More and more people are turning to online sources to find legal services. Your clients are using the internet to determine if they’ll chose you or someone else. Why would you blame them? A ‘Google Search’ is the modern-day‘ Yellow Pages”, referral and TV commercial all wrapped into one.
To help better understand your user, think about your own online behavior…
Tonight you are feeling Chinese food. What do you do? You will (most likely) Google search something along the lines of ‘Best Chinese Restaurant Near Me,’ right? Your potential clients are doing the same thing. Therefore, you must prepare. The same way a restaurant would upload pictures of their best dishes along with positive reviews, you must present yourself and your firm in the ways in which your potential clients are searching. This means a well-designed website, with the right information and the proper optimization.
Most legal websites follow a similar pattern (which is not necessarily a bad thing). Think of a social media platform all having the same essential elements. A profile picture, a follower count, and some sort of timeline or grid to show a user’s previous posts. The patterns that a law firm’s site follows is usually an ‘About Me/Us’ page, pages dedicated to services, other information to help distinguish you from your competitors as well as CTA’s (Call To Actions). Oftentimes, a blog can be the best option to provide your website with a platform to add written and video content.
You might be thinking to yourself “Do I really need a blog?” To keep a long answer short: Yes!
A blog page on your website is a great way to get more organic traffic. The more organic traffic, the more views; the more views, the more calls; the more calls, the more clients. Are you beginning to understand the reasoning here?
Imagine the following scenario: You are the managing partner at a small family law firm. You specialize in difficult divorce cases. You have 5 or 6 competitors in your market. Now put yourself in your ideal client’s shoes. You’re a high-income earner looking to get out of a rocky marriage and need a top-notch divorce attorney who can fight for your defense. You don’t have many references to contact regarding a referral so you turn to the ever-trusted Google search. What are you looking for in this scenario? Online reviews, video testimonials, past results, etc. The answer is D, all of the above. If your firm is going to meet the needs of those searching for your firms practice area in your geographic area, your firm’s website must 1) show at or near the top of search results 2) Provide the user with a well-optimized website (must work on a mobile device properly, have a fast load time and many, many other optimized check marks) 3) Provide answers to the users problems.
Looking back at the top 3 items your firm’s website needs, let’s focus on #1. Most importantly, to be seen, your firm’s website must show at the top or near the top of search results. How will your firm’s website complete this very difficult task (organically)? Your firm’s website must meet all of Google’s SEO criteria and thus result in a high organic ranking website.
Content is king!
If we are going to have the conversation of ranking at or near the top of search results, we must first discuss (arguably) the most important factor in Google’s algorithm; CONTENT! Content is king for your law firm’s website. The more useful and relevant content, the more pages, the more likely you are to stand out amongst your competitors (assuming other factors in Google’s algorithm have been achieved). This brings us back to the point of having a blog on your firms website. A blog provides an outlet to add content, content and more content!
3 Reasons Why Your Law Firm Needs A Blog:
1. Your Site Needs Content
A service page area on your site might show specific legal areas which your firm focuses on. This is important because if you’re a criminal defense lawyer you might want to focus on crimes like assault and burglary but not necessarly fraud or embezzlement. After all, criminal defense encompases a wide variety of different offenses. Likewise, if you focus on business or employment law you want your service page area to show whether you prefer representing businesses or employees. These type of pages can only contain so much content. And, your firm specializes in only certain domains. But, your website needs more content than that. How can you accomplish this? Through a blog. Say someone needs to find information about specifics related to assault, a DUI, parole/probation, blogs are a great place to put that information.
2. Connect With Potential Clients
Say you’re a copyright and trademark lawyer. You need to get your message out there. What message is that? Well that you can help creatives, businesses, and companies protect their work! Many lawyers are specialists in their field and profession. They have inside knowledge into how the law works and common mistakes non-legal professionals do. A blog would be the best place to put up information related to that insider-knowledge. By doing this you can help potential clients find you.
3. Cost-Effective Marketing
A marketing strategy is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It is a compilation of different tools working together to optimize and maximize your visibility in your market. A cost-effective way of doing this is through a blog. You need a website. That’s a given. Well, since you already got the site set up why not add a blog to it?
Why We Provide Legal Marketing
Lawyers need marketing. It’s not something that’s taught in law school but it’s something most successful lawyers figure out after the fact. We’re here to help. You don’t have to think of marketing as an overly complicated thing because we take all the guesswork out of it. Wanna see how your firm is doing online? Check out our free resources. Audit your website and see how it’s performing. Wanna do better in your market? Sign up for our free marketing review! If you’ve got any questions then let’s set up a meeting, give us a call at (786) 505-2667 or fill out your information here.
