Online Marketing for Law Firms and Attorneys
We Get Attorneys More Clients & Cases
We are remarkably accomplished at designing continuous lead generation marketing campaigns for attorneys and law firms. We have more than a decade of experience working with law firms of different sizes ranging from solo practitioners to small and medium-sized law practices with two or more partners. We’ve worked with big national names you would recognize like Jacoby and Meyers and with regional players whose names you may not know but whose services are just as stellar to their clients.
When we say we do “lawyer marketing online” to attract new clients and help grow law firm case volume and overall billings and revenues, it’s an all-encompassing description of our brand awareness and positioning services which include:
- Designing and programming a website in WordPress
- Writing blog content, infographics and social media updates
- Optimizing a website with SEO to achieve top search engine rankings
- Advertising specific keyword phrases on Google Adwords and Bing Ads
- Listing your law firm on legal Yellow Page type website directories
- Getting exposure on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+ and even Twitter
- Reputation management to own the first page of Google for a lawyer’s name or firm name
Responsible legal marketing starts by asking two fundamental questions which help us to gain a more intimate understanding of how clients and other attorneys can benefit from working with your law firm:
- What are your practice areas?
- Which are the geographic areas where you provide your legal services?
The Basics of Online Marketing
This is about much more than just getting your law firm’s website in front of the people who need your legal services. A professionally designed website and the practical and compelling content in your headlines and web pages both have to convey the idea that your law firm is both a “trusted authority” and the best solution for a specific individual’s or company’s legal issues.
You have to convince someone that may not know of you or your law firm name, that your firm is credible, dependable and extremely successful and can represent them better than other attorneys that are also getting their brand name positioned on numerous web channels.
Having a great website experience for visitors is also just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to promoting your law practice online. You also need to get in front of the right potential clients and other referral sources and find out where these traffic opportunities exist online. A business development agency that truly delivers on its promise to do “attorney marketing online” is one that deploys a research-based, multi-channel marketing strategy for your firm.
3 Best Web Traffic Channels
- High search engine rankings on Google and Bing which position your firm ahead of other firms in the search results that appear in response to queries that have been typed into a search engine.
- Ads on search engines that target specifically typed in keyword phrases. We have a lot of articles in our blog about how we manage PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns that help you spend less per click and still get higher positioning than your peers.
- Social media websites like Facebook where you can engage people who can like, share, retweet and follow your brand. We can drive people to these social channels with PPC ads and with content marketing efforts where we create engaging content and distribute it directly to your fans and to influencers who share it with their own audiences.
Is Digital Marketing Different for Attorneys?
Promoting a website for a lawyer or attorney is vastly different than digital marketing for retail stores and other types of product oriented businesses. The main reason is that offering a legal service that is based on labor and human capital is fundamentally different than selling something tangible like a bar of soap or a television. If a customer doesn’t like an item, it’s fairly simple to find a competing product at the supermarket, Walgreens or BestBuy. With a legal service though there is much more at stake than just looking for a product at a discount. The client is looking for a person (or a team) that is known to be trusted to be reliable and to get the job done – and at a predictable cost.
The reason that Internet marketing is so powerful for lawyers is that most people don’t actually know lawyers, let alone lawyers who are specialists. These same people who might know the lawyer from their church or kid’s school, will often go online to Google and simply type in a search to find another lawyer in their city who specializes in the particular area of law that they feel they need.
Digital Marketing Plan Components?
When we write up an online marketing plan for a legal practice, we have to take into account much more than the practice areas the firm offers or the types of legal services it can be provide to prospective and existing clients. We have to consider that people looking for lawyers may not know the precise terms to use when asking their friends for a referral or using a search engine. We also have to look at the different digital mechanisms which we can use to communicate the firm’s value propositions with prospective clients.
Law firms, like most services businesses, have to do a lot more than buy full page ads in yellow page directories or lawyer directories.
To successfully promote your law practice online, you may need all these items:
- Fast, compelling and friendly looking website
- Company Blog to share timely and resourceful information
- Facebook page for a more personal connection
- Instagram profile for a more visual connection
- YouTube channel for videos
- Email newsletter to stay in touch periodically
And you’ll need a professional copywriter to write all the web copy for these different communication channels.
To succeed in today’s jump to Google for answers economy, lawyers have to take a multi-channel approach to promote a law practice online.
You also have to invest in the kind of messaging and brand appeal that sets your firm apart from other attorneys that offer similar legal services.
The content of your website often addresses two different audiences.
- The first and more obvious audience is the current or prospective client.
- The second audience though is not a client but can often be a referral source (like another attorney who wants to learn more about your firm).
Your communication strategy should ensure that you connect
with both intended audiences.
Is There a Formula to Branding my Website?
What are the top design features to include in a new or redesigned lawyer website?
- The site should be user-friendly and easy to navigate
- Use fonts, colors and graphics to match the law firm’s “branding”
- Have a floating navigation menu as people scroll down each page
- Optimize the website for search engine rankings for relevant keywords
- Build the site in WordPress (because it’s the industry standard)
- Protect the website from spammers and hackers
- Display a full profile page for each partner
- Integrate links to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter
- Enable the law firm to manage adding it’s own content and branding messages
- Write separate pages for each practice area and legal service
- Ask clients for testimonials to post on the site and on Yelp
- Offer case studies to demonstrate industry experiences
How Should I Optimize My WordPress Site?
- Include a reason on every page for a visitor to connect with you
- Store all leads online in a database in case emails get corrupted
- Display a map to the office and include street address for Local SEO
- Subscription signup to enable you to send out a newsletter via email
- Social media to connect your site to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
- Registration for access to private client area
- Website traffic monitoring software to provide daily reports of visitors
- Backup the server locally and externally daily, weekly and monthly for heightened security
What Technology & Services Do I Need?
- Expertise in the WordPress Content Management System (CMS)
- Experience creating professionally designed website that adheres to industry standards
- Ability to create custom graphics and banners for different sections of your site
- Professional copywriter to help create web page content
- Search Engine Optimization for Google and Bing rankings
- Customer support to answer your questions about how to use the website
- Training videos to guide you through managing your website
No website is complete without clients. Building a website is not a Field of Dreams fantasy where if you build it they will come. It requires a serious push effort to not only drive people to the site but then reach out to them with a continuous marketing strategy that builds brand confidence and trust. Our design and integration team works closely with your sales and marketing staff to help you drive visitors to your site and convert the web traffic into new leads and finally into customers.
How Can I Attract More Clients & Rankings?
Make sure you have these features:
- Search engine friendly web pages with permalinks (keyword rich URLs)
- News section to post law firm and industry news
- Request a case review form with a privacy message
- Signup form to receive a newsletter to be sent via email
Make sure you have fresh and relevant content:
- Manage a social media marketing calendar with ongoing updates
- Write blogs at least twice a month
- Publish topically themed articles of at least 2,000 words
- Photo galleries of lawyers that can be picked up by search engines
- Videos of lawyers talking about their practice area expertise
Sample our Portfolio of Clients
National Reach
- www.JacobyandMeyers.com
- www.LawGarcia.com
- www.SlackDavis.com
- www.ASTCfoundation.org
- www.DecisionAnalysisinc.com
- www.JSMCo.com
- www.PDMcpas.com
- www.BraunLawGroup.com
- www.ECSsaves.com
- www.DevoreRecruiting.com
- www.OakwoodDNO.com
Regional Reach
- www.AlpertBarr.com
- www.Quantinal.com
- www.KrupinPartners.com
- www.EtehadLawFirm.com
Local Reach
- www.JDGilmour.com
- www.PlayaVistaIns.com
