Category Archives: Marketing

30 Marketing Tips For Lawyers

Marketing your law firm can take up a lot of time and money, but it doesn’t have to. You don’t have to be a sales expert, naturally outgoing, or excessively charming either. Instead, growing your law firm starts with a strong marketing plan that uses successful strategies targeted at the right audience and performed consistently. While you may not see results overnight, given time, new clients will be calling up your office.

To help you develop the right marketing plan for your business, here’s a list of marketing tips and ideas specifically for you.

    1. Meet with referral contacts regularly. No matter how busy you are, take the time to meet or contact your referrals personally to remind them that your services are ready and available.
    2. Know your target market. Obviously, if you’re a divorce lawyer you won’t be searching for a client with workplace injuries. However, you’ll want to know everything possible about your target audience and tailor your marketing plan to them.
    3. Attend annual/monthly dinners with colleagues and law school classmates. Even as you pursue your career in law, it’s important to reach out to old classmates and build upon your referral network.
    4. Study more briefs and related cases. The more you know about the cases you intend to provide legal services for, the more knowledge and expertise you will have. This is critical for building trust with potential clients and answering questions backed by the research you performed.
    5. Put your law firm on social media. Social media is a smart way to reach out to communities and specific groups of people to inform them of your legal expertise.
    6. Get a website for your law firm. If you haven’t done so already, having an attorney website for your law firm can increase client intake by finding new clients searching for lawyers online.
    7. Make networking a priority. This should be a habit. Go out and meet people every day even when you don’t feel like it.
    8. Start a law blog. Writing articles and guest posts on other blogs is a great way to share your expertise in your area of law.
    9. Create a content marketing strategy. Once your blog is filled with quality content, you’ll need a smart marketing strategy to reach out to people interested in reading it.
    10. Offer free consultations. Everybody loves free stuff. If you can give a few free minutes of your time, you can use this as an introduction to yourself and a chance to sell your legal services.
    11. Have a unique and compelling CTA. Your call to action, either on your website or throughout social media, should be clear when telling readers what to do (i.e. call today for a free consultation about your personal injury).
    12. Attend public events with an attitude to give, instead of receiving. Often, the most successful lawyers are those with a giving mindset rather than taking from every opportunity they see.
    13. Know your USP. What is your Unique Selling Point? Remember, people are hiring lawyers to work for them, not the law firm itself. What makes you so special?
    14. Create a brand and spread it. Consider developing a stationary set with your business logo and some short descriptions that capture what you can do.
    15. Use Facebook Ads. You can set up cost-effective and highly targeted Facebook Ads to find new clients.
    16. Start a drip marketing campaign. When you start collecting contact information for potential clients, you can create a series of timely messages to nurture them into new clients.
    17. Give away free resources. While you may want to bill for every minute of your time, consider taking a moment to put together some free resources (i.e. pamphlet, ebook, etc.).
    18. Be helpful to those in your community. When you meet new people in your community, find a way to give a helping hand. Sometimes it pays to be helpful.
    19. Market your law firm if it feels right to you. Don’t think that you have to commit to every marketing method available. For example, if you don’t like social media, don’t use it.
    20. Make sure it’s easy to reach you. Similar to having a strong CTA, you should have a distinct and easy way for people to get in contact with you.
    21. Use accounting software programs for lawyers. There are a few accounting software programs that can automate your entire firm and all you more time to focus on finding more clients.
    22. Start a Google PPC campaign. There are a lot of competitive keywords that can be expensive. However, if you use the right words you can increase traffic to your website and leads for your legal services.
    23. Ensure that your content is shareable. If you do have a blog, be sure social media share buttons are visible and don’t be afraid to ask readers to share it when they reach the end.
    24. Understand the basics of SEO. Learn how to make the necessary changes to your website to increase your ranking in search engines.
    25. Focus on getting referrals. Getting referred clients makes the intake process so much easier. Plus, referred clients tend to be more loyal and more likely to provide you with referrals in the future.
    26. Send referrals to other lawyers. You can send referrals to others in your network (i.e. when your too busy with other cases or a prospective client asks for work in a different area of law). If karma exists, you can expect these favors to be returned to you.
    27. Don’t be shy, ask directly if your clients know anyone who needs you. Perhaps others people your client knows needs your services but they’ve been too focused on their case to see it.
    28. Release content on social media at specific days and times. Sometimes the mornings get more engagement than the evenings and vice versa.
    29. Volunteer at various legal groups and activities in your community. It doesn’t have to be specific to law, you can join an organization to give back to your community while getting your name and legal services out there.
    30. Go to bar association events. Whenever there are events from your local bar association go and network to again, build your referral network.
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Facebook Retargeting Ads For Lawyers

If there’s one way to win more clients its by reintroducing your ads after they leave your website. Taking this approach to your Facebook Ads can not only save your advertising budget but also allow you to focus your campaign on the people who are really interested in your legal services.

Lawyers using Facebook Retargeting Ads can take advantage of an affordable and efficient advertising method.

Your Future Clients Are On Facebook

Facebook has more than 1.4 billion active users (avg. for December 2017) which is where many of your future clients can be found.

Facebook Users by Age in 2018

Source

The graph above reveals some really important data on how many people are using Facebook:

  • 3 million users aged 25 to 34
  • 4 million users aged 35 to 44
  • 4 million users aged 45 to 54

This will likely be the age bracket your law firm would be targeting your ads toward, however, some areas of law may focus on younger or older age ranges. The key focus is that somewhere in these numbers are a few new clients that require your firm.

What is a Facebook Retargeting Ad?

Have you ever been on Facebook then later went to another website only to see an advertisement for some CRM company appear at the top of the new website you’re browsing?

This is what is known as retargeting and it is an extremely effective way of bringing potential clients back to your website to contact your firm.

In the digital marketing world, Facebook’s retargeting ads tend to yield some of the highest returns from an advertisers ad budget. For your law firm, this provides you with an opportunity to maximize your budget by getting second, third, or more chances to convince someone that you are the lawyer for the job.

Facebook Retargeting On a Deeper Level

There are a few reasons why a retargeting campaign is very effective for advertising your law firm. An interpretation of Retargeting.com suggests that retargeting works because you can deliver ads again to your target clients which have already expressed interest in your law firm.

You’ll need an attorney website to get the most out of Facebook’s retargeting ads because a snippet of code must be placed on your website. This code places a cookie (a small tracker) onto any visitor’s computer which sends information back to Facebook about the pages they visited.

You would use Facebook’s custom audiences to retarget visitors to specific places on your website. For example, if a visitor went to your contact form, you can retarget them so they return and send you a message.

Another example could be a special offer for a free consultation for people considering divorce. This compelling offer is found on your homepage and in order for a visitor to receive this they must provide you with an email. Your initial Facebook campaign starts off by attracting Facebook users to your homepage. Some users stop by but you don’t receive as many emails as you like. With your retargeting ads, using an image that emphasizes that pain of divorce with more information about the benefits of hiring a divorce lawyer.

Retargeting is a cost-effective way to re-engage with your potential clients. It gives them a second opportunity to decide whether your law firm is the best choice available. Now, if you’re wondering how to set that up, you can learn how in the next section.

Setting Up Facebook Retargeting Ads

Using Facebook retargeting ads provides your law firm with a competitive edge. There aren’t many other law firms doing this which makes this a smart move for your law firm’s market strategy.

Here’s a simple approach to setting up next law firm’s Facebook Ad campaign with retargeting at your law firm:

Install Facebook’s “Pixel”

The first thing you have to do is install Facebook’s tracking pixel on your website. This pixel is what is used to track visitors on your website and sets up the retargeting ad through Facebook’s ad network.

You shouldn’t require any help from a web developer for placing the tracking pixel on your website. There’s an easy to follow explanation on Facebook’s help forums.

Choose Your Audience

The next step is to log into your Facebook Ads account and go to “Audience.” Facebook offers powerful tools to select a specific group of people to target your ads. If you’re a local law firm, you can select which city you’re in, their marital status, employment, the approximate level of income, whether the visited your website, and all kinds of combinations.

If you don’t want to create a custom audience, you can upload your own list of contacts instead. Or, you can merge both your contacts with the audience you want to target.

Whichever you decide, your ads are almost ready to be displayed to your target audience whenever they browse Facebook, Instagram, and other websites throughout Facebook’s advertising network.

Grab Their Attention

Your retargeting efforts will only be effective if you have a compelling message (or image) that can recapture your audience’s attention.

Why should they return to your website? What do you want them to do? Do you want previous visitors to return to a contact form after visiting your page containing a special?

Before you start creating your Facebook ad, it’s important to have a plan. This will help you determine the direction and the design of the overall ad. You retargeting ad has to catch people’s eye and bring them back to your website. Take a look at the example below:

This is just one of many ways you can use Facebook ads to target your potential clients and increase intakes at your firm. However, be sure you don’t make these mistakes with your Facebook Ads.

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8 Effective Online Marketing Techniques Used By Lawyers

Lawyer’s with websites need marketing techniques to introduce prospective clients to their legal services.

Whether you’re small- or medium-sized law firm, the techniques in this article can be used by you or review with your team to create an effective marketing strategy.

Take some time to decide which techniques are worth your time and efforts. You can always get one started and begin testing another later on.

The marketing strategy you create for your law firm will be completely unique to you.

Content Marketing

Content is the key to attracting visitors to your website and generating leads for your firm. Here are a few ways to use your content more effectively:

  • Offer Downloadable PDF. This is a simple way to capturing contact information from those visiting your website. Simply write a guide are common legal concerns, your area of expertise, or a course of action to take in situations requiring legal services. Putting your contact information inside the guide is a great way to encourage readers to contact your firm.
  • Write Quality Content. This can be difficult. Writing blog content that connects with your readers can entice them to share your content on their social media, thereby increasing your exposure and readership. Try focusing on the common concerns your prospective clients may be facing. As well, don’t be afraid to add a “share this with your friends” at the end of each article.
  • Share Your Content. For your content marketing to succeed, you have to share it in different places. Join Facebook groups, online forums, and answer questions on Quora. Once there, you can write responses and insert relevant links from your website.

Online Discussions & Groups

As mentioned previously, joining online communities, active forums, and places like Quora is a great place to share your content. In addition, you can also establish yourself as credible and reliable.

Instead of blasting out promotions to your content and links, maintain an active presence and build relationships with those online. Start by choosing just a few places to dedicate your time like LinkedIn, Facebook Pages, and other forums where discussions are regular.

Social Media

If you don’t have a social media presence, start now. As you share your best legal information online, having a place to reach out to prospects and build a community around you can minimize significant time and resources.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are still leading social media platforms where you can provide a place to build your online community.

The people who like your page or follow your accounts are likely genuinely interested in your services. Share content directly with them, they are your closest supporters.

Email Marketing

Lawyers using contact forms to collect leads can nurture those prospects through email marketing.

Email marketing is one of the lowest marketing costs and can lead to the highest ROI.

As you build your list of prospective clients, consider sending text-based emails only. Most people are familiar with opening emails from friends, families and business associates.

Emails that appear too noisy or filled with distracting images can immediately lead to the garbage bin, or worse, marked for spam.

Make A Video

In today’s media-rich world, video tends to be the dominating trend for both entertainment and sharing messages with others.

Creating videos can range from expensive high production features or your law firm to simply flipping on the camera and talking about your legal knowledge.

If you’re already blogging, consider turning your blogs into a full feature discussion involving you in your office. Having both videos and content related to the blog is appealing to a wider audience as well as boosts your credibility.

Facebook Ads / Google Adwords

Wondering how to increase your following on Facebook or boost traffic to your free consultation landing page?

Facebook Ads provide a range of possibilities to target prospective clients. You can set up your Facebook Ad account in a few steps. After that, you can begin to explore the demographic targeting feature to share your ads with specific audiences.

You should start with a low budget then adapt your ad campaign according to which ads are returning the most.

With Google Adwords, you can push your website to the top of search engines. Unlike Facebook Ads, your ads will be triggered based on relevant keywords that people are using to search online.

Knowing which keywords people are using can help your marketing attract more visitors to your website. However, something to keep in mind is that these keywords can be very competitive causing the price per click to be very high.

Before starting your first ad campaign, you may want to consider these Ethical Rules that lawyers must follow by the ABA.

SEO

If you’re a lawyer unfamiliar with how websites are ranked by search engines,  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

There are both on-page (i.e. modifications to your website) and off-page (i.e. your activities away from your website) which can influence where your website appears in search results.

Improving the SEO on your website is a great alternative to paying for advertisements because this can get you free traffic. However, the SEO changes you make today may not take effect right away.

Some things you can start doing to improve your SEO are:

  • Creating more backlinks to your website (i.e. sharing your content and pages on forums and other places online)
  • Improve the quality of your articles
  • Perform keyword research and use the appropriate words on your web pages and articles.
  • Improve your website’s page speed (page speed is an important factor that search engines use to rank your website)

Note: As you publish more content on your website, you’ll organically improve your SEO.

Live Chat

 Imagine being able to communicate with your visitors while they’re on your website.

Adding a live chat messaging system to your website can enable you to capture more leads and convert more visitors into clients.

Live chat works by triggering a message like, “How can we help you today?” whenever a visitor arrives at your website. Either you, your staff, or an outsourced agent can interact with that visitor.

During after hours, your live chat can continue to collect leads by providing information to contact you via email. You can return to office the next day and respond to any messages in your inbox.

There are a variety of live chat services dedicated to lawyers which is a consideration to ensure confidentiality and privacy of information shared over the chat system.

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6 Reasons Why Lawyers Should Use Facebook Ads

Getting your law firm noticed can be one of the most challenging parts of your legal service. While traditional methods of advertisement (i.e. newspaper, radio, etc.) may still have some effect, in today’s smartphone-driven world, lawyers using Facebook Ads can give them an added advantage.

Before getting started, you may want to review this article about Facebook Ads. It’s an overview of Facebook Ads and can help you get started.

In this article, let’s look at the reasons why lawyers should be using Facebook Ads and how it can benefit the firm.

Access to Prospective Clients

Facebook is more than just a place to communicate with friends and share cute videos of cats. Many businesses are using Facebook because of the possibility of building strong relationships with their customers and clients.

Start with a Facebook page. Then share relevant content that people will want to read. Let your law firm website be the place where you advertise your services and your Facebook presence be where you establish a connection.

Facebook is a huge marketplace where people are sharing personal information about their daily lives. From their upcoming divorce to a recent car accident, Facebook gives you access to many prospective clients.

Target Specific People

Looking at the advertising potential of Facebook, the ability to create demographic specific ads allows you to target more people likely to use your legal services.

Facebook Ads has evolved significantly in recent years. They continue to make modifications and improvements to the way you can set up your ads.

For local businesses, the benefits are big. Being able to target specific regions of a city or groups of people experiencing similar problems can guide you toward a more effective Facebook Ad campaign.

Unlimited Customization

Aside from the targeting abilities Facebook Ads provides, you also have unlimited potential for customizing your ad campaigns.

Consider creating a unique landing page on your website that directs people clicking your ad. Send them to an email list subscriber or request a phone call right away.

The most important thing to do is to have a landing page that is related to the Facebook ad you use. Here are a few things you can put on your landing page to improve your ads performance:

  1. A short (~2 minute) video detailing your legal services
  2. 4 to 7 pieces of important information
  3. Your call to action (i.e. submit your email or give us a call).

Keep your landing page short and to the point. The purpose of Facebook advertising is to direct prospective clients toward contacting your law firm. If you have too much on your landing page, it can be overwhelming and cause visitors to leave right away.

An alternative to the landing page approach may be to send those who click your ad on your Facebook Fan Page. When they’re there, you can offer a valuable piece of content for their contact information.

Affordable

Unlike Google PPC, which has competitive keywords costing more than $100 per click, Facebook Ads can be very cost-effective.

If you’re doing the advertising yourself, it may take some time to find the right combinations before you discover an effective ad result.

In contrast, there are many digital marketing services that can offer their expertise in creating a campaign that fits your budget.

Whether you want to spend a few hundred dollars per month or significantly more, you can set up a campaign and measure the results. Knowing where your budget is going and evaluating the return on investment is just another get advantage that Facebook Ads has for lawyers.

Share Your Expertise

Let’s face it, people are using Facebook to be entertained and stay connected with their loved ones. They don’t enjoy being bombarded by advertisements selling products and services.

If you’re going to be using Facebook Ads to attract clients to your law firm, you’ll have to provide valuable information.

If you’re a personal injury lawyer, consider sharing an article like:

  • Car accidents occur daily and studies have shown that most accidents occur because of these major reasons.We discuss 7 reasons how personal injury lawyers help and how you can reduce the stresses that come with getting in an accident.

If your focus is a divorce lawyer, you may want to try:

  • Studies show that children live unsatisfying lives and perform poorly in school when their parents are conflicting at home.We discuss 5 reasons why children can benefit from divorce and live happier, more successful lives.

Providing posts like these for Facebook users allows you to interact directly with prospective clients. Instead of selling your services you can create a relationship that makes you an expert on the legal practice you specialize in.

Build Community Awareness

Even though you are sharing content and providing valuable information, people may not inquire about your legal services right away.

From a consumer’s perspective, it takes multiple encounters with a brand before they make the decision to purchase. With the impacts of marketing and the skepticism of today’s consumers, that number continues to increase.

As you build awareness within the community, you’ll be able to stand apart from other law firms that don’t offer additional information to those on Facebook.

Facebook Ads is just one way to get people to recognize your legal services. When people start reading your articles, they may have questions related to their situation. Having other tools on your website, such as a Customer Response Management app, can help answer their questions and set up a consultation at your office.

Check out this article on CRMs for lawyers to use in combination with your Facebook Ad campaigns.

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Why Should Lawyers Use Live Chat On Their Law Firm’s Website

If your firm has a law website, having a way to instantly communicate with visitors can increase your firm’s intake of new clients.

Live chat software is a smart solution when it comes to your online marketing and advertising efforts. When a visitor engages with your live chat, you can quickly and immediately address their questions or schedule a consultation.

Before going on about the benefits live chat provides a law firm’s website, there are ethical issues to consider. While you may be eager to use clever marketing techniques to convert visitors into your next client, the American Bar Association has outlined some ethical rules for lawyer’s websites.

With an understanding of what you can and cannot do, the following five points will review the top benefits of using live chat.

Easy to Get Started

Worried that installing live chat on your law firm’s website will require technical knowledge?

Many live chat services can get their software running on your website in just a few clicks. Whether you have computer knowledge or not, once live chat is installed on your website, the next thing to do is to get ready for visitors to your website.

When a visitor arrives at your website, they will receive a notification that you (or qualified staff) is standing by to offer assistance. If the visitor engages with the live chat messenger, you will be immediately notified and a live chat session can begin.

All live chat services offer varying packages and features. Some can provide pre-scripted bots which allow you to direct visitors using prompted questions, toward providing their contact information.

Establish Trust and a Good First Impression

In a lawyer’s line of work, you know that most people do not enjoy the legal process. When it comes to finding a lawyer for their situation, people want to alleviate their problems and quickly as possible.

Live chat allows you to set a good impression the moment a prospective client lands on your website. You can quickly engage in a conversation and build trust by addressing their needs. You can respond to visitors specific needs and prepare them for intake.

When your prospective clients end the live chat session, they will feel listened to and relieved. This is a much better alternative to filling out contact forms and waiting anxiously for your phone call.

Differentiate Your Legal Services

Law firms are constantly searching for new ways to differentiate themselves from their competition. With live chat, law firms can provide a 24/7 reception and continue to collect leads for prospective clients after hours.

In certain situations that require legal services, prospective clients are often enduring emotional situations and want immediate assistance. Those recovering from a personal injury, going through a divorce, or on the brink of bankruptcy are looking for a solution as soon as possible.

Imagine being frustrated, sad, or extraordinarily angry, if you can’t find what you’re looking for on a website within a few seconds, you’ll likely go to another lawyer’s website with the solution.

Having live chat on your website is a sure way to address the immediacy and urgency of your prospective client’s situation.

Reduce Intake Time

In case you find yourself preoccupied with client’s cases and your staff is busy with administrative tasks, you can still use live chat to continue intaking.

Some live chat companies offer a unique service allowing you to have 24/7 live chat on a per-lead-basis. This means that whenever a visitor comes to your website, uses the live chat, and provide their contact information (i.e. e-mail, phone number, etc.), you pay the live chat company.

This is both time efficient and cost-effective as you won’t have to hire another receptionist or staff to handle inquiries at odd hours. Often, people are too preoccupied during typical work hours to contact your office. Live chat allows you to collect leads even after you have closed the office.

Another beneficial feature is that should the live chat provide a lead or begin intaking a client, you can receive an immediate notification. This allows you to respond either by email or phone call to that prospective client following their inquiry to your law firm.

Increased ROI and Conversion Rates

This is likely to be the most valued part of any live chat software. When you have a successful website with traffic coming in, converting them into clients is the next thing to do.

All that money you invested in web design, hosting and creative advertisements would be for nothing if visitors weren’t becoming your client. Live chat has a proven ability to increase conversion rates on websites.

Obtaining answers to problems is a high priority for people browsing online. Instead of wasting time search through help forums, FAQs, or irrelevant articles, live chat solves problems quickly.

In addition, live chat providers offer fair pricing and may even go so far as to guarantee an increase in conversions or your money back. Having this kind of promise allows your website to focus on what matters most: finding new clients.

Final Thoughts

If you’re using Facebook Ads or Google Adwords to promote your law firm the live chat icon on your website can improve your ROI. However, the American Bar Association (ABA) has stated a few rules about using live chats on a law firm’s website. To review these ethical rules, please see ABA Rules for Websites and Advertising.

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Solo Lawyer’s Guide To Websites

Being a solo practitioner comes with added obstacles and challenges that established law firms may not experience. From office administration to employee management to client intake, there are many tasks that must be performed in order for a legal service to succeed.

This article will focus on the importance of lawyer websites and why having one would benefit a solo lawyer.

Here’s a quick overview of everything this solo lawyer’s guide will cover:

  • Getting a website
  • Finding web design ideas
  • Starting a blog
  • Promoting the website
  • Improving the website’s performance

Reasons Solo Lawyers Need A Website

Solo lawyers have the ability to choose their own hours, select who they work with, and decide which cases they want to work on. While this may sound appealing at first, the additional work required to run a law firm by yourself can take a considerable amount of extra time.

To reduce some of the inevitable work, solo lawyers can use a website to delegate many of their regular office tasks.

Here are a few benefits solo lawyers can get with their website:

  1. Advertise Legal Services.
  2. Find New Clients
  3. Establish a Brand / Reputation.
  4. Improve Intaking.
  5. Share Professional Legal Knowledge

There are some DIY website builders or if you don’t have the time to build a website yourself, you can hire a professional developer.

Website Design for Solo Lawyers

Although a website should provide useful information, the design and functionality can affect whether a visitor will use your legal services or search somewhere else.

Most visitors coming to any website will be searching for the information they need right away. If your solo lawyer website takes too long to load, has an unattractive design, or is confusing to navigate, expect visitors to leave before ever inquiring about your practice.

Designing a website with your prospective clients in mind will have greater benefits in the long term. Here are a few tips to guide you toward a good website for your solo service:

  • Choose A Good Design. The aesthetics of your solo lawyer website is important. Consider the look and feel of your website. Ask yourself, does it showcase your professionalism? Expertise?
  • Don’t Confuse Visitors. When visitors come to your website, keep the message clear and make your pages easy to navigate. Nothing is more frustrating to someone online than landing on a website and not knowing what to do or where to go.
  • Offer Quality Content. While it may be useful to have a website featuring your office hours and contact information, you can improve your website’s performance by adding a blog and providing helpful information.
  • Have A CTA. You need a Call To Action on your website. This could be an onscreen pop-up requesting an email or your contact number in large font that offers the visitor a free consultation if the contact you today.

When you discuss your website with a web designer, remember to focus on the website’s function while paying attention to the overall aesthetic and design. To get more ideas for you website design, check out 2017’s best lawyer websites or 2018’s best law firm websites.

Blogging About Law

Solo lawyers with a blog on their website can improve their reach for prospective clients. Blogs are a great way to share informal information, showcase your expertise in your area of law, and build an online reputation.

Blogs allow solo lawyers with competitive strategy for marketing their legal services. For example, the information and expertise about the law may be unique to you. Sharing some tips, such as what to do after getting in a car accident, can help you stand out against other law firms in your area.

To create a successful lawyer blog, you’ll want to consider the keywords people are using in search engines. For example, if you’re a solo lawyer practicing divorce law in California, you’ll want to write an article with similar words inside. Keep reading to learn how keywords in your website can improve its performance. 

Promoting Your Legal Services

In order for a solo lawyer website to serve its purpose, finding new clients, it is going to need visitors. Paid promotions can be an effective method toward promoting your legal services and finding your next client.

To get started, two of the most common places to promote a website include Google PPC and Facebook Ads.

Google uses competitive keywords to provide ads on the first page of their results to people making searches related your selected words. Facebook offers this same feature, however, it has an even more powerful tool for targeting the perfect audience.

Depending on your budget and goals, Google PPC and Facebook Ads can have different results. For more information about which one you should use to promote your website, go to Google PPC for Lawyers or Facebook Ads for Lawyers.

Improving Your Website’s Performance 

For alternatives to paid promotions, you can make a few modifications to your website to improve the performance. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a method of making your website better recognized by search engines which presents your website to more people.

As mentioned before, having a blog is one way to improve your SEO. Blogs allow you to add various keyword rich pages to your website which can improve the likelihood of your website being discovered.

Other methods of improving your solo lawyer website’s SEO includes:

  • Obtain backlinks from other websites
  • Perform competitive keyword research
  • Add titles, sub-headers, and meta-information
  • Submit website to directories

Improving the SEO of a website can be both technical and confusing. To get a better understanding of SEO and the things you can do to improve your website go to SEO for Lawyers.

by Branding, Business, Marketing, SEO, Ultimate Guides, Websites Leave a comment

9 Skills Of A Successful Lawyer

There are some who have it and some who don’t. Having the right set of skills of a lawyer can lead a career of abundance and great success. If you’re looking to brush up your skills, here’s a list of 9 skills to become a better lawyer.

1. Strong Communication Skills

Lawyers must have strong oral communication skills and written communication skills to accurately relay critical legal information. As well, a significant portion of a lawyer’s job is to create strong and convincing arguments which are presented in the courtroom. Judges and juries all have their own opinions, beliefs, and backgrounds so a lawyer’s ability must be able to reach out to all of them and convince accordingly.

In addition, good listening skills are found in a successful lawyer. Every client has their own version of their situation. Lawyers must listen carefully to the details and analyze what their clients need and how to take action.

2. People Skills

Lawyers are in constant contact with people with is why people skills are required. The entire system of law has engagement with people. Judges, clerks, senior partners, barristers, and other legal workers are just some of the people lawyers will encounter on a daily basis. Being able to be relatable, polite, respectful and interesting some skills to consider.

If this is a skill lacking in a lawyer, it can lead to some very nasty situations with clients seeking retribution for their perceived mistreatment. Regardless of how good a lawyer may be at formulating arguments and winning cases, maintaining good relationship develops a deeper sense of professionalism

3. Time Management Skills

Lawyer’s have a heavy workload and can experience demanding deadlines at short notice. Having the right time management and organizational skills allows for a lawyer’s work to be performed more effortlessly and efficiently.

Time management is the core of a lawyer’s work ethics. Lawyers who prioritize their work and stay ahead of their tasks can lead to more time to enjoy extracurriculars or taking on more cases.

4. Research Skills

Lawyers will spend a lot of time digging around in archives and reading up on old cases. Research skills include the ability to read large amounts of information in short time, understanding facts, figures, and charts, and analyzing matter in a way that can be used later are vital features of a lawyer.

Research skills should be honed early in a lawyer’s career. To do so, make a habit of summarizing a few important points from large documents and articles. This is extremely advantageous when caseloads increase which require more background details, legal document drafting, and prepare advice for clients.

5. Detail Oriented

All lawyers have to have an eye for details. Accuracy and precision is needed to become a successful lawyer. If a lawyer makes a mistake on a single word it can change the entire meaning of a contract or a clause. Lawyers must ensure all their communications, such as email, letters, lawyer websites and legal documents, are always perfect for giving them to a client.

Small mistakes can lead to a bad impression on a client and a bad experience for a lawyer. The worst case scenario would be a lawyer getting sued for malpractice for mistakes that could have been avoided.   

6. Creativity

The fundamental part of a lawyer’s job is to win cases for their clients or protect their client’s interests. Being creative is a skill needed by successful lawyers because it allows for flexibility and a wide range of possible solutions when working on a case.

Lawyers have to be both logical and analytical. However, they should not ignore their creativity. Having that creative edge allows for a lawyer to outmaneuver any situation, in and out of the courtroom.

7. Judgement

Although creativity is important, a lawyer also requires strong judgment at the core of their practice. Lawyers need the ability to logically and reasonably draw conclusions based on the limited amount of information they receive.

Throughout a court hearing, lawyers must be aware of the arguments their opponents are making which finding weaknesses and flaws in logic through the hearings.

8. Stress Management

Lawyers spend a great amount of time listening to client’s and trying to solve their problems. There are some clients who have often experienced an extreme incident which creates a difficult and stressful situation for themselves and the lawyer. Mentioned early was the importance of having both people and communication skills. It is during these high-stress situations that these skills are needed to help handle a client’s stress.

In fact, these same skills are critical for lawyer’s themselves. Lawyers will occasionally take on the stresses of their clients. Having the ability to manage stress, both in clients and within themselves, is a valuable skill to maintain a long-lasting career as a lawyer.

9. Business Skills

Every lawyer, whether working at a firm or solo practitioner, must be aware of the business side of their practice. Law is a billable service that receives the majority of their income by the hours they can bill. If lawyers lack the necessary business skills to bill their clients accordingly, it could lead to significant losses for the firm or personal practice.

Being able to explain your hourly rates, additional charges, and contracting with clients is critical for a lawyer to continue to practice law. However, billing is just one aspect that has to be learned. Marketing, networking, and accounting for lawyers are equally important.

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Rise Of The Machines? Will Lawyers Become Obsolete?

Let’s consider this for a moment: lawyers being replaced by robots.

It sounds like a farfetched, sci-fi movie featuring advanced robotics bringing clients to court with analytical judges determining the fate of humanity.

However, as crazy as it may sound, will lawyers become obsolete with the growing trends in technology and communication?

Since the dawn of industrialization, there have been numerous revolutions in robotics technology that has freed up labors for the blue collar workers. From the view of human progress, this is the step in the right direction. However, as more and more people are losing jobs to robots, how will this affect the legal world?

Advancements in technology allows for information to be stored and retrieved in an easily accessible and systematized way. If artificial intelligence can be designed to extract evidence useful for litigations, to collect details for contracts, and trigger red flags whenever companies are committing fraud or other illegal activities, would this eliminate the number of lawyers needed in the world?

Automatization of Legal Work

Automatization is an ongoing development that allows for time efficiency and saving significant amounts of money. From a client’s point of view, if utilizing an online database, or “e-lawyer” to get accurate results, fast.

The early beginnings of technology designed to make a lawyer’s life easier started with chatbots. Technology from Ross and Lex Machina provide a chat lot system that makes setting up consultations simple for clients to do.

Another rising robot is called DoNotPay which was developed by Joshua Browder. This is a free parking ticket fighting chatbot that asks you a series of questions about your case. Questions like, “Were you illegally parked because of a medical emergency?” or “Were road signs clearly marked?”

At the end of the chat, the bot prepares a letter that can be used to fight parking tickets. So far, this system has been used to help hundreds of thousands of people to win parking ticket violations in Seattle, New York, and London.

What Areas of Law Could Be Most Affected

Technology is advancing at an extremely rapid pace. Each and every year a new highly developed superphone is being shoved into our pockets. If automatizing the lawyer process is the next step into the future, there may be some areas of law that will be impacted more than others.

The areas of law that once required many forms, contacts, and documents to be made may soon become obsolete. Things like business documents, contested filings, and estate planning documents, while performed by non-lawyers, are a part of the collective income of a law firm.

Currently, there are companies racing to innovate this area of law by creating efficient online services that can provide these documents in a single click.

Take for example LawGeex. They have developed an AI system that allows for the automation and approval of contracts. There focus is to eliminate paper work altogether.

Once, lawyers were required for their legal knowledge and careful selection of law like words. Now, AI machinery will be able to analyze text to review and understand the legal document.

What Are the Possibilities  of Robolawyers?

These chatbots could be the beginning of a complete legal revolution. There could be dramatic changes to the way bankruptcy, divorce disputes, and deportation can be dealt with. Instead of using a lawyer to dispute the finer points of law, AI systems can be developed to analyze every possible situation and find the exceptions, loopholes and historical cases needed to win a case.

Essentially, an AI will have access to a whole database of legal language and the history of legal cases to make decisions. From this perspective, the argument of human error leading to mistakes in law can certainly be avoided.

Here’s a couple more examples of law being replaced with technological solutions.

Judicata which is developing a database that was just mentioned above. While it may not be a go to tool for people experiencing a legal issue, it’s an AI program that provides lawyers with a chance to extract the information they need to build a case or contract.

Another AI based law solution comes from FairDoc. FairDoc focused on creating a virtualized legal team allowing for intake of clients to be made online and even tracking your client activity. It’s another cost effective solution to reduce the amount of work that is typically demanded by lawyers.

How Can You Fight The Rise of Robots?

There’s no avoiding the rapid growth that technology has in the world. As the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

In this case, the some of the roboticized approaches to law may work in your favor. Since you are a lawyer with the knowledge and experience in the field, many of the time saving services that are reducing the amount of paperwork can still be performed through you.

When it comes to sensitive issues and human beings, going to see a lawyer will almost always be the preferred approach to dealing with a machine.

However, to assure yourself a job in the future to come, here’s a few things to consider:

  1. Approach new technology cautiously. Technology is often being tested and does come with some setbacks. While AI lawyers may seem like a smart solution, a single hack could leak a lot of sensitive information.
  2. Question what may be “replacing” you. Be skeptical. Not all technology may be the best for you, your law firm, or your clients.
  3. Accept changes. You can stick to traditional law practice, and perhaps you’ll be just fine, however finding a few new pieces of software that makes your law practice easier and more efficient may be in your best interest.
  4. Preserve your practice. Let’s face it, some parts of technology can be good, but outsourcing significant parts of your business with 3rd parties can become a liability. Your clients trust you. Therefore you have to make decisions as to whether the products and “robots” used in your practice can be trusted for the long term.

Conclusion

Likely there won’t be a terminator situation rising anytime soon for lawyers, however being up-to-date will help you stay ahead. One of the best things to is to embrace the coming changes but doing so with a hint of skepticism. To really succeed, bringing your law practice online may be the cutting edge you need to stay alive. Imagine having your own blog, you could be the leader in the transition from human based lawyers to AI law machines.

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PPC For Lawyers May Have Just Gotten A Whole Lot Tougher

The focus of a website is to receive the most clicks that provide a steady stream of traffic and leads to an increase in business and clients. The means that every business (and law firm) is fighting for the front page of Google.

Visitors arrive to your website in a variety of way. One way to receive free, organic traffic is by ranking high on search engines via keywords. The content you provide and the keywords included on your pages will be selected by search engines that best match the query.

An alternative to free, organic traffic is PPC (Pay Per Click).

PPC is a highly competitive advertising strategy that can place your website and business pages on the front of Google and other search engines. Due to the changing nature of the online world, PPC for lawyers is going to be much more difficult to come out on top.

What Is PPC?

Pay per click advertising is a method of attracting new clients to your law firm using specific and targeted keywords used by those seeking a lawyer.

Successful campaigns use a landing page that has a distinct message and a clear call-to-action. This means that whenever you advertisement is clicked, that person will be landing on a webpage describing a solution to their problem (i.e. call 123-456-7890 for a FREE CONSULTATION).

PPC campaigns can be set up in a variety of ways with specific ad groups targeting the following:

  • Bankruptcy Lawyer
  • Business Lawyer
  • Divorce Lawyer
  • Family Lawyer
  • Medical Malpractice Lawyer
  • Personal Injury Lawyer

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Yandex, and Bing allow you to design text based ads that will appear when those keywords are entered into the search bar. The concept behind PPC is that you will only pay whenever someone clicks on your ad leading to your website or landing page.

There is potential to create some successful advertisements that allow you to discover new clients, however many of these keywords above are highly sought after by other law firms. In addition, the nature of PPC and how advertising is permitted on these search engines are constantly changing.

The Changing Nature Of PPC

Back in February 2016, Google rolled out a few changes to their some changes to the way they show ads in the search queries. They removed the longer text ads that showed in the right sidebar. This is a complete overview of the changes Google made:

  • No more text ads in the right sidebar of search results on desktop
  • Up to 4 text ads will be shown above the organic listings for “highly commercial queries” (before, up to 3 were displayed)
  • Up to 3 text ads will show at the bottom of the search results.
  • The maximum number of ads to be displayed will be 7 (before, there were up to 11)

Google defines “highly commercial queries” as the keywords that are in high demand in certain industries.

What Does  This Mean for Lawyer’s PPC?

 When you are choosing the right keywords  to setup a PPC campaign, there may be a highly sought after keyword that drives up the prices. Let’s saw for example, “New York Lawyers” is a highly searched keyword. Due to popular demand, you can see yourself paying tens to hundreds of dollars per click.

Consider this. “Lawyer” and “Attorney” are the most expensive keywords used on Bing. They cost over $100 per click when used with search queries like these: “personal injury lawyer” or “accident attorney colorado.” Your monthly PPC campaigns could cost in the thousands with a return of investment being entirely uncertain. Bing is known to be the cheaper advertising platform and Google is likely to be much higher.

With the changes made by Google, this puts increasing competition on keywords but also to a top ranking position in the search queries. Where before prices may have varied from a dollar up, the supply and demand can push your PPC campaign budget beyond its limits.

The Downside Of PPC Campaigns For Lawyers

 PPC offers a paid alternative to getting your website noticed by potential clients. However, these campaigns are based entirely on bids and competition for keywords. If there are a lot of advertisers bidding on the same keyword, the price goes up.

Unfortunately, PPC advertising does not guarantee that every click will lead to your next client. In fact, you could be losing a significant amount of money at each click when no one is contacting you for your legal services.

This document from Google detailing factors that influence your PPC viewability, claims that 56.1% impressions are not actually seen. This implies a considerable amount of loss and uncertainty when relying on PPC to find new clients and grow your firm.

Now, here’s something that you have to be aware of. Since you are not the only one competing for “high commercial queries” there are occasions of click fraud.

Click fraud is an extremely shameful marketing practice where one of your competitors will continually click on your ads until your budget is depleted. While Google does provide protection from fruad, there are still ways to get around this.

What Can Lawyers Do?

Paying $100 per click may not be a viable solution for small law firms.

As an alternative to pay per click advertising, lawyers can start their own blog and generate organic traffic to their websites. Although this too requires a significant amount of keyword research, time writing articles, and consistency with posting, the investment are for those seeking long term returns.

Having a blog can bring a flow to steady clients without having to spend thousands on advertising. By utilizing your knowledge and expertise in your field, you can provide solutions clients are searching for and direct them to a direct method of getting in contact with your legal services.

When combined with social media and other marketing strategies, blogging can be a relief to highly competitive and sometimes fraudulent ways of PPC campaigns.

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Picking The Best Domain Name For Your Law Practice

In order to run a successful law practice, you’re going to need a website. Your website is the place for potential clients to discover your legal services, get to know you, and  schedule a consultation.

However, before you or hired help creates your website, you’ll want to pick the best domain name for your law firm.

A website and a domain name are not the same, although they are closely connected. The website contains all your content, information, and images. Whereas the domain name is the address that people type in their browsers that bring them to your website.

There are many types of domain names available and there’s a few important guidelines to follow when choosing the best one for your law firm:

Top Level Domain for Lawyers

 Top Level Domains (TLDs) are the little part of the domain name found after the DOT. These include, .COM, .ORG, .NET, and .GOV. There is even a specially created TLD for lawyers called .LAW.

The kind of TLD you decide will play a role in your ability to being found online. The universal TLDs are those listed above. There are also country specific TLDs such as .CA (Canada), .CN (China), .EU (European Union). Using these domains are restricted to those residing in that country and may not have as large a global reach as a .COM.

Most domains can be registered by anyone, however, the .LAW specific TLD requires proof of license before it can be issued.

Is a .LAW the best domain for you?

What Are Lawyer Keywords?

 Consider your domain name as a very important keyword that aides in your website getting found. People looking for a lawyer may search the following in Google: Florida Divorce Lawyers.

 Those words, are considered keywords and they play an important part in how your website is found online.

One thing to keep in mind is that keyword stuffing your domain name could lead to penalties by search engines and prevent your site from ever being noticed.

For example,

“childcustodydivorcelawyers.com”

While a name like this appears to be congruent with your services, there are a variety of reasons to not use this kind of name.

Best Domain Names For Lawyers

 Creating a domain name that is memorable and brandable is the best approach to take. This is important. Your domain name will serve as a banner that not only catches people’s attention but prepares people for what they’ll find on your website.

So, consider the following: what is the overall message you’re trying to say? Can people remember it easily? Can they type it into their browser without difficulty? Are there other websites with domain names similar to yours?

In addition, here are a few points to help you pick the best domain:

  1. Keep it short and simple (KISS). Shorter names are easier to remember and simpler to type into the browser. Just imagine, if your name was Bernie, you could have this: bernietheattorney.com!
  2. Be consistent. Your domain name should be a reflection of the services being offered and/or the location you provide them. Having a name like nyccourtconsultations.com (implying that you offer court consultations in NYC) would be more powerful than worldoflaw.com (potentially implying this site is about a world of flaws?).
  3. Don’t use unpopular TLDs. There are many different domain names available that may seem ideal for branding purposes but have less effect as a common TLD like .COM. Many people are familiar with .COM as a domain name.
  4. Avoid using hyphens. Search engines sometimes consider websites using hyphens as spammy and trying to stuff too many keywords. For example, best-lawyers-in-san-francisco.com may signal to search engines that this website is spam. While hyphens can be used without receiving penalties.

Lawyers Starting A Blog

 Having a website allows your to showcase your practice, services, past clients, and contact information to the entire world. As well, another useful thing to do on your website is starting a blog.

As mentioned before, keywords play an important part in getting your site noticed online. While the domain name plays a significant roles in directing people to the website, the content is the most valuable.

The best way to make your website stand out online is by providing expert advice and quality content. Blogs allow you to build your reputation online as well as discover new, potential clients.

Domain Name Overview:

Do Don’t
 

●        Do use your personal or business name(s). Remember to keep it short and simple. Use a domain name like, smithlawassociates.com, instead of smithandtullylawassociates.com
●        Do use your area of practice. If you’re a divorce lawyer, legal advisor, or criminal lawyer, feature that (i.e. smithdivorcelawyers.com)
●        Do use something memorable. Especially for blogs, having a domain like, fortheloveoflaw.com or leagueoflawyers.com could serve as a great platform to express your legal work as well as for branding purposes.
●        Do use a common TLD (such as .COM or even .LAW).
●        Do consider the ethical code. Making claims that cannot be proven, or misleading (i.e. always-win-lawyers.com) may be a violation of your local jurisdiction’s ethical rules.

  

●        Don’t use names that may change in the future (i.e. if an associate leaves your law firm)
●        Don’t use abbreviations of your legal service that could create a negative reputation (i.e. Austin, Stevens, and Smith Lawyers Group: asslawyers.com)
●        Don’t use spammy words like, best, top, greatest, etc. While you may feel that your law firm is #1 in your area, the search engines may flag your site as spam.
●        Don’t make it too personal. Whatever you are interested in and passionate about should not be used for your domain name, unless, it is relevant to your area of law.
●        Don’t use hard to remember or difficult to spell words.
●        Don’t copy another domain name. If serveandprotect.com is taken, avoid taking serveandprotect.net (or any other TLD). This can confuse your potential clients.

Choosing the best domain name for your law practice is not going to be easy. Remember that search engines like Google do provide benefits when a keyword is matched in your domain name. However, try to avoid coming off as spammy and use a name that is broad but to the point. For branding purposes, short and catchy would be the better approach.

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