Law Firm SEO Content Generation

I just came across this great blog post about why content isn’t king (or least 100% king)  - when it comes to creating a great website for your law firm and practice I think this advice you should really take to heart.  An article you write about choosing a great personal injury lawyer isn’t going to do much for you these days as chances are, even if you geotarget your article, the search results in your target market will already be saturated with similar articles.  Thus, those serious about creating valuable, authoritative, lead generating law firm websites need to spend the time and effort to create a website that is a real asset - both in term of look, feel and trust communicated to visitors.

How to Use Twitter for Law Firms

Today…Twitter for Law Firms!

First, you can follow our regular tips about internet marketing for law firms on twitter simply visit @lawfirmmarketer and begin to follow us. We will even return the favor and follow you. We are always curios to read what different law firms and solo law practices are doing to create success using Twitter and other social media tools.  Don’t believe using Twitter will help flood your office with prospective clients, yet - realize that the internet is essentially the new yellow pages going forward and that you need to be found in all the right places, including Twitter.

1. Talk to your followers about their interests. Great tweets ask great questions and Twitter is a great place to engage other lawyers and members of the public.

2. Point out interesting things in your niche space, not just about your company. Share links to interesting things. Check out http://twitter.com/lawyerkm@lawyerkm

3. Link to your blog posts. Ask a question in the Tweet that references a blog you published. Link to the post using bit.ly (http://bit.ly/) or TinyURL. Give a good reason to click through to your content.   If your at small law firm or are starting your own practice and your not blogging. …shame on you! Blogging is one of the easiest, best ways to make your website more popular.  Blog about new laws, interesting cases in the news, practical legal tips, etc.
4. Write about upcoming blog posts.  Whet the whistle.  Cultivate your audience and solicit their feedback.

5. Tweet about your company’s role in saving the environment, saving the community or whatever exciting things your law firm may be doing.
6. Be helpful. Check out @jetblue.

7. Promote @yourlawfirm (your Twitter page across your site and blog)

8. Don’t get too aggressive with your marketing messaging.

9. Don’t be afraid to stray from tweeting pure legal news and law themed miscellania. Social media is supposed to be social.

10. Use TweetDeck or Twhirl! And get mobile tweet capacity for your iPhone or Blackberry.

11. Generously follow others and comment on their tweets. They will return the favor.

12. Tune out the Flotsam and Jetsam. Respond to interesting things, not every Tweet merits your attention.

13. Stay active every few days!

Finally, if you need professional help with a social media strategy for law firms, don’t hesitate to ask - we’d be happy help you get started.

Law Firm SEO and Google

Let’s face it, SEO for your law firm is a tough business. Links, rankings, web development, email marketing all make promoting your law firm or practice online very challenging.

Unfortunately, Google is not making law firm seo any easier with their most recent update. The new “Show Options” feature on the Google search results page means that web browsers can now sort results by freshness, and medium (video, forums, reviews). This means that those old pages, videos and blog posts on your site that are driving traffic and rankings may begin to be systematically filtered by Google and/or go unseen by prospects that used to be presented with you contet.

Thus, it should be abdundantly clear to all law firm webmasters and law firm marketers that they need to dedicate serious time to creating and optimizing their web assets. New, fresh content is an absolute must. Afterall, Google lives (and will die) by the search engine results they serve. Fresh results that quickly meet the needs of a Google searcher means that Google’s role in search is secure - if on the other hand - users get frustrated with low quality, dated results they may take their searches elsewhere.

How Much To Spend On Internet Marketing For Your Law Firm

The question of how much to spend on marketing your law firm online is often a perplexing question.  The marketplace is full of vendors and service providers who have price points all over the map.  The entire internet marketing service industry is so nascent, so new that the services have yet to be commoditized.  Thus, buyer beware as there are many disparate services, quality standards and pricing.

For search marketing services for your law firm you should expect to pay between $400 - $2000 per month.  The variable is really the amount of ongoing optimization and link building that takes place. At a higher price point, you can expect to go through multiple change iterations for your web assets.  Once results are found they will be reinforced with additional on page optimization and link building.  Links are effectively the “fuel” that drive high rankings in the major search engines.  At the lower $400+ price -  you expect one round of optimization initially plus monthly link building, reporting and consulting.

Generally, if you are in a major competitive market for law firms you will need to commit to at least 6-12 months of search engine optimization (SEO) work - beyond which you can expect to revisit SEO and internet marketing everyother year or so.  If you are in a less competitive market - you should commit to 4-8 months of SEO work, beyond which you should expect to revisit it at least every three years.  All this said, in some markets and for some keywords a constant SEO engagement may be needed.  Thus, choose your law firm internet marketing partner very carefully.

Social Media for Law Firms

Social media is all the rage. Many social media evangelists are claiming that Twitter, MySpace and Facebook can help get market your law firm. The truth is very much different. For sure, social media spaces are a great place to gain mindshare, thought leadership, conduct networking and demonstrate your cutting edge legal expertise - but as a practical marketing tool used to get in front of prospective clients it fails miserably.

Here are two reasons why:

- social media is informal, casual and does not convey trust to the prospect
- there is no direct ROI - it’s not marketing and is more akin to branding
- social media is a long term enegagement and not a quick win

Finally, don’t even consider social media for your law firm or practice unless your website is already driving leads organically (SEO) or via pay per click (PPC) marketing. These two traditional techniques of internet marketing allow for geotargeting, client acquistion and more. With these two methods, trackable and real ROI is possible. Thus, make sure your web house is in order before pursuing social media.

If you want to begin social media, start with a blog and fill it with original geotargeted content.

Common Law Firm SEO Mistakes

I’ve been doing SEO for years and I continually see some law firms making some very notable mistakes week in and week in their efforts to market online. The most common include the following:

- endless directory submissions to irrelevant sites
- useless attempts at building links from social media sites
- paid links that are doing more harm than good

It’s absolutely critical that you work with an expert when building links and executing your law firm seo strategy. Historically, 99% of amateur link building is complete waste of time. Professional SEO firms understand (and have a personal track record) with different sites that are actually capable of driving success based on their own experiences. Thus, the learning curve for SEO novices is a challenging one. Don’t waste a second of your time trying to building links without consulting with professionals.

For instance, directories are largely useless now for link value as are links from most social media sites. Paying for links can produce quick results but it is ABSOLUTELY critical that the sites you buy from pass a litmus test designed to protect your domain. Keep your sites off the spam lists!

Return to our Law Firm SEO homepage.

Law Firm Advertising: Make Prospects Choose You!

The Google search engine is one of the most targeted forms of law firm advertising ever devised. Hundreds, if not thousands, of potential clients are looking for the services you offer by “googling” for information, tips, insights and services. As a law firm marketer - you can get in your messaging and showcase your firm’s expertise and solutions in front of them with two core services: law firm pay per click advertising and law firm SEO.

Pay per click or PPC advertising is particularly powerful for law firms. Be aware, however, that a great deal of expertise goes into setting up a campaign that will actually work for your law practice. Targeted, expensive traffic must land on targeted, well designed and thought out landing pages. Landing pages, in this case, are pages that feature message continuity with the words and phrases the searcher used in the first place as well as a compelling offer or pitch to make the searcher become a prospect by asking them to complete a form field. It’s worthwhile to set up the first campaign with the help of someone experienced - nuance and the most granular detail can make a big difference when it comes to an ROI on your advertising dollar. The benefit of PPC for your law firm or solo practice is that you can be up and running in a short order, driving tons of targeted traffic to your website.

Law firm search engine optimization, or SEO, is a tough business. SEO means getting ranks in the natural, organic, unpaid section of the major search engines. The best way to approach SEO is to realize, unequivocally, there are no shortcuts, no easy paths to victory…just lots of really hard work. Proper SEO work is tough to do and will require a degree of expertise as to best methods and techniques that are actually capable of delivering results. It’s quite possible, if you take on SEO for your law firm on your own, to spend lots of time and lots of money and have no result to show for it at the end of the day. Thus, be prepared to seek out expert help and spend some money and remember that with SEO, you are building an asset that will perform for the life of your business. The result can be near, never ending flows of targeted prospects visiting and taking action on your website.

Why To Create a Law Firm Blog

You may have heard that creating a blog for your law practice is essential to reaching prospective clients on the internet. The simple truth is that, yes, a blog can help you very much. However, you will need to follow some practical steps to help ensure that your blog actually helps you reach these goals.

First, you must host your blog on your website. Don’t waste your time with blogger or wordpress blogs that aren’t hosted on your actual web server as part of your actual web pages (Note: Wordpress software can be hosted on your site - here, we mean using the free Wordpress hosting on Wordpress.com). The reason for this is simple, by blogging on your own web site you are creating an asset that you have total control. Plus, as other sites link to your site and blog posts you are building equity in your own law firm’s website and not someone else’s site.

Second, don’t write a blog unless you have something half way decent to say. Your blog is a place to offer quality information and tips for free, not to overtly advertise. If you’re site is properly designed, visitors should flock to your offers, calls to action and services that they see on the periphery of your blog pages.

Third, when you think about law firm seo and law firm internet marketing you must realize that all of your blog content must be geotargeted to the communities that your law practices serves. Thus, if your law firm is active in the “personal injury lawyer” keyword realm, you’ll want to pair the appearance of this keyword with your targeted geo terms - so, appearances of “personal injury lawyer” in your site, meta data and blog copy should become “boston personal injury lawyer” or “massachusetts personal injury lawyer”. When dealing with the search engines, it pays to be specific and the time and effort you spend trying to incorporate the words and phrases that a real, targeted prospect would use to find you will be rewarded.

Fourth, don’t be afraid to point your readers to helpful 3rd party or off site information. The folks that find your blog are often in the information gathering stage and are not quite ready to pick up the phone and call anyone yet. They need high quality information, give it to them, earn their trust and then will call your law office when they are ready.

Too many law firm blogs fail to do any of these four steps correctly. Don’t make simple mistakes and ensure that every second you spend working on your blog goes towards driving actual results. Finally, don’t hesitate to email us - if you need assistance.

The First Step To Marketing Your Law Firm Online

Marketing your law firm online these days is a tough business. In most industries and locations across the United States, competition online is booming and law firm internet marketing is no exceptions. More and more law firms are reaching out to vendors, suppliers and agencies today to help build their web presence. A strong law firm web presence will help drive qualified, potential clients to your website - and since the overwhelming majority of those in need of legal services begin with an internet search instead of a yellowpage search - your ability to generate traffic, for a low cost, is unprecedented.

Our advice to any law firm approaching this for the first is to begin to clearly define your practice area keywords as well the geographic range your firm services. Use city, town and state names - for some down South, perhaps country names will be needed. Your website will need to be heavily optimized for all of your geographic terms. We’ll talk more about optimization in future posts - but be cognizant that your website will need many pages, each of which must be built around a tight niche (aka..Boston Bankruptcy Lawyer) with the appropriate mix of keywords and geo-targeted terms in the right place on your website.

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