Internet Marketing For Law Firms

Writing content for your blog is only part of the process nowadays. Marketing your blog content is another phase altogether. You could have the best content on the web, but if the visibility of your blog remains low, then all the quality in the world is for naught.

There are ways to strategize your blog for success. Every time you publish a blog post, the intent is to bring your message to the masses. That is done partly with the help of social media and the sharing of your content. But there are other ways that you can step to the forefront and make sure your content is seen by a vast number of readers.

Posting Frequency

Not only are general readers part of your target audience, but so are your fellow bloggers. Linking other sites in your blog posts is a good way to increase page views. Other bloggers have that thought in mind as well. If you can produce content worth linking, there is a chance other blogs can help boost your number of visitors.

This can be done by enlisting the aid of bloggers who do not even know you. So how does it happen? Let’s say you publish a blog post on a certain subject and someone retweets it. Another blogger, who has never even heard of you, sees that retweet. But that blogger also sees two other tweets about similar topics from more familiar writers. That blogger will be more likely to link a content from one of those familiar writers instead of you.

The trick is to become a familiar writer.

There is no deep-rooted secret on how to do that. It is rather simple. Keep posting with a high frequency level. Sooner or later, other bloggers will start to recognize your posts and become familiar with you. Eventually, they will start to read your posts and that’s when they will begin to link your posts. It all comes with consistency. If you can create a presence, your name will start to become very familiar. High frequency posting is the key.

Social Media

Social media can be a blogger’s best friend. Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn can all prove very valuable. Not only is posting and tweeting your own content valuable, but so is tweeting and posting the content of others. By developing online relationships with fellow bloggers, you will be able to increase your presence. That may take time, perhaps 30 minutes a day. But be patient because those relationships will not happen overnight. They too come with consistency.

Optimize for searches

The term SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has become popularized in recent years. Keywords are an important part of generating hits as is the title of your headline. You want a title that has a high chance of getting frequently clicked and shared. That has a direct effect on its search engine results ranking. It is recommended to keep headlines under 65 characters to keep from getting them shortened in search engine results. Search engines also identify the keywords in a page’s URL. If you have the capacity to edit your URL’s structure, it would go a long way in enhancing your SEO benefits.

Appropriate Tagging

Tagging words in your blog posts can provide results when done in moderation. Many people do not realize that tags on their own do not lead to improved SEO ratings. When one content piece relates to another, that is when an SEO ranking is boosted. Prioritize your tags so they are not overused. Too many tags can be construed as duplicate content and result in your blog being penalized.

If you need lawyer writers familiar with SEO, we recommend LegalContentWriters.com. They are very affordable and can save you time and produce numerous quality leads for your law firm.

Google has just rolled out its latest search engine algorithm named Panda 4.0.

Is your law firm ready?

This latest search engine algorithm is not much of a surprise to our expert law firm internet marketing experts as quality content has always been the cornerstone of a successful search marketing campaign. Panda 4.0 is designed to clean up Google’s search results by removing or depressing the rankings of websites that present low quality content.

Some experts consider this update to lay the foundation of future algorithm updates.  Panda 4.0 is considered a major update and most experts agree that this algorithm actually changes how Google’s search engine identifies quality content and site value. In other words, you must watch your grammar and provide authoritative content. Content for content’s sake is out. You must be a real thought leader in your geographical and practice area(s).

So you should immediately stop buying your $5 articles for Fivrr.com and turn to quality legal copywriters. The cost for a quality piece of content is about $60-80 per 600 word article. Right now we are recommending at least 600 words per page.

We predict Google will eventually weed out articles that offer less than 500 words per page. This has already begun with Panda 4.0 as low content rich websites such as Ask.com, Ebay, YellowPages.com  and related websites and directories are losing as much as 50% of their traffic from Google.

Not sure where to turn for content such as blog articles or web copy?  

A great source for “attorney written” web copy is LegalContentWriters.com. Their website ranks #1 out of 2.2 BILLION pages for the phrase “Legal Content.” Obviously they know what they are doing. Their pricing is reasonable considering they offer the highest quality content available.

For questions or comments, call 1-800-877-2776 for your free consultation with an expert, not a sales rep.

Legal consumers arrive at websites for lawyers because they have entered a specific query into the Google search engine. That’s obvious, right? Well, not to everyone. Queries specific to lawyers’ websites land on a search engine rank page (SERP) that gives those legal consumers a series of clickable choices. And, it’s going to take a lot more than a pretty lawyers website to gain “trustworthy” status for your Internet brand and to raise your Google rankings – and to coax that coveted click from a persuaded legal consumer.

A professional search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for your Internet brand is what it takes to get websites for lawyers noticed in the SERP results:

• Optimized site titles
• Optimized site descriptions
• Optimized legal content
• Optimized blogs
• Optimized images

Once they’ve clicked into your site title, it’s up to your lawyer website design and legal content hold legal consumers there long enough to explore your lawyer’s website and become a prospective client.

Five ways to persuade legal consumers to give your Internet brand serious consideration are:

• Clear understanding. Legal consumers can be persuaded through the use of convincing legal content that has value and is complemented by your lawyer website design. Superlatives, such as “fast,” “easy,” or “best,” should be deleted. Let the legal content convince them that you are trustworthy. A tagline of “Sam Jones provides free consultations” is clearly understood, and is much more compelling than, “Sam Jones is the best attorney ever. Period.”
• Aesthetically pleasing. An old advertising slogan contended: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” The legal content has to be fresh and scannable; your lawyer website design professional yet, approachable. Simplicity persuades legal consumers, and nails that first impression.
• Pecking-order. The layout of websites for lawyers requires a hierarchy. Your Internet brand is the targeted focal point for each webpage on your site; less important legal content descends down the page from there. White space and eliminating clutter makes your Internet brand stand-out. A well-ordered lawyer’s website is persuasive.
• Attention-getter. Graphical appearance, color, and layout work together in grabbing the attention of legal consumers, although legal content is the thing. Well-written, compelling legal content, that is both relevant and scannable, is what legal consumers seek when they query a search engine. Giving legal consumers what they want can be quite persuasive.
• Simplify the focus. Legal content, where each webpage flows from a singular-statement, is simple, thought-provoking, and persuasive. SEO enables legal consumers to locate a lawyer’s website. Persuasive legal content motivates them to take action.

Law Firm Website Designers & SEO Experts

LawFirmInternetMarketing.com takes the industry lead in designing SEO strategy and websites for law firms. We conserve your valuable time with strategies designed to grow your client-base. Our consultants look forward to your call. Free Advice Hotline – Call (800) 877-2776 to speak to an expert, not a sales rep.

Upon arrival at the landing page of a lawyer’s website, legal consumers immediately begin the process of making a snap-judgment – click-through or click-away? The decision-making process spans an estimated 10-20 seconds, perhaps an entire minute if something of value catches-the-eye.

Calculating website visit longevity

A plugin developed by Microsoft Research lends mathematical insight into website visit longevity based-upon the Weibull distribution model, an engineering equation that measures the amount of time it takes for failure to occur or to not occur.

Data from 10,000-user-visits was captured from 205,873-webpages for the analysis, which produced these results:

• One-minute is the average time spent on a webpage.
• One-fourth of most webpage text is actually read.
• The first 10-seconds are crucial to the visitor’s decision to click-through or click-away.
• If a visitor stays beyond 10-seconds, the next 20-seconds could go either way.
• Visitors who remain beyond the 30-seconds may stay an entire two-minutes, leaving more slowly than their 10-30-seconds counterparts.
• Ninety-nine-percent of webpages are unlikely to fail due to longevity of service.
• Bad webpages get the click-away in a matter of seconds.
• Good webpages get the click-through and, perhaps, one or several minutes of visit-time.

The Average Legal Consumer

This analysis is certainly interesting, but how does that apply to legal consumers visiting websites for lawyers? Well, the Microsoft Research data suggests that you’ve got around 10-seconds to connect with legal consumers and prove the value of your Internet brand in order to elongate the amount of time spent on the lawyer’s website.

The SERP (search engine rank page) site scenario below illustrates the real-time scrutiny websites for lawyers undergo in an average legal consumer’s decision-making process. Thoughts running through a legal consumer’s mind who queried “Hannibal MO divorce lawyer,” for example, may go something like this:

• SERP Site #1 Divorce lawyer. Hmmm. Is there something for me to click to get to the divorce page? (Tick-tock, legal consumer didn’t find what she was looking for in that pivotal 20-30 seconds and has already clicked into the next site.)

• SERP Site #2 Oh, yeh. Here’s one. Let’s go with, “How much is my divorce going to cost?” (Scans legal content that clearly lacks scannability.) Think I could have come up with “it depends” on my own. (Moved on to next site after 60-seconds, not realizing that several payment options were discussed on Site #2.)

• SERP Site #3 Cool webpage! (Scanning bold headlines, bullet points, white space, clickable icons and text situated on a background that shouts professional lawyer website design). Okay, filing fees are $300.00 and this lawyer charges a flat rate. That’s good. Let’s see what else he knows. (Clicking through, scanning, reading.) Nice. It is possible to get both alimony and child support. Oh look, “Division of marital property.” (Scanning, reading.) Yep, possession really is nine-tenths of the law. “Parenting plan.” (Scanning, reading.) Not like that won’t be a pain in the behind with my soon-to-be ex. Glad I’ll have my lawyer with me when we’re hammering that out. I’d better write down this number and bookmark the site.

The message, here, is: Make that first 10-seconds count!

Saving you time, increasing website visit longevity

At LawFirmInternetMarketing.com, we can help grow your client-base with our effective law firm website & SEO services. Call for your free consultation with an expert, not a sales representative. Call (800) 877-2776

Periodically, it’s important to evaluate your overall blogging strategy and objectives in order to make sure you’re optimizing its capability as a tool for networking, referrals, and lead generation. Marketing a business as a means of acquiring new clients has changed quite dramatically over the last several years. Many businesses, including small start-ups have had to re-think their approach to creating new opportunities for themselves. A large part of this are the mediums by which we choose to communicate to prospective customers. Instead of relying on cold calls and unsolicited direct email, many businesses are now putting greater emphasis on developing more focused web-based content to attract new clientele.

Online social media, including blogs, have been effective in creating new business opportunities. More and more businesses have implemented this platform in their marketing strategy. Unfortunately, many blogs and other social media outlets are not optimized to generate new business. Whether you’re creating a new blog or operating one already in existence, let’s evaluate and/or “jump start” it to get it on the right track for new business. The following is a list of questions to consider:

• Who is your audience? Knowing your audience will help enable you to get more focused and consistent with your content, making writing easier and more efficient for you.

• What is the purpose of your blog? Although it isn’t necessary, it’s a good idea to create a description statement in your blog’s header. Usually, this is a short phrase or a one-sentence summary of your blog’s purpose.

• What are you reading? Often times, whatever you are reading, will influence or fuel your own writing. With this in mind, if you create a good strategic reading program for yourself, it can provide a clear focus, centered upon your audience’s interest and needs, and more importantly, your blog’s purpose.

• What do you want your audience to do? Having a Call to Action strategically placed on your blog site is a good way to bring attention to your business without seeming too promotional.

• Do you use keywords? It’s important and necessary to choose key words to include throughout your blog to dominate through search (i.e. “law firm new business”).

• Do you use “takeaway statements”? When writing a post, the first sentence should be the statement that a reader remembers–the “takeaway or benefit statement”. It’s pretty simple, just ask yourself “what would be your takeaway or benefit if you commit to reading this post?”

• What is the style of your writing? It’s imperative you remember that online readers have a preference in terms of writing. They look for articles that are concise, easy to review, and objective in nature. Most often, readers are turned off by promotional content and style.

• Are you providing quality over quantity? The type of writing you produce is far more important than the amount. Creating quality articles outweighs the demand for frequency and quantity of posts generated.

• Do you get creative with the formats of your posts? Offering some visual variety to your readers is a great way to keep them interested and engaged with your blog. Using bullets or number lists are a few good ones to consider.

• Are you publishing content consistently? Make sure to publish new blog content on a regular schedule. Being consistent is essential to developing an audience. Generally, the recommended amount is at least 3 to 5 posts a week.

• Is your blog easy to navigate? Nothing is more frustrating to online users than sites that are difficult to navigate. Make sure your posts are easy to find and your blog is simple to navigate.

• Do you provide links to additional resources? It’s always a good idea to provide additional articles of interest at the end of each post. You can link similar content from your blog and other outside sources.

For more information with your blogging needs, call toll free (800) 877-27776. We are available and ready to assist you. Call us today to speak with an expert, and not a sale representative!

While the Internet may not be the proverbial “final frontier,” it has garnered a prominent place in practically every American household over a relatively short couple of decades. If you’re a recent law school grad, chances are you took a course specific to lawyer websites. Seasoned lawyers may have completed a CLE (continuing legal education) course on the topic somewhere along the way – or not. Regardless of how well-versed you may or may not be on the subject of lawyer websites, the fact remains that many prospective clients now consult the web when choosing a lawyer to handle their legal matters. Visibility on the Internet has become crucial to lawyers looking to build — or maintain — a clientele.

More web-based business for you

Law Firm Internet Marketing can help you generate and convert more web-based business for you than any other lawyer-specific web designer on the market:

• User-friendly – Law Firm Internet Marketing designs clutter-free lawyer websites that provide easy to locate menus with links to practice pages, FAQs, attorney profiles, Google location maps, your contact information, and provides a link back to the homepage from each page on your lawyer website. User-friendly also means there is a flow and rhythm throughout your lawyer website that encourages the prospective client to keep reading the content as they navigate your site and to, then, contact your office.
• Branding – Lawyer Success, Inc. understands that your brand is the focal point of lawyer website design.  Your brand is unique and marketable, starting with your good name and extending to what you do. Branding is especially important to lawyers whose reputation, professional ethics, and areas of practice are pivotal their life’s work. Our job is to make your brand highly visible online to increase the number of clients in your office, and enable you to corner the market in your particular specialty or locale.
• SEO (search engine optimization) – Lawyer Success, Inc. maximizes your lawyer website exposure and raises the rank through the use of SEO keywords. Our team provides analysis of search terms relevant to lawyer websites, then optimizes your Google ranking by incorporating these terms within your legal website content. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of visits by prospective clients to your lawyer website and to your office. In other words, we make you easy to find online.
• Social networking – Law Firm Internet Marketing makes your lawyer website and blog site compatible with social networking sites. Social networking is to the Internet, what word-of-mouth is to a small town: free advertising (although paid advertising is available). Google+, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are the most popular social networks, although there are hundreds of others online. You can upload, post, and edit legal content to the social networking accounts linked to your lawyer website via your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, or Android smart phone.

Optimize your online visibility

The Internet’s rapid growth and popularity makes staking your claim on the World Wide Web paramount. Branding your own cyber-turf via a lawyer website is the 21^st-century way of bringing prospective clients to your office doorstep. We have the tools to build your business. Designing lawyer websites that are aesthetically pleasing, yet practical and functional, is what we do. Let Law Firm Internet Marketing help grow your brand. Please call and ask for our No Risk lawyer website design offer – you don’t pay until our design is consistent with your vision!

Law Firm Internet Marketing
a LawyerSuccess, Inc. Brand 

P.O. Box 1926

Brandon, MS 39042

Tel. (800) 877-2776

The role of your landing page is to both echo and amplify the message that drew your potential client to the page in the first place, thus decreasing the likelihood they will bounce off the site, and greatly increasing the chances they will convert. If at all possible, your landing page should include some sort of targeted banner which follows your potential clients around as they click from page to page, taking them back to the landing page whenever they click the banner. Tests have shown that conversion rates go up dramatically when a banner is used—although it may take extra effort, it both enhances the visitor’s overall experience and leave them feeling that they haven’t just been dumped on your law firm’s website then abandoned. Your landing page is where your potential clients will get 85% of the specific services your legal firm offers, meaning that 85% of those visitors will click away if they don’t immediately see something compelling. Your landing page should be warm, welcoming, and above all, honest, and should make them want to know more.

Using a Tagline on Your Landing Page

When a potential client visits your legal website for the first time, the first question they will either consciously or unconsciously be seeking to answer in their mind is “What’s in it for me?” Because of this, it is imperative that your website’s landing page—the very first page seen by visitors—communicates clearly the benefits your legal firm offers. The tricky part is that these benefits must be conveyed in less than ten seconds. One way to accomplish this seemingly-impossible feat is to include a tag-line which succinctly summarizes your firm’s specialties in a very customer-oriented manner. Make sure to place this tagline so it is immediately visible even if your reader chooses not to scroll down. If you are unsure of the best way to craft such an all-important tagline, try using a solution-oriented statement which both emphasizes the value the client will receive from calling your legal firm, and describes your personal promise, using words your reader would use. This tagline is possibly the most important factor in your quest to anchor your landing page and reach the highest conversion rate possible.

Radiate Trust

Following the all-important tagline, the second concern most visitors to your website will have is “Can I trust this legal firm?”  It’s incredibly important that your landing page—as well as subsequent pages—give your readers a strong sense of credibility and quality. Many companies don’t bother placing their firm’s name, contact details and landline phone number as a footer on each and every page. This is crucial in reassuring your readers that your law firm is entirely legitimate. Despite the fact that we exist in a high-technology world, visitors who see a real address and a real landline phone number will find it very comforting. Include a link to your contact page, and on that page include your e-mail address, phone numbers, both cell and landline, and a physical address. (This is in addition to the footer on each page. You don’t ever want your potential clients to have to play hide-and-seek with your well-hidden contact information—they will find it incredibly annoying and will probably move on to another site). Include a link to your “About Us” page which includes background and information about your firm, the attorneys who practice, your specialties and your mission. Staff photos are great for adding a touch of humanity to your legal website, so incorporate them whenever possible. If you have client testimonials, display them prominently as this is a great trust-builder.

Converted visitors come back. Converted visitors trust you, and communicate this trust to others—they talk freely about their experiences with your law firm, share on social sites and drive more traffic to your site. Converted visitors share your links freely, and most importantly, converted visitors become faithful clients. In the overall picture, happy, converted clients are much more important than simply more traffic.

Call Law Firm Internet Marketing at (800) 877-2776 for a free expert analysis of your lead generation strategy or for answers to your marketing questions.

Think of social SEO as a way to effectively level the playing field, particularly if you are relatively new to using a legal website as a way to reach your potential clients and present your firm to the world. Other firms who may have been wading through website SEO for years likely have the market cornered on all the best keywords. While this would once have been a daunting fact, using social SEO truly makes it much less so. Google has long realized that humans are the only trustworthy beings who can endorse relevant and useful links. Thus, Google Social Search came about.

Think about it: a glowing, personal endorsement from someone we know outranks a thousand endorsements from total strangers. The same goes for sharing links. A casual user-shared link carries much less weight than a blogging link by a well-known and well-respected legal authority. Google Social Search allows a site to climb quickly up the ranks simply because someone in your circle shared the link. In the same way, suppose a tweet regarding your law firm received a huge influx of retweets: this could conceivably be as important to your site as a link from a top-ranking site.

How, you may wonder, do you connect on a social platform with the top “influencers” in the legal arena? First, identify just who those influencers are, then find them online. Initiate a discussion with them via a social media avenue. Comment constructively on their particular content or share a personal perspective on a post they have written. Let these influencers know that you have something valuable to add and they are much more likely to freely share your content. Prior to posting a particular posting, ask for an opinion from a chosen influencer. Don’t forget your manners; thank them for their time and share the URL. Even better, include the influencer in the body of your content. Quote them or use their statistics. Let them know you are using this content and allow them first look before you post.

Although the rumor that SEO is dead, the truth is, it is far from dead, but it has changed significantly from a decade ago when buying links, submitting to directories and implementing on-page optimization were the sum total of SEO. The social era has brought us social SEO which dictates you must incorporate social media into the “big picture” of your website’s strategy. You will engage your audience through your site, then share that content effectively and freely through the social network system.  Hopefully social media is already an integral part of your business strategy, but if not, we can help. One phone call to (800) 877-2776 will connect you with an expert in law firm Internet marketing who will give you a no-strings-attached, free consultation.

It is believed that as many as 1.3 billion people across the globe use e-mail and some 90 trillion e-mails are sent annually. Unfortunately a large percentage of those e-mails are spam or viruses although many of us now use e-mail in lieu of traditional letter or to communicate business meetings or communications.  E-mail marketing can help you keep your prospective clients coming back. When your law firm consistently uses professional e-mail communications as a means of staying in regular touch with clients and prospective clients you naturally build strong, trusting relationships. When you use e-mail marketing techniques you are sending a message and your goal should be to send the right message to the right target at the precisely right time with a goal of persuading the recipient to take some sort of action.

Only Send E-mails to Those Who Have Given Permission

Before we discuss e-mail marketing further, you should never, ever send any sort of soliciting e-mail to anyone who has not given you their express permission to do so. Only those who have opted to receive e-mail communications from your law firm should receive those communications or you risk alienating those who did not opt in. We all know how annoying it is to find the inbox filled up with unwanted messages. In order to create a successful e-mail marketing campaign you must first ask yourself what your prospective clients would find to be of value, then develop your subsequent communications around the answer to that question.

The Many Benefits of the E-Newsletter

E-mail communications such as e-newsletters are both quick and relatively inexpensive to create, so you can send them much more often than the older print newsletters. In order to increase the impact of your newsletters, create smaller client lists based on the individual interests. This allows you to send much more targeted messages to each client or prospective client an ups the likelihood that they will actually respond or act on your e-mail. Should you make your e-newsletters informative and unique, there is a good chance that your recipients will take the time to forward the newsletter to another person who may in turn forward it yet again. You will want to ensure that your website and blog URLs appear consistently on any e-mail communications you send out so that prospective clients can easily find your sites.

Why You Should Consider E-Mail Marketing

The responses you receive from e-mail and e-newsletters tend to be much more immediate than the responses from other, older forms of communications.  If you have set your e-mail settings correctly you will be able to see who actually opened the e-mails, who forwarded them and who clicked on included links. This gives you a true wealth of information you cannot readily obtain from other sources and allows you to tailor further communications even more precisely.  If you are considering e-mail marketing speak with one of our experts in law firm Internet marketing who will give you a no-strings-attached, free consultation.