E-E-A-T?
The addition of “Experience” is the key change. Google now wants to see that the author has real-world, practical involvement with the topic. A journalist can research and write about personal injury law (Expertise), but an actual personal injury lawyer has first-hand experience litigating cases, which is a much stronger signal.
Can’t I just build authority for the law firm’s brand name?
You should still build the firm’s brand authority, but it’s not enough on its own. Google understands that a firm is made up of people, and in professional services like law, the expertise resides with those individuals. Establishing attorney entities is how you prove that the firm’s claims of expertise are backed by real, credentialed professionals.
The Path to True Authority
Moving beyond generic brand SEO and into the granular world of attorney entities is what separates good legal SEO from great legal SEO. It’s about speaking Google’s language and providing the verifiable proof it needs to trust your client’s website.
By meticulously building out each attorney as a recognized expert entity, you create a powerful, defensible SEO advantage that is difficult for competitors to replicate. This builds a foundation of authority that can withstand algorithm updates and deliver sustained, long-term growth.
For agencies looking to provide this level of sophisticated strategy, leveraging a white-label SEO for agencies solution can be the key to scaling execution while focusing on client relationships and growth.