Do you have the best marketing strategy for your law firm?
Perhaps the best existing marketing strategy for law firms is one that is most obvious and extremely easy to understand. However, it seems to be overlooked by many attorneys and legal firms.
Like any business, individuality is the most important aspect for any law firm to have. Some people may feel that is stating the obvious, but this notion is often ignored.
Most firms discuss their areas of practice, their experience and their successes regarding case settlements and verdicts. What about what sets them apart from the thousands of other lawyers out there with the same credentials?
Most personal injury and accident lawyers state in their website that they will get clients the compensation they need and deserve, but doesn’t every personal injury attorney do that? Isn’t that their purpose?
Divorce lawyers say that they’ll help clients with child custody matters and spousal support, but what makes them different than other family law attorneys?
To establish a well-marketed firm, it is important for lawyers to recognize the need to advertise their uniqueness and what makes them better than the rest. It’s important not to fall within the traditional legal wording expressed on most law firm websites and get your name out there and all over the web for more unique reasons.
For example, these creative ideas can set your law firm apart from others:
- A divorce law firm which offers community resources for the emotional and financial needs of children of separating couples
- Personal injury lawyers who offer to meet with the client in their home or hospital
- Real estate attorneys willing to close property transactions on a Saturday
- Lawyers who have late hours so clients do not have to lose work time
- The use of inventive technology in criminal law cases
Any press is good press. Conversation monitoring tools such as Social Mention (www.socialmention.com) are useful tools to help lawyers track how often they are mentioned – in whatever context – on the web. After all, all publicity and online mentions are good.
How can you make your office unique? We’d like to hear!
Google’s Latest Toy – Can it help a real estate lawyer?
There was an article on an internet marketing website reporting that Google is planning to display panoramic and 3-dimensional real estate ads for customers searching Google Maps for properties. Can this tool help the legal industry? Yes, it can and here’s how. If this concept becomes a popular reality, then advertisers and businesses involved in property management, commercial properties, or residential properties, may also be displayed in the same manner. Coupons, hours of operation, etc. may eventually be displayed in pull-down menus.
What can that do for your business? It can make you more visible in a popular modality, and make your sellers’ properties more visible also. Selling a home in any region in this market needs advanced marketing techniques.
You can read more about the Google’s to the US Patent Office by reviewing their application.
Common Legal Marketing Mistakes – Part II
6. Don’t assume your clients know about all of the legal services your firm offers. Oftentimes if prospective clients are unsure what services a firm offers, they reach out to other lawyers who outline their services more clearly. That’s an easy and avoidable way to lose business. Make sure your website outlines in detail all of your firm’s areas of practice and all legal services that you offer.
7. Don’t assume potential clients and your current clients will contact you if they have questions. People sometimes hesitate to call, especially if you haven’t developed any sort of relationship with them. In an effort to get more business, take it upon yourself to reach out to your clients and any prospective clients who may need your services.
8. Don’t use vocabulary that the average person wouldn’t understand. It’s important that clients can depend on visiting your website and get most – if not all – of their questions answered. If there are terms and legal phrases that are confusing to the average person dispersed throughout your site, clients are going to want to find a lawyer who outlines their legal services and practices using layman’s terms.
9. Don’t leave your picture off your site. It may seem like a simple thing, but having your face on your website could make the world of a difference. When a new client visits your website to see what services you offer, they get a chance to see your face and see you on a more personal level. It will give them a closer look into who you are before even speaking with you. If you look personable and inviting, chances are you’ll be contacted.
10. Don’t assume everyone understands your busy schedule. Everyone knows attorneys have hectic schedules. One major complaint among clients is that their lawyer doesn’t return any phone calls or emails and they are hard to reach. Use that notion to your advantage. Get back to your clients in a timely manner. It will increase your credibility more than you realize.
On-page SEO Best Practices
Too many people jump into SEO without truly understanding the very basic principles behind a sound website as it relates to search engine spiders/bots. While off page optimization and link building campaigns are certainly an indispensable asset to your overall SEO campaign, on-page optimization needs to be at the forefront of more minds.
What do I mean by on-page optimization? No I am not merely referring to meta keywords and keyword density (these being whole separate articles in their own right), rather I am referring to site architecture, clean source code, and proper internal linking.
Site architecture is often overlooked due to a website owner’s desire to have all pages reside in the root directory of his/her site (www.domain.com/pagename.html). A more appropriate, and search engine friendly, site architecture should contain multiple levels of paths (www.domain.com/category/pagename.html). Think of it as an outline of information and how that information needs to flow in order to make sense.
Clean source code must be one of my biggest pet peeves. While there are overabundances of source code disasters, here are some best practices to adhere to:
- External file use of CSS and javascript code.
- Properly structured title, description and header tags.
- Include target keywords contextually where it makes sense to do so.
- Internal link pages to allow spiders to better crawl and enhance the flow of link equity.
- Use strong, emphasize, and bulleted/ordered list tags (a great example is found on this Alabama social security disability attorney website).
- Cardinal rule: cater first to your visitors, and search engines second (proper on-page SEO yield these as one in the same).
While there are many elements to take into consideration when optimizing your website, the points listed above are the tip of the iceberg. I might also add that one must be sure their site is not utilizing the noindex tag by accident! Learn more about the noindex tag.
Common Legal Marketing Mistakes
Many attorneys tend to make a number of marketing mistakes and it’s important for all law firms to try to be aware of them and avoid.
1. Don’t focus marketing only on current clients and not potential new ones. A lawyer’s existing clients are of course important, but referrals and new clients are equally or more important.
2. Try not to push any marketing effort to the side when you get too busy. Attorneys are always busy – that’s a fact – but it’s no reason for them to abandon any marketing effort to boost their firm’s reputation and get more clients.
3. Don’t ignore social media. As all social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are becoming more and more popular and a part of almost every business’s marketing strategy, it’s important law firms take advantage of such tools as well.
4. Don’t have an unplanned unorganized marketing plan. As far as successful marketing goes, it’s always important for every type of business to develop a strategic and carefully thought out marketing plan. The more time and effort put into a marketing plan, the better chances of gaining more clients and making your firm more well-known.
5. Make sure your marketing strategy is focused on your firm’s uniqueness and what sets you apart from the rest of the attorneys out there. Stay away from the typical legal jargon posted all over lawyers’ websites and get clients to want to know more about your practice.
To be continued.