In Morgantown’s competitive personal injury market, online visibility is crucial for attracting clients. This SEO audit provides The Miley Legal Group with a proven roadmap to increase its online presence, attract more clients, and win more cases.
Tim Miley, the owner, has built a strong reputation in personal injury law. Now, he’s focused on expanding that success online through a strategic digital marketing approach—one that enhances his firm’s visibility without pulling him away from practicing law.
This audit addresses those concerns, providing actionable strategies that can be easily implemented to achieve success in digital marketing for personal injury. While The Miley Legal Group‘s primary office in Clarksburg has been successful, they recognize the immense growth potential in Morgantown, a regional hub driven by its university system and hospitals.
Morgantown offers a unique opportunity to tap into a more dynamic market, with a mix of college students and professionals. While competition from other law firms is intensifying, especially in Morgantown, it’s clear that this area holds the key to future expansion.
When it comes to improving visibility, especially with all the tourism, hospital growth, and solid local relationships, a few factors can make a big difference.
SEO Breakdown for The Miley Legal Group
Let’s start by looking at the base data—essentially, can search engines find you? A lot of people refer to this as “listings” or NAP (name, address, and phone number).
If your NAP isn’t consistent across directories, it becomes harder for Google to match. Luckily, this is an easy fix. You can manually claim these listings and update them, or you can use a service like Yext for about $10-20/month, and that keeps your data current.
The Miley Legal Group already ranks for over 8,000 valuable terms, demonstrating its strong foundation in SEO. By refining a few key elements, they can further solidify their leadership in Morgantown’s competitive legal market.
Many of the terms are high-value ones, like “medical malpractice settlement calculator.” They are getting good traffic with minimal spending.
The Miley Legal Group is missing some SERP features that could help it rank better. For instance, videos are a simple way to boost your visibility and get featured snippets. I suggest they create short videos answering questions like “How does this calculator work for wrongful death?” This would increase their chances of getting rich snippets.
Looking at their Google My Business (GMB) and analytics, we can see the actions people take—calls, website visits, and directions. This can be tracked through Google Analytics and tools like Infusionsoft or Salesforce.
If they have set up Google Tag Manager and have all their tracking pixels in place, it’ll help improve the rankings. This data ties everything together and boosts their visibility.
Tim wants to increase their review velocity. Having more reviews than the competitors is great, but he needs fresh reviews regularly to see an impact on local rankings.
I noticed some inconsistencies in how Google displays The Miley Legal Group‘s name in search results, sometimes using a capital “I” in “Miley.” This is likely due to automated processes within Google’s algorithms, possibly related to metadata.
Refining title tags with targeted keywords can enhance search rankings and attract more relevant leads. While initially focusing on brand recognition with titles like ‘Miley Legal Group’ and ‘West Virginia Personal Injury Attorneys’ is understandable, restructuring them to prioritize relevant keywords, such as ‘West Virginia Personal Injury Lawyers: Miley Legal Group,’ can further improve rankings as their authority grows.
Remember, in SEO, the closer a keyword is to the title tag or the higher it appears on the page, the more weight it carries with Google. This signals the page’s core topic and influences its ranking potential.
We also need to consider how we distribute “link juice” across the site. Blog pages are excellent for generating content quickly and passing authority to other pages. Creating multiple city pages or organizing content by location or event can further enhance the site’s structure and improve SEO. There are numerous ways to strategically organize and interlink content to maximize its impact.
With over 10,500 backlinks, Miley Legal Group has established a strong digital presence. Focusing on high-authority backlinks will further strengthen their SEO strategy and ensure long-term ranking success.
For example, there’s a link from cashautosalvage.com, which ranks on 358 keywords, but it’s only bringing in a small amount of traffic—maybe just a few clicks out of 1,200 monthly visits.
I also noticed some good links, like from Cornell, which is a solid directory. But then, some other links raise red flags. There are blogspot links that look auto-generated, or come from low-authority sources. It’s possible that Miley Legal Group hired a third party who bought these links, but they may not have known exactly what they were getting into.
Here’s the thing: while having a lot of links might seem like a good strategy, quality matters more than quantity.
Some of the links Miley Legal Group has, especially from auto-generated blog posts, may not last. With Google’s latest Helpful Content Update, low-quality links and content like this are more likely to get penalized. Google is getting smarter about recognizing content that’s just trying to game the system.
I know Miley Legal Group’s SEO team might argue that even low-authority links can help with rankings, but I’m not convinced that strategy will hold up in the long run. These links are not created by humans, and that’s a problem. It’s like a red flag for Google.
I’d suggest Miley Legal Group focus on building higher-quality backlinks to outweigh these weaker ones. That’s the best move to improve their SEO and avoid any future penalties.
Many lawyers worry about low-quality backlinks harming their SEO. Disavowing bad links isn’t a long-term solution; the real issue lies in producing quality content.
If you’re working with an SEO agency, ask them directly about their link-building strategy. Frame it innocently: “I noticed we have low-quality links—are these helping or hurting us, especially with Google’s Helpful Content Update?” This will reveal if they’re knowledgeable and honest.
Often, agencies create or buy links upfront, and then stop doing meaningful work while charging monthly fees. Ask your agency:
- How many links will disappear if you leave them?
- Are any links rented or paid for?
Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Majestic to verify link quality and creation dates. Many agencies rely on clients not knowing about these tools. Transparency matters—choose partners who provide clarity on their work and allow you to audit results anytime.
The key to sustainable SEO and social media success lies in creating genuine content that answers real questions. By addressing topics people are actively searching for, such as “How are pain and suffering calculated?”, The Miley Legal Group can provide valuable information about their accident injury clients while showcasing their human side.
This approach resonates with younger audiences who value authenticity and relatability over stiff, scripted content. While answering legal questions on platforms like TikTok might seem unconventional, it’s a highly effective way to connect with this demographic.
The focus should be on providing genuine, helpful information in an approachable manner. This strategy aligns with how people consume content today, emphasizing authentic engagement over shortcuts and outdated tactics.
To enhance The Miley Legal Group’s online presence, I recommend a strategic approach to press release distribution.
To maximize the impact of press releases, I recommend transforming them into articles and distributing them across legitimate platforms, including high-authority media sites and Google News syndicated sites. This strategy, while more costly than relying on low-quality sites, generates valuable SEO signals and expands content reach.
I’ve found that even a simple press release can be repurposed and shared across various platforms, including social media, further amplifying its impact. To streamline this process, I utilize a team of virtual assistants (VAs) who handle everything from content creation to distribution.
This approach emphasizes quality over quantity, leveraging reputable media outlets to build authority and enhance online visibility. It also showcases the versatility of press releases, which can be used to share valuable knowledge, offer legal advice, or even convey seasonal greetings, as long as they are written in an objective, journalistic style.
Tim only needs to focus on creating content, and he can delegate that to his attorneys. The other steps—setting up ads and managing SEO—shouldn’t fall on their plate. However, I want him to have enough knowledge to understand the process. If he doesn’t, it will be hard to audit the work of agencies he hires for SEO or ads.
Websites and traditional content are losing relevance as social media videos and landing pages dominate. Younger generations trust social platforms like TikTok for recommendations and searches, spending more time there than on Google.
A recent study showed that people under 30 search on TikTok more than on Google. This shift reflects how habits evolve—social media natives rely on platforms for discovery and decision-making.
Personal Injury firms need to adjust by engaging with people where they already spend their time—TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. Consumers don’t care about credentials or accolades; they connect with authenticity. Decisions are based on relatability, trust, and social proof, often formed before reaching search engines.
Recommendations
- Strengthen the main domain’s authority to benefit both the Clarksburg and Morgantown locations.
- Create Morgantown-specific content, including neighborhood or city pages, to improve local SEO.
- Develop content that works across multiple platforms, including Google, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter.
- Use “Google stacking” judiciously – incorporating elements like Google Maps, YouTube videos, and Blogspot posts – to avoid appearing manipulative.
- Embed YouTube videos within website articles to boost SEO.
- Distribute videos through the press release system for increased visibility.
- Record one-minute videos monthly to create engaging content.
- Create video content, especially on high-ranking pages, to further enhance SEO.
- Dominate local search results, including Local Service Ads (LSAs), the “three-pack” map results, People Also Ask (PAA) sections, and video/image results.
- Run dollar-a-day ads to target specific areas like Morgantown.
- Empower VAs to handle marketing tasks, freeing up lawyers to focus on practicing law.
By focusing on creating high-quality, informative content, optimizing their website for relevant keywords, and building a strong backlink profile, The Miley Legal Group can establish itself as a leader in the local personal injury market.
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