How to Market Your Law Firm

Develop and use your law firm’s website as your most important marketing tool

Why is a good website so important for your law firm?

Because people look to the internet as their top source of information.

Think about it:

Where do you go to research a company? A product? A service?

If you’re like 76% of consumers, you first look online.

And potential clients in need of legal help? They’re even more likely to look online, since approximately 96% of people who need legal services use the internet to find them.

That means prospective clients will almost always look at your website to find out if your practice is right for them.

So what makes a good law firm website? What are your potential clients looking for?

To answer these questions, first think about what matters from a potential client’s perspective: since they’re likely facing a legal situation that’s often confusing and overwhelming, they’re visiting your website because they want to know if you can provide the help they’re looking for.

That means your website needs to show them you’re a trustworthy, knowledgeable attorney that has proven success handling their exact legal issues.

Your website can effectively demonstrate this to visitors with its design and content.

Website Design

By choosing a modern, professional website design, you’ll show visitors that you’re trustworthy, accomplished, and invested in your practice. This will help them have confidence in your ability to represent them.

Since visitors who can’t find what they’re looking for will quickly look elsewhere, make sure your website has a design and layout that’s simple, clear, and easy to navigate–including one that displays correctly on devices like smartphones, since over half of internet traffic takes place on mobile devices.

Include images of the legal professionals who work for you to humanize your brand and put a face to your name. These images will show your practice is made up of trustworthy, accomplished professionals who understand what they’re experiencing and who take their legal issues seriously.

To get these images, you’ll need to invest in a professional photographer to take photos of you and your staff. While this means an additional cost, remember that you only have seconds to form the right impression of your law practice with website visitors. Having professional photos of your staff is essential to form that impression.

Website Content

By including valuable legal information on your website about subjects your ideal clients want to know more about, you’ll attract the exact leads you’re looking for.

Start by thinking about what questions your past clients most commonly ask, since your future clients likely have the same questions.

Answer these questions in your website’s content to demonstrate your authority in your field of practice.

Your content should also highlight what makes your practice successful, how you help clients, and why you’re valuable to them. This can include your years of experience, number of cases successfully handled, or positive testimonials from past clients.

Keep the information on your website current, which shows your authority by making sure all information about your areas of practice is up to date. This can include information specifically about your practice (like your hours or staff members) or the legal information that your site provides regarding your areas of practice.

However, it’s important to note that updating your website requires either setting aside time to do it yourself, or hiring a good digital marketer or website developer to handle it for you. Contact eProphet Media to get help with your website’s content and design.

Attract exactly who you’re looking for with search engine optimization

Your website design and content might be flawless, but it won’t have much impact if people can’t find you when they search for your legal services online.

That’s why it’s important to have good search engine optimization (SEO). This happens when your website provides the right signals to search engines like Google to place you at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Search engines use algorithms to decide the quality of your website and whether it should be at the top of the SERPs, placed lower down, or even exiled beyond the first page.

While these algorithms continue to change, they are often focused on how these website elements are used:

Keywords

Identifying and using relevant keywords throughout your site will help you rank at the top of the SERPs. These keywords should include words or phrases that your potential clients may enter into search engines to find your legal services.

High-quality content

By regularly publishing high-quality, informative content that addresses common legal issues, questions, or concerns, you can show search engines that you are a valuable source of information that should be placed at the top of the search results.

Backlinks

When other credible websites link to your website, you signal to search engines that you’re already trusted by others. This can be rewarded by a higher  position in the search results.

It’s important to note that search engines like Google don’t tell you how to work with their system to achieve high visibility in their search results. That’s why it’s so important to work with experienced SEO professionals, like eProphet Media.

We’ll put your law practice in front of your potential clients at the exact moment they need your services by crafting a website and digital presence that sends the right signals to search engines.

This includes covering all the bases mentioned above, along with regular search engine optimization.

This ensures your law practice continues to stand out in the search results while expanding visibility for your various practice areas, or even creating visibility in new markets.

Use a customer relationship management system to keep growing

Once you have a professional law firm website that is highly visible in search engines, you’ll be able to attract qualified leads. These leads can then become your clients.

So how do you keep track of all of their details and information to effectively market your legal services to them? By using a customer relationship management system (CRM).

These systems help you organize how many people connect with you in response to your law firm digital marketing efforts, personalize communications with them, and know what specific legal services they use.

A CRM system can also bring additional revenue by keeping you in better contact with your business connections. By categorizing the groups that generate referrals for you, you can better cultivate relationships with the sources of your referrals, which can lead to more qualified leads.

Social media: ‘like’ it or not, it can promote your law firm

Good law firm marketing takes advantage of wherever people’s attention is focused to attract new leads and keep you top of mind in your market.

Since over 300 million Americans are on social media, there may be  opportunities for practices like yours to use these platforms to grab the attention of users dealing with a legal situation.

You can do this by developing a presence on social media that builds awareness of your practice, grows your brand, and improves trust and credibility for your practice.

For example, you can grow your brand by posting examples of how you have helped clients in your area, helpful tips on how to avoid problems within your legal field, or updates about your firm that demonstrate your authority.

You can also publicly interact with your audience, which can help brand your firm as approachable, caring, and relatable.

Additionally, social media allows for targeted ads that can reach potential clients who are looking for your services. You can place promoted posts in front of your target audience as well, highlighting your legal services and the value your practice provides to clients.

It should be noted, though, that not all law firms are the right fit for social media marketing. For example, a law firm often needs to be able to present a large, successful image on social media. Doing anything less can make them look small or ineffective.

Use client reviews as marketing tools to build trust

Attorneys handle important cases that can affect the rest of a person’s life. That means clients need to trust your firm to provide the best outcome for them.

This trust can be established by showing what you’ve already accomplished for others on review sites.

Review platforms such as Google, Yelp, or Avvo can provide unbiased, third-party information about who you are and how you’ve helped those in your market.

By encouraging satisfied clients to take a few minutes to leave a review on these platforms, you can utilize your past successes to cement trust with future clients.

You can also actively promote your attorney services by taking advantage of everything these platforms offer. Be sure to claim your Yelp, LinkedIn, and Google My Business listings, along with any other online directories you can find.

By actively directing what’s seen on these platforms, you can take control of what potential clients see about you.

For example, Google Business Profiles allows you to claim ownership of your firm on their platform by providing your own descriptions of your legal services, important contact and business information, and direct links to your law firm website. The more you take advantage of these review opportunities, the more clients you can attract, since Google may give more visibility in their local search results to businesses that have many positive reviews.

Another important step to take is actively managing these review platforms. Be alert to respond to reviewers when appropriate, which includes both celebrating positive reviews while professionally responding to any criticism, depending on the situation.

Take advantage of conferences, associations, conventions, and educational initiatives

Not every law firm marketing channel is digital. There are other ways to grow your brand recognition, connect with potential clients, and improve your firm’s credibility in your community.

These marketing goals can be accomplished by participating in legal or community events, or by being their sponsor.

While being a part of these events may not lead to a linear uptick in client referrals, you are able to put your practice in front of thousands of people while improving how you’re perceived by the community.

Take advantage of events like conferences, associations, conventions, and educational initiatives. These events may involve doing pro bono outreach such as judging in the local law school’s moot court, or you may offer to be a guest lecturer for night courses. Both of these examples can build your brand recognition and can result in attracting new leads.

Another opportunity to consider is being involved in the county bar association and the American Bar Association, particularly if you offer to present continuing legal education sessions.

As always, track your marketing efforts to make sure they are producing a return on investment. This includes in-person marketing efforts.

For example, use this simple formula to establish your return on investment to help you know if this approach is working for your practice:

If preparing for and attending the event takes 20 hours of a lawyer’s time, assess the number of contacts made per hour. If these referrals lead to new clients, you can assess your costs for the involvement or sponsorship against an attorney’s hourly rate to figure out your overall return on investment.

Take networking with other law firms seriously

Referrals can be one of the most effective sources of qualified leads for attorneys. You can use this marketing approach by examining which overlapping areas of law you encounter.

For example, an immigration attorney may refer a client to someone who practices criminal law. This can happen if their immigration client has a criminal past that impacts their visa eligibility and permanent residence status. That leads to the immigration client needing legal help from a criminal law practitioner, which the immigration attorney can refer them to.

Cross-linking with other firms’ websites can serve as mutually beneficial marketing and cultivate professional friendships as well.

Put a new twist on your traditional print advertising

Depending on your target market’s demographics, you may consider using traditional print advertising to grow your law practice. This may be effective to attract clients who prefer a tangible touchpoint over a digital one.

Fortunately, you don’t need to guess when it comes to what the best use of your marketing dollars with print advertising is, since you can measure its effectiveness using digital tools.

For example, you can analyze your ROI by including a scannable QR code in your print advertisement that directs the viewer to your website. This lets you monitor what marketing channels work best, along with incorporating their information to your CRM.

Other print advertising opportunities include local newspapers, magazines, and legal journals that allow you to place a well-designed ad that highlights your practice, who you serve, and a call to action.

Tired of guessing at what might work? Start using proven law firm marketing strategies from eProphet Media.

For over 15 years, eProphet Media has surpassed attorneys’ expectations by harnessing the most effective marketing approaches to generate qualified leads.

To put every marketing dollar to work for you, we carefully test and monitor the results of each marketing channel and use this data to continuously adjust our efforts.

We also keep you informed of everything that’s working and what should change, empowering your law practice to make the best marketing choices that promotes ongoing, sustainable growth.

Get the Law Firm Marketing Results You’re Looking For

From the word ‘go’, we take the entire digital marketing role and run with it for you, utilizing our skills and experience to craft a digital presence that attracts the exact clients you seek.

From there, we continuously work on growing the number of leads we generate, dropping the cost per lead month after month. With us, there is no standing still.

Time and again, our client results speak for themselves, whether that’s an 3x increase in client intakes in just one month, a 71% decrease in cost per lead, or a steady 112% increase in qualified leads over the course of two years.

From our perspective, if our clients are not doing better than they were last year, then we have failed. That’s why we have such long relationships with so many of them: we never stop or coast. Instead, we work to increase their number of qualified leads month over month and year over year.

Let us use our vast marketing skills and experience to help your law practice grow.

Contact eProphet Media at (248) 923-4590 or fill out our contact form.