Are You Making These Legal Marketing Mistakes?

One of the many benefits of ABA TECHSHOW is meeting fellow service providers. Law Quill, a law firm marketing expert developed by lawyers for lawyers, is one of those great introductions. This week, we are happy to feature insight from LawQuill. If you want to find out more about them, check them out online. Tell them SimpleLaw sent you.

If you have put valuable time or investment dollars into your law firm’s online marketing efforts, you may be disappointed if you are not receiving the results you expected. Unfortunately, marketing a law firm is not a one-and-done transaction. Just like you should not expect immediate or long-term results from going to the gym one time, online marketing requires consistent effort. Ultimately, a comprehensive legal marketing strategy involves an ongoing plan that requires adjustment based on results. Before you invest any more time or digital marketing dollars toward your legal marketing, consider if you are making these common mistakes.

When Did You Last Update Your Website?

Google rewards websites that show they are putting in the work to stay current and to provide updated information. Outdated websites are more likely to have higher bounce rates, which signals to the search engine that the information on the page is not useful to readers. In addition to outdated content, your website may have broken links, poorly organized content, and difficult navigation, which can also turn away potential clients and the Google bots.

For today’s lawyers, websites make up a large portion of their marketing efforts. They may expect their website to drive leads. However, if your website is intended to be a marketing tool, it is crucial to put the resources and energy behind it so that it is successful.

Consider updating your website about every two years. You may not need a complete overhaul. However, you can update its coding, structure, and images to give it a new and fresh look. Additionally, consider having a trusted professional perform monthly SEO maintenance to make sure your virtual real estate stays maintained and optimized.

Are You Attracting The Right Clients?

One of the problems many law firms make is not correctly and specifically identifying their target audience. Today’s digital options allow you to highly target your preferred audience so that you can meet your ideal client exactly where they are in their journey to obtain legal services. Taking some time to research the demographic you are hoping to reach and reviewing data about existing clients can help you hone in on specific buyer personas who are in need of your legal services.

Your overall tone and voice can target your ideal client. Additionally, the content itself can be further tailored to reach your target audience. For legal services, one of the most effective ways to market to your audience is to take a commonly asked question and to answer it. This method helps you to address specific search queries and establish yourself as an authority on the subject. By taking the time to create user-friendly content that showcases your expertise, you will be the one law firm that sticks in a reader’s mind if they need your services later.

Do You Have a Comprehensive Digital Marketing Strategy?

One of the biggest legal marketing mistakes is failing to create a clear, strategic, and comprehensive online marketing plan where your website, content, social media, and SEO combine to show your expertise, authority and trustworthiness to potential clients and the Google bots.

Some firms try a piece-meal approach, investing in some SEO services, starting PPC, or running a few video ads. However, your overall digital marketing strategy should create an interwoven network that promotes your brand as a law firm cohesively. The formula includes clear branding, an SEO-optimized website, monthly SEO maintenance, website content creation (blogs), and social media management. Developing a comprehensive digital marketing strategy is something they never taught in law school. Make sure that you research and take the time to either learn or invest in how to craft a unique and thorough strategy that will reach the right clients and continue to grow your law firm’s digital footprint online.

Do You Publish Consistent Authoritative Content on Your Website?

Fun Fact: Most people do not visit a law firm website for fun! The reason they are searching to find a lawyer is because they have some serious legal issue to solve. The authoritative content you place on your website can assuage their fears and help them realize that you are the lawyer that they can trust above all others.

At the end of the day, content is STILL king. High-quality content in the form of a blog is one of the most significant ways to move the SEO needle and impact on your legal marketing. Great content can show you have the knowledge and experience to handle your potential client’s case, and build trust.

Content also showcases to Google that you are an expert in your legal field. As one of hundreds (or thousands) of Google suitors, you need to show that the Google bots should serve you up at the top of their search engine (instead of your competitors). As a result, the more content you provide consistently, the more Google learns to trust you, understand the legal services you provide, and view you as an authority in your field. There is simply no substitute for a consistent blog, optimized for SEO.

Are You Ignoring Social Media?

While the importance of good content cannot be exaggerated, you also do not want to neglect your other marketing efforts. Ignoring social media, failing to carefully consider social media content, or failing to track social media results can thwart your digital marketing growth.

You should never focus on social media without first creating great content on your website. Building out social media content exclusively is like building your house on someone else’s real estate. Social media should be viewed as the tool by which you can create organic traffic to your law firm’s website. Social media platforms can also continue to promote your branding and is essential to your overall comprehensive marketing strategy.

Are You Mobile-Friendly?

Today’s world is increasingly mobile. Most web searches are now conducted on mobile devices and are looking for local connections. Google also considers how mobile-friendly a website is when determining its ranking in their search engine. By failing to make your website mobile-friendly, you are almost guaranteeing a lower ranking and missing out on valuable mobile traffic. Make sure to look at every page on your website to see if it translates well to a mobile device.

Have You Claimed Your Google Business Profile Page?

Google Business Profile is a free tool offered by Google that allows you to claim your online business profile so that it can appear on Google Search and Maps when they conduct local searches. Some ways to take advantage of your free GBP account are:

• Claim your business listing
• Complete your profile
• Use current contact information
• Add relevant links
• Create regular GMB posts
• Add active images

Another Fun Fact: Did you know that you can actual post short posts on your Google Business Profile page? Use this real estate directly under your reviews to showcase your expertise to those searching for you. It’s very likely that your competitors are ignoring this valuable and free real estate directly on Google’s platform to promote their law firm.

Is Your Law Firm’s Website Optimized for Google?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical consideration for any legal marketing strategy. While you need to base your content and plan on what a user needs to see, you also need to tailor your website so that it can communicate effectively to search engines. The higher your law firm ranks on search engine results pages, the more likely potential clients can find you. Some ways that you can optimize your website for search engines include:

• Conduct thorough keyword research – Keyword research is critical to determine which terms and phrases will help you improve your search engine rankings. There is a science to this process, and a reputable digital marketing agency that specializes in law firms can partner with you to provide you with the inside knowledge you need.
• Align your content with the user’s intent – To create an effective digital marketing strategy, it is important to identify who will be reading your pages and what type of information you should provide to them. Try to step into the shoes of your website visitor and structure your content accordingly.
• Write descriptive title tags and meta descriptions – Title tags and meta descriptions are important signals to search engines. They are also the first things that users see when search results appear. Therefore, it is pivotal to put extra care and attention into these elements of your webpages.
• Make your website more efficient – Google considers many factors when establishing a ranking for a webpage. One of these factors is usability. If visitors have problems with the website, such as encountering slower loading speeds or coming across broken links or missing pages, your results will be lowered. Consider methods to optimize your page speed for both desktop and mobile versions.
• Build strong backlinks and internal links – Your website should have strong internal and external links to better enhance your visitors’ experience and showcase your authority to Google.
• Optimize every aspect of your website – You also need to make other aspects of your website SEO friendly, including images, alt tags, and URLs.

Do You Review Your Metrics?

Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other platforms provide valuable insights about your website. If leveraged properly, this data can help you better customize your website and improve your overall search rankings. In fact, with the right tools, you can measure practically anything affecting your law firm’s website, including:

• Site visits
• The source of a search
• Whether a person who searched for you converted to a lead
• Phone calls
• Bounce rates

It is a shame to let all of this valuable information go to waste. Rather than throw away this powerful information, you can use the data to better understand your target audience and reach them more effectively in the future. A comprehensive digital marketing strategy will allow you to gain insight from your website analytics and make changes based on this information.

Avoid These Legal Marketing Mistakes and Grow Your Law Firm Online

 The legal marketing mistakes above are quite common, but you can avoid them by strategizing and crafting a comprehensive digital marketing strategy for your law firm. Make sure to take the time to analyze your law firm’s marketing strategies at least quarterly to determine what is working and what needs to be enhanced or added. With the right strategy in place, your law firm will see a greater return on your time or financial investment and more clients.

About our author: Annette Choti, Esq. is an attorney with over two decades of legal experience. After leaving the law, she worked for several large digital marketing agencies. Ultimately, she created Law Quill to demystify the SEO and digital marketing process for law firms, and to help them grow online.