The modern digital age has surpassed the traditional era of lawyers attracting attention through local newspapers or word of mouth. Solo attorneys and small law firms are great at providing legal services. However, they struggle to sign up more clients. It is because they lack knowledge of Law Firm Marketing and have limited funds for marketing.
Running a law firm is ultimately a business. And, every business’ prime objective is to get more clients and improve revenue. So, without marketing your legal services, you will struggle to sign up more clients, and your business will face a difficult time. Today over 33% of the potential clients search online while hiring legal services. The internet era calls for the latest digital marketing strategies to stand out in this fierce competition in the legal industry.
This eBook is designed to help sole attorneys and small law firms promote their legal services. The eBook incorporates a list of proven techniques to attract more clients and generate better leads to get the most out of your Law firm’s marketing efforts.
While 75% of users never look beyond the first page of Google, you need to optimise your website for search engines. Earlier legal clients used to visit lawyers before hiring them. However, nowadays, clients do their online research before approaching a law firm. So, getting connected to the users when they are searching for your services matters the most.
According to a study, 86% of respondents use Google as their primary resource for researching a lawyer online. Thus, to be seen at the top of the search engine result pages(SERPs), your law firm website must be search engine optimised. The Search Engine Optimization techniques below will help you be discoverable by prospective clients and desirable by search engines.
You can list your law firm with the free tool – Google my business. Whenever someone in your area searches for your law firm’s services, it shows you the top results on the Google map.
The essence of a good SEO is keyword research. Your Law firm must incorporate the keywords related to your business and legal services in your content. It can help you rank higher when potential clients search for a query with the same keyword.
The intent of the information you provide must match the prospective clients’ intent. If clients are not interested in the content you produce, no one is going to read it. This is why knowing what people are searching for or are interested in is very important for an effective SEO.
The user experience matters a lot in your ranking in the SERPs. The more user-friendly your legal website, the higher is the ranking. You also get brownie points for having a mobile-friendly site since over 60% of the online searches are on mobiles.
Content is the key when it comes to SEO for Law firms. The Search engine robots crawl through every aspect of your Law firm website. Be it HTML tags, backlinks, images, or videos. An optimised content can help you rank higher on SERPs and gain more organic traffic.
When another website links your Law firm’s website, a backlink is created. Backlinks or inbound links are important for your Law firm SEO because they signal Google that another resource finds your website content valuable. You can earn backlinks organically by producing valuable content for others, paid PR campaigns, and guest blogging.
Another most important aspect of lead generation is content marketing. Producing original, engaging, high-quality, and error-free content is the king when it comes to Digital Marketing. You need a lot of valuable content in the form of blogs, case studies, infographics, e-books, FAQs, etc. Content is the most effective way to generate leads and nurture them. The more people like your content, the more they are likely to connect with you.
Law firms can use content to answer the queries of their target audience. Here are a few pointers to consider carefully while producing content for your law firm:
The content of your legal website should be remarkable and speak to your clients. It should be relevant to your target niche and must add value to the reader. Helpful content can help your clients to make important legal decisions and solve their legal problems.
You must cover the commercial aspect as well, be vocal about what you offer to your clients such as free consultation, regular updates, fair prices, etc.
The success of your law firm marketing highly depends upon the keywords you choose. Keyword relevancy helps search engines to determine the niche of your page. You should use descriptive keywords that are relevant to the services your law firm provides.
Your Law firm’s website can drive actions from users by using unique Call-to-actions. Appealing CTAs can motivate prospective clients to take immediate action. It can convert your website visitors to clients by persuading them to take your services.
A stunning piece of content can be repurposed and save you a lot of effort and time. Your law firm can repurpose the content in many ways. For example, a video can be created out of a blog post, a social media post can be made out of a video, and so on.
How often do you post matters a lot for Law firm digital marketing. Clients stay connected to Law firms that are consistent in their content marketing efforts. Regularly posting content, be it blogs, infographics, images, etc., help you establish a place in the mind of your target audience.
Law is a stream that requires firms to be the most versatile. Since regular amendments keep happening, your content should be up-to-date. Any old or outdated content will lower down your website ranking in the SERPs. Moreover, updating your content time-to-time reduces your efforts of generating new content every time.
The power of email marketing helps every business, and law firms are no different. The average ROI from email marketing is $42 for every $1 spent. The primary purpose of email marketing is to stay in people’s minds till they decide to get into business with you. A strong law firm email marketing strategy will focus on a selected target audience, personalise content and utilise marketing automation tools such as Sendinblue, Mailchimp, etc.
When your prospective clients become your email subscribers, you have an opportunity to introduce yourself and explain how you can assist them. And once they are your client, you can keep them informed about your success stories, recent updates with laws, your law firm achievement. Below are a few pointers to consider carefully while drafting a Law firm email marketing strategy:
Automated email marketing helps you trigger the right email at the right time for the right (targeted) audience. It also saves your time and effort by sending bulk emails in a personalised way. Moreover, you can use email campaigns to nurture your lead into a client.
Personalising your emails is critical in Law firm email marketing. It helps you build a relationship with clients, and they are most likely to remember you amongst your competitors.
Your content is invaluable if prospects don’t even open your email, which is why the subject lines of your emails should be unique, personalised, catchy, and action-oriented.You can also use emojis in your subject line when appropriate.
Good quality content and attractive email design go hand in hand. A captivating email template with consistent colours, font, and brand identity can entice clients to click on your CTA.
Following up on new email subscribers with a warm welcome can help turn new leads into clients. Reminders and follow-ups can improve your email open rate and engagement rate drastically.
Email marketing automation tools can give you analytics of important metrics such as open-rate and click-through-rate. Measuring these metrics will help your Law firm analyse email marketing efforts and adjust the future goals accordingly.
Pay-per-click ads work wonders with Law firms. While SEO takes time to show results, Google Ads for Lawyers can be set up quickly and generate immediate traffic. It is also an effective way for Law firms to reach a targeted audience and filter out those not interested in your services. The right Google ads strategy can help you gain a competitive edge over your other Law firms.
You should invest in PPC advertising to start acquiring clients instantaneously. A few things to consider carefully while drafting a Law firm PPC marketing strategy are:
It is the cornerstone of any successful Google Ads campaign in a law firm. You can use many paid tools, but Google Ads Keyword Planner is a free tool; you must select the keywords related to the legal services you market.
It is essential for you to research how your competitors are running their Google Ads campaigns, the keywords they use, Ad copies, the landing page, etc., to develop a PPC strategy for your law firm. Pick what is working for them and learn from their mistakes. Why make your own mistakes when you have a chance to learn from their mistakes?
Your Law firm might have many unique selling points. However, portraying 1-2 strong USPs on your ad copies can improve the click-throughs of your adverts. USP is the very reason that motivates a client to hire your services even though they might be costlier than other Law firms.
You must prepare attractive Ad Copies; otherwise, your campaign will have a low click-through rate. In addition, the offers you provide on your ads should be irresistible for your target audience.
This aspect of a PPC campaign is often overlooked by law firms. Promotional landing pages should be relevant to your advert and focus on specific goals to lower client acquisition costs and improve conversions. Many lawyers use the home page as a landing page, and it is not the right strategy.
Having a bidding strategy is very important for a law firm’s PPC campaign. The amount that you will spend on single clicks on given keywords is your decision. Other law firms are managing bids to remain ahead in the competition. Since Law keywords are expensive, you should choose the best way to bid that helps you to achieve your marketing goals.
Measurement of campaign performance is a must. It will help you to find out whether the PPC strategy is working well to generate more leads or not. It also indicates where your campaigns require improvement. Google Ads campaign manager informs you about the conversion rate and other metrics to determine the success of your campaign.
You can squeeze out the best performance of your PPC campaign by optimising them regularly. Optimising your keyword list, incorporating negative keywords, and testing your ad copies and landing pages can improve conversion rates and lower CPC.
Retargeting your ad campaigns helps you land more clients. By displaying ads targeted explicitly toward the interested clients who have visited your website before can improve conversions.
User-generated or User-created content is created by individuals and posted on online platforms such as social media or wikis. Since it is third-party content, it improves your law firm’s credibility, shows authenticity, and builds meaningful connections with clients. User-Generated Content (UGC) serves as excellent social proof to boost search engine rankings and online visibility.
Most law firms think of UGC as only client reviews; however, only 51% of the clients leave a local business review when asked. Thus, you need to think of different ways as well to get UGC. Here are some ways your law firms can ask for user-generated content:
Running social media events and contests is one way to scale your Law firm’s UGC strategy. Many Law firms use this strategy to keep the social media community vibrant. You would require to organise these events efficiently to make them a success.
Providing an opportunity to comment on blogs, having conversations and answering their basic legal queries can build UGC.
Getting your Legal services featured in a blog post by a third-party marketer acts as an added advantage. It enhances your law firm credibility. In addition, the backlinks work well with the SERPs and further enhance authenticity.
Nowadays, about 85% of clients trust online reviews before hiring a service. Asking your existing clients to put up reviews on your websites or third-party websites is a stimulant to getting more conversions. Video testimonials are also a great way to create UGC.
In the digital age, social media is an integral part of everyone’s life. Today, about 81% of law firms maintain at least one social media platform. Leveraging social media into a law firm marketing strategy can help you get a step closer to your clients. It is a social media platform where all the networking and conversations happen these days. If you constantly communicate with people, they are more likely to remember you whenever they need your legal service. The possible ways to communicate with them are through images, videos, quizzes, competitions, or informational/educational content.
Here are a few tips for building a social media strategy that gets you an adequate ROI for your Law firm:
To get ahead of your competitors in the highly competitive legal market, your law firm must keep a social media content calendar and plan the posts well in advance.
Since 56.8% of the world’s population is active on social media, it is the right place to post the latest news, events, happenings, etc. Clients are most likely to follow your pages to get an alert when you post something of their interest in future.
Consistency is the key to a good social media marketing strategy. Find a good balance in your social media post for different kinds of content. The audience should see your content enough for you to be memorable to them.
Your law firm should intensify its relationship with the clients. With a lot of paid advertising hovering in the legal market, you can outshine by creating strong relationships with your existing community of clients and nurture them.
Lawyers should network with fellow legal professionals and attorneys on online platforms. This works well, especially for independent lawyers to get recommendations and build their brand name.
Videos for Law firms are a great way to educate, engage and persuade potential clients. It can convey complex legal concepts to your prospects in an easier way. When clients research their issues, they prefer to watch videos rather than going through long texts. 88% of video marketers say it brings them a positive return on investment. Also, it has a massive reach. It is possible that your insightful video gets popular and becomes viral online. Having a massive reach is also helpful in enhancing your law firm’s brand awareness.
Here are a few things you should keep in mind while making a video marketing plan:
The videos that your law firm posts on online platforms should be of high quality. The video, voice, script, lighting, and editing should be top-notch to catch the prospective clients’ attention.
Law firms need to be cautious while selecting the distribution channels for their video marketing. While YouTube is the most popular platform, LinkedIn and Facebook are also great channels to promote your video content.
Makings Vlogs and conducting webinars can come a long way in generating more leads. People look forward to attending free webinars that offer new learnings. They also follow Vloggers for informative and engaging content.
Law firm website with more relevant videos attract more traffic. Since videos are easier to understand, Google algorithms show your videos on the top in search results if it includes the relevant keywords and is Search Engine Optimised.
Clients still search online directories to reach out to law firms. Thus, adding your law firm contact details to high-quality directories can improve your online presence. Among the different types of legal directories, a few are for specialised law services, and others are general directories. While many directories provide free listings, some of these are paid as well.
Legal Directories provide clients looking for legal services with helpful information. It enables them to make a more informed choice while hiring a legal advisor. This strategy also helps to boost your search engine ranking. Here are a few ways through which Legal directories help generate more traffic to your law firm website:
Through legal directories, your website gets linked to external websites. This referral link adds a vote of credibility to your website. Backlinking or inbound links help your Law firm website to rank higher on Google.
Most legal directories have an option for clients to leave feedback about your law firm. You can engage with former clients and ask them to rate you on these legal directories. Prospect clients read reviews very keenly while making a hiring decision.
Many legal directories allow law firms to write about services on their website. The prospective clients are always on the lookout for free resources. Sharing your expertise on an external platform help you to market your services.
Your Law firm should stay up-to-date with contact information, address, email, services, etc on the legal directories. Many Law firms miss this and lose out on new clients; it also reduces the search engine ranking as Search Engine finds your law firm contact information inconsistent on the internet.
You should measure and track the success of the strategy you have implemented. Investing time, money and energy is of no use if you don’t measure your results and adjust the strategy to meet your goals. The ultimate goal is to what’s working, what’s converting, and how to optimise the campaign or change your approach for future marketing efforts.
There are many tools available to measure the metrics of your online campaigns such as Google Analytics, SEMrush, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, etc. Here are some key indicators to track the success of your marketing efforts:
All of your digital marketing efforts, be it content strategy or social media marketing, encircle around your website only. Thus, measuring the number of visitors on your website for a given timeline can give you a lot of insight into your digital marketing goal achievements.
To keep a track of the strategies you have implemented you need to keep track on the source of website traffic. This helps you to direct your marketing efforts towards the strategies that give the maximum ROI. These are some types of traffic sources you would like to measure.
A higher bounce rate can be alarming for your law firm website as it shows more visitors leave the website without spending time on the page. It indicates that most prospective clients did not find your content useful or the website is not aesthetically good.
This is one of the most important metrics as it calculates the number of visitors who take a particular action. Conversions happen when a passive visitor becomes an active visitor, a lead.
In this fast-paced digital world, the above marketing strategies can step up your law firm online visibility.
We hope this Ebook helps you better understand all the basics of digital marketing that are essential to growing your law firm. The correct blend of strategies and persistent efforts will help you stay on top of search engines and your prospective clients’ minds.