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Discover The Mystery Houston Legal Marketing strives to provide only the best in marketing and advertising for your law f

04/24/2012

GEO + AOP x SEO = DNA of a Successful Law Firm Website

At Houston Legal Marketing, we've learned plenty creating and/or hosting more than 2,000 law firm websites. One thing we've learned is that integrating search engine optimization into your website from the start is the best way to produce results.

For a law firm to be successful, it must rely on more than just a traditional referral network. A lead-generating website is now a must-have of any successful law firm's marketing strategy. And at a time when more than 93% of law firms have a website, according to the 2011 American Bar Association Legal Technology Survey Report, you need to stand out from the online crowd and have a presence that will keep your client on the site for more than 10 seconds.

However, while every online marketing plan should drive traffic to your website, those visitors need to be the right types of paying clients to grow your practice. So if your practice focuses on automobile accidents and that's all you do, but you're constantly getting calls regarding other areas of personal injury law, you have a problem and need to focus on what your website is doing wrong. Our programmers here at Houston-legal-marketing.com can help pinpoint with is going on help resolve the issue.

93% of Law Firms Have Websites - How Will Your Site Stand Out Above the Rest?

To achieve real success, your area of practice (AOP) and geographic focus (GEO) must be ingrained in every element of your website. Optimization is the DNA of a success law firm website and SEO is not as much of a mystery as some would have you believe. Developing a successful, effectively optimized website is a complex, intense undertaking, but make no mistake, SEO is a science, not an art.

Each web product in the Houston-Legal-Marketing.com portfolio includes the features and optimization necessary for a law firm to compete effectively in specific practice and geographic areas. They deliver a powerful arsenal of tools to better enable your firm to project its unique reputation, strengths and personality and help you engage and win potential clients including social media and mobile website applications.

Ultimately, a successful website captures and intensifies prospects' interest, creating strong leads needed for maximum ROI. There's no guarantee someone viewing your site for the first time is going to automatically become a new client; however, there are ways to increase the likelihood of that conversion if they are drawn to your layout and the fluidity of which they can navigate it.

So ask yourself, is your firm generating the business you want from your website?

To begin developing your web visibility strategy, we offer free consultations and website evaluations for determining the capabilities you need-and those you don't. Please feel free to call us at 281-323-3511

04/24/2012

Keeping Content Fresh

One of the challenges for attorneys maintaining blogs is how to keep from writing the same old content that every other lawyer in your discipline is posting. While this may not be a problem for blogging attorneys with diverse areas of practice, those who have a narrower focus may find yourselves scratching your heads to come up with something new, interesting, and informative. The following are a few tips and tricks for keeping your blog content worthy of a potential client's bookmark.

Plumb the news. The law is fluid, with new legislation, landmark decisions, and challenges to existing regulations reported nearly every day. Share your opinion on the latest change to your state's divorce laws or speculate on a challenge heading to the Supreme Court.
Get in on the gossip. High profile cases, especially those involving celebrities, can be rich sources of blog fodder. "Jane Starlet's" recent divorce may be your opportunity to expound on California's 50/50 division of assets, while Joe Proball's lawsuit over his pitbull biting a jogger can be your chance to explain how you would have gotten the case dismissed.

Interactivity. Try something different from posting flat prose. How about a quiz? For example, if you handle bankruptcy, you could post a quiz based on the questions typically asked of a client in order to determine whether Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy would be their best option.

Search engine optimization may draw visitors to your blog, but you need to keep your content current and interesting, and change it up from the same old, same old. With a little investment of time and effort, the result will be regular readers - who will also become leads.

04/24/2012

Important Findings to Drive Business Leads



Professional, polished websites and blogs are essential for law firm marketing, given that 78 percent of business decision-makers and 65 percent of consumers make online searches integral to finding a lawyer.[1] But just being online sets the bar low.

If you have a website that is rarely updated, hard to navigate, or lacks SEO fundamentals, you are likely doing yourself and your firm a disservice. Customers may think that you don't take your marketing and messaging seriously, and it can specifically raise serious problems in four major areas:

Marketing Effectiveness. A study of more than 50 law firm websites done for the Association of Legal Administrators by a leading marketing firm[2] showed that "law firm websites are more alike than different. That's not surprising given the industry bias toward precedent, but it makes for lousy marketing." Of the firms in this survey, 79% used the same website navigation design, nearly 60% used bland stock photo illustrations, and only 44% had a distinguishing brand message. Firms with websites this bland are wasting money by not standing out from their competitors. When designing your site, ask yourself if your personality and your professional beliefs are clearly being presented. Does your website make you standout, or fit in?

Visitor Conversion/Lead Generation. Having a professionally designed website can ensure more potential clients reaching your site actually call for consultations. Template websites limit how you can present content. For instance, our studies show site visitors are more likely to call when contact info is prominently displayed in the areas of the page visitors look at first. If your template cannot accommodate flexibility, and if your designer is not aware of such conversion essentials, your site's performance will suffer.

Visibility/Search-ability. Your website or blog is of little use if potential clients can't find you using search engines. Yet a leading web technology guru assessed law firm websites and found many problems with the "metatags" that lets search engines find website pages. For example, he wrote, "Often, title tags of extremely low value are used, such as 'Welcome to XYZ Law firm,' on every page. These title tags are of almost no value in searches aimed at finding a lawyer for a particular legal need (such as a search for a 'Phoenix accident lawyer')."[3] SEO can be daunting, but a professional marketing organization should always be able to explain to you the key benefits of SEO and how it will help your firm drive leads.

Ethics. Few generic website designers know that the American Bar Association's e-lawyering Task Force has created specific ethical best practices for the accuracy and quality of website information.[4] That includes full and accurate contact information, dates on which content was placed and reviewed, compliance with the jurisdictional rules where the lawyer is practiced (for example, you can't say you're an "expert" in a practice if you haven't received certification in it from your state bar), disclaimers on legal advice, and proper privacy notices. If your website was designed by someone unfamiliar with the legal industry, they may be unaware of these guidelines. Ignorance is not bliss in this case and these and other issues can cause bar disciplinary problems for you and your firm, regardless if you actually built the site yourself or not

Ultimately, you get what you pay for. You may choose to build your own website, and that's fine. But if you are paying a marketing agency to build your site for you, remember to ask about these key elements. If your web designer doesn't craft a site with custom illustrations and copy, one that meets Bar requirements and that has the kind of "Domain Authority" that makes it searchable and visible, rethink your web design strategy before you waste time and money.



1 "Digital Marketing 2010," Greenfield/Belser, March, 2010; "Legal Marketing in Turbulent Times," New York State Bar Association Journal, September, 2009

2 "Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Information Web Site Providers," American Bar Association,

3 "From Bland to Brand," Burkey Belser, ALA Legal Management

4 "Ten Lead-Killing Mistakes Law Firms Make on Their Websites," Jeff Lantz, Legal Marketing Technology, January, 2011

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