By now every business owner has heard “You should be blogging” at least a few times. Lawyers are no different.
A blog can greatly improve your organic search visibility and increase your visitor count dramatically.
But what should you blog about? How often should you post? How do you get people to read your content?
That’s why we’re here!
We’re going to break down a few important tips for your legal blog:
You will frequently hear this common advice, “post to your blog as much as possible, 4-5 times per week if you can.”
While it’s true that you should post fresh content often, you don’t want to post just to post. Every article on your blog should have a specific purpose.
Posting one high-quality article per week is more effective than writing 5, 200-word posts that don’t say much of anything.
So, is it important to have new content posted to your blog on a regular basis? Yes.
Do you need to make sure you’re adding a new post daily? NO!
Focus on curating content that people want to read. Answer potential client’s questions in your post – avoid regurgitating headlines that are tangentially related to your practice.
Why is quality more important than quantity?
The reality is this – Google and other search engines are striving to give people the best content for their searches. By providing great content that answers potential client’s questions – you are meeting this measure.
Like the point made in the last section – you don’t blog just to blog. Adding article after article of content that doesn’t serve an inherent purpose is a waste of your time.
You will see this frequently on legal blogs. Countless articles cover car wrecks in the area, discussing topics that are better suited for other blogs, or press articles about the firm and its attorneys.
I hate to be the one to break this to you – but a person looking for legal assistance doesn’t care about self-driving cars, the latest accident in the city, or the firm softball game.
Then what purpose should my blog serve?
Answer questions. Provide relevant information that you know potential clients will need. Understand your audience.
But how do you know what your potential clients are looking for?
First – use your own experience. What kinds of questions do you hear most often? What typically makes someone seek your firm’s services?
Next – turn to keyword research to ensure you’re targeting the right topics.
There are numerous tools that provide copious amounts of information regarding keywords and phrases. Unfortunately, most of them require a paid subscription to be useful. You do have options, though.
With no SEO experience, identifying the best terms to use can seem like a daunting task. But it isn’t as difficult as it seems to come up with a few solid topics.
Start by thinking of questions people ask on your own. For example, suppose you’re a personal injury lawyer. You frequently hear people ask, “how much will my car accident settlement be?”
Using a free tool, Ubersuggest, you can learn about the search volume of the phrase in question and get suggestions for phrases that work better.
You will also see phrases that may work well as a separate post!
Take a look:
Here we searched “car accident settlement.” The number below the keyword are the metrics you’re interested in:
In addition, Ubersuggest highlights other options:
As you can see, the tool gives several options that could be viable post themselves – and this is only a small sample of the provided list.
Note: For your blog, you should be focusing on informational keywords. Phrases like “Miami personal injury lawyer” should be saved for landing pages. The keywords can be used in your blog content, but should always be linked back to the practice area page.
Localization
It’s typically a good idea to localize your blog posts. When you’re writing on a broad informational topic, your post can appear in the top of search results nationwide. This means if you have a great post on “hiring a criminal defense lawyer for DUI,” it could show up in a city or state that you don’t practice in. This traffic isn’t what you want. Localizing to a state or city, for example, “hiring a criminal defense lawyer for DUI in Houston,” can help bring you the correct traffic.
You want your content to rank well on Google and other search engines. The best way to do that? Check the competition and see what you’re up against.
Of course, you never want to copy existing content. Your articles should be original and stand on their own. However, there is nothing wrong with observing what a competitor does and doing it better.
Let’s look at an example – the search results for “Do I Need a Lawyer for DUI?” display a featured snippet from Avvo:
Not only do I want to rank highly for this search – I also want to get that feature. More people will click on it, leading to more traffic to my site.
The result featured is an article from Avvo. The content isn’t bad, but it could be better. First of all, there are no images. By adding an image with an alt tag that contains your focus keyword, you give your article a better chance of ranking. The content could also be improved and laid out better. Don’t be afraid to use features like lists and charts to give your article more authority and a better appearance.
In content marketing circles, this is commonly known as the Skyscraper Technique.
Most of your traffic should come from organic searches. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share your content wherever possible. The more reach – the better.
Additionally, sharing your content can lead to much-valued backlinks. These can raise the authority of your piece, giving you even more search clout, and in turn, more visitors.
So, where you should you share your article:
Essentially, you need to get the word out there about your posts. The more people you can get talking about it and sharing it, the better.
If you aren’t already using Google Analytics to track your website data, you need to be. You can see how many people have visited an individual page (or post) and evaluate what content is doing well and what should be improved.
Another immensely valuable tool for evaluating content is Google Search Console. Here’s a handy video for setting it up if you haven’t already:
Search Console is valuable because it tells you what people are searching for when they see your content. Even better, it tells you when you got a click vs. when it was simply an impression (someone saw your link in results). You can use this information to optimize for essential keywords.
Codedesign.org has a great guide on this process.
It’s important to remember that posting your content is merely the first step. You need to promote, monitor, and adjust based on the results you’re getting (or not getting).
Every-time a client calls you get a new opportunity to generate new clients through blogging. How? Write down the questions that your existing clients and new prospects ask you. If they’re asking you this question they may have already looked online and couldn’t find the answer.
This represents an opportunity for you to fill the void. Create a piece of content (written, audio, video, etc.) and answer the question better than anyone else. This leads me to my next point. Be the best.
When you’re forced to write you might feel like you’re making progress by quickly answering a question and hitting publish on your blog. But this may not be enough. See, Google is looking to reward the sites with the best answer in the search results. But more importantly, this represents an opportunity for you to get in front of your ideal clients and showcase your expertise.
So before you hit publish on that latest blog post make sure to ask yourself if the article meets your standards. Then do some Googling yourself. Do other people who already rank have better content than you? If so, go back to the drawing board and enhance it until you’re the best.
Thankfully adding images and video to your blog in 2021 is an easy task. If you need help creating images simply go to Canva.com and create something in a couple of minutes. If you want to include a video you can download the apps Soapbox or Loom. This will allow you to create a video explanation and easily include it in your blog.
Before you start writing, it’s important to understand who you are writing for. This will help you tailor your content to their needs and interests.
As an attorney, it’s important to maintain a level of professionalism in your writing. Avoid using slang or overly casual language, and be sure to proofread your work for spelling and grammar errors.
A good title can help draw readers in and encourage them to read your blog post. Make sure your title accurately reflects the content of your post and is attention-grabbing.
Subheadings help break up your content and make it easier for readers to scan and understand. Use them to highlight key points and help guide readers through your post.
Adding visual elements to your blog post can make it more engaging and easier for readers to understand. Just be sure to use high-quality images and videos that are relevant to your content.
While it’s important to provide detailed and accurate information in your blog post, it’s also important to keep it concise. Aim for around 500-750 words per post.
Bullet points are a great way to present information in a clear and concise manner. Use them to highlight key points or steps in a process.
At the end of your blog post, include a call to action, such as inviting readers to leave a comment or encouraging them to sign up for your email list.
Use keywords in your post to help it rank higher in search engine results. This will help more people find your blog post when searching for relevant topics.
Once your blog post is published, be sure to promote it through your social media channels and email list. This will help drive traffic to your blog and increase the reach of your content.
A blog is a critical tool for your website and your overall presence online. These are just a few tips that should help you get started or get re-oriented on your blogging journey.
Focus on creating helpful content that will establish you as an authority in your area of law. Aim to provide high-quality, useful information to anyone visiting the site, regardless if they’ll end up becoming a client.
Don’t worry about getting a new post up every day – create content that people want or need to read.
And if you need help with your content, that’s what we’re here for. Reach out today. We’re happy to help with a variety of digital marketing services for lawyers.
Implementing a marketing strategy is a phenomenal way for a law firm to attract new clients. This concept is especially true given that 48.6% of people use online research to learn about their legal issues before ever hiring a lawyer.
But online marketing can be overwhelming with multiple decisions about SEO, PPC ads, social media profiles, long-form blogging, and more.
In this guide, you will find all of the critical knowledge you need not only to start designing a marketing plan but also to analyze and optimize your plan. We will also give you helpful definitions of the most important marketing terms for law firms, the benefits of marketing, and key strategies that will help guide you through the process.
With this guide, you will learn how to lay the foundation for effective law firm marketing, how to grow your online presence, and how to adapt your strategies for sustained success over the long term.
Marketing can be confusing if you are not familiar with the unique terminology of the industry. Luckily, it isn’t necessary to know every marketing term before developing a marketing plan.
Review this short list of helpful terms so that you can begin to understand what is required to market a law firm.
A marketing lead is a potential customer that has likely engaged with your firm or “brand” in some way that suggests they may want to use your services in the future. You might find leads through visits to your website, comments or messages on social media, or even via phone calls and face-to-face interactions.
Search engine optimization usually referred to as SEO, is the process of optimizing rankings on search engines like Google and Bing. SEO for law firms involves utilizing keyword research and other technical strategies to place the firm’s website higher on a search engine results page (SERP). A higher ranking increases the number of visitors to the site.
A Call to action (CTA) is a phrase you use to request the reader (i.e., the potential client) to perform a task. For example, on a law firm’s website, common CTAs might include asking readers to subscribe to a monthly newsletter or to complete a “Contact Us” form.
Return on investment (ROI) is a marketing/business metric for determining whether a marketing plan (or even a single action) will yield enough value to be worth the initial investment.
A Pay per click ad, or PPC ad, is a shorthand for an online advertisement that users click on to go to your site. When a law firm utilizes PPC ads, they pay a small fee every time a consumer clicks on their ads on a third-party website.
One of the most effective marketing actions a law firm can use is optimized Google Ads for lawyers.
A conversion rate is another kind of online marketing metric. A conversion rate measures how many users perform a specific action, such as clicking on a particular link or completing a form.
A landing page is a stand-alone webpage that usually includes a powerful call to action as part of a firm’s marketing strategy. The landing page is the first page that visitors use to “enter” a firm’s website. You should design the landing page(s) to funnel users to other pages on the site.
There is a long list of benefits that a law firm can enjoy when it implements an intelligent marketing strategy that grows its online presence and introduces potential new clients to the firm. Here are three of the most significant benefits of a competent law firm’s marketing strategy.
Online presence and search engine rankings are the new tools with which any modern organization should build its clientele list.
A robust digital footprint will make you easy to find, and your customer base will begin to grow. And once your existing customers provide referrals to others, your business will grow faster and faster.
Content creation builds trusting relationships. People doing legal research online already have a serious issue they need to solve, and your law firm has the knowledge and experience to help them.
When an online search leads to your content, users will begin to develop trust in your law firm, which leads to beneficial business relationships that last for years and years.
Selling a law firm through Inbound marketing creates a unique brand identity and voice that lets potential customers know what the firm can do for them. Once a law firm establishes a brand identity, creating a consistent presentation across multiple ads and platforms is easy. A consistent identity also makes it easy to scale your marketing and adapt to future changes.
Building a marketing plan for a law firm is about developing strategies and best practices that grow the business over the long term. The process is often iterative, requiring frequent analysis and adjustments. But, if you start off on the right foot, a brilliant marketing strategy will be easy to adjust and maintain.
The S.M.A.R.T. acronym stands for:
Using the S.M.A.R.T method, you can create goals for your law firm marketing plan. Using this method, you will have actionable objectives on a specific schedule. Your S.M.A.R.T. will act as the roadmap for the rest of your marketing strategy design, and you can continue to use them on an ongoing basis.
Examples of beneficial S.M.A.R.T. goals include:
The S.M.A.R.T. methodology is highly adaptable, and you can work almost any goal into a S.M.A.R.T goal. The important thing is to be specific and realistic, ensure you can measure your performance, and assign an end date to the goals.
It might seem like the best idea is to try to reach as large an audience as possible with your law firm marketing. Still, the reality is that intelligent advertisers know that focusing their efforts on the demographics with the highest potential is the right way to do things.
What groups you target with your marketing is something that your firm will need to decide for itself.
To find the right audience, study your previous and current clientele to see trends you can leverage. Other valuable sources of information for this step can include industry contacts, other lawyers, independent online research, paid marketing consultants, and referral sources.
Once you know what demographics you want to reach, you will have a better idea of what types of marketing will be worth investing in. Understanding your audience can also guide what kind of content you develop, such as emails, blog topics, and video scripts for social media posts.
Requiring a marketing budget might seem obvious, but many firms make the mistake of not creating one. Your marketing plan will depend on how you want to market your firm and how much those methods cost. It’s essential to define specific goals and investments.
How much you can afford to spend on marketing will depend on your firm’s overall revenue and how large of a cash flow you have available for advertising. It would be best if you also considered other factors, including your firm’s current position in the market.
Is the law firm a start-up, or is it well-established? Do you have a committed clientele, or are you going to need to focus heavily on finding new clients? What is the local market like regarding your competition? Are you the only lawyer practicing your particular kind of law in the area, or is the market saturated?
Questions like these will influence how much marketing your firm requires and present additional potential costs you need to consider.
And once you have a budget established for marketing your law firm, you must ensure you stick to it. Exceeding your marketing budget might help pull in a few extra clients, but if your expenses exceed your revenue, you will be worse off despite all your efforts.
Despite the growing popularity of smartphone apps and social media platforms, a website is still essential for a law firm. A website is often where the first and most impactful impression potential new clients will have of your firm is formed.
Designing a law firm website can be a complex task, but thankfully it’s a project you can break down into smaller, more easily achievable steps.
Your domain name is one of the most important things about your website. As such, it should be easy to remember and represent your law firm’s name clearly and cleanly. Once you have a name in mind, you must register the domain with a registrar with a chosen top-level domain like .com or .org.
Your website must be hosted by a web host in order to be published online. Hosting providers offer different services and pricing, so research a few before selecting the best fit for your law firm. Popular choices include WordPress and GoDaddy.
Assuming you use a hosting service like WordPress, you can select a template or theme for your site. These templates are pre-coded websites that reduce the effort of building a website by already using predetermined fonts, colors, and layouts.
Of course, you will have to provide the information specific to your law firm, and you can always customize the template to fit the firm’s brand and voice better.
There’s a web design term called an XML sitemap, but that is not what we are discussing here. Instead, we refer to a conceptual sitemap (similar to a flowchart). This type of sitemap outlines the basic pages and flow of the website.
Creating a sitemap gives you a checklist for building your site and ensures you don’t miss anything important.
A sitemap might include pages like:
Website copy is all the written content on your websites, including header, subheaders, body text, links, CTA, etc.
There isn’t any single way to create website copy, but the words must serve your goals. Serving your goals means that the text needs to be clear, communicate the law firm’s intended message, and entice users to remain on the site or perform whatever action you want.
We suggest you keep the copy personable but professional. It’s also better to be concise; a straight-to-the-point sentence is better than a wordy paragraph. Also, pay extra attention to how you include keywords, as this will strongly impact the site’s SEO.
With everything else completed, it’s finally time to build the actual web pages. This process will be slightly different depending on what platform you are using.
WordPress can be easy or complex depending on your chosen theme, while hosts such as Wix and Squarespace market that it takes only minutes to build websites with their services.
The final step is to publish the law firm’s website so it will appear on search engines and be viewable to the public.
Once your firm has a published website, you can begin to enact the rest of your marketing plan, including creating ads, linking your social media accounts, and developing content for the site.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical if you want potential new clients to find your law firm’s website online through search engines. Utilize the best SEO practices for law firms to ensure your firm isn’t missing out on potential customers.
With intelligent SEO techniques, a law firm can pull its site up the search engine rankings, which is essential since SEO studies have found that the number one spot on a Google search page gets almost 34% of all the organic traffic. In comparison, any place lower than eleven gets less than 1%.
Many components contribute to SEO. This list is not comprehensive, but here are a few SEO techniques that will yield fantastic results:
SEO can be a full-time job on its own, which is why many marketing law firms hire a professional SEO service. If your firm is limited in speed and expertise, consider consulting with a world-class SEO service.
Social media is one of the most effective means of reaching potential new clients who may otherwise never come in contact with your law firm. Even better, many social media platforms are free to use.
With sites like Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and more, a law firm can spread a wide net. Each site allows a firm to cross-link profiles, share content, develop unique content for each platform, and of course, link back to the firm’s home website.
All of the most popular social media platforms function differently. Some are entirely free, while others have options for premium paid profiles with great benefits. It’s also worth your time to research the different platforms to learn what demographics they attract and how the platforms’ audience might overlap with the demographics of the clients you want to find.
Speaking of utilizing other websites and forms of social media to attract new clients, every law firm should take advantage of sites that may already have a profile of your business that you can claim and then refine for free.
Sites such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, Avvo, and your local state’s chapter of the ABA are all places clients visit when they need to find an attorney. Don’t lose out on a free opportunity to drive traffic to your law firm’s website by not having a well-developed profile on each of these third-party sites.
According to statistics in a recent National Law Review article, 72% of consumers trust online reviews, and 90% of consumers make their buying decisions based on what those reviews say.
A law firm might be able to weather a few less-than-stellar client reviews, but too many bad reviews will quickly have a detrimental impact on finding new clients.
It would be best if you standardized the practice of asking your clients to provide a review of your firm’s service performance after every case. This idea is doubly true if you know a client is happy with the turnout of their case, as you don’t want to lose out on any positive remarks about your firm.
Additionally, you might think it would be worthwhile to address negative reviews online. However, the ABA recommends you avoid this practice as it potentially violates their guidance on ethics and professional responsibility.
Content marketing refers to using the written word to build a brand and attract new customers. Content marketing can include any written word that is published online, but the most popular form of content marketing is blogging.
You can use a blog on your law firm’s website to demonstrate your skill, knowledge, and legal experience to potential clients. A blog gives would-be clients a chance to build a connection with you as they grow familiar with your firm’s brand and voice.
You can decide for yourself how simple or complex your legal blog is, but regardless of how you want to run your blog, it’s a good idea to utilize an effective legal blogging strategy to ensure you’re maximizing the benefits of the blog.
Reaching out directly to new clients isn’t the only way to market yourself or your law firm. Building a network of firms, attorneys, and other legal professionals is a phenomenal way to develop your brand.
Organize meetings with other attorneys or firms and discuss what benefits you might gain from sharing the work of marketing. Designing a conversion strategy that takes advantage of a vast network of attorneys can lead to more referrals between firms.
This is especially effective if you develop a network of firms and lawyers practicing a wider variety of specializations. It’s a simple way to improve your marketing with minimal time or money investments.
Even the best marketing strategy needs to be analyzed and potentially adjusted from time to time. It’s vital to analyze and adapt if you are slowly building your marketing strategy through an iterative process over weeks, months, or years.
To analyze the effectiveness of your marketing strategy, collect whatever data you can, including search engine analytics, ad conversion rates, changes in your clientele, year-end revenue for the firm, etc. It’s also good to analyze marketing costs, including PPC ads, domain hosting fees, and more.
It is also essential to receive feedback from old and new clients alike. Learn how clients find you so that you can determine what marketing practices yield the best ROI for the law firm.
Here is a short list of some of the most critical times to reassess your firm’s marketing strategy:
Utilizing the 11 actionable steps outlined in our step-by-step guide will get any size law firm to a place where they are seeing increased online traffic and better returns on their marketing.
However, it is essential not to get overly focused on the details to the exclusion of foundational strategies that hold true regardless of how you are marketing the law firm.
Here are four critical strategies that a law firm can use to inform all of its decisions as it designs an effective marketing plan.
Modern consumers have a certain expectation of near-constant and almost instantaneous feedback. For any business, including law firms, every action it performs must have a customer-centric approach.
Innovative marketing and high-quality content play a huge role in how customers interact with a law firm. Rather than focusing on facts and figures such as success rates, prices, or other quantitative data, present your firm and attorneys as legal experts who understand what potential clients are dealing with.
Build relationships and trust first and demonstrate that the firm is there for its customers at every step of the process.
This guiding principle can inform many parts of your marketing strategy, from the wording used in ads to the UX design of the law firm’s website. Using a customer-centric approach, a firm will retain more customers and attract more potential clients.
Marketing can be a full-time job. With online ads, social media posting, email campaigns, blogging, and many more advertising efforts proven to be effective, many law firms chose to hire an experienced marketing agency to handle their advertising.
However, if your law firm chooses to handle its own marketing, you will need to select a few marketing strategies on which to focus your time and energy.
Here are a few suggestions on how to focus your firm’s resources:
Every law firm’s situation will be unique, but the important thing is to design a marketing strategy that is consistent, manageable, and adds value to your law firm’s brand.
As we’ve mentioned, marketing can be a full-time job and doing it yourself can be limiting. Suppose you think your marketing goals are outside of your scope of abilities. In that case, hiring law firm marketing consultants specializing in attracting potential new clients can be a fantastic idea.
Suppose you aren’t looking for full-service digital marketing firms law-based. In that case, there are still plenty of specialists, such as SEO experts, web designers, content writers, and social media managers, that can help you develop the best marketing possible.
We live in the age of the algorithm, and just as law is about facts and reasoning, so is digital marketing. Utilizing data analytics can help lawyers optimize their marketing by targeting specific demographics and monitoring their existing marketing’s effectiveness.
Data analytics lets you track your web pages, social media responses, keyword rankings, and more.
A law firm can also use data analysis to study the legal industry or even a specific area of law to find out what potential clients are responding to.
Your firm can also use data analytics to learn more from internal data, such as billing and time investments. You might even find patterns within your existing client base that can provide insights valuable for finding new clients.
The best kind of law firm marketing plan is one that exists. Try starting with a simple marketing strategy that utilizes only a few easily implemented actions that can be reliably monitored and scaled as your experience level improves.
For even more guidance, leave a comment below or get a quote from us for a customized digital marketing plan to meet your marketing goals.
If you were looking for an attorney on Avvo, chances are you saw both reviews and a score of the attorney on their website.
If you’re wondering if the Avvo Score is reliable in terms of finding a quality attorney my answer to that would be no. Avvo uses a proprietary scoring system based on factors such as reviews, endorsements from other lawyers, and case results to figure out a score between 1 – 10.
Lawyers with low scores under 6 typically have some sort of disciplinary action. This is, of course, a red flag and something you should explore further before hiring that attorney.
However, outside of this, the score is not very valuable because it can be easily manipulated. So when it comes to hiring an attorney, don’t trust the Avvo Score.
But Avvo.com also offer client reviews. While attorneys are regulated in terms of false advertising, the reviews you read were probably left by their happy clients. Avvo reviews can be useful because they should be from actual clients, but they don’t tell you the whole picture.
Before hiring a lawyer based on their Avvo Reviews alone, I would encourage you to Google their name and add “reviews” at the end to see what other reviews on 3rd party websites as well as their law firm website come up for them. If you see them included in directories such as Superlawyers with good reviews that can be a good first step. One thing to consider is that like other review websites, Avvo can be manipulated and Avvo is used frequently in attorney SEO strategies.
Avvo is a website that gives people information about lawyers and lets people leave ratings and reviews of lawyers they have worked with. These ratings and reviews are called Avvo reviews. Avvo is meant to help people make good decisions when they are choosing a lawyer. The website also has legal forms and information about different legal topics.
If you’re an attorney wondering about your own score, you still need to focus on Avvo score.
The fact is, that potential clients can see your review or score publicly when doing research and may use that information when deciding on whether or not to hire an attorney. It really doesn’t matter if other attorneys think Avvo scores are not worth the ink they’re printed on.
Some attorneys need to have a bit of a paradigm shift and worry more about whether clients believe they should trust them as opposed to other attorneys trusting them.
The reality is though that consumers do trust these reviews or at the very least look at them. How do I know this? A quick search on Quora found questions like “Is Avvo a reliable source to determine if a lawyer is good?” where people are questioning the legitimacy of the reviews.
If consumers are asking these questions, then they’re viewing attorney profiles and reviews.
While this answer should just be a clean-cut one it’s not. If you are looking for consumer reviews on attorneys, Avvo should be a good place to start. The issue, however, is that it can’t be the end all be all.
The fact is that even though attorneys are held to ethical standards does not mean that their marketing companies are taking that to heart. It also doesn’t mean that there is not an unethical attorney out there trying to manipulate this information.
Whenever you’re making a decision on hiring an attorney you absolutely need to do your due diligence. The reality is that if someone had a bad experience with an attorney you should be able to find it. While AVVO might be a decent place to start you will also want to Google the attorney name and the law firm name with the word “reviews” following the name. This should come up with a variety of results from across the web where you can learn about their past history.
If the attorney was a sleaze-ball you should be able to find the complaints with little effort. On the other hand, if it’s hard to find a negative review or they are few and far between, it may be a good choice to hire them. Alternatively, you may want to think twice about attorneys that don’t have any rating as they may be new. One good thing about Avvo.com and Lawyers.com is that they indicate the year they were admitted to the state BAR so it should be easy to find as well.
It is generally a good idea to consider reviews and ratings when making any decision, including when choosing an attorney. However, it is important to keep in mind that reviews can be subjective and may not always reflect the experiences of others. Additionally, it is possible that some reviews may be fake or written by people with an agenda. It is always a good idea to do your own research and to consider multiple sources when making a decision. It is also a good idea to talk to the attorney and ask about their experience and qualifications before making a final decision.
Attorneys need to come back to earth and look at this problem from a different angle. If you’re an attorney or work for one you should not be concerned about whether or not the reviews are trustworthy. You need to be concerned about reputation management. If someone legitimately leaves a review about you or your law firm they have feedback they want you to see.
If its great feedback you should keep up the good work and take any criticisms as ways you can improve your practice. On the other hand, if it’s a negative review you should focus your primary efforts on making that client happy if possible, playing damage control, and learning from the mistakes made. You can then help refine your processes and improve your firm from this feedback.
It probably goes without saying that if you’re not tracking call sources you’re missing out on very valuable data including which sources are converting leads into your BEST customers. In this article we will cover some call tracking options along with our experience.
But first, let’s start off with some options.
There are several call tracking software options that may be suitable for law firms. Here are a few examples:
It is important to carefully evaluate the features and pricing of different call tracking software options to determine which one is the best fit for your law firm.
CallRail is a very effective call tracking software with a lot of powerful tools that allows law firms to track calls and determine the caller source.
At Juris Digital we have been using CallRail for several years with a lot of success. Although we originally signed up just to track clients phone calls we have found so many more uses for the well-designed cloud-based software.
Whether you’re starting a new firm and need a new phone number, or you already have an existing phone number you can use this software to figure out exactly where each and every call is coming from. This is essential for ensuring you can track the ROI of your marketing efforts.
After having worked with so many law firms over the years I’m well aware of the issue pertaining to call tracking and getting your staff to adopt a platform which will allow you to prove the return on investment from marketing efforts.
Not only does CallRail tell you the source of the campaign, you can easily create tracking numbers (more on this later, but be careful), and also track the status of the call on whether it’s a lead or not.
Configuration options for using CallRail vary greatly. For us, we like to start by porting our customers’ numbers into CallRail.
This allows us to view the time of the call, the caller ID, the source, and even record the call if the firm prefers. If we create specific marketing or PPC campaigns we can use CallRail to easily create a new tracking number which is specific to that online or offline marketing campaign.
If our clients have multiple offices or want to use a new office we can use a CallRail number to start a new local listing. This is a great scenario for us as we can prove the effectiveness of all of our online marketing efforts.
The goal of this, of course, is to provide a reliable way to track calls and give them proper attribution so our clients know where to spend their marketing dollars.
Planning how you want to use this powerful software is important. Here are some ways you can do it:
Using CallRail at your law firm is a pretty simple process. The most important thing is that after your numbers are ported over to the service is that your receptionist always has this open on their computer. Every call that comes in will be recorded like in the sample below:
You’ll notice that they provide a lot of information. The fields are defined below:
Clicking on any of the calls themselves will also provide you with a ton of useful marketing data as you can see in the example provided below:
From this view, you can easily see if they’re a return caller and in this case, above we use dynamic number tracking so we can see which page they visited that prompted them to call, the device they were on, and the operating system.
If you take a close look at this data and determine that you’re mostly seeing calls from one type of device you might identify usability issues on another device.
Getting the callers landing page conversion point is also super useful to make data-driven decisions on what’s working for your firm.
The procedure for using this simple and intuitive software for your firm is pretty basic for the front desk people. Basically, you need to do the following:
The first step to being successful with this is to start collecting data. Making marketing decisions based off of how you feel about it vs. cold hard numbers is not a wise choice.
Do this for at least 30 days and then start looking at the data for trends. Here are some questions you should be able to answer after the first 30 day period:
Tracking this over a period of 6 months of a year is so valuable. CallRail is a very simple solution to figure out your firm’s cost per case at a low cost with little involvement.
This tracking should also be combined with Google Analytics goal tracking, contact form submissions, and live chat’s to help you get a full picture of your entire marketing campaigns.
At Juris Digital we insist on aligning with our clients on their goals before we commit to a project.
When a client tells us that their primary goal is to “beat their competition” or “rank higher than my competitors”, we typically end the conversation right there (and we’ve regretted it when we haven’t). Why? Because beating your competition is an awful goal.
“If you’re the kind of person who needs an enemy to be productive, don’t choose another company as your competition. Your customer’s pain is the enemy. If you can’t latch on to that, odds are, neither can your customer.” – Alex Hillman (The Tiny MBA)
A generally accepted way to set effective goals is to use the SMART method, according to which goals should be:
“Beating my competition” is precisely zero of these things.
What do you mean by “beat”? Do you want to make more profit than they do? Do you want to have happier clients than they do? Do you want to earn more of the capturable market than them?
We’ve found that when a client wants to beat their competition, they often don’t have any objective definition for what that means. In the absence of a specific definition, what the client wants is to see their website above their competitor’s website any time they search keywords that they are convinced matter to their business.
Which leads right into…
Law firms are privately held businesses, which means you almost certainly have no reliable data about how your competition actually performs compared to you.
“But I have rank tracking reports!”
“Unless you specifically sell industry analysis, you are almost certainly wasting time paying attention to what other businesses (who are not your customers) are doing.” Alex Hillman, The Tiny MBA
When we’ve had these competitor-infatuated clients in the past, they tend to latch on to a few keywords and then proceed to track the rankings of those keywords obsessively to see where they rank in relation to their competition, and they feel like they are measuring the progress of their “goal”.
In addition to being a terrible predictor of actual business outcomes, there are major issues with using rank tracking as a way to measure whether you are achieving your business goals, including that it’s a moving target.
Whether you or not you rank higher for specific keywords at a specific point in time, from a specific location, is an entirely unreliable way to determine whether or not you are “beating” your competition. Why? Because keyword rankings don’t tell you anything about bottom-line business outcomes (ie. making money).
Do you know what is measurable? How much money you’ve made over the past 12 months of an SEO investment compared to how much money you made prior to making the SEO investment? The amount of money your business makes over a given time period is highly measurable.
If you can’t ever actually know whether you are beating your competition (you can’t), then you can’t ever achieve it (except in your own mind). Beating your competition is not an attainable goal because it’s impossible to know when you’ve achieved it.
The overarching goal of any business is to make money. So, if your goal is to make $1M dollars next year, congratulations, you have a relevant goal! It also happens to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Imagine telling your partners that your 2023 goal is to “beat your competition”. I imagine the first question you’d get is how much “beating the competition” will increase the value of their shares.
Even if it were specific, measurable, attainable, and relevant (it’s not), there is no finish line to “beating your competition”. How will you know when you can cross it off your list and move on to another goal? And when you do, won’t your competition quickly regain the upper hand and soon be “beating” you?
These are smart goals. If you have goals like this, let’s talk.
While the prevalence of fake law firms or lead generation sites in local results has diminished over the years, they still appear regularly.
This has many Local SEO experts annoyed, but also ready to accept the reality.
To help our clients be more successful in Local search, we need to police Google ourselves and make sure to report fake and spammy law firm offices so that they are removed.
You would think with Google’s massive resources that they would be able to get a better handle on the spam problem in Google My Business.
While I fully admit I don’t understand the challenges of creating and enforcing such a system, I can see it’s been an on-going problem for many years now.
Also, in my opinion, it’s not getting any better. In fact, many spam listings are replaced as fast as we can submit them to be removed. But since spam networks usually target many markets at the same time, you can see a lot of strong results by cleaning up your own market.
It’s important to accept that Google is not going to do the work for you. Don’t leave it up to Google. Make spam fighting a part of your process and you will rank higher.
Finding fake law firms to report can be tricky. Some unethical marketers will go to great lengths to hide information about their fake businesses. However, for the most part, you can identify them pretty easily.
While tools can make this process a lot easier, this is a manual way you can use without any tools.
If you type in more specific keywords such as truck or motorcycle accident law firm you will these babies rank all day long.
If two or more of these red flags are met, the listing is probably fake. You can of course always read the reviews as well and see if there are red flags in there. The people creating fake listings used to not have reviews which made them even easier to spot.
After you have identified the listing you should go to their website and see if they seem legit.
But now that you found them what should you do?
While there are different ways to go about reporting a business, marking it as spam, etc., I prefer to use Google My Business Business Redressal Complaint Form found here: https://support.google.com/business/contact/business_redressal_form
This form allows you to easily report these businesses. While they may not get to it promptly (think weeks), they usually get taken care of and eventually go down. When this happens you will see a lot of movement in the SERP’s and your law firm will rise!
Honestly, it sucks that regular algorithm updates reward these and it sucks that you have to do it yourself. However, you really need to do this.
This is in line with my general advice of: “Never just leave it up to Google if you can do something about it” – Casey Meraz
Do you report spam? Do you think Google will get better at tackling the problem and they will disappear in 2023?
Lawyers have to do many things they’d rather not. Researching the best case management software is on that list.
You probably didn’t go to law school because of your love for cloud computing. And you’re probably more interested in getting through your current mountain of case files than you are in deciding how to upload them all online (perhaps for the umpteenth time).
Nevertheless, case management software has emerged as one of the most important parts of modern-day lawyering. We live in a digital world, and that means attorneys have to plug in… and plug in carefully.
Why so carefully? Well, the digital world isn’t foolproof, and mistakes are easy to make.
All the age-old dangers of computing are still here: spilling soda on your desktop, a hard drive that crashes out of nowhere, a laptop that gets swiped from your backseat while you’re shopping in a store, etc.
But there are web-specific client security concerns too: hacking, unauthorized access, viruses, third-party app integration, the weird things that can happen when one of your programs auto-updates to a new version, clumsy fingers from that first-year associate you just hired, and so on.
On top of it all, your state bar has very little tolerance for technical errors. Ethics boards expect attorneys to be experts in seemingly everything, and that includes the very latest in information technology.
So if you choose the wrong case management software and end up losing crucial documents in a case — or, even worse, allow privileged information to fall into the wrong hands — the bar isn’t going to care that back in your day (like, ten years ago) lawyers used these things called filing cabinets.
Many attorneys find themselves trapped between three unfortunate facts:
As an old pop song said, “Why do I have to wear so many things on my head?”
Complicating matters: there are so many options out there.
But, hey, this stuff really is important. You care about your clients and their cases, so digital security is serious stuff, however frustrating it might be.
We’re not going to pretend that picking a case management solution for your law firm will be easy, nor will we suggest a one-size-fits-all solution. Different options exist for different reasons, and the right fit depends on how your firm functions.
We can, however, point you in the right direction. In this article, we’re going to weigh the pros and cons of ten top case management software programs. At the very least, you should be able to narrow your search to only a few options by the end — and in a world as convoluted as case management has become, that’s quite a head start.
…That really is the question. Attorney case management programs are generally divided into two categories: those that are cloud-based and those that aren’t. Right up front, you’ll need to decide which one you prefer.
Using cloud-based case management software means your firm’s files won’t be stored locally (though you can certainly download backups). Instead, they are stored on the service provider’s servers.
We talk to a lot of lawyers who are fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of cloud computing — especially when client security and bar sanctions are both on the line.
That’s entirely understandable. But make sure that your apprehension is rooted in facts rather than emotion. Cloud computing has improved substantially in recent years, and it’s also grown wildly popular — even among lawyers. Current trends indicate that the cloud will become something of a legal practices standard in the future. Resistance might someday be futile.
As far as your ethical duties are concerned, most state bars have given a green light to cloud-based attorney storage and communications. Note, though, that some jurisdictions require a few extra precautions, so we strongly advise giving your bar’s office a call before pulling the trigger.
In many ways, cloud computing might actually be more secure than the alternative. That’s because most top-rated lawyer case management solutions have excellent backup systems in place… probably much more excellent than the USB plug-and-play external hard drive you’d set up for yourself.
Still, no one is telling you that your firm must set up shop on a cloud. If you prefer to do your lawyering at ground level, there are some top-notch options out there for you. We’ll consider both kinds here.
In an article about technology, it might seem redundant to remind you to think about the future. But we’ll say it again. Law practice case management software is a big investment (in terms of time, training, dollars, etc.), so be sure it’s a good fit for the long term.
Here are a few things to look for:
For your consideration: ten programs that might meet your law firm’s needs.
The name is fun. The software itself, though? Well, fun might not quite be the word. Houdini is a solid option for more computer-savvy attorneys, but its interface isn’t the easiest or loveliest on the market. It also doesn’t offer a mobile app or a free cloud trial. But we like it for solo practitioners because, as long as you aren’t using the cloud version, it’s free. (Firms with multiple attorneys will need to pay higher fees and may want to look elsewhere.)
MerusCase might be the perfect attorney file management system. So why’s it only at #9? It was specifically designed for personal injury/worker’s compensation law firms in the state of California. If that’s you, look no further. From interrogatories and subpoenas to medical records and settlement negotiations, MerusCase isn’t just a software program, it’s a best friend. It even integrates directly with many of the official CA court and worker’s comp data systems.
Think of Amicus as a beginner’s platform. You’ll find more robust features in other options, but it’s an easy way to get started with the basics of client management on day one. Be warned, though: it isn’t especially compatible with Google Docs or Apple iDevices. That can be a big problem for lawyers who do a lot of mobile work.
PracticePanther is unique because it offers an unlimited free trial for your first three clients/cases. It also scores well across the board — attorneys have consistently given it a 4-to-5-star score at top user review forums. It’s an easy-entry option that makes sense for firms of any size.
Picking the right case management application can be especially overwhelming for young attorneys, new attorneys, solo practitioners, and smaller boutique firms. CosmoLex scores well among that set. It’s billed as a one-stop-shop… in addition to file management, it also includes powerful calendar, accounting, and email features (including IOLTA accounting, billable hours, and built-in LawPay with no monthly fee).
Prevail earns high marks on many counts, especially experience (the company has more than 24 years in the industry) and short-term ROI. Its interface may not be as slick as some, but it’s consistently reviewed as “easy to use” for every member of the legal office. It also offers QuickBooks integration, unique tools for medical cases, document scanning, settlement calculations, and more.
Here’s a slick interface for you. Zola is pleasant to look at and easy to use. Your staff will have an easy time collaborating thanks to Zola’s streamlined suite of file, storage, accounting, and email capabilities. It’s ideal for small-to-mid-sized firms or solo practitioners.
Strictly cloud-based, RocketMatter is designed with both efficiency and security in mind. It’s popular for its time management tools, which includes a stopwatch for tracking your billable hours, and its integration with virtually any major email, calendar, or accounting software.
If your firm values an overall-competent system that’s easy to adopt (reasonable prices and a gentle learning curve) and offers a solid mobile application option, MyCase could be for you. We’re not sure many lawyers actually do a lot of case management on a mobile app, but if you travel or spend a lot of time in courtrooms, it’s a real benefit. MyCase gets good reviews from attorneys in just about every area of functionality.
Popularity counts for something, right? You’ve probably heard of Clio, and for good reason. A lot of law firms use it, and they use it because it works. It’s as intuitive to use as any highly capable software program can be. The features are endless. The pricing is flexible. The IT support is widely well reviewed. It also happens to be easy on the eyes, which matters when you’re working long, long hours — and who isn’t these days?
CLIO is a cloud-based legal practice management software that helps lawyers and law firms manage their cases, client information, documents, billing, and more. CLIO offers a range of features designed to streamline legal practice management, including contact and case management, document management, time and billing, calendaring, and reporting. CLIO is intended to help lawyers and law firms improve efficiency, reduce errors, and increase profitability. It is available on a subscription basis, with different pricing plans depending on the number of users and the features included. CLIO is used by legal professionals around the world, including solo practitioners, small law firms, and large organizations.
A lawyer’s job is never done, it seems. Mastering the internet side of things could consume all your time if you let it. So don’t let it.
At Juris Digital, we help law firms get big results online — especially when it comes to law firm SEO and getting on the first page in the Google results. We do that for your firm so your lawyers can be lawyers.
The internet is a powerful tool for growth. Just as case management software can revolutionize your in-office efforts, attorney web marketing can revolutionize your bottom line. Contact Juris Digital and find out what we can do for you today.
This guide explains why we always make an intentional effort to increase our client’s Avvo Ratings and generally optimize their presence on Avvo.com.
This guide also contains step-by-step instructions for increasing one’s Avvo rating and details the items that will not increase one’s Avvo rating.
Finally, at the end of the guide we address a few of the most common questions we receive relating to Avvo attorney ratings.
Click the buttons below to jump to the section of the guide that is most relevant to you. Get the info you need, and get back to your day.
Whether you know about it or not, as an attorney, you most likely have a profile on Avvo.com, and consequently, an Avvo Rating.
An Avvo rating is a 1 to 10 score used by Avvo.com – an online directory of lawyers – to rate individual attorneys based on the contents of their Avvo profile. A lawyer whose Avvo profile is fully filled out, and also includes awards, speaking engagements, and recommendations from other attorneys, will have a high Avvo rating.
These ratings are published in Google, Yahoo!, and Bing search results when people search for attorney’s names. The the rating is meant to give insight to consumers who are doing research to find a lawyer.
Here is the range of Avvo ratings and their designation:
Rating | Designation |
---|---|
10.0 – 9.0 | Superb |
8.9 – 8.0 | Excellent |
7.9 – 7.0 | Very Good |
6.9 – 6.0 | Good |
5.9 – 5.0 | Average |
4.9 – 4.0 | Concern |
3.9 – 3.0 | Caution |
2.9 – 2.0 | Strong Caution |
1.9 – 1.0 | Extreme Caution |
Many attorneys we work with have the opinion that Avvo’s ratings are unreliable. They aren’t wrong.
We’ve seen many cases where an attorney with an otherwise stellar professional reputation fails to achieve an above average Avvo Rating simply because she never took the time to claim and complete her Avvo profile.
We find this common anecdote problematic as it demonstrates why we and other attorneys believe that the reliability of Avvo’s attorney ratings is, at best, questionable.
What we do also know is that Avvo received $71.5 million in funding in July 2015, and stated explicitly their goal to “increase Avvo brand awareness through continued marketing initiatives”.
Translation: Avvo’s audience is big and getting bigger.
Avvo.com has very strong organic search rankings in Google for commercial keywords…
…and for branded keywords (attorney names):
Imagine that someone is researching you online, potentially to decide whether to contact or hire you, and the first thing they see is this:
Needless to say, that’s a bad first impression.
We believe that it’s important for attorneys to work toward a high Avvo Rating because it prevents a questionable rating system from making them look bad to a lot of people.
A high Avvo Rating will help you to rank well in the top Avvo results for your city + practice area descriptor, which could result in an increase in contacts from potential customers:
Note: The three results you see at the top of the result page are paid advertisements, similar to a Google search result. Based on our testing of Avvo advertising over the years, we don’t recommend that you pay to advertise your services on Avvo at this time. Also, you will NOT get a rating increase by purchasing Avvo ads.
According to Avvo.com:
The Avvo Rating is calculated using a mathematical algorithm that evaluates the information in your profile. If it’s not in your profile, then we don’t know about it, and if we don’t know about it, then we can’t give you credit for it. Adding relevant information (the more current, the better) to your profile can translate into points toward your rating.
Over the past five years I have helped many attorneys improve their Avvo Rating. Here, I’d like to share my insights into what works, and what doesn’t, for increasing an Avvo Rating.
While there is no guarantee that Avvo won’t change their algorithm in the future, I have never seen an attorney’s Avvo Rating decrease, with the exception of those who have been disciplined by their state bar.
The first step toward increasing your Avvo rating is to sign up and claim your profile. You can start this process by searching for your name here: Avvo.com/for-lawyers/avvo-profile
Next, click on your name and then click “Claim my profile”.
You will then be directed to the Claim page where you can claim ownership of your profile automatically using either LinkedIn, Email, Facebook, or Phone Number.
Although it may take some time, grab a cup of coffee and fill out your profile to 95%. This means adding information for all of the following items:
To get the last 5% you need to add an Avvo Rating Badge to your website. I don’t recommend doing this, and it will not impact your ability to get to a 10.0 rating.
The practice areas that you use will determine what categories your profile shows up in.
Let’s say that you’re a personal injury lawyer: If you indicate that 100% of your work is car accident related, then you will only show up for car accident searches.
I suggest that you diversify this ratio by getting granular. If you’re a personal injury attorney you’ll want to show up in search results for other more specific practice areas like wrongful death, car accidents, truck accidents, etc. Take the time to determine how your case experience breaks down, and reflect that breakdown accurately:
You can increase your Avvo Rating by a full point if you add additional state bar licenses. Even if it was in the past you should add it (assuming you were not disciplined by the state bar). If you were disciplined by another state bar, adding it would dramatically decrease your score.
Listing your professional work experience is not only essential to completing your profile, but it also will help onlookers understand your areas of specialty.
Pro Tip: Add start and end dates. Be sure to add start and end dates wherever Avvo requests them. This will actually add points to your Avvo rating.
This is another area where Avvo’s rating system falls down, in the opinion of many. Without having some sort of award on your profile, you likely won’t reach a perfect Avvo Rating.
However, the credibility of the awards that impact Avvo ratings the most (Super Lawyers, Million Dollar Advocates, etc.) is something that many of our clients question.
Regardless of credibility, legal awards have a significant positive impact on your Avvo Rating, so add ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.
Pro Tip: Add award dates. Avvo awards point value to each award based on a variety of factors, including date. More recent awards will get you more points than older awards. If you don’t add a date to each award, Avvo will assume the oldest possible date, which results in the minimum amount of points you can receive for that entry.
Adding the details of your most impressive case work is really the best thing you can do to help people understand your qualifications. It is also necessary to continue to increase your Avvo Rating.
List any business or legal associations you can claim. Common examples we see are Million Dollar Advocates, State and County Bar Associations, and the Better Business Bureau.
Be sure to include the association name, position name, and the duration.
Have you written a book? Had a piece published in your local bar journal? Blogged on a popular website or provided an opinion piece on your blog or website? These ought to be listed under the Publications section of your profile.
Adding speaking engagements will moderately increase your Avvo Rating.
What I’ve seen is that you’ll get a +0.1 score increase for every speaking engagement, but you will only get it if you include a link to information about the event on the web.
If the organization for which you spoke does not list your speaking engagement on their website, you could create a press release or recap of the event your own website and link to it. However, in some cases this may not be adequate to get the rating increase. Avvo looks for recognized, authority organizations here so your own website may not qualify.
Getting peer endorsements will raise your Avvo Rating.
Peer Endorsements are votes from your peers that act as a vote of confidence in Avvo’s algorithm. Avvo asks two questions about every peer endorsement:
The options for the first question are:
In my experience, Peer Endorsements indicating “Worked together on a matter” and “Opposing counsel on a matter” will increase the Avvo Rating 3x more than any of the other options.
This does cap-out over time. Usually when you get to the 15-20 endorsement range, additional endorsements do not add additional points to your Avvo Rating. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you should stop going after more peer endorsements after 15, just know they won’t impact your score.
Avvo has a massive legal Q & A forum. When logged into your Avvo profile, you can contribute answers to questions categorized in your practice area. While this can help showcase your expertise, it will not help you increase your Avvo Rating.
Tip: If you do answer a legal question that an attorney has already answered adequately, you could compliment the attorney, say you agree, and you may be able to land yourself a Peer Endorsement.
Legal guides are probably the biggest waste of time of Avvo. Not only do they require a lot of work to publish, there are not a lot of opportunities for that content to get seen due to the volume of duplicate topics and content.
If you go through the effort of creating a legal guide it will have more benefit on your own website or another website where it can rank for the search queries and get you more clients. Legal guides also won’t help you increase your Avvo Rating.
Client reviews are helpful for making you look good but they don’t appear to have an impact on Avvo Rating.
The overall Contribution Level that you see when logged into your profile will not impact your Avvo Rating.
Here are a few questions that I get asked the most often about Avvo Ratings, and my answers.
Yes, we have worked with first year attorneys who have achieved a 10.0 score. This was mainly due to the fact they were well recognized and able to max out the awards and the industry recognition fields.
We have heard of reports where those who went from big law firms to smaller law firms see a slight decrease in points. This is typically a -0.1 to -0.2 drop, so it does not appear to be significant.
At this time I recommend optimizing your Avvo profile but I do NOT recommend the investing in Avvo’s ad platform.
No. Paying for Avvo advertising will not increase your Avvo Rating.
We suggest that you spend some time optimizing your Avvo profile so that you can achieve a high Avvo Rating. This is important primarily because Avvo’s audience is large, and getting larger. Follow the steps laid out in this guide, and your Avvo Rating will become one less item to worry about.
While it’s worth spending some time thinking about your law firm’s domain name, it’s even more important to understand that the best domain name in the world can’t overcome a bad website.
Conversely, a great website full of useful content can overcome a so-so domain name.
Choosing a domain name is not a task that any business should take lightly, and law firms are no exception.
As with all things, the right domain name for your law practice will depend on the specifics of your law practice and your marketing goals.
This guide is comprehensive in the sense that we’ve addressed how legal professionals in a variety of situations should go about choosing their domain name. Enjoy!
Any discussion about domain names ought to begin with the Top Level Domain. The top level domain is the extension that appears at the end of all domains names. The most common TLDs are:
A .com is the TLD of choice for most businesses. However, as the web evolves, and with ICANN’s lifting restrictions on hundreds of new TLDs, it’s becoming more common to see businesses look beyond the .com for their domain name.
The root domain is the part of the domain that is unique to your business. It’s what you will spend the most time thinking about when choosing a domain name for your law firm. The root domain is typically composed of words that represent the business in some way.
Some law firms choose to use a branded domain name (eg. cochranfirm.com), while other use words that describe their area of focus (eg. accidentlaw.com).
Typically, the root domain is the aspect of your law firm domain name that will have the greatest impact on your overall marketing and branding efforts.
All domain names are able to have subdomains added to them. Subdomains are a great solution for creating a separate website without having to buy a new domain. An example of a major website that is hosted on a subdomain is ESPN’s website:
The most common subdomain is technically -www. The subdomain is not something that really needs to be considered when choosing your firm’s root domain name.
It’s important to carefully consider the registrar that you purchase your domain name through. Here’s a list of registrars that tend to have solid reputations:
I register my domains names through GoDaddy. Honestly, it’s for no other reason than theirs is the service and interface I am most comfortable and familiar with. That, plus the fact that I like to keep all my domains in a single location for easier management, and GoDaddy happened to be the first place where I registered a domain.
My suggestion is simply to go with a company you are comfortable with.
Assuming that you’re not going after a “premium” domain name (eg. injurylawyers.com) it’s going to cost you $10 to $20 per year to register your domain name with most of the popular registrars.
Now, if you’re looking at purchasing a domain that is already registered, or you’re looking at bidding on a domain that is up for auction, you’re going to face a greater up-front cost.
As we mentioned at the outset, what ends up being the “right” domain name for your legal practice will largely depend on your firm’s specific circumstances.
For solo-attorney law firms, the domain name decision comes down to whether the attorney wants to brand the practice with her name OR with her area of practice OR some combination of both.
In an attempt to simplify things, let’s break down solo attorney domain name options into four types, and examine the strengths and weaknesses of each:
Domain Type | Example | Strengths | Weaknesses |
---|---|---|---|
Exact name match | andrewflusche.com | Name recognition. Anyone who sees your domain will learn your name. Versatility. Since you’re not indicating any particular practice area with your domain, you’re better suited to address a wider variety areas of law with the site. Reputation management. Particularly if you have a name that is somewhat unique, this domain will rank well for your name in search engines. | Ambiguity. If someone has never heard of you, they won’t be able to glean any insight into your profession by seeing your domain name. Lack of keywords. We know that having keywords in a domain name correlates positively with higher rankings for those keywords. Limited Availability. If you have a common name, it’s likely that you won’t be able to secure the exact match version of the .com domain. |
Exact name + industry indicator | andrewfluschelaw.com | Same strengths as exact name match domain plus… Keyword value. Having terms industry indicators “law” and “legal” can help the site rank for keywords containing those terms. Availability. Even if you have a common name, you’ll likely be able to buy a domain with some combination of your name + your industry indicator. | Length. If you already have a long name adding “law” or “law firm” or “legal” might make for a long domain name. Lack of keywords. Although you’ve added an industry indicator term, you won’t gain any keyword value for your more specific practice areas. |
Hybrid name + practice area | fluschetrafficlaw.com | Brand association. This format allows you to associate your name with your area of expertise. Availability. By combining your name with your practice area, you significantly reduce the odds that the domain name is already registered. Keyword value. We know that having keywords in a domain name correlates positively with higher rankings for those keywords. | Length. Combining your name with your practice area could make for a long URL. Reputation management. Since this domain type includes only a portion of your name, it may be more difficult to rank highly in search engines for your name. Memorability. The more complex your domain name becomes, the harder it is to remember. |
Practice area | virginiatrafficlaw.com | Keyword value. We know that having keywords in a domain name correlates positively with higher rankings for those keywords. Relevance. As a user, if I’m looking for information on Virginia traffic laws, I’m confident that virginiatrafficlaw.com will have the information I need. | Cost. A great practice area domain may come at a premium price. Availability. These domains are typically harder to find because of their perceived SEO value. Branding. This type of domain name does not serve to strengthen your brand name, unless of course your brand name is just your practice area. |
In the end, the type of domain name you choose for your solo practice should be guided by your marketing goals, and your long term business plan.
If you never intend to change the type of law you specialize in, a practice area domain may be the right choice. Alternatively, if your goals involve building a firm that practices in a wide variety of areas, a name match domain may be a better choice.
The most common rebranding scenario that we see from law firms is a situation where a partner is added to the firm, thus changing the firm name.
For example, we recently worked with Kemp, Ruge & Green on a web design project. They were in the process of changing their name from “Kemp & Ruge” to “Kemp, Ruge & Green”, which meant we needed to choose a new domain name.
In this case the choice was easy. The client’s domain was kempruge.com, an exact name match domain. Since adding “green” would not make the domain overly long or complex, we made an easy decision; we added “green” on the end and published the site on kemprugegreen.com.
If your firm is in a similar situation, consider the following before making a decision on your domain name:
The Kemp, Ruge, & Green case study actually presents a compelling argument for a more generic domain name. What if partners come and go? Do you really want to change domains every time someone is added or removed?
One way to get around this is to simply commit to leaving your firm’s name the same regardless of the ownership shares. But, this isn’t always a realistic path.
For firms who anticipate changing their official firm name frequently, we suggest using a domain name that does not feature the firm’s name prominently. This way, when the firm’s name changes, you’re simply updating the content on the site; you don’t actually have to change domains.
The most important thing to understand about changing domains during a rebrand is that you must consider SEO during this process.
If you care about organic search as a lead generation source, the decision to switch domains shouldn’t be taken lightly. It also shouldn’t be executed without the guidance of an experienced SEO professional.
I have written before about the efficacy of publishing “hyper-focus” legal websites (ie. websites decided to providing information on an exclusive topic). If you’re considering publishing a hyper-focus website for a specific area of practice, you’ll need to start by choosing a domain name.
Let’s look at the most important considerations for choosing a domain name for your hyper-focus legal website.
Before diving into this, let’s establish the difference between a law firm website and a personal law blog.
Law firm website: A website with information about an operational law firm. Law firm websites are expressly commercial in nature. While individual attorneys from the firm may contribute content to the law firm website, the site represents the firm as a whole, not simply the ideas and views of a single member of the firm.
Personal law blog: A collection of writings by a lawyer, which may or may not be affiliated with any specific “law firm”. A personal law blog can effectively produce new professional opportunities for an attorney, but it is not expressly commercial in nature.
The right domain name for your personal law blog will, as ever, depend on a variety of factors. Some of the most important factors include:
So, you’re interested in the new .Law TLDs? Let’s have a look at the most important things you should understand before making the decision to invest in one.
Just this past July, Google published a blog post on how they will handle new top level domains (TLDs). Essentially the message is, Google does not give one TLD preference over any other.
Google is in the business of returning the best possible search results to their users. They work hard to build a ranking algorithm that is meritocratic. In general, they strive use authentic quality signals that are hard to manipulate (natural backlinks, social shares, user engagement signals, etc.) in order to rank search results. They do not want to reward a website with high rankings just because the organization behind it was able to purchase an expensive domain name; they want to reward true quality.
We know that having keywords in a domain name can help a website rank for those specific keywords. Accordingly, having the .law in your domain name may help your website’s search engine rankings for some keywords. But, if this is the primary reason for your decision to go with a new .law TLD, you’ll likely be disappointed in the results.
Content marketing involves the creation and sharing of digital assets like blog posts, articles, videos, data visuals, and infographics.
Unlike traditional advertising, content marketing assets do not explicitly promote a brand, but rather, are intended to generate interest in that brand’s products or services.
At Juris Digital we are true believers in the power of content marketing, especially evergreen content marketing.
We help our clients become online authorities in their areas of practice, and drive significant organic search traffic from long tail keywords, by developing evergreen content guides on specific legal topics.
Here I’ve documented the process that we execute to create evergreen content guides for our clients. Hope you find it useful!
ev·er·green con·tent
/ˈevərˌɡrēn kənˈtent/
noun
Here are some examples of evergreen legal topics:
And here are some examples of non-evergreen legal topics:
Both content types have their place in a holistic web marketing strategy to be sure. However, only evergreen content has the ability to drive consistent value, both for your potential clients, and your law firm, in perpetuity.
The first step of this process is to choose the subject matter for your guide. This should not be especially complicated. Start by simply asking:
“What kind of new cases are we trying to generate?”
The key to choosing a choosing an effective subject for your guide is to not be too broad, but also not too narrow. You want to be able create a comprehensive guide without investing hundreds of hours of effort.
For instance, if you choose the subject “personal injury” that’s probably going to be too broad since this subject could potentially encompass so many different elements.
Alternatively, you don’t want to be too narrow with your subject matter. For example, if you choose “how to write an insurance demand letter” as your subject, that wouldn’t really allow you to create sub-topics as a part of a comprehensive guide because it’s so specific.
Instead, try to find a good middle ground. In this case the middle ground subject might be:
“A Victim’s Guide to Navigating the Aftermath of an Auto Accident”
Now that we have our subject matter, it’s time to get know our audience. The best way to achieve this is by creating a realistic persona.
At Juris Digital we ask our clients targeted questions in order to gain an understanding of what problems their actual clients face and how they have helped solve those problems with their services.
Here are the questions we ask our clients in order to construct accurate personas:
Getting these questions answered honestly and thoroughly is absolutely essential to creating a final product that will produce the outcomes you’re looking for.
The answers to the questions above will help guide your topical research. It will also help you with the most critical skill of any good marketer: Empathy
em·pa·thy
/ˈempəTHē/
noun
You may find that the answers to the questions above give you some of the specific topics you ought to use. For example, the attorney may give you several common questions that their clients ask, and you should absolutely use those.
But you’ll also need to develop additional topics outside of what they provide, and that’s where empathy comes here. Below I’ve written out, in stream of consciousness fashion, how this process of empathy plays out in my mind:
As you can see, this process of combining your knowledge of the target persona with your own capacity for empathy can effectively produce your guide topics. From the “empathy” process above you could feasibly derive the following topics:
Now that we’ve used empathy to create a list of topics that we know will be relevant to our target audience, it’s time to get analytical.
Keyword research is necessary to understand the specific phrases that people most frequently search when they are asking the kinds of questions that we brainstormed above.
Knowing the specific keywords we’re targeting allows us not only to optimize for those specific keywords, but also to predict the amount of traffic a given article could feasibly receive if it gets to page one of Google.
What we want to do is map specific keywords to each of our topics. The keyword research process we use here at Juris Digital is simple and powerful, and I’m going to share it with you now.
For this example let’s use the topic “How is fault determined in car accidents?”:
First, head over to Google and just search your topic, in this case, ‘how is fault determined in car accidents’.
Copy the URLs for the top 3-5 ranking pages from the search result, in this case:
And now, it’s time for our secret weapon…
Ahrefs has long been a popular backlink research tool. But their Organic Keyword tool is, in my opinion, their single best product.
Take those top ranking URLs and drop them in Ahrefs, then navigate the to Organic keywords report:
Ahrefs shows you exactly what keyword phrases send the most traffic to this page. Reiterate this process with the other high-ranking URLs in order to select the keyword variants that 1) have the most volume and 2) are the most relevant to your audience.
For this topic, I would identify the following as my primary target keywords variants:
Perform this exercise for each of your topics, and when you’re finished you’ll have a list of keywords, all mapped to specific topics, and you’ll be able to estimate the amount of traffic that each is capable of generating.
At this point we have a list of topics, and we’ve mapped specific target keywords to those topics, and we have the URLs for the top pages that currently perform well for those keywords.
Now, it’s time to actually write our articles. The most important thing to remember here is:
Content that is written by an actual subject matter expert (in this case, an attorney who has experience with auto accident cases) will nearly always out perform content written by a ghost writer.
Furthermore, for lawyers and legal marketers there is a question of ethics: Do you really feel good about publishing information on legal topics that you want your potential clients to read, but not having any hand in the writing of that information?
That being said, there are ways to leverage someone’s expertise without necessarily requiring that they write every word of each article. Here are several options for writing your articles, along with what to consider with each.
Again, content straight from the subject matter expert will perform the best. Having a lawyer who is a subject matter expert write the articles is always the best option.
However, lawyers are busy; it’s not always a practical option.
This is the next best way to get your evergreen content written. Conduct an interview with the subject matter expert, asking her to speak to each of your topics. Record the interview and transcribe it.
(For quick, affordable transcription, we recommend Rev.com).
The major benefit of this method is that it allows you to get some great nuggets of information from the subject matter expert without asking her to spend the time required to write each piece.
The downside is that this method requires substantial editing, structuring, and formatting of the content. Furthermore, you normally won’t get everything you need to publish a coherent article from the interview responses alone.
The third, and what I consider to be the least desirable option, is to use a legal professional ghost writer to write the articles, and then have the subject matter expert review and edit them as necessary.
The major downside here is that ghost writers, no matter how talented, cannot be expected to posses the same intimate knowledge and insight as the subject matter expert, and so, your articles will end up being far less valuable.
Once the articles have been written, it’s finally time to publish. At Juris Digital we normally publish evergreen content guides like this in two formats:
The primary reason to offer the guide as a downloadable PDF is that you can leverage it to collect email addresses and other information from potential customers. The implementation we use for our clients is normally very similar to what you saw at the top of this guide.
For SEO, this is of utmost importance. Each of our articles will be published on it’s own URL, and that page will be optimized for the keywords that we uncovered during the keyword research phase.
In general, evergreen content guides ought to follow a parent / child structure:
Parent page: “The Awesome Law Firm’s Auto Accident Guide”
URL: www.awesomelawfirm.com/auto-accident-guide/
Child page 1: “How is fault determined in car accidents?”
URL: www.awesomelawfirm.com/auto-accident-guide/how-fault-determined/
Child page 2: “Who is going to pay my medical bills after a car accident injury?”
URL: www.awesomelawfirm.com/auto-accident-guide/who-pays-bills/
…and so on and so forth.
The parent page ought to contain a short overview of what the reader will find in the guide, and then link down to each of the individual articles in the guide.
For some tips on optimizing the individual articles for your primary keywords, go here.
By following the evergreen content marketing process as described here, you’ll be well on your way to driving significant levels of qualified traffic to your law firm’s website.
However, your job doesn’t end once the content is published. Make sure you consider the following: