What Law Firms need to know about Google’s August 2023 update

Google has updated its algorithms again and this time relevance is the focus.

As another Google core update launches, we take a look at what this means for your law firm and how you can make sure your website is in the best place to deal with it.

Google has just launched its August 2023 core update, which aims to improve search results, by determining which content is likely to be relevant and helpful. It can take up to 2 weeks to roll out completely, so knowing when Google makes these updates gives us all something to look for, and helps us to understand if it was something you changed on your website or something Google changed with its ranking algorithm that has affected any changes in rankings. So keep an eye on your analytics and rankings over the next couple of weeks and make sure you’re in prime position to respond accordingly. Core updates are designed to ensure that overall, Google delivers on its mission to present helpful and reliable results for searchers.

A drop in page performance post-update doesn’t necessarily indicate an issue; it’s about content relevance; and as you’ll always hear us banging on, continual content improvement is crucial. This update means it’s more important than ever to be making sure every page on your site is there for a purpose and has E-E-A-T ( Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) signals throughout.

If you notice a drop in your page website and/or page rankings, don’t panic, consider an audit of the drops you may have experienced. (Or ask a trusted consultant to take a look!) What pages were most impacted and for what types of searches? Look closely at these to understand how these pages may perform against these points. For example, there may be other pages that are doing a better job of helping the searcher because they have first-hand knowledge on that topic. If this is something your law firm might need help with, we can run your website through our content auditing software to find potentially problematic pages and automatically find the areas of your site performance you need to work on. This might also be the right time for your law firm to start investing in your PPC efforts.

With Google updates coming quite regularly and the search giant still looking at content and performance, it’s the perfect time to take a look at the Legmark Dashboard. The world’s largest legal sector digital marketing resource, the dashboard gives you a daily view of not only your website performance, but also how you stack up against the competition. With more than 3,200 law firms on the system you can see where you sit in a league table of firms across the UK. Basic access to the system is FREE, but on our best value plan, you’ll also get integrated keyword tracking and monthly website suggestions to help you beat any algorithm updates and stay ahead of the competition.

Contact us at hello@legmark.com to find out more.