Getting Google to rank your website high is a much harder task than you might imagine. In fact, there is an entire industry that has been created based upon helping businesses get their websites ranked high on the search engines. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a multi-billion dollar industry. There are so many tricks of the trade that it is rarely worth the time for any attorney to attempt to become an expert. Instead, hire one.

However, you don’t have to become an SEO expert to control one of the most important things that determines if your website is served up on page one or page 20 of Google search results: quality content.

So just how does Google judge whether or not your content is high quality? Last year, Google published an SEO guide that details how quality content is evaluated. Here are the primary characteristics of a high quality website:

A high level of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (EAT)

Websites that are considered by Google to be high quality need sufficient expertise on a particular topic to be authoritative and trustworthy. According to Google, the standard for expertise depends on the topic of a particular page. Each page must have a purpose and then that purpose must be fulfilled with expert content — words, videos, etc.

A satisfying amount of high quality main content

The quality of the main content is one of the most important ranking criteria. For law firm websites, your content must be accurate, factual, clearly written and comprehensive. If the topic of the page is broad, the content is expected to have a lot of information on that topic. If the topic is narrow, the content may not be as lengthy. Both can still rank as high quality content. Navigation also plays a role here in helping users find the information they are searching for quickly and easily.

Satisfying information about who is responsible for the website

In order for users to feel they can trust the site, including information about the site’s owners is important. This means not only having your law firm address, maps, email and phone information displayed on the site, but also attorney bios and testimonials that would predispose a user to trust your site.

Positive website reputation

Reputation is also considered an important part of the EAT equation. Titling pages in a way that entices a user to click on them and then not having content that matches what those users are searching for is considered misleading and would get a poor reputation rating from Google. Other reputation factors are inclusion of an About Us page, ease of contact, positive consumer reviews and up-to-date content.