Building your online presence is a critical part of advertising for your law firm. Online advertising has the potential to bring in a large number of clients, particularly since clients who are searching for a law firm in a hurry are likely to turn to the internet to provide them with information about the firms in their area.
No matter what type of law you practice, it’s important that you build your online presence in order to generate a larger number of clients for your firm.
Increase Your Organic Search Rankings
As a law firm, you often see clients when they’re desperate or in a hurry to sign on a lawyer. Many people start looking for a lawyer when they find out they need one due to their legal situation.
A quick Google search may be the first awareness of what law firms are practicing in their area. Falling below the first few search results can significantly decrease your chances of being seen.
In fact, 95% of search traffic comes from the first page of search engine results and most of these clicks go to the top few ranking websites.
Make sure you’re following these key tips to ensure that your law firm appears in those critical top results, increasing your SEO and building your business as a result.
- Optimize for mobile. Since over 50% of traffic is now mobile–and many people visit a location within 5 miles of them shortly after performing a search–it’s important that your site and your search efforts are visible on mobile devices.
- Make sure you focus on local keywords. Search is very localized these days and results will vary depending on where the searcher is searching from. Make sure you’re following best practices and sending the proper signals to Google about the location of your firm.
- Long-form content receives more attention. Shares and links back to your content can have a significant impact on your search engine ranking, so make sure you’re creating the content that visitors genuinely want to see–ideally, helpful content that will help them navigate the legal difficulties in which they’ve found themselves.
- Check your keywords regularly. Keep in mind that you want to drive relevant traffic to your website: if you specialize in family law, you might not want to highlight information about how to handle traffic tickets.Likewise, a criminal attorney need not create posts about divorce recommendations, no matter how much traffic those posts might bring.
Get Involved With Pay Per Click
Part of building search engine optimization may also include opting for paid ads, which will help highlight your firm and help push you higher on the search engine results page.
With pay per click, you pay each time someone clicks on your advertisement. With personal injury law firms, this can get expensive since these keywords can cost hundreds of dollars per click.
However, it’s economical for many other industries as well. If you’re looking to get listed in search engines quickly, PPC is a great option to start driving traffic quickly.
Build Your Social Media Presence
Social media is an excellent location to build your platform and your network. With 2.13 billion active users logging onto Facebook every month, it’s evident that this is a platform that you can’t afford to ignore.
Unfortunately, all too many lawyers fall into the trap of posting static, vague posts that are of little use to the people who are reading them. As a result, you may find yourself wondering if social media marketing is really worthwhile for your law firm. The short answer? It is–but only if you do it correctly.
Leverage social media ads. Facebook’s ads track customer interest in certain topics as well as past searches, which means that you can craft ads that are specifically designed to reach individuals who are looking for information about the type of law you practice.
Social media ads can also be specifically targeted to reach exactly the type of individual you’d like to have as your client, helping to narrow the people that you target with your ads.
Pay attention to hot topics. What is it that people genuinely want to know about? What types of information will generate awareness of your firm? For example, as a divorce attorney, you might consistently post information that will help people start over, rebuild their finances, or handle custody of the kids following a divorce.
A criminal attorney might keep a close eye on local events to help generate content that will be helpful to people in the area.
Keep building your presence. Posts that are designed to be liked, shared, and commented on will help build interest in your website and increase awareness of your firm–and that means that when locals in your area have needs in your field of expertise, they’ll be more likely to call you.
Develop Solid Page Templates
A landing page is a page intended to help tell customers exactly what to do when they’ve reached your site. They might have arrived there via an ad, through a social media post, or through an email–and chances are, they did so for a specific reason.
Make it easy for them to find the action they’re looking for, whether it’s providing you with critical information so that you can add them to an email list or contact them, make a phone call to your office, or read a specific post. Landing pages should include an intuitive design, be void of as much clutter as possible, and include only the necessary links in order to increase their efficiency and help you make the most of your online marketing efforts.
Improve Your Firm’s Content Creation
As a law firm, one of your most important online advertisements is the content you create. Your content will do more than just increase SEO and draw people to your website. It’s also a clear indication of your expertise in your field and how much you care about your clients. Keep these standards in mind when writing or outsourcing content for your firm.
- Write about the pain points of your clients. A client who is dealing with criminal charges, for example, might need to know about how to talk to their boss about their legal troubles, while a woman going through a divorce might need to know how to juggle finances until child support or alimony are established.
- Provide genuinely useful information for your clients. It’s not just about convincing them to call you for help; it’s about establishing yourself as an authority. When they see that you know what you’re talking about in these areas, they may have an easier time trusting you with their legal issues.
- Answer some of the questions your clients have on a regular basis. Your content library can help decrease the questions clients have, helping your meetings and phone calls run more smoothly.
Developing your online presence is a critical part of advertising for today’s law firms. You can’t afford to miss out on all the benefits that online advertising offers. Beginning with these simple strategies, you can increase your business and make it easier for the right clients to find your business.
