The New Dimensions of Web Marketing and SEO

SEO is a bit like a rollercoaster. If you are a lawyer navigating the realm of web marketing, you might be confused or discouraged by the constant Google algorithm changes. But don’t be dismayed! Law firm SEO takes a bit more time and investment than it used to, but you can accomplish your goals as long as you continuously keep your strategy up-to-date.
Three of the newest dimensions to successful web marketing are social media, mobile compatibility and content quality. This blog post will explain how to answer to these new dimensions as you revamp your web marketing strategy.

Facebook

As of January, Facebook currently has over 1 billion active monthly users. This is a dimension of the web market that you can’t ignore. It’s essential to build a presence on Facebook to establish your importance to both potential clients and search engines like Google. By having a strong social following on your business page with a link out to your website, you can improve your website’s search engine position.

Google Plus and Authorship

Eric Schmidt of Google claims that “authorship is the next big thing” when it comes to web marketing. Google Plus authorship personalizes your website’s search description and incorporates your profile picture. This helps to establish your legitimacy, granting your site greater importance in Google’s eyes. It’s no surprise that Google Plus authorship plays a major role in search engine positioning and click-through-rate, particularly for Google search results.

Mobile Site

Is your website mobile-friendly? If not, you might find that it’s not generating the clients it should be. This is because more and more consumers are searching for services on their smart phone. Your site should be developed so that visitors can easily navigate it when they are on such a device. As far as a return on investment goes, mobile compatibility is essential.

Content

If you are going to add content to your site, it should be relevant and focused, written naturally, and should reflect that you have knowledge in that field. Keyword-stuffing won’t fly with Google anymore, nor will low-quality content. Keywords are still important, but they need to be incorporated in a natural way to keep Google happy.
These new dimensions have complicated lawyer SEO, but they have also made search engines more trustworthy. Reputation is more important than ever, so you should start establishing your strategy as soon as possible.

5 Questions To Ask When Measuring Your Social Media ROI

The most effective way to market your law firm today can be summed up in one word: social media (OK, two words). If you’re not using social media to boost your firm’s online presence, you’re missing out on limitless law firm marketing potential and an untapped world of potential clients.

Although social media clearly works wonders for legal marketing, how to measure your marketing efforts is a bit more elusive. Here are 5 questions to ask when measuring your law firm’s social media ROI to make the most out of your networking efforts, and reap the benefits social marketing can bring.

1. For Starters, Does My Firm Really Need To Track Our Social Media ROI?

Since social marketing is relatively new in comparison to traditional email campaigns, etc., many attorneys think that just having a social presence is good enough. This isn’t true. Social media marketing should be tweaked and tracked like any lawyer marketing strategy to see what’s working for you and what isn’t.

There’s a lot more to it than simply posting a tweet or uploading a video. When tested, honed and polished, social media marketing can give your firm the edge it needs to keep up with—and surpass—your competition.

2. Should I Do Anything Special To My Content Before I Start Measuring Social Media ROI?

Before you start mining for metrics, make sure that the content you’re posting to your website, blog, and social networks is meaningful, useful, and engaging. Create and upload the kind of content that you already notice followers liking, sharing, and commenting on the most—this content is likely not too salesy, and contains great legal advice.

Fresh, engaging content will retain your current audience, attract new viewers, and turn more potential clients into actual ones.

3. What Are the Best Ways To Track Social Media ROI?

There are a number of social tracking tools to help you gauge viewer response and activity. Some of the best include Google Analytics, Hootsuite, TweetDeck, and Social Mention. These tools can monitor your friend and follower base, who is coming to (and from) your site via your social networks, who is reposting and retweeting you, and much more.

4. How Can My Firm Leverage Social Media Metrics To Grow Our Practice?

Although there’s no magic formula when it comes to translating Facebook likes and Twitter followers into actual clients, pay attention to the number of followers you attract and keep, along with cost per lead and cost per acquisition, if applicable. For instance, if your Facebook ad metrics show that out of 10,000 people who like your ad, only 10 or so actually visit your website, you need to reevaluate your marketing strategy.

5. How Often Should I Check My Social Media Analytics?

Check your SMM analytics at least once a week. Routine analyzation will help you gain an understanding of what types of content drive the most traffic to your site, and which content facilitates the most conversions.

LinkedIn For Lawyers—The Ultimate Online Professional Platform

LinkedIn’s new functional capabilities make it shine as one of the best social networking sites to market your law firm’s services. People join LinkedIn in order to build connections, seek business opportunities, and obtain expert advice. This site is well-positioned to expand your law firm’s client base in addition to enhancing your own professional profile.

Showcase Your Services

Your company profile acts as a shareable and searchable online résumé of your law firms’ services. Up to 25 of these can be showcased on LinkedIn. Write with keywords that you want people to find your firm with and use both the long and abbreviated forms of these terms—for example ‘TRP’ and ‘Temporary Resident Permit’—in the text fields for your company description and your services.

LinkedIn’s search tool ranks its results based on ‘relevance,’ so fill your descriptions with as many keywords and characters as possible in order for your company to be found easier. Take advantage of the website’s customizable features by linking your landing pages, videos, and website to your business profile and generate leads directly from LinkedIn. Finally, be sure to make use of LinkedIn’s update feature by linking to a useful article or piece of content from your website at least once a day on your company page.

Cross-Promote and Grow Your Network

Use your own personal profile to cross-promote your company page by sharing its updates and stories. When you add your law firm’s name to your ‘Current Work’ section, your title as well as your business page will appear whenever you comment on groups or engage in activity on LinkedIn. Both old and new connections as well as media contacts will be able to refer to your LinkedIn company page to glean insights from your services and updates.

Encourage your employees to tag your law firm’s business page in their profiles as well. This will appear in their ‘Recent Updates’ feed and your company profile will gain exposure to all of their connections.

Deliver Content to a Targeted Audience

Groups on LinkedIn are forums where people will be seeking the type of content that you publish about your law firm’s field of expertise. Maintaining an active presence on existing groups related to your industry will allow you to direct quality traffic from LinkedIn to your website.

Respond to questions, discuss relevant news, and share your content in order to showcase your expertise and make connections among people searching for answers. Making your own LinkedIn group and branding it with keywords that you want your audience to find you with, for example a group called “Canadian Immigration Professionals” is also useful for identifying your target audience, attracting referrals, curating discussions, and growing your authority in the industry.

If you have any questions about attorney marketing, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Why Lawyers Should Be Using LinkedIn

While there are many social media sites out there, when it comes to the top business networking site, that would be LinkedIn. With over 35 million users, LinkedIn has become a powerful resource for legal professionals on a local and global scale. Lawyers can network with colleagues and other industry folk, while promoting their practice to millions of potential clients all at the same time.

The beauty of LinkedIn is its simplicity. LinkedIn is basically a virtual resume that’s all about marketing yourself and your business—no need (or access) to upload extraneous vacation photos or post hourly comments or retweets (sorry, Twitter—you’re great for what you do). LinkedIn is quick, easy, and cuts to the chase of wanting to make contacts but not spend a lot of time doing so.

If its easy-to-use platform hasn’t sold you, and you’re not already on LinkedIn, here are some more reasons why you should be.

Establish Yourself Among Professionals and Clients

The old adage, “It’s not what you know, but who you know,” completely applies here. LinkedIn is a great way to network with existing associates and clients, but it also opens the flood gates to contacts that would be otherwise unreachable.

Let’s say you’re a personal injury lawyer who connects with a colleague who practices family law. As a direct connect, your profile is visible to your colleagues connects, and their connects, etc. This is an excellent way to expose your practice to other legal professionals and potential clients looking for someone who practices personal injury law.

Further, you’re likely to be contacted if you’re connected to someone who is connected; meaning, you come with a recommendation or referral, if you will. You can also link your LinkedIn profile to your blog, website and other social media pages; increasing your online visibility.

Build Industry Credibility

LinkedIn provides the capability for employers, coworkers, and clients (both past and present) to leave positive comments on your profile about your services and skills. This documents customer satisfaction and industry knowledge, and hangs a “star of approval” on your practice.

You can also post comments on an associate’s profile. This is important if you assisted an associate on a complex case, and helped to secure a favorable verdict.

Monitor Your Competition

Keep your friends close, and your enemies…alright, so your legal competition is not your enemy, but you should keep an eye on what they’re up to. By staying abreast of your competition’s activities, you can see things like who’s starting their own firm, who’s leaving a firm you may be interested in, etc.

10 Tips to Improve Your Law Firm Marketing Endeavors on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the ultimate place for law firms, industry professionals, fans, and prospective clients to connect.  A LinkedIn Company Page can showcase a law firm’s services and attract loyal followers, but only if marketed correctly. Employ these 10 tips to make the most of your law firm’s marketing endeavors on LinkedIn.

 Fill in every section.

For instance, the Services tab is a great place to tell readers about your law firm’s offerings and differentiators.

A cover photo is worth 1,000 words

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When followers visit a LinkedIn company page, the cover image is the first thing in front of their eyes.  Be sure to feature an engaging, high resolution image that expresses your law firm’s brand so readers want to keep scrolling down the page.  Changing photos regularly can also reinvigorate your law firm’s marketing material and keep followers interested.

Keep followers in the loop.

Posts and photos highlighting company campaigns, industry and community events, and prestigious awards can keep followers informed and invested in your brand.

Don’t forget that it’s not just about you.

This may seem contradictory after reading the tip above, but it isn’t.  Your law firm’s marketing strategy should focus on promoting your brand while also providing material that readers find enticing and relevant.

Analyze afterward.

LinkedIn Company Pages come equipped with a feature that analyzes the level of audience engagement with each post according to the number of “impressions” and “interactions”.  Studying which posts receive the highest amounts of engagement can help you tailor your law firm’s marketing strategy to meet viewers’ interests.

Display raving fans.

Ask for recommendations or testimonials from supremely satisfied clients. If they’ve had a fantastic experience then they probably won’t mind lending a few sentences (or even just their name) to your page, and their words just may convince viewers to give your law firm a chance.

Encourage liking and sharing

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The beauty of LinkedIn posts is their ability to spread to not only your law firm’s network of followers, but their countless acquaintances, friends, and colleagues as well.  Encourage followers to like and share posts to increase your firm’s reach.

Respond to comments.

Viewers who take the time to leave comments (positive or negative) on your page deserve a response.

Route followers to your company page.

From blogs to e-newsletters, make sure that your law firm’s marketing materials include links to your Company Page in order to promote viewership.

3 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Grow Your Law Firm

Do you have a LinkedIn page for your law firm? You should. Linkedin is a powerful aid in helping your law firm get recognized amongst a sea of competition. Here are three invaluable tips for growing your law firm using LinkedIn.

1. Build Credibility.

You want people to know that you are a legitimate law firm. People that require your services need to be assured you know what you’re talking about– inside the courtroom and on social media. There are plenty of ways you can do this:

  • Post engaging updates that generate conversations with plenty of people.
  • Join groups that are tailored to your industry, that way you can engage in discussions and create/manage your own.
  • Encourage your employees to use Linkedin and follow your company page.
  • Invite personal connections to follow your law firm on LinkedIn, because many of them can introduce you to business influencers and refer new clients to you.
  • Showcase your services and specialties.

2. Generate leads.

What is the expected outcome for using LinkedIn and other social media networks over time? It most likely is to turn leads into sales. One way to reel in future clients is to offer exclusive free deals for LinkedIn members, and then ask them for recommendations. You should create an ideal marketing promotion for whatever it is you’re trying to sell. Develop free consultations, demos or reports. There are endless ideas for any law firm, and depending on your specialty, you can indulge in a little creativity.

3. Learn about the competition.

The best thing to do is to learn by example. Are you not feeling inspired, or can’t think of any interesting news to update your page with? Get out of this slump by seeing what your competitors are doing, or just browse company pages to see how they are performing. Do they have a lot of engagement? Does their company page look cohesive with their philosophies or ideas? Once you observe their strategies, brainstorm and implement your own ideas for your company page.

Marketing Lesson for Lawyers: How to Become a Thought Leader on LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s Influencers—top professionals like Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington who share content about a variety of subjects such as success, entrepreneurship, and leadership—reach thousands of members and continually build their personal and professional brand with each new post.

You may not be a high-profile CEO of an international company, but you can become a just as powerful thought leader on LinkedIn, reach countless other members who could become business clients, and bolster your law firm’s brand name by following a few simple strategies. Read on to find out how.

Find Your Niche

Marketing for lawyers generally starts with determining your area of expertise and locating a niche to speak about. When attempting to find your niche, first consider your occupation and the topics that you assist clients with most often.

For instance, a family and divorce lawyer helps family units or separating spouses navigate tough changes. This is a niche in and of itself, but it also provides many topics to dig deeper into when brainstorming content appropriate for LinkedIn. Happiness, work-life balance, and building social networks are three topics that soon-to-be ex-spouses might be interested in, for example, and time management strategies may appeal to newly divorced parents sharing custody of their children and searching for ways to maintain strong relationships.

Publish on LinkedIn

LinkedIn recently rolled out long-form posting capabilities for all members. Similar to the Influencer feature but geared toward the average LinkedIn user, this provides a great opportunity to demonstrate your expertise.

According to LinkedIn, members will be notified on their homepage when they receive access to the publishing tool (you may already have access to publish). After receiving publishing capabilities, you’ll be able to create and publish a long-form post by clicking on the pencil icon in the “Share an update” box at the top of your homepage.

Even if you’ve never produced content before, try your hand at publishing; marketing for lawyers isn’t just for marketing professionals!  Practice makes perfect and the process will go much more smoothly after working out the kinks the first time.

Connect with Thought Leaders in Your Space

Establishing symbiotic connections is always beneficial, but it’s particularly important when first building your reputation on LinkedIn and nailing down your legal marketing strategies. Examine who the top thought leaders are in your space and explore what they do well, what types of content resonates with their audiences, and how they spread content to their network (do they utilize LinkedIn groups? Do they partner with other LinkedIn members to produce co-authored content that reaches both parties’ networks?).

Then, reach out to connect with them and explain that you find their content insightful and informative, and you hope to build a relationship that’s advantageous to both parties. They will most likely be open to connecting and discussing relevant topics such as current events, industry trends, and new legislation affecting your field, and may even be open to guest posting on your blog or sharing your LinkedIn posts with their followers.

Attorneys: LinkedIn Publishing is Easier Than You Think

When LinkedIn enabled users to write long-form posts on LinkedIn Pulse, it basically handed out a free social media marketing avenue for attorneys. While blogged on LinkedIn may not make you a famous Influencer like Bill Gates or Arianna Huffington, professional posts are one effective way to establish yourself as a dominant voice in your field and locale, and attract clients and beneficial professional connections.

All you need is these three tips to start publishing your own influential LinkedIn content.

  1. Ask and answer the right questions

First, identify valuable information that you specifically can provide. That’s the key with LinkedIn publishing—it’s all about sharing your personal knowledge about the legal industry and its trends, issues, and current events, and what your profession/specific role entails, challenges you’ve overcome as an individual or firm, and your personal skills (and how you use these skills to help others in your work).

The legal social media marketing content you publish should answers questions like:

  • What is the status of the legal industry?
  • What is the future of the legal industry, to the best of your knowledge?
  • What are some trends to watch?
  • How did you get started in your profession/firm, and how did you achieve your current role?
  • What’s your advice for others interested in your line of work?
  • How would you describe the culture of your firm?
  • Why are certain firms doing better than others?
  • How does your firm/attorney team stand out?

The above list is by no means a comprehensive one, but it could spur a few topic ideas for your attorney social media marketing on LinkedIn. In addition to personally brainstorming, seek feedback from colleagues and friends within the industry.

  1. Aim for frequent, digestible posts

Pepper your audience several times per week with frequent, shorter posts rather than bogging them down with long ones, and always remember to review your posts afterward while thinking “does this add value to the post?” and cut out any unnecessary material.

If you’re worried that you won’t be able to fit blogging into your attorney social media schedule, try blocking off two hours twice a week to dedicate to writing, editing, and publishing. Set a reminder on your phone and calendar so you can’t ignore it.

  1. Interact with your network

Whenever you publish a blog post, get in the habit of doing four things:

  • Share the article with your network such as in groups you belong to, and via your LinkedIn status
  • Send to friends and colleagues via social media and email
  • Share over other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and link back to the article
  • Read one or two other blog posts from LinkedIn connections and post a comment, or share their articles to your network as well

90% of law firms have a LinkedIn presence. We can manage your social media strategy to attract clients—ask us now!

Web Marketing for Lawyers: What to Include on Your LinkedIn Lawyer Profile

Just as it takes a significant amount of time to network face-to-face and make important connections in the legal world, effort and strategy are required to form beneficial connections on digital platforms. LinkedIn is the go-to place for building business relationships within most industries, including the legal realm, which means that optimizing your LinkedIn lawyer profile should be a priority (in addition to building a comprehensive LinkedIn company page for your firm).

Here are a few social media dos for lawyers when crafting their LinkedIn profile:

1.      A high-resolution, professional headshot photo

Including a headshot photo can do wonders; instead of seeing your profile as a list of accomplishments, statistics, and skills, viewers will look at you as a person—hopefully an accomplished and perhaps even approachable professional—which could encourage them to connect online or face-to-face. Additionally, studies have shown that LinkedIn profiles with photos experience a significantly higher number of views than profiles without—up to 14 times as many, according to Link Humans and LinkedIn.

Whether you’re recruiting attorney talent for your law firm, looking to move to a new practice, hoping to establish relationships with fellow industry experts, or simply trying to connect with businesses or individuals who could turn into clients, featuring a good quality photo on your profile is the first step toward making a good impression on LinkedIn.

2.      A descriptive, searchable professional title

Think of your LinkedIn job title as your official headline. It should accurately represent your job function, of course, but that doesn’t mean it has to be general and/or boring. Rather than just stating that you are an attorney, think about what would catch your attention if you were to stumble across your title while perusing LinkedIn, and experiment with more specific and descriptive phrases like “Immigration Attorney | Human Rights Defender | Corporate Law and Boutique Firm Experience.” Keep in mind that the more buzzwords you use, the more often you’ll show up in search results.

Another social media tip for lawyers on LinkedIn: don’t forget to fill in the “Industry” section directly underneath your title. Including that piece of information could result in 15 times more page views.

3.      Strategic keyword phrases

One general social media best practice for lawyers is to be strategic about the information included on your profile. In the Summary section, mention your specific skill set and what differentiates you from other attorneys (or what differentiates your firm from others within your niche and market) while being sure to include keyword phrases geared toward increasing SEO.

For instance, if you are a criminal defense attorney based in the Philadelphia area who is striving to appeal to other local legal professionals, scatter phrases like theses throughout your Summary description: “Philadelphia criminal defense lawyer” and “best criminal defense firm in Philadelphia.” Also, feel free to take up some space; Summaries of least 40 words tend to show up more often in searches.

4.      Education

You worked hard for that degree—show it off! Filling in the Education section on your LinkedIn profile could multiply your viewership by 10.

Law Firm Marketing: Learn About LinkedIn’s Updated Company Page

LinkedIn made some large changes over the past year on Company Pages that lawyers should know about and can use to highlight their specialties.

Removed Product Pages

First, LinkedIn removed company product pages. The product pages allowed a company to display some of their biggest-selling products on their own page.

For example, an attorney could list their specialties with a description of that specialty for page fans to review when considering the attorney’s services. That option is no longer available. However, the company showcases we discuss below are useful in their absence.

Use Company Page for Content

LinkedIn converted the Company Page into a place where admins could create daily updates. These daily updates keep fans updated on the regular events occurring in a company.

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Company Showcases
Company Showcases are somewhat of a replacement for product pages. They allow you to feature up to 10 showcases of different parts of your practice.

Step 1: Go to your fan page, click the edit scroll down menu to Create a Showcase.

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Step 2: click Get Started.

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Step 3: Create showcase

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Step 4: Fill out the showcase information.

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Before you click publish, here are a few items you can customize on your showcase page.

Full Width Image- Use an image 974×330 pixels to show off the aspect of your company for the showcase page.

Showcase Name and Description– If you want to provide a more detailed name, and description of the page. Place the information in this section.

Showcase Admins- Double check to make sure you have all admins that you want working on the page allowed access.

Logos- Create a standard 100×61 logo and a square 50×50 logo for the page. The standard one is used to display the page to others. The square logo is used for network updates.

Featured Groups- Are you an admin or member of a group that you want to display on your company showcase page? Use this for group members to identify with you.

An ebook by the author of this post can be found at LinkedIn for Lawyers.

Attorney Marketing Webinar: How LinkedIn Can Boost Your Referrals

In case you missed it, here’s a recording of our recent Attorney Marketing Webinar: How LinkedIn Can Boost Your Referrals.

Are you using LinkedIn to attract referrals to your law firm? You should be. LinkedIn is a powerful networking tool that can help you get noticed in a sea of competitors.

During this week’s free attorney marketing webinar, we will explain how to setup a LinkedIn page for your law firm and highlight top reasons you should be using the professional networking site.

Like all James webinars, there is no sales pitch — just helpful tips, facts, and instructions.

ComputerScreenIconLearn how our social media marketing services can boost leads to your legal practice.