Law Firm Marketing

Twitter and Facebook Accounts Getting Hacked

2010-08-09T14:44:00.004-04:00

If you are on Twitter or Facebook, invariably, you see one our your friend's/contact's account get hacked. You see your friend suddenly espousing how to get "Free Flash Games" or "Walmart Gift Cards at 50% Off".

Doesn't really give you a strong opinion of that person, even though you know it's not their fault. Subliminally, we project a certain amount of carelessness to this user for letting their account get hacked. Don't they check their accounts on a frequent basis?

I have a confession to make, my Twitter account was recently hacked. I "Tweeted" about free games, diet pills, and cheap health care. Needless to say, it was very embarrassing as I often give professionals such as attorneys advice on lawyer marketing. I have since stopped this breach.

Some ways to avoid your law firm or individual account from being hacked:

1. Use hard to guess passwords

2. Change your password frequently

3. Log in to your account at least on a weekly basis and look at your posts

4. Listen to your followers who tell you when you been hacked

With these simple steps, you have a good chance of keeping your Facebook and Twitter account from being hacked.

A Twitter Directory, Twellow

2009-11-19T16:21:00.002-05:00

As a quasi frequent Twitter person, I have found Twellow to be a great directory. You can search for interesting people to follow by category. You can see how many followers a particular person has too.

In addition you can create an extended profile of yourself, which can be very useful in describing your focus areas (ala practice areas and locations).

If you haven't checked out www.twellow.com and you are on Twitter, then you maybe missing out.

Targetlaw New Release

2009-11-11T08:32:00.003-05:00

Targetlaw has a new look and feel. It has morphed from a Lawyer Search Engine to a full blown online legal directory. There is also a legal article submission section.

www.targetlaw.com

The Secret of Search Engine Optimization (Shhhhh, don't tell anyone)

2009-03-17T15:31:00.004-04:00

If you are like most lawyers, you are constantly being barraged by offers from SEO "experts" who know the secrets of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Here is the biggest secret about SEO that I am going to share with you....

There is no secret. Despite what all the experts say, Google, Yahoo, MSN and every other search engine out there do not want a website to show better in their search results because of superior SEO. These search engines make their living by bringing back relevant websites to a particular query. If these results are skewed and not relevant, then the searcher will look elsewhere and not continue to use the search engine.
This creates a cat and mouse game between the SEO Experts (mostly Spammers) and the search engines. I would suggest you do not get caught up with all this.

Remember from my last post, above all, Content is King. If you are adding relevant content, have a Google Site Map (table of contents for Google), and are listed in a few good web directories then your lawyer website or blawg will do just fine. Stay away from trying to guess "keyword density" and other SEO methods. These strategies come and go. Trying to keep up with them will be frustrating, complicated, and in the end, not beneficial to your overall web traffic.

If your hobby is to SEO your law firm website on a frequent basis and the art of SEO interests you, then go ahead. Otherwise, put your head down, and refresh your relevant content. If you build it, they will come.

Relevant Content Trumps Everything for Websites

2009-03-04T12:57:00.005-05:00

What do Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines want to see on a website above all else? A pretty picture? Repeating key words? Great search engine optimization?
The title of this post is a hint...Yes, it is Relevant Content. What I mean by this is that your website needs to contain information that is relevant to a search engine query. Search engines do not want to bring back poor results to their searchers. Search engines make their money by having searchers return and continue to do web searches. Google is a multi billion dollar company because more folks on the internet use Google which drives up Google's pay per click (think "Sponsored Links" when you do a search) revenue. If the results Google brought back to the public where not relevant, then searchers would stop using Google and use another search engine.

So what does this have to do with you attorney or law firm website? If you want to capture web searchers that don't know you or your firm, you need to have content on your site that is similar to what they are searching for. An example of this might be a description of your criminal practice or an article on bankruptcy. The more information you have on your site that is relevant to various web queries, the more likely you will be found on the search engines.

How do you get content on your site? Write articles, describe your practice in great detail, or post frequently on your blog. Write about your practice and what you know about. If you don't have time, "make time". Content is king when it comes to search engine optimization. Incoming links are great (if done correctly) but content will usually trump any SEO tweaking.

I would recommend that you avoid:
1. Posting duplicate content. Search engines will penalize your website if they find the same content somewhere else (ala article submission site)
2. Steal content from another website. I'm stating the obvious here
3. Write content with too much emphasis on "key words" that your potential clients may use. Write in an informative manner in whatever tone your clients would want to see.

If you commit to adding a few pages to your website a month, and publish a blog post weekly, you will be ahead of the game.

Remember, Content is King on the internet. If you don't believe me, check out Wikipedia.

Attorney referral or lead services

2009-02-23T17:44:00.018-05:00

Attorney/Client lead and referral services claim that they take away the labor, analysis, confusion, and qualification of pay per click campaigns. A law firm pays the service and the service provides the law firm with leads it acquires through pay per click campaigns or organic capture.
In investigating a few of these services, including AttorneySync, LegalMatch, and LegalConnection, I found some good and not some good features.

All three did a good job of showing up on pay per click campaigns.

Legal Match and Legal Connection have a very detailed and long intake form which is good and bad. It is good that any referral or lead that gets to you has a lot of information and is more qualified than a typical web inquiry. It is bad that many potential clients will not have the patience to fill out the form.

The AttorneySync form was more intuitive and less lengthy than LegalMatch and LegalConnection. As you can imagine this is good and bad as I described before.

Once the form is filled, LegalMatch informs the user that an appropriate attorney will be in contact. AttorneySync actually shows the attorney that has meets the practice and location criteria. Legal Connection shows up to 3 possible attorneys that meet the criteria. Which one of these is better? I think all three have their merits.

Ok, so do I like the idea of this lead/referral service? I'll give my generic answer of "it depends". The upside is that these services take the grunt work out of SEO and Pay Per Click. These services have the ability to ratchet up their ad campaign to get your firm a certain amount of leads. These firms do all the research and heavy lifting for the right keywords. The downside is the uncertainty of the quality of the leads. No matter how long an intake form is, the lead may not be what the you are looking for. I especially hear this with Real Estate lawyers who complain they receive far too many Landlord/Tenant leads. DUI/DWI inquiries tend to be a lot more cut and dry. Either the potential lead was arrested for DUI or not.

So should you try one of these services? I would say giving one a shot would not be a bad idea as a compliment to your Law Firm website and Blawg (lawyer blog). You also need the time and the ability to respond quickly to one of these potential leads as these potential clients are in the market and want immediate feedback. I would also be wary to accept any promises of great leads and would be hesitant to commit to a long term contract.

Also, consult your state bar association on the ethics of these services. Some state rules are strict about referral services.

AttorneySync
LegalMatch
LegalConnection

A downturn economy, time to evaulate your lawyer marketing

2009-02-21T14:51:00.008-05:00

We have all seen the news, listened to the radio, read the paper, seen blogs, read Tweets (Twitter), and have had discussions with our friends and colleagues. Yes, the economy is bad, ad nauseaum. In my personal opinion, focusing on the negative has helped worsen the recession. People buy newspapers and listen to talk radio to hear about negative news more than positive news. I'll get off my soapbox.

So, perhaps there are a few less clients walking into your law firm at the moment. That can be painful. One valuable thing you can do is to reexamine your marketing strategy and budget. If you keep forms asking new clients how they found you, now would be a good time to tabulate the results. Put the results into a spreadsheet with the advertising sources, approximate fee revenue created, cost of advertising, profit, and any other metric that might be important to your practice. Why do this? I think you may be surprised by some of the sources of clients for your firm. As I mentioned in my previous post, you may have to cross reference the source that clients write down with your web analytics tool. Either way you should get a baseline to determine what sources are working and what aren't. Perhaps you don't need that 1/2 page add in the Yellow Pages when it come time to renew. That top listing in Findlaw may be doing very well for you. Either way you should know and plan on making marketing changes that make fiscal sense.

One key investment you can make is on your website. Create new, relevant, and valuable content on your web pages. Once you create content on your website, it is there forever, so any time investment you make in writing will have long term residual effects. If you happen to write an article on bankruptcy strategies to avoid disclosure, you are creating search engine friendly content that can lead to visitors being led to your site for answers and possibly help. In addition, the more relevant content you have on a particular subject, the more authoritative you become to your potential audience.

The same can be said about your blog (blawg = lawyer blog). Recommit to writing at least weekly posts regarding points of law. For the same reason as your website, new content has search engine residual value and establishes your expertise.

Every hour you invest on marketing analysis and web content will yield tangible results in improved client acquisition and marketing spending.

Traffic Reports for your law firm website - very important

2009-02-18T11:01:00.007-05:00

If your website already has a web analytics tool, I reccommend you become familiar with it. If your website does not have a analytics tool, you can always use Yahoo! or Google Analytics. I personally use Google Analytics for this site and others. I do not think there is a huge difference between the two.
Once you have your web analytics solutions live and ready to go, now comes the fun stuff. With a little playing around, you can start to see how successful (or not so successful) your blog or website is. Here are some metrics you want to look at:
1. Daily unique visitors aka how many people look at your site: This is a good overal guage on how well your site is doing. The higher the number, the more poplular your site is. (no doi)
2. Referring sites/links: If a visitor came to your site from another site, you will know what that site is. This is a very crucial measurment. Here you can see how successful that paid listing(s) is at Findlaw, Lawyers.com, or Justia. Are you getting the amount of traffic from these sites proportionate to what you are paying? Don't just take your sales reps word on how well these top listings work, test for yourself. You can track any pay per click campaing. Also, you can see how much return you get for you efforts on the whole social networking strategy. You can measure LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, and posts you make on other blogs.
3. Key words. These are terms or words that visitors typed into a search engine that eventually led them to your site. Most attorneys will see their name in various forms show very high on this list. This helps validate the fact that many web visitors know your name, and want to check you out. You can also see what other key words led people to your site. Search terms for a personal injury attorney may include "car accident attorney Grand Rapids " or "I slipped at a Kmart in Detroit ". If these key words are leading people to your site, you know that your content is being indexed and performing well on the search engines. If your are not getting the key words that your are looking for, then you can adjust and add to your website content appropriately. Write a blog post on an area of law that you are not getting alot of web hits on. More content can only help.
4. Trends. It is important to keep track of overall trends of your website. If you traffic spikes up or down, you need to be aware of this and be able to respond.

These are just a few of the things you should look for when analyzing your website traffic. The reality is, that very few attorneys take the time to look at their traffic reports. This gives the firms and lawyers that do look at their traffic reports and make adjustments a competitive advantage in securing that harder to get client. In today's times, an advantage, even a slim one, can mean all the difference.

Web 2.0 for lawyers, law firms, and attorneys - Q & A

2009-02-16T09:27:00.004-05:00

As Web 2.0 (the next generation of web experience and sites) continues to grow and accelerate, visitors want interaction in everything they do. As the younger generation gets older and the older generation becomes more acclimated with web interaction, the typical Law Firm Website model will become a little less relevant. Web surfers want to ask for information via the web. They do not want to "call for a free consultation" or fill out an intake form where someone from the firm will contact them.
This is why you see a lot of Law Q & A sites out there. Law firm potential clients are asking legal questions on these sites and on general Q & A sites such as Yahoo Answers!
I have had discussions with many attorneys about the viability of the information of these sites. Some attorneys believe it is ok to give informational answers that cannot be described as any legal advice. Other attorneys believe that the whole legal question and answer model is fatally flawed. One lawyer told me "would you get advice on how to do open heart surgery on an answer from a website? So why would you be able to get solid legal information without consulting with an attorney on the phone?".
I'm not a lawyer and don't know which perspective is correct. I do know that less and less people like to use the phone. People want answers online just like they want to purchase products online. A general manager of a local Pizza Hut franchise told me his sales increased 25% when customers could order pizza online.
How law firms will deal with this quandary will be very important. Blawgs can be a little interactive, but do not answer the fundamental question, how should lawyers communicate with prospective clients in the age of Web 2.0?

Web 2.0, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flicr..oh my!

2009-02-13T17:02:00.004-05:00

Whatever happened to websites that just displayed information? Websites where you could just buy stuff online?
They are still out there of course, but the internet is slowly changing to Web 2.0. What is 2.0? You are already a part of Web 2.0 if you are reading this Blog. Blogs are part of the 2.0 revolution. Web 2.0 is interactive. Site visitors want to comment, create profiles, upload/share pictures, communicate with friends or colleagues, rate movies or restaurants...and the list continues.
What does that mean to the average law firm or attorney? First of all, don't panic. Your old fashioned website is still the most important part of your online footprint. Your lawyer website can still be the "hub" for all of your other online activity.
Here is my suggestion, if you are interested in Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc..., sign up as a personal user, not a business person first. Just to check it out. It's fun to reconnect with friends and know what they are doing. As you get more and more immersed into Twitter and the gang, see what your peers are doing. If they look active, then you may want to think about creating another or compliment account for your law practice.
Also, don't forget about that blog you keep putting off. Blogging by definition is search engine friendly (especially Google) and also Web 2.0 friendly. Blogging is interactive (comments can be made), frequently updated with new and relevant content, and properly categorized/tagged.

If you want to read up on a good blog regarding Web 2.0, these guys know there stuff:

http://lawyermarketing.attorneysync.com/blog/

Good luck and welcome to Web 2.0!

Yet another free website directory listing

2009-02-11T13:06:00.005-05:00

There is much debate on directory listings having much search engine marketing value. The reason being is that oftentimes directories are not seo friendly for individual listings. A few years ago, you would see Findlaw and Lawyers.com individual pages showing up for local queries such as "Phoenix DWI Lawyer". Now that the internet is more crowded and search engine algorithms have dramatically changed, directories have lost some of their luster.
That being said, I recommmend that if a website directory is:
1. Free or minimal cost
2. Not a spam directory
3. Has a Google Page rank of at least 3
then it is worth creating a profile with your website address. It may take 5 minutes to do and it could help you.
For instance, I placed my other website, www.targetlaw.com into the free directory Brownbook. One day later the Brownbook listing showed up in a Google Alert I have for the term "Targetlaw". This means that Google must have indexed the listing and seen the word Targetlaw. Not bad for 3 minutes of work.
I will try and continue to search new directories that meet my criteria and share them with everyone.
By the way don't forget about Targetlaw, it is another free directory/search engine specifically for lawyer websites.

Yelp - another local free listing for businesses

2009-02-10T07:33:00.002-05:00

I ran into an interesting website, www.yelp.com. This site is a local business directory with a twist. It allows visitors to rate 1 out of 5 stars for businesses in their local area. And oddly enough, there are a lot of lawyer and law firm listings. I recommend in getting a free listing for your law firm in this site. You can put in basic information including your website. Yelp has a Google page rank of 7 (out of 10) which is pretty high (Yahoo has a page rank of 9)which means it may help your firm website to be listed for SEO's sake.
I would also invite friends and family to give a review of your law firm. I'm not sure what ethical issues this may cause, so check with your Bar Association rules.
Creating your listing on Yelp is not the most important thing you can do to promote you website, but it can't hurt either. If you have 5 minutes, it might be worth the time.

Blogging, when self promotion is counter productive

2009-02-09T11:53:00.005-05:00

From this blog, you can derive that I am very interested in strategies and tactics for lawyers and law firms to increase their exposure on the internet. Great web content, a relevant and informative blog, the right directory listings, search engine optimization etc all play a role in increasing potential clients to your practice.
All this being true, there has to be a correct tone in all the content that you publish out to the internet. I recently read a blog post by an solo practitioner regarding car accidents. It was very informative and relevant to someone looking for information on car accidents. Unfortunately, the author continued to mention himself and his practice as being qualified to handle car accident cases. Instead of the blog appearing informative and authoritative, it read more like a billboard. This cheapened his well thought out post. Maybe a few visitors will decide to call him, but someone more web savvy will see right through this post. In addition, I don't think the rest of the blog sphere will link back to this site as it looks more like advertising than an article.
So what's my point? If you have a blog, keep writing interesting and relevant posts. You do not have to plug your practice in the post. The fact that you write the post and credit the information to you and your firm, does far more to establish crediblity than mentioning your name 20 times.

Google Pay Per Click - Adwords

2009-02-06T09:59:00.004-05:00

In my previous post I mentioned a great, easy, and effective way to get exposure and market your law practice on the web.
I would now like to give my brief take on using pay per click for law firms large and small.
If you don't know what pay per click is, do a search on Google, Yahoo, or MSN and you can see "Sponsored Results" typically on the very top of the search results page and on the right side of the page. How do you think those results appear there? Advertisers pay Google for their ad to appear when certain search terms are used. The interesting thing, is that advertisers pay only when their particular ad is clicked on, taking the searcher to a desired website or landing page. Advertisers bid for clicks on certain key words such as "car accident" or "asbestos". The amount that is bid is solely up to the advertiser (lawyer/law firm). The advertiser with the highest bid, will appear first in the sponsored results. The second highest bidder will appear second and so on.
On the surface this may seem to be a quick and easy to generate business. My advice, do a lot of investigation before you start. Here are some suggestions/comments before you jump into pay per click:
1. Do you have enough time to research pay per click in general, read the tutorials (Google provides good information at www.google.com/adwords)
2. Do you have the time to be able to bid, monitor, and adjust your pay per click strategy? I think that you should have to at least commit a few minutes per day to review your bid status.
3. Do you have a way to measure your results? I recommend a separate landing page on your website for you ad campaign. This allows you to monitor and measure the results of your sponsored links.
4. Could you be spending more time getting more business from the web by other means? Blog, newsletter, articles.

In theory, pay per click is great for a law practice, especially in the consumer space (family, personal injury, criminal, wills & estates, probate, immigration etc..). If business is slow, ratchet up your pay per click campaign for that month. If business is good, then put the brakes on the campaign.

For everything, the "devil is in the details". I believe a pay per click strategy can help compliment your other marketing avenues, if you do it right.

Get local with Google and Yahoo

2009-02-05T10:30:00.003-05:00

Back to basics. From the research that I have done, people who search for things on the web, search by business type and location. This is no different for searches for lawyers or law firms. I review the web reports of my clients and see a lot of searches that my look like "DWI lawyer Texas" or "bankruptcy attorney Albany".
Having a great website with relevant content and good SEO will help your firm's website capture some of these searchers.
There is also a free and easy way to capture these potential clients through Yahoo and Google local listings.

For Google, go to: http://www.google.com/local/add and add your firm. You can add your website, address, phone number, hours of operation, types of law practice, what payments your firm accepts etc. You can even upload a logo. The whole process takes no more than 5 minutes. Below is a sample search "family lawyer San Antonio" I did on Google. You can see all of the local listings of law firms at the top of the search results! This trumps organic search engine marketing and is absolutely free.

The same can be done on Yahoo! at http://listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit/index.php

This is free, and local.

Lawyer Blogging Tips

2009-01-27T08:01:00.002-05:00

When an attorney decides whether to start a blog or not, I always ask them, "Are you really going to spend the time to make your blog successful?" A neglected lawyer blog is worse than having no blog at all.
I stumbled across this article by Foster Web Marketing that has some very good ideas to help lawyers stay on point with blogs.
http://lawfirmandattorney-internet-marketing.com/a-blog-vs-an-active-blog/

This article gives 5 points for a successful blog. My two favorite are:
1. Set aside a certain time of day or week dedicated to working on your blog
2. Don't be afraid to invite guest bloggers to help you create blog posts

I had never considered these two suggestions. I recommend you check out the article.

Happy Blogging!

Directory vs Website listings

2009-01-26T09:42:00.004-05:00

As you can guess from my previous posts, I believe a website for an attorney or law firm is one of the pillars of marketing your practice. A well constructed and crafted website can convey a professional/competent image and drive visitors and potential clients to your practice.

The two largest lawyer directories present attorney listings in a different manner. Lawyers.com, as a default, presents a typical "directory style" listing of a firm or attorney. In this listing, there is contact information, listing of lawyers, practice areas, law school information, etc. There is an option to "view website".

Findlaw on the other hand, defaults the listing back to the attorney's website. There are very few attorney listing that present the typical directory listings as described above.

There are pros and cons to both formats of listings. If I know a lawyer's name, then the directory style listing is quicker and more efficient. If I don't know a specific attorney, then I may want to investigate their website. Findlaw does not give the directory listing style whereas Lawyers.com gives you both options. For this reason, I have to give the nod to Lawyers.com for more consumer choice.

Please let me know what you think.

Business networking sites - LinkedIn

2009-01-21T14:41:00.004-05:00

I recently read a great post by Larry Bodine about mistakes lawyers make on LinkedIn.
These are great points as you can see below. The biggest mistake I see is that many lawyers are not on LinkedIn. Primarily smaller law firms and solo practitioners. I recently did a search of Law Practice/ Law Firms for my zip code and only 7 firms showed up with 10 or less employees. Conversly, 185 law firms showed up with 10 or more employees.
Small law firms and solo practitioners should be networking as much if not more than the larger firms. So my recommendation, get on LinkedIn then follow the information on Larry Bodine's blog.
http://blog.larrybodine.com/2009/01/articles/tech/top-10-mistakes-people-make-on-linkedin/

Findlaw selling incoming links...Google no-no?

2009-01-20T08:29:00.005-05:00

I must admit that I do not follow the tactical and strategic plans of Findlaw on a day to day time frame. However, I just read a very interesting article from iMarktinglawyerblog which describes how Findlaw sells incoming links from the huge Findlaw website. On the surface, it makes sense. Findlaw has a high page rank and any incoming links to a lawyer website would be powerful and relevant.
According to this article, Google frowns upon selling incoming links. Findlaw can charge anywhere from $1,000 to higher for these incoming links.
It's hard to quantify if Google has penalized the attorneys that have bought off on the incoming link package.
I would recommend to look closely at this package and do a lot of research before making any decisions. As I like to say, there are no "quick fixes" when it comes to honest and effective search engine marketing for lawyer websites and all websites. Findlaw is part of Rueters-Thomson, which is a huge company. Profits are hugely important.

You can read the article here:
http://www.ilawyermarketing.com/blog/2008/09/06/findlaws-pants-on-fire-denying-sale-of-links/

Video on lawyer websites

2009-01-19T14:01:00.002-05:00

A very large lawyer specific web marketing company (You can guess whom I speaking of) is touting the effectiveness of creating a video of a lawyer(s) and placing this video on the attorney website. At first I was little skeptical of this a few years ago. However, with the onslaught of Youtube and specific video search engines, I believe that having a video on a website is worth looking into. Here are some of the compelling reasons to have a video:
1. A visitor can feel like they have "met" the lawyer before even walking to an office. This will allow some visitors to stop looking and start contacting you.
2. A law firm will stand out from other sites that do not have video. In today's crowded websphere, anything to stand out will help lawyers get the clients they are looking for.
3. An attorney can convey a message of what they are experts in better than just text. This communicates quickly with video. Users don't read websites as much as scan websites.
4. Google is showing videos in search results
5. Videos specific search engines are becoming more popular as Flickr did with images

If you do decide to go down the video path here are some recommendations:
1. Get a professional and experience video production company that specializes in video for the internet
2. Make sure that your video does not violate any of your state bar rules on advertising
3. Double check the output, and make sure it is exactly what you want
4. Be prepared to spend a good amount of money. You get what you pay for and this is not something to try and do on the cheap.

Another reason to have a lawyer website

2009-01-18T10:18:00.003-05:00

For those attorneys that do not believe that clients are looking for lawyers on the internet, the world disagrees with you. However, here are some other reasons to have a website:
1. Professionalism. Okay, so you have the best reputation in your area of law, and do not need any more business from a website. What happens when a client wants to confirm their decision to hire you as their attorney? Do they call the local bar association? Do they go to Martindale Hubble? No. Clients go to the internet to justify their choices. Most people have never heard of Martidale Hubble. If I can't find your website, then I think that you are out of business
2. Attorney references. I hear this all the time from attorneys that need to refer their clients to other attorneys, especially out of town. Where do they find other attorneys? Frequently, it is the internet. Attorneys like to read about other attorneys. Where are they going to read up on another lawyer? You got it, websites.
3. Contact information. It may seem trivial, but address and phone information is critical. Most consumers don't look at phone books anymore. Before any appointment I go on, I always check the business's website I want to visit. This is usually the most recent information on location and phone number. Phone books and directories can be outdated.

Here are three prudent reasons to get a website. You don't have to believe all the hype of how a website will bring you millions of dollars, but a website does have practical purposes.

Web site design- Stock photos vs real photos

2009-01-17T20:24:00.004-05:00

You often see a lot of "stock" photographs in attorney websites. This should not surprise anyone as we see a lot of stock photos (photographs professionally done of models that have no relationship to the particular entity of the website).
I'm often asked by my law firm clients whether accurate photos are more advantageous than stock photos.
As I often like to answer, it depends. I think that a photo of a solo practitioner or the team of lawyers can be good on the front page. It gives a sense of realism to the prospective client. The website visitor can see the face of the lawyer that he or she is actually going to do business with.
If you can get a professionally done photograph, and not a Passport type photo, then it might be good to show your mug to the masses. Proof how your photograph looks before you publish the website.
If you cannot get a photograph to work, then stock photos of columns, scales of justice, police cars etc, may work better.
On secondary pages, it is fine to use stock photos for attorney/ client interactions. Make sure to be diverse.
Good luck, and may your good side show through.

AARP legal directory

2009-01-13T19:48:00.001-05:00

Here is a great lawyer directory that AARP gives to their 39 million members:
https://www.aarplsnbyge.com/lsn/ui/jsp/signup.jsp

What not sign up, especially if you do elder law, probate, personal injury, or anything that might be relevant to our older generations.

To much content, not enough links?

2009-01-13T19:23:00.002-05:00

One of my clients had a huge website/blog with pages and pages of content. This website was put in the Google "Sandbox", meaning that his page rank went to 0 where it was a page rank of 3.
How could this happen? After much study, I found that this lawyer's website had virtually no incoming links (ie other sites referencing parts of the lawyer's website). There was about 1000 pages of content with only 20 incoming links. Google must have thought that this was a "spam" type site. We immediately posted his site on some free law firm directories, his local bar association, and places like Findlaw. It took a few months, but his site got back to a Google page rank of 3.
Lesson learned, don't forget incoming links. (caution, only link with reputable sites that have similar "legal" themes)

Lawyer Web Marketing in these economic times

2008-11-20T11:43:00.000-05:00

As every other industry across the country and globally, the practice of law is affected by the severe downturn in the economy. There are less real estate transactions, mortgages, deed and title work, real estate settlements, estate planning, and general business and consumer transactions.

So what is a lawyer or law firm to do in these challenging times to continue to market when market dollars are being squeezed? Here is a checklist of what a lawyer should continue to do to market his or her firm on the internet:

1. Take a fresh look at your firm's website content. Is it relevant for today's economic reality? Is the tone of the content in alignment with your target audience's mood? For instance an estate planning attorney may want to add some content which says something like "We understand the current economic reality, but now is the absolute best time to reavaluate your estate planning strategy" This will have some resonance with your potential client that A. you recognize and sympathize with his or her current mood and B. Give them a reason to come see you for a consultation when your potential client may not have otherwise.

2. Realize that all consumers including your potential clients are hesitant to make big decisions and are doing even more online research. These potential clients want information to help them in their decision making process. This means your site will need more legal related information to allow your potential client to "dip their toe in the water" and see if you are an expert in there desired issue. Customers are going to go online to find information, are they coming to your website or someone elses?

3. Create a lawyer blog giving your opinions or current economic news on a regular basis. The good news is that blogs do not have to be as formal as a typical law firm website. You do have to be consistent in writing a post on a regular basis.

4. Scour the internet for free lawyer directories and submit your website.

5. Submit you law articles to legal related article websites.

6. Look for legal question and answer websites and answer questions that are in your area of practice. You will establish yourself as an expert, allow you to get a potential client, and create a weblink back to your website.

Big changes in Google search engine algorithms

2008-09-22T08:44:00.000-04:00

Many websites, including law firm websites have seen a substantial drop in web traffic over the last month or so. From my testing, it appears that Google has changed the way that it ranks pages for certain searches and search terms. While it is impossible to know or guess what Google is up to (their search algorithms are guarded like Fort Knox), webmasters should stick to the basics:
1. Keep adding relevant content to your law firm website. Think about, the more words you have on your website, the more likely Google, Yahoo, MSN etc will have your website show up on the first 10 or or so search results.
2. Keep it simple. Try and get your website link listed on relevant sites such as bar associations and legal directories. Stay away from straight link exchanges with websites that have nothing to do with you website.
3. Make sure your web pages are title tagged correctly
4. Make sure that you have a Google and Yahoo sitemap. This lets these search engines easily index your site.
5. Stay patient. The longer your website is out there, the more credence Google and the gang will give it. You don't want to be a "fly by night" type website.

How do I get more people to my Law Firm Website?

2008-09-04T13:38:00.000-04:00

I am asked this question by many lawyers who are trying to improve their web traffic and search engine optimization (SEO). Here are some free things you can do:
1. Make sure your website relevant content (words) to your practice. Try to write in more of a natural language, because you potential clients will use natural words to find you through such search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask, Microsoft, etc..
2. Sign up for as many free legal directory services as you can including Thomson Findlaw, Lawyers.com, Justia, Targetlaw etc...
3. Answer legal related questions on Question and Ask legal sites such as law guru and askinglaw.com
4. Make sure your website and information is listed on your local bar association directory

Answer lawyer type questions on Askinglaw

2008-05-17T16:58:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, www.askinglaw.com is a great law question and answer forum. Visitor's can ask any questions they would like. As an update from the last time I saw Askinglaw, there are a lot more questions and most of the questions are actually answered. The subjects include personal injury, family law, dwi, foreclosure, credit card debt, garnishment, and criminal law. It is a very easy site to navigate as you can search for a lawyer and search the website for you law based question. If I was a lawyer looking for more business and to market the firm's practive on the internet, I would definitely start finding relevant questions. By answering these questions you 1. Establish credibility on the subject matter (ie bankruptcy) 2. Provide contact information for the questioner and other's to hire you and 3. Provide a link back to you website which helps in internet marketing and rising higher on the search engines such as legal.

www.askinglaw.com

Legal Blogs vs Websites

2007-07-15T14:39:00.000-04:00

After doing some preliminary research, I have noticed that for blogs to be effective for lawyers, the must be regular updates to the legal blog. Google, Yahoo, and MSN actually will punish the blog if the content is refreshed on a regular schedule.
Legal Websites however, seem to age like fine wine. The longer they are out there the better exposure they get. I always recommend adding new content to a lawyer's website, but it is not as critical as a blog.
My recommendation is to have a website for sure, and a blog if you have a realistic chance of being able to create articles on at least a bimonthly basis.

Don't forget to submit your website to the free legal search engine / directory, www.targetlaw.com

Until next time

Law Discussion Boards

2007-05-10T16:02:00.000-04:00

Ever bored and surfing the internet? Want to increase some qualified traffic to your lawyer website? I think it is a good idea to go to some discusion boards and address/answer some legal related questions. Make sure that you don't create an attorney/client relationship. What I would do is to answer a question like:
"I was injured in a car accident last week in Beltsville md. My neck and back have started to stiffen up a day after the incident. should I get a lawyer"

You answer could be "I am a local Maryland attorney specializes in personal injury. Please contact me at 301-555-1212 or jdoe@lawirm.com and I can talk to you about your possible case".

where are these answer type places? Some generic q & a sites are answers.yahoo.com and www.answerbag.com

For more law q&a try lawguru.com or www.askinglaw.com

You should also put your website on any post you do to help build those incoming links.

Thanks!

Submit your website to a lawyer search engine

2007-04-29T15:23:00.000-04:00

Don't forget to submit your website to the free lawyer search engine, Targetlaw. There is no fee to be listed in this search engine, however if you do not submit your law firm website you will not be included in the search results.
To paraphrase Bluto from Animal House "Submit your website, it don't cost nothing"

Family Law Search Terms

2007-04-29T15:14:00.000-04:00

One of the biggest challenges I see most lawyers make, is using legal jargon on their lawyer website. This may look prestigious and intelligent but it does 2 things that are not good:
1. It often intimidate the average web visitor who is doing a quick lawyer search to see if someone can help them for their legal issue.
2. You lose on on search terms your potential clients are using to find attorneys.

In the estate planning world I see the following search terms being used on Google, Yahoo, MSN etc:
"how do I split my 401k?"
"can I get a divorce if my wife is cheating on me?"
"how does a house get split during a divorce?"
"stocks get divided in divorce?"

Notice there are not the terms: assets, retirement, equity, portfolio, division, and infidelity.

How do you put these rich and popular search terms on your website? Three suggestions:
1. Interdisperse these terms in the content of your existing website.
2. Have a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page where you answer these natural language type questions
3. Get testimonials (anonymous of course) from your clients stating that:
"I thought that I would lose my house and 401k during the divorce, but attorney X helped me keep them"

Until next time.

Donald

2007-04-26T16:22:00.000-04:00

Google Page Rank

2007-04-25T18:18:00.000-04:00

"What is Google Page Rank and how do I find out what my page rank is?"
This is a question that I am asked on every third or fourth meeting I have with attorneys that are trying to increase traffic to their website.

First, Google Page rank is a proprietary ranking done by Google which determines the "power" of a certain website. A lot of what goes into this ranking is the idea of incoming links to your website. On a basic level the more incoming links you have (other websites, blogs, or forums that reference your website address) the higher your Google page rank. The ranking of a site that references your site has a lot to do in your own Google page rank. For instance, if your site is referenced on the Yahoo! home page (Google page rank of 9) this is worth a lot more towards your page rank than your cousin's reunion website (Google rank of 0).

Second, in my opinion, lawyers get too caught up with page rank. My advice is to get your website listed on other legitimate sites. Do not cut corners and get your site listed on a less than reputable site. This can do more harm than good. Incoming links is only one aspect of getting listed high on the search engines.

Third, how do I find out my legal website Google page rank? Very simply, down load the Google toolbar. This toolbar will let you know the page rank on every page you visit. I personally use this toolbar for other stuff as well such as an easy search, autolink, and pop up blocker.

By the way, the only website that has a ranking of 10 (1 to 10) is Google. Funny how they would rank their website the highest...

Until next time,

Donald

Natural Language to get Longtail Searches

2007-04-23T18:59:00.000-04:00

Many website owners, lawyer included, are often times overly concerned with showing up on the first page of Google for a few "keywords". It becomes almost and ego thing. I've heard "I have to show up on the first page of Google every time for 'New Jersey criminal attorney'"
This might not be a bad thing to keep in the back of your mind, but to focus only on these types of searches can be detrimental to your overall website look, feel, and content.

Another type of search is what is called a "long tail search". This type of search is a phrase that will never be exactly duplicated and is unique. For instance "I was pulled over in avalon nj and blew a .08" The odds of this search ever happening again is astronomical. These types of searches make up about 20 percent of all searches with keywords making up the other 80 percent. Having your lawyer website show up for these types of searches is good for 3 reasons:
1. It is not as hard to show up for these searches, because no one would or could have keywords match this search syntax. This makes it much less competitive
2. These type of searchers tend to need an attorney now and are more likely to be fairly well informed about the law.
3. It is much easier to confirm a case came through the internet by looking at your traffic report. If only 1 visitor found your website with "I need to write a terms and conditions for my website" and someone calls you with this question, then you know that it came from your website.

How do you get these kind of searches. The answer: "Natural Language" Some of your website content should have plenty of keywords that you are targeting, but at least 50% of your website should have content with no regard to keywords. Examples are articles you have written or descriptions of cases you have won. If you take this advice, you will get more targeted leads calling you for legal help. You never know exactly how potential clients will do a lawyer search.

Until next time.

Donald Imm

Keep you site up to date

2007-04-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

I am constantly surprised to find out when I visit my law firm clients, that their website has outdated information listed. Attorney's have left, practice areas have changed, even address changes are not reflected on the website.
Remember, your website is a billboard for you potential clients and existing clients. Make sure it is up to date. I also recommend you mention any recent hires, position openings, recent court wins, or articles. This helps keep the content of your lawyer website fresh for the search engines and can help your ranking.

Until next time,

Donald

Geographic Area Description

2007-04-16T14:14:00.000-04:00

Most search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo do not necessarily know what towns, counties, states, and cities are closeby to your law firm. For instance, if you are an attorney that practices family law in Carrollton, Texas, a prospective divorce client may not be able to find you if they query under "Dallas Texas Family Attorney"
What to do? Try to determine what cities and towns are near enough to your practice where clients would feel comfortable driving to see you. You can always go to http://maps.google.com
to take a look at the towns and cities nearby.
At the bottom of every one of your webpages insert:

"Attorney John Doe serves divorce, custody, and family law clients in the following areas, Dallas, Carrollton, Richardson, Lewisville, Fort Worth, Irving, Dallas County, and Denton County"

Until next time,

Donald

http://www.targetlaw.com

Incoming links to your legal website, very important

2007-04-15T12:23:00.000-04:00

In my last post I talked about having relevant and well written content on your website to attract potential clients. This is important.
As we all know, Google, has proprietary algorithms in their search engine to present the best (in Google's opinion) websites that fit a particular query such as "boston car crash lawyer".
Having content on you website which coincides with this query is important. But what happens if 1,000 other websites have similar content? How do you move your lawyer website to the first page of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, or Targetlaw?
One way is to have other website reference your website. This gives weight to website. Google (and the others) look at incoming links as validation that your website has credible information that other websites think is important. The more incoming links, generally the better your search engine ranking will be.
How do you get incoming links to your website? Here are some suggestions:
1. List your website in your local bar association listing
2. List your website with any other association you may belong to such as Atla etc.
3. Write articles for websites such as Ezine with a link back to your website.
4. Start a blog, such as this one and write posts linking back to your website.
5. Get listings (the least expensive) in Findlaw, Lawyers.com, Yellow pages which include your website listings.
6. Ask other attorneys to put your website on their website and return the favor.
7. Be leery of inter linking services, this can get you into more trouble that it is worth. Only have your website listed on credible websites. You do not want to be associated with unethical or black hat websites

Like anything else, this will take time. But it will be worth the effort for the next time your potential client is doing a lawyer search for someone just like you.

Until next time.

Donald

Content, Content, Content on your website

2007-04-13T18:25:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder why some lawyer websites are showing up more than other attorney websites? One of the reasons is content (the written word) that is on the more successful websites.
Should you right a 100 page these on family law and then upload it to your website? Probably not. However you do want to have natural language inter dispersed with key words and phrases. For instance:

"As a personal injury attorney, Mr. Doe has helped his clients realize and earn the settlements they deserve from such tragic occurrences such as car accidents, truck accidents, dog bites, slip and falls, and medical malpractice."

This may be a little heavy on keywords, but this type of content will be more likely to show up than: "Attorney X practices personal injury law"

Write good content early and often. If you happen to take on a case in a slightly different speciality, write a quick paragraph about that specialty and post it on your website. Continue to do this and your website will become the marketing engine you want it to become.

Until next time,

Donald

Law Information blog on lawyer search

2007-04-11T15:03:00.000-04:00

It seems like the vertical lawyer search engine is starting to have a little buzz. A law information blog, http://legalcatch.wordpress.com has recommended www.targetlaw.com as an effective tool to research attorneys and their practices. Instead of a typical legal directory such as Findlaw or Lawyers.com, Targetlaw allows users to research attorneys before they contact them.

Case lead from the internet, what to do

2007-04-09T17:29:00.000-04:00

I recently spoked to one of my lawyer clients who is doing very well from his criminal law website Baltimore, Maryland. I looked at his website's traffic reports, which looked decent, but not spectacular. The website was getting a lot of visitors with Google queries such as "Baltimore law on drunk driving", "what is the bac in md?" etc.

Why is this attorney getting more business than you average bear? He makes it a point to call when he gets an internet lead. Not send an email. Visitors to attorney websites usually need help fast. The first attorney to actually call a lead will usually convert that lead into a client 80-90 percent of the time.

The early bird gets the worm!

Until next time,
Donald

Legal Matching Services

2007-04-08T11:18:00.000-04:00

I have found that there are four ways for a lawyer be found on the internet. They are:
Legal Directories such as Findlaw and Lawyers.com
Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN
Vertical search engines such Targetlaw
Legal Matchmaking Services such as Legal Connection by Findlaw and Legal Match

I want to talk about the matching services today. These services use pay per click to attract intenet searchers to matching webpage. On this webpage, there are usually 8-10 practice areas such as immigration law, personal injury, criminal law, and divorce law. The visitor chooses the practice area then fills out a lengthy form about the particulars of their legal issue. At this point the user will either pick from a group of sponsoring attorneys in their area, or they will be contacted by sponsoring attorneys.

If you are a lawyer looking at one of these systems, consider:
1. What is the cost of the service versus an average lead/case is worth
2. If you need high end cases, this service is not for you
3. If you want a volume of average to poor leads, this service might be for you
4. You must contact the lead immediately before any of the other sponsoring attorneys do. The first contact usually gets the case. Phone calls are the most effective.
5. Is your practice in a popular consumer legal area such as family, criminal, bankruptcy, personal injury, employment, or immigration? If your area of law is copyright law, this service is for you
6. What is the service's commitment to getting you leads?
7. If you are not getting the type of lead you want, complaining to the company can help increase the number of leads as the service provider will increase their pay per click in your practice and geographic area.
8. If the service asks for a picture, get it professionally done
9. Have a good tagline

Until next time.

Lawyer Seach Engine

2007-04-04T17:19:00.000-04:00

I recently found a lawyer search engine. The nice part about this search engine is that it only contains attorney websites. No directories, no matching services, no informational portals. Just lawyer websites. Every firm should make sure that their website is listed. You can go to the site and submit your website.

What I really like about this attorney search engine, is that it is the search experience that end users are used to. Directories are somewhat cumbersome and old fashioned. Matching services such as Legal Connection and Legal Match work for certain types of law such as immigration, employment, criminal, drunk driving, divorce, and bankruptcy.

Until next time.

Legal Blogs

2006-10-05T15:58:00.000-04:00

Legal Blogs are a great way to get exposure of your practice on the web. A blog is sort of an online journal that everyone can see. A blog is an informal way to communicate with your clients or potential clients. If you can use a word processor you can use a blog.

You can see a great example of a criminal blog by clicking on criminal law blog.

Consumers looking for legal info online

2006-09-24T20:44:00.000-04:00

According to a recent Harris Poll sponsored by Lawyers.com,

"Other than family and friends (31%), the Internet is now the single
biggest source for legal information, outpacing books and
newspaper/magazine articles, which came in at just 12%. In fact, the
percentage of consumers who rely on the Internet for legal counsel has
nearly tripled in recent years (10% in 2000 vs. 27% in 2006), while the
percentage that rely on friends and family has declined by about a third
(49% in 2000 vs. 31% in 2006)."

The study also states that:
" Majority of U.S. Adults Using Lawyers; Top Reason is for Estate
Planning
Two out of three U.S. adults today have used a lawyer at least once in
their lives, about the same percent as in 2000 (65% in 2006 vs. 68% in
2000). As was the case six years ago, the single biggest reason lawyers are
hired today is to handle estate planning, like creating wills. Forty-six
percent of those U.S. adults who have hired a lawyer say that is what drove
them there, a similar percent as in 2000 (51%)."

You can see the press release at:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-06-2006/0004427441&EDATE=

So do you think you might need that legal website...See a good Genvea New York Estate Planning Website

Donald Imm
www.targetlaw.com

Template or Custom website?

2006-09-12T21:11:00.000-04:00

Law firm web sites fall into two categories:
1. Custom designed websites (where the design is from "scratch")
2. Templated design websites (pre-fabricated website)

Template websites can work if:
1. Your firm only needs a "brochure" style website. Name of firm, attorney names, phone number, practice areas etc. Attracting new business or competing for referred business is not that important to your firm.
2. Cost is a major issue. Custom designed lawyer web sites are generally 2-3 times more expensive than templated websites.
3. Time is a factor. Once the content for you site is completed, your web designer plugs the information into a preexisting template.

Your firm should consider a custom website if:
1. You are looking for new business and/or want to impress current clients with a great design.
2. Your firm has any type of preexisting branding (letterhead, newsletters, television ads). A custom designed website can bring those elements in.
3. You want the best looking website in your geographical area and practice area.
4. You like to be involved with design and or appearance.
5. You want to convey an important aspect or advantage of your firm.

You can check out a great example of a custom law firm website

Until next time,

Donald

Do you get referrals? If "yes", your firm needs a website

2006-08-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

Virtually every lawyer and law firm I speak to tells me that the biggest source of new clients are referrals. I don't disagree. Even firms with phenomenal web sites and web dominance still get a significant portion of their business from referral sources.

Having a good referral source is the best reason to have an effective website. Sounds counterintuitive doesn't it? Here's why a lawyer website is important:
1. Validation - potential clients that are referred to you want to make sure that you are a legitimate attorney and handle their particular issue. There is only one way for a lay person to do this, using the internet to search your name.
2. First Impression. If you don't have a website or have an ugly one, it is hard to recover from that initial impression.
3. Competition. You think you are the only attorney or firm this prospect was referred to? All things being equal the lawyer with the best website wins.

Some examples of nice referral sites:
Elkton Criminal Attorney
Geneva NY Real Estate Attorney

Until next time,
Donald

www.targetlaw.com

Pay per Click and what you should know

2006-08-01T14:22:00.000-04:00

Pay Per Click

First a couple of quick definitions:

Pay per click in a nutshell is the "Sponsored Links" portion of Google, Yahoo, MSN etc search engines. The Sponsored Links are usually on top and to the right hand side of the search results. Companies and people bid (pay money) to get their website and tagline listed. How much they bid determines how high up on the search result page their ad shows up.

Organic Results are the listings that are presented to you when you do a web search (sans the Sponsored Links). Google, Yahoo, and MSN etc have algorithms to rank sites according to the terms you type into the search box. You do not pay to rate in these rankings. Making your website search engine optimized helps you gain in the rankings. This is a subject for another posting.

Is pay per click worth the investment? Yes, with the caveat you do some research and spend some time managing it and you have a website that has been search engine optimized. Pay per click is a nice shortcut to get your law firm some exposure and traffic on the web. You can also increase and decrease your budget according your caseload and budget. Google and Yahoo make it fairly easy to set up an account and get started. Some suggestions:

1. Start small. Google suggests that a minimum of $30/month is needed to see any results. I would say this is a good starting point.
2. Plan. What type of business are you looking for? If Family Law is what you are looking for is it Divorce, Child Custody, Adoption? The terms you want should not be too specific or too broad. "Car Accidents" is far too broad of a term to bid on. However "Car Accident St. Louis" will be more effective and cheaper
3. Measure. Track how many visitors come to your website from the pay per click campaign. Your current website should have traffic reports that allow you to do this.

Until next time,
Donald

www.targetlaw.com

How do I know my law firm website is working?

2006-07-24T13:48:00.000-04:00

This question is asked early and often from my lawyer website clients. Here are some basic criteria to gauge how your website is doing:
1. If I search for my name (and lawyer or attorney or firm name) does my website come up on the first page of Google and Yahoo? This is critical, because if someone searches for you by name, that is most likely a referral from one of your existing clients or another attorney. You want these referrals to find you quickly, otherwise they may go to one of your competitors
2. Do your clients comment that you have a nice website. This may seem a little trivial, but impressing clients via your website helps give you practice validation.
3. Look at your web traffic. Unlike the Yellow Pages, you can see exactly how many people visit your website, how they got to your site, how long they stayed, and even what the most popular pages were. If your current provider does not give web metrics, you may want to find a new web vendor.
4. Have you obtained any business from your website? This is often a tough one to measure. I recommend you ask your new clients if they saw your website and was it influential in choosing to hire you.

There are many more criteria to measure your website and overall internet marketing strategy, but these four checks should give you a baseline of how your website is doing.

Until next time,

Donald
www.targetlaw.com

You can check out a recent website we released at www.elktonattorney.com

Email Marketing for Law Firms?

2006-07-12T15:41:00.000-04:00

I am often asked should attorneys send out emails for marketing purposes. Email can be a great way to market. There are some things to consider:
1. Do I have the time and expertise to create a nice, professional email message?
2. Do I have a lot of email addresses to make it worth sending?
3. Do I have permission to send to these emails (very important)
4. Is the email going to be a newsletter, announcement
5. Will I be able to send out an email at least 1 month?
6. Do I have a website where people can find out more about me.
7. Should I hire someone to help? - probably a "yes". A good firm to use is Blue Sky Factory www.blueskyfactory.com
8. The response rate is not dissimilar to direct mail. So you may only get about 2-5% actually "do something" from your email.

Until next time.

Donald
www.targetlaw.com

Websites for Transactional, Corporate, and Defense Law Firms

2006-07-10T07:51:00.000-04:00

This is a very interested survey conducted by Alyn-Weiss & Associates (http://www.prdenver.com/). The gist of the article is that these types of firms do obtain business from their websites. Most defense/corporate firms I speak with have a hard time believing that a website will bring them business. Maybe more surveys like this will help them "see the light"

FIRM WEBSITES ARE BEST BUSINESS-DEVELOPMENT SOURCE Eighty-two percent of corporate, transactional and defense law firms received work through their websites, according to a recently released survey by Alyn-Weiss & Associates that asked firms nationwide about their marketing strategies. That’s a hefty increase over the 51 percent rate reported in the biannual survey in 2004

Donald Imm
www.targetlaw.com

Every Family/Domestic attorney should have a website

2006-06-26T18:18:00.000-04:00

If you are a family lawyer or law firm without a website, get one fast. Every family attorney I speak to has success from obtaining clients from the internet, even with unattractive and rudimentary sites.
Think about it. If a wife is going is thinking about divorcing her husband (and vice versa), is she going to ask for an attorney referral from her friends? Her family? Her work peers? She's going to go to the internet looking for information and help.
I spoke with a lawyer the other day who said that 50% of all cases heard in his county are family related. Only 25% are criminal. The other 25% is for "other".

Until next time.

Donald

www.targetlaw.com

The internet is number 1 for Media at work

2006-06-09T13:53:00.000-04:00

As you might imagine, the internet is the top media used at work. The internet is the number 2 media for homes.

You can see a breakdown in the study below:
http://news.com.com/Study+Web+is+the+No.+1+media/2100-1024_3-6080280.html

77% of Americans are online according to a Harris Poll

2006-05-31T14:24:00.000-04:00

I ran across this recent Harris Poll. Some interesting facts:
In 1995 only 9% of adults were online.
In 2000 57% of adults were online.
Now 77% if adults are online.

What does this mean to a law firm? More and more adults are using the internet for shopping, communicating, and most importantly researching information. I think it is logical that consumers will be looking at and searching for legal related websites. Why wouldn't they? They research everything else online.

Having a well crafted, findable, and attractive website is more important than ever for attorneys.

Direct Mail marketing by attorneys

2006-05-24T18:39:00.000-04:00

Direct mail has been around since the Pony Express. The question whether Direct Mail is effective is almost as old. Dose it work for attorneys and law firms? As I like to always answer most questions "it depends".
Some critical things to look at are:
1. What type of clients are you trying to attract? Small business owners, affluent individuals, people charged with a crime, etc... This is the most important question you ask yourself because it directly effects the most critical factor of your campaign...
2. The mailing list. If your list is poor, you results will be poor, no matter how pretty or compelling your copy and design are.
3. Outsource or Inhouse? Most mailing houses only want large mailings (50,000 +) Your law firm may not need that large of list. If you do it inhouse, that is a lot of manhours stuffing envelopes, printing labels, putting postage on.
4. Cost. With an average of a 1% client acquisition, I suggest that you really look at the bottom line. Postage, design, and your time can add up fast.
5. Goals. What are your goals for a direct mail piece? To have the phone ring? to announce your services in a new practice area? To acquire transactional clients? How many?
6. Testing. This is the most ignored aspect of direct mail campaigns I see. Track your results for each direct mail piece. Compare list results. Compare copy/design results. With a little testing you can see what the most cost effective combination is.
7. Leverage other marketing efforts with your direct mail. For example, put your website address on your direct mail piece. Email a version of the direct piece to your clients. Speaking of email marketing..stay tuned...

Google gains a little over Yahoo and MSN in searches

2006-05-23T09:09:00.000-04:00

Google remains the top dog of online searches with 42.7 percent of all searches for the month of April. Yahoo declined a little from 30.7 percent to 28% as you can see in the article below
http://www.cio-today.com/news/Google-Tops-Another-Search-Survey/story.xhtml?story_id=112003RAOEK0

What does this mean? Google still remains the dominant player for searches (and we can assume legal related searches). However, Google still owns less than half of all searches. Don't focus only on Google when you search for your firm on the internet.

New look for Yahoo! Homepage

2006-05-16T15:17:00.000-04:00

If you have not already check out the Yahoo! new home page, www.yahoo.com
In my opinion, there is not a whole lot of improvement from the old Yahoo! Home page.

What this means to your legal website? Probably not a lot, except Yahoo! may get some more people using it for searches with this new publicity. Google still owns about 50% of all internet searches, but Yahoo holds on to the 2nd most popular search engine.

If you have a legal website and are concerned about search engine marketing, do not forget to test Yahoo as well as MSN and Google. I see too many law firms and attorneys only worry about how they show up on Google which again, only handles 50% of all searches.

Do People Actually Look for Attorneys on the Internet?

2006-05-15T15:21:00.000-04:00

I am often asked this question. The short answer is yes. The long answer is, "It depends". A few factors determine this listed below in no particular order.
1. Practice Area. Does the average internet user need an Insurance Defense/General Litigation attorney? Most likely not. Internet surfers may however need a lawyer in practice areas of family, divorce, criminal, small business incorporation, construction/home improvement, immigration, real estate, bankruptcy, consumer protection, personal injury, medical malpractice, estate planning etc. You get the picture.
2. Geographical area. For instance, if you are in a very rural part of the country with little internet access, then do not expect to have thousands of web hits per month.
3. Demographics. Younger folks tend to be online more than older folks.

My advice. If you are unsure if your area of practice and geographic situation will result in prospective clients looking for you via the internet, start small. Get a basic website and see what happens.

Yellow Page Listings

2006-05-11T13:47:00.000-04:00

Most attorneys I speak to see diminishing returns with their hard copy Yellow Pages/telephone book but are afraid of stopping their listing due to "losing their place" in the order of the book or not being found at all.

So what is a law firm to do? Here is what I recommend:
1. Make a comprehensive list of all marketing dollars and where they are going. This includes the basic telephone book listing in your town all the way to that $500/month website.
2. Determine what each advertising dollar you spent brought in as far as net profit for the year(you are tracking how clients are aquired aren't you?).
3. Find your top advertising mediums and invest more in them. Consider dropping the non producers.

For instance, is it really worth it to keep just your name in a local book for say $175/month? This listing says nothing of what type of lawyer you are and what kind of law you practice. If by chance someone were to call you, they would ask basic questions on whether you can help then with their legal issue.
That money could be better served in a mini website that targets a particular area of practice you are trying to promote. The mini website could be crafted to attract visitors from a specific geographic area such as "Bucks County PA". The prospective client who finds your through this medium already knows what areas of practice your firm covers, where you are located, and a little about your firm's profile.

Online Legal Directories, are they worth it?

2006-05-09T15:52:00.000-04:00

There are hundreds of online directories specifically targeting lawyers and law firms. They range from the behemoths of Findlaw and Lawyers.com to the more practice specific ones of Divorcenet and LegalPointer.

There are two main reason to be listed in any online directory listing attorneys.
1. Visitors will come to the directory and find you
2. Your website will be listed in the directory giving your website an incoming link (having incoming links to your websites from reputable sources helps increase your exposure on the web).

The problem with reason #1, is that the directory listing is often priced to market demand not how many qualified prospects you will receive. For instance, Personal Injury often will cost 5-10 times more than a Divorce listing only because the PI attorneys are more likely to pay a high price. My advice, take a good hard look at the directory spot. Ask hard questions like "how many visitors and/or prospects should I expect to obtain from this listing?" Ask to see web traffic reports and ask some other lawyers that have that listing their opinions.

If you can get the lowest cost listing on a particular directory, then reason #2 would be a good move. Having an incoming link to your website for $10-$50/month from a legal directory is probably worth the positive effect on your firm's search rankings.

In conclusion, I would be very wary of spending big money on directory spots. If you want to spend big money, use it for more web content or look into pay per click.

Until next time,
LawMarketingGuru

Articles and Newsletters on your law firm's website

2006-05-03T20:19:00.000-04:00

Both articles and newsletter type content can help your site's ranking in the major search engines. In addition, your visitors will be engaged and impressed by your knowledge in their legal issue
Just a few pointers:
1. Ideally, the articles and newsletters should be HTML pages (normal web format) not files that your visitors have to download. HTML is the most search engine friendly format available.
2. If you do not have the ability or time to transfer your articles or newsletters, then chose a popular file type such as Word or Adobe's PDF. The first page or so will be indexed by the search engines.

Web Sites for Law Firms

2006-04-22T11:48:00.000-04:00

I am amazed how many law firms and solo attorneys do not have web sites. 2 out of 3 consumers expect the business they are looking for has a web site.

For good looking websites check out:
Altman & Associates
Bromberg Rosenthal