I’m not a big fan of the search engine optimizers. I’m sure there are some good SEOs out there. They’re just hard to find among the piles of spammy e-mails and endless voicemails sent out by others in the industry.

My approach has been to avoid using these firms and to simply add good content to our law firm website. Our approach has consistently grown our traffic. We hit a new traffic record nearly every month.

Finding a good SEO is like finding a needle in a haystack. Here’s what I’d suggest you do instead of spending your time trying to find the one of the few ethical, honest, excellent search engine optimizers for law firms.

Get to work doing these 11 things:

1. Ask your audience.

Find out what they want to know. Figure out their most frequently asked questions in client meetings. Look at the e-mails they send you. Figure out what they don’t know that they desperately need to know.

2. Write the answers.

Craft interesting, lengthy articles providing your audience with the information they need. Use the language they use. Answer the questions they ask. Make your site the go-to resource for information about your topic.

3. Get help.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help writing articles. Use your associates, partners, and contract lawyers. Come up with the assignments and pass them out. Use a professional to edit the contributions you receive and turn them into high-quality work product.

4. Tell stories.

Make sure your articles are interesting. Tell pertinent stories from your life or the lives of your clients. Apply the law to the facts in understandable, digestible form so your points are easy to absorb.

5. Clean up.

Go back and revise the existing content on your site. Look for subpar content and upgrade it, expand it, and make it more accessible to your audience. Don’t think “finished.” Think “work in progress.” Everything can be improved.

6. Organize.

Look at your site like a new visitor looks at your site. Make sure the important information is easy to find. Get rid of or hide material that wastes space. Think about the problem from the visitor’s perspective, and do everything in your power to make finding the solution quick and easy.

7. Get feedback.

Ask clients and prospective clients to help you improve the site. Ask them what worked for them and what didn’t. Push them on which articles answered their questions and which articles left them confused. Use the feedback to do more revision.

8. Improve the search.

Make sure you have a built-in search tool for your site (mine is on every page of this site). The search bar should be front and center so visitors spot it immediately. Do some test searches and make sure the right information comes up first. If you’re not getting good results when searching articles on your site, then ditch your search tool and find something new. Search is likely to be the most used feature of your site. Make sure it works.

9. Use the search tool for discovery.

Most website search tools allow you to check on what your visitors are searching and how often they get zero results. Use that data to expand and tweak your content. If they’re searching and finding nothing, then create what they need. If they’re using the wrong words to search, then edit your content so it has the words they need to find it.

10. Build tools.

Make sure your site has tools and calculators for your visitors. Figure out what they need and build it. If others are already providing pertinent calculators and tools, then build something better. Tools bring visitors if they provide a valuable service.

11. Never stop.

The website is never finished. It needs constant updating and revision. Don’t get into the cycle of building a new site every three years and letting it sit, unchanged, between the revisions. Work on the site daily. It’s always “under construction.” It’s always growing and expanding its role of helping visitors. Keep going; don’t stop.

Take action and follow this plan, and you’ll have more traffic than you can manage. Build it, and they will come.