You don’t need me to tell you that law firm marketing has changed. Radically. The old tried-and-true tactics — networking in person, TV ads and billboards, or just relying on word of mouth — will not bring the number of clients in the door you need to be a profitable law firm.
Now it’s all about search engines, social media, content marketing, and branding. Some attorneys may be good at these things. Most attorneys are not. Today, there are several critical law firm marketing tactics your firm should be deploying to not only bring you qualified leads but to also help you convert those leads into paying clients. Here are 7 of them:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Law Firm Marketing
Real estate on the first page of Google search results is highly prized and competition is fierce. If you have not invested in an SEO program to help your law firm website grab a piece of it, you are already behind. This is because websites on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) get 95% of web traffic. Anything beyond the first page is a ghost town.
SEO is not something you want to do yourself. And why not? Read my recent post on Law Firm SEO and you’ll quickly see why.
Wondering how your site measures up SEO-wise? Find out via our complimentary website audit:
Pay-per-Click Advertising for Law Firm Marketing
Another way to appear quickly on the first page of SERPs is to pay your way there. In fact, today’s law firm marketing needs to include both organic and paid strategies, especially if you are a consumer law firm where the need for your services is time-sensitive. PPC ads work best when you target them as narrowly as possible.
Facebook ads are great for retargeting visitors to your website, serving as a reminder to those who visited but didn’t get in touch with you on their first trip to your site.
Content Creation for Law Firm Marketing
One of the best ways to boost your website’s ranking in search is to keep adding fresh content to your site. And one of the best ways to do that is with a law firm blog. Your blog can serve as a hub for fresh content (which Google loves) that can then be shared on social media platforms to extend your reach.
Content marketing works well for lawyers because you can use your important keywords to build content that will help with your SEO. FAQs are perfect for this purpose. Think about the most common questions you get from prospects and create an FAQ page on your site. Keep your answers short and you could grab another piece of important SERP real estate: the People Also Ask section.
Video for Law Firm Marketing
Video is great for law firms because it helps you build trust with potential clients and helps educate them on the services and results you provide. Your website videos can be shared on social media as well to increase the impact they have with your target audience.
Social Media for Law Firm Marketing
You don’t have to be on every social media platform to make an impact, but you do need to be on at least one. For B2C attorneys, it’s Facebook; for B2B attorneys, it’s LinkedIn. But frankly, Facebook is so ubiquitous these days, every law firm should have a business page on this platform.
Social media not only helps you build your brand, but it can also help increase traffic to your website and blog when you post content with a link back to those sites. Video also works great on social media; just be sure to include text in your social media videos since users often watch a video without the sound on.
Email for Law Firm Marketing
Even though email marketing has evolved way beyond simple blast emails — today it’s all about segmentation and personalization — it still remains the most effective way to get eyes on your website. Repurposing useful blog posts into blurbs in a monthly e-newsletter and then sending recipients to your site to read the rest of the post is a surefire way to boost traffic.
Reviews for Law Firm Marketing
The old word-of-mouth has been replaced by online reviews, which research says consumers consider as trustworthy as a personal recommendation from someone they know. If you currently lack a process for obtaining reviews from clients, you need to fix this fast. (Check out my post on the 3 Steps to Obtain 5-Star Reviews.)
Sharing your reviews as widely as possible by encouraging clients to post them on Google and Facebook helps establish a good online reputation, which is pretty priceless these days when it comes to generating leads and converting those to clients.
