Category: Legal Business Development

Online Legal Marketing Guidelines for 2014

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Lawyers who are exceptionally good at the business of law understand that it is their reputation that is the engine of business development. This is not a novel concept. Provide exceptional representation and client service, people speak highly of you and more people hire you.

In 2014, while this general formula remains largely unchanged, the means by which lawyers can impress clients and the ways in which people communicate the value of a lawyer’s service has evolved significantly. And much of this evolution can be attributed to the internet and related online technologies.

Unfortunately, in adopting online legal marketing strategies and techniques, many lawyers have lost sight of the value of a strong professional reputation built on relationships. Ironically, as social networks and search technologies mature, it will be reputations and relationships that matter most online. Here are some guidelines to help you shape your online legal marketing campaigns.

Set Goals

If you take anything with you from this article, take this: Set specific, tangible and achievable goals for your online legal marketing activities. But not just any goals, goals that have meaning to the business of your law practice. Some examples might be:

  • Increase the number of clients you can source to organic search traffic.
  • Increase the percentage of visitors to your website or blog that complete an objective that will help you earn more meaningful attention.
  • Increase the instances of professional, or where permissible, client endorsements of your services online.

Make these goals specific and realistic. Use real numbers. Create systems to measure and analyze your progress. If you’re working with vendors or consultants, hold them to meeting these goals. Do more of what’s working for you and less of what’s not.

Update Your Online Assets

People expect to be able to find information about you online. And what they find is likely to have more of an impact upon their impression of your than you probably think.

While your website might not get you hired or fired on its own (based on what I’ve seen in the wild, this is becoming more probable), it is sure to contribute to the visitor’s perception of you and your practice.

Web technologies are rapidly evolving. Much of what was state-of-the-art online only a few years ago, is obsolete today. Outdated online assets can be a significant liability to business development. Do you walk into new client meetings with apparel, accessories and technologies from 1950 (perhaps a bad choice of year for some of you)? What message would that send to your potential client? The same is true for your online assets. In 2014, your web assets must:

  • Be built on technologically sound search engine-friendly architectures.
  • Load very quickly (in around a second)
  • Have designs that contribute to the user’s experience and are easy to read, use and interact with on a variety of devices (desktops, tablets and smartphones, responsive design).
  • Resonate with the problems, challenges and issues of your target audience.
  • Demonstrate why you are uniquely positioned to help them solve these problems.
  • Motivate online engagement in the form of comments, subscribers, links, social endorsements and shares.

You probably won’t know when your online assets cost you a new client. It’s unlikely that prospective clients will call or email you to tell you that your site is a joke (although they might if you provide them an avenue for feedback). But if you are getting visitors who don’t engage your pages, bounce off of them, or quickly exit, you might ask yourself whether it has anything to do with the quality of your online assets.

From Self-Promotional to Useful

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of noise online. Most of it is made by people and businesses talking about how great they are. And the legal profession is no exception. Visit any ten law firm websites, blogs or Facebook pages and you’ll be exhausted by all the “look at me” marketing.

Now put yourself in the position of someone who is looking for information about a legal issue or looking for more information about a specific lawyer. Do you really think they’re persuaded by that pop-up video of a lawyer talking about how much experience they have and how hard they fight? They’re not impressed. And they’re certainly not going to share that cheesy marketing with their friends (unless, of course, it’s in jest).

Instead of building a web presence that feels like a television commercial, focus your efforts on the “stuff” that enhances your professional reputation and helps to create, nurture and solidify relationships. Ask yourself:

  • Who is my target audience online? What makes these people tick?
  • What are they looking for online and what do they like to do?
  • What are they passionate about? What are they afraid of?
  • How can I supply their demand for information in a way that demonstrates my knowledge, skill and experience in addressing their issues?

The internet doesn’t need another article about what to do after a car accident. What it does need is real leadership from people who know what they’re talking about and can be trusted. And it is this approach to online legal marketing that impresses clients, earns meaningful attention, motivates action and earns new clients. Just like it did before there was an internet.

Article by:

Gyi Tsakalakis

Of:

AttorneySync

How to Talk Your Way Into Becoming a Recognized Expert, Part 2 of 2

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I speak to bar associations big and small all over the country every year, and I can’t remember ever not having attorneys seek me out after the event to ask me how I could help them. In fact, some of my biggest clients have come to me that way. So I feel confident in telling you that nearly every time you speak, if you do it right, you can generate business as well as enhance your reputation as a recognized expert in your field of practice.

Of course, doing it right means following up.  In fact, the number one reason why people who speak at events don’t get the results they are after is because of their follow up — or more precisely, their lack thereof.

public speaking expert conferencesYou must develop your follow up strategy before you speak. So what kind of follow up works? Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.

Let’s say you want to follow up your presentation with a series of emails. So you would send out email #1 within 24 hours after the seminar, thank them for attending and perhaps even offer a free gift or a free report. The free gift could be a free half hour consultation where you will give them an assessment of their case or how you could help them. Or you might offer them a free audio CD.

If you choose to follow up by telephone, this is something you yourself should not be doing. It is something to outsource to your staff, but essentially they would be doing the same thing as in the email, thanking them for coming and offering a free consultation.

If you use this kind of strategy every time you speak, you will get much better results from your presentations – building your reputation as a recognized expert and getting new clients at the same time.

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

How To Obtain Local Ranking For Cities Where Your Law Firm Does Not Have An Office

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If  you do not have physical presence in a specific city then it is unlikely that you will be able to obtain local map rankings within that city. If you are targeting a small neighboring city there is a greater chance that you can work your website optimization and business listing optimization to get your business listed in the local rankings. In our experience, we have seen businesses achieve such local rankings, but this typically happens when city populations are under 60K, within a 20-mile radius, or without strong law firm competitors.

If you are in a larger city like New York and are trying to target small neighboring cities, it is much harder to rank locally due to the large amount of competition and distance from the center of the main business cluster for your industry. That center is one of the top 10 foundational ranking factors as seen in the image from the 2013 Local Search Ranking Factors from Moz. However, for local businesses that want to rank for local cities there is a viable option.

Ranking in Cities Where You Do Not Have an Office

The strategy is to build a page on your law firm website and dedicate it to the city. You want to have your title tag, meta description, your page content and page headings contain the term or terms for want to rank for . If you are pursuing personal injury lawyer rankings for Cary, North Carolina, you would set your title to have Cary personal injury lawyer in it, and the same goes  for the rest of the previously mentioned locations. Do not stuff that keyword on the page multiple times in any one tag or area. Having that term once in the title, once in the description, once in a header tag, once in the description for the page content and in the content of the page two or three times is sufficient. Also consider incorporating the keyword into an image so the image file name mirrors the image Alt Tag. These are the basic foundations for your city-specific page.

What Content Should I Use On A Local Page?

You want to incorporate your business and the community into the content on that location page. Post pictures of client meetings, testimonials or case results that you have achieved in that city. If you have been in the local media for community service or cases you have worked, link to those sources. If you sponsor a school activity or are a member of a charity or non profit in that community, briefly mention the connection and link out. When you link out, make sure the links are going to relevant and related sites to your business and the location. Linking out to a legal nonprofit in that city that you are a member of or support is a great example, or even the city hall since that organization would have a physical location. These practices all tie in the location and make the page stronger for ranking in that location. Another good thing to do is link internally to your site. If you are trying to rank for Cary personal injury lawyer, then in the content on that local page you should link the words personal injury over to your main personal injury page. Also provide a link to your nearest office location – a link to your contact page or that office page which will have details such as hours of operation and directions.

Since your local page is basically a landing page where you will be driving potential clients, include a call to action. Try a form that they will fill out for more information or a phone number they can click on to call you, this way you are driving visitors to your physical office.

How To Build Links To A Local Page

The next important step, and often the hardest currently, is to build links back to this local page. One way to build links is to link from within your site to the location page. Examples of this are having phrases like “Cities we serve” or “Communities we help” on the page, then listing those locations and linking over to the specific local page. The next, and easiest, links to generate are to contact the organizations you are associated with for links. If you are part of the local chamber, you should already have a link from that location. If you sponsor a local kid’s sports team or another school related activity, see what it would take to get a link over to that page. The same goes for other non profits and any other association you are part of. Make sure you work with the organization to get a link to your location page.

The harder links to get are the ones that require considerable outreach and development. This is one reason many firms hire an agency to work out a strategy for obtaining these type of links. To obtain links from sites you are not connected to, but feel may be a relevant resource to, like a prominent legal blog, you have to organically build that relationship. Then, you have to offer to write high quality and attention-getting content so it will drive potential clients to your website from that website. Another wonderful technique is to leverage events. If you host or sponsor any local events then you have great opportunity to obtain local links and citations from those events.

Gone are the days that you could write quick, simple articles and post them anywhere. With all the Google updates in 2013 link outreach has taken a 360 and requires much more effort and skill to build a quality page and obtain quality links.

How To Use Social Media For Local Optimization

Finally, consider social media. While it may not directly help rank your page, it will increase your exposure and “signals” that Google monitors.  Consider participating in discussions and groups that are in the location you want to build visibility. Post content to these groups and genuinely contribute to discussions. This can help raise your recognition in that community. If there are no groups or discussions going on, consider starting them yourself if you have the time. Post quality content that is shareable. Particularly, shared posts on Google can rank quickly if done properly and tied to Google Authorship.

While you will not be able to get a map pin for a city you are not located in, you can take these actions to optimize a location page for that particular city and work on ranking it organically. This is the next best thing if you have no physical location. If you think you can pull enough clients from a specific city or if you were able to rank there, then you can consider opening a location there. Both are large undertakings. Creating a strategic local page is more simple and less costly, but getting those rankings without the local physical presence does make things difficult and can take considerable time.  This must be taken into consideration.

Article by:

Grant Brott

Of:

Consultwebs.com, Inc.

How to Talk Your Way Into Becoming a Recognized Expert, Part 1 of 2

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For those of you who have done some speaking in seminars and presentations, you know that sometimes you are doing great, you have the rapt attention of the audience and it goes really well. Other times, it may feel as if you bombed, you just weren’t making a connection.

One of the reasons why that may happen is because you didn’t have the right group. If an organization asks you to speak, you need to make sure you are in front of the right people. Find out:

  • The number of people expected to attend
  • The demographic profile of the audience
  • A list of topics from previous presentations

The more you know about the group, the better you will be able to tailor your presentation, and you must avoid speaking to the wrong groups!

You should also remember that there are many different forms of speaking engagements. You could speak at a private client-only seminar where you invite a few of your clients or the clients of a referral partner. Or you could be part of a moderated panel discussion.

You can also utilize current technologies to host an online webinar or web conference where your PowerPoint presentation is what is seen on screen and you talk to your audience via a bridge conference call.

Next, your subject matter has to be educational. People do not want to hear legal jargon, they want practical, useful information without a sales pitch.  Now, I can hear most of you thinking that you don’t want to give away the store! I don’t want to give so much information that they can just go do it themselves!

Look, there MAY be some who would try to do that, but they are not your clients! You want to target the people who have the money to hire an attorney so that they don’t have to do it themselves. You don’t want the tire kickers or the do-it-yourself crowd because they will beat you up on your price anyway.

You have to make sure you are targeting the right audience. And if you give a good, educational presentation, the right people will seek you out after the seminar to ask questions, plus in most cases you will be able to get the attendees’ contact information so that you can be ready to contact them later. If it is not you who is sponsoring the presentation, ask them to capture the attendees’ email addresses whenever possible, because as you will see in tomorrow’s post, follow up is the secret ingredient.

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute

Save Yourself The Time; How An Attorney Can Work Less and Make More.

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Have you found that you spend 70 or more hours at work or working from home? You probably just nodded and thought “Of course. I’m an attorney.”. It’s just the common belief that lawyers never get a break and they must work day and night or they’re not good lawyers and I know that even the lawyers themselves believe this! It’s not true, though.

Stay with me here. You could very well be spending time at work that you genuinely don’t need to. I’m not going to tell you that you need to take on fewer cases or anything that will cost you money, either. I’m just going to give you very simple things to do and ultimately, I want to be able to help you stop overworking yourself.

What you need to do is audit your practice.
Take a piece of paper and write down every single thing that takes place at your law firm.
Jot down notes on all aspects of your practice. From how you prepare for trial to how you handle perceptions your clients have as they move through your firm.

If you don’t think you have any systems to audit, think again. Everyone has a system. Even if it was put together haphazardly.

Once that is taken care of and you’ve removed or revised the problematic areas, you can move on to managing your time and figuring out exactly how much of it you are wasting.

For an entire week, create a time log. Carry a notepad around in your back pocket and write down everything you are doing and how long you are doing it for.

You’ll be amazed how much of it you can delegate to someone that works for you and free up your own personal time.

Some of it you may not need to continue with at all. There are always those little things that we never question that are taking up too much time. Because we never stop to question them, they never seemed silly. But when it’s written on black and white in front of you, you recognize that it’s unimportant and a waste of your time.

It’s most likely those unimportant little things that are causing you to be working all day and all night. Once you see them, you’re going to want to smack yourself for not seeing them before.

It’s incredible how these small steps can actually change how your entire practice runs, how much time you get to spend with your family, how much hair you keep on your head, and your sanity.

Article by:

Ben Glass

Of:

Great Legal Marketing, Inc.

9th Annual General Counsel Institute – November 7-8, 2013

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming 9th Annual General Counsel Institute.

GCI%209%20Ad%20Nov%202013

When

November 7-8, 2013

Where

New York, NY

In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, change is a way of life – in your company, your legal department and your own legal career.

The combined forces of a fluctuating economy, exponential growth in technology, and the constant evolution of both law and corporate culture require a resilient and agile legal workforce. As in-house counsel, your ability to offer practical and deliverable solutions to the complex challenges facing your company will maximize your legal department’s value and solidify your position as a valued business partner.

At GCI, you will be inspired by powerful personal stories of resiliency. You will explore current legal issues and develop best practices to anticipate and respond quickly to your clients’ needs. Through substantive legal workshops and the open exchange of ideas with senior lawyers facing similar challenges, you will improve your skills to address issues head on, drive positive changes in your own legal department, and marshal the strength not just to survive, but to thrive in a world of constant change.

Resilience is the power to understand the challenge and to recognize the opportunities. You will leave GCI with a personal plan to incorporate today’s critical skill of resilience into your role as in-house counsel.

Prior GCI participants have come from throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe and included counsel from large Fortune 100 to small private companies to non-profit organizations.

• Attend plenary sessions with leading general counsel and distinguished
speakers.
• Participate in CLE-eligible workshops led by subject matter experts.
• Enjoy opportunities for informal networking throughout both days.
• Interact with general counsel and other senior corporate counsel in
informal settings and optional evening activities.

5 Ways to Boost Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Right Now

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On October 21, I posted an interview that originally appeared on LawMarketing.com about the latest Google Penguin update andwhat it may or may not have done to affect legal websites.

John Jantsch over at the Duct Tape Marketing blog had a good post last week about the 5 ways you can boost your SEO right away, taking into consideration the latest Google search engine update:

1. Boost your social share. Google is giving a lot more juice to social share signals, so add the Google +1 and Facebook Like or Share buttons at the top of each page of your website or blog.

2. Use larger embedded images. This can help your blog posts you put on Facebook get shared more, and sharing is the name of the game right now. Facebook recently redesigned their posts to make images a lot more prominent; the new standard for images is 600 x 1200 pixels.

3. Zero in on long tail keywords. In a competitive category like law, going after the long tail keywords that people use to search for your services will help your SEO. Jantsch recommends using Long Tail Pro, a keyword research tool that is easy to use and inexpensive.

4. Use micro data with rich snippets. If you use WordPress for your blog or website, be sure to add the micro data plugin. Micro data is HTML code used by search engines to identify categories of text and Google uses it to understand website pages better. You can learn more about this on Google’s Webmaster blog.

5. Build relationships with authorities for your category. Just like it is important to build a good referral network offline, it has become increasingly important for you to do it online – it’s just known as building authority relationships. Find authors in your practice area that rank high in search and find ways to connect with them to foster a value-added relationship.

Article By:

of

ARMA LIVE! 2013 58th Annual Conference and Expo – October 28 – 30

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming ARMA LIVE! 2013 Conference.

ARMA

When

Monday, October 28 – Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Where

Las Vegas, NV

The Premier Event in Information Governance brought to you Bigger, Better, and More Colorful! When ARMA International comes to Las Vegas, you should expect the most comprehensive educational and networking experience in information governance. And, you should expect it to happen on the Las Vegas strip.

In a word…VIVA!

ARMA Live! Conference 2013 (ARMA 2013) offers inspiring speakers to motivate, the best in the business to educate, and cutting-edge best practices and technology tools to stimulate your quest for career growth. The knowledge and skills you will take away from ARMA 2013 will push you over the top as an even more valuable asset to your organization.

9th Annual General Counsel Institute – November 7-8, 2013

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming 9th Annual General Counsel Institute.

GCI%209%20Ad%20Nov%202013

When

November 7-8, 2013

Where

New York, NY

In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, change is a way of life – in your company, your legal department and your own legal career.

The combined forces of a fluctuating economy, exponential growth in technology, and the constant evolution of both law and corporate culture require a resilient and agile legal workforce. As in-house counsel, your ability to offer practical and deliverable solutions to the complex challenges facing your company will maximize your legal department’s value and solidify your position as a valued business partner.

At GCI, you will be inspired by powerful personal stories of resiliency. You will explore current legal issues and develop best practices to anticipate and respond quickly to your clients’ needs. Through substantive legal workshops and the open exchange of ideas with senior lawyers facing similar challenges, you will improve your skills to address issues head on, drive positive changes in your own legal department, and marshal the strength not just to survive, but to thrive in a world of constant change.

Resilience is the power to understand the challenge and to recognize the opportunities. You will leave GCI with a personal plan to incorporate today’s critical skill of resilience into your role as in-house counsel.

Prior GCI participants have come from throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe and included counsel from large Fortune 100 to small private companies to non-profit organizations.

• Attend plenary sessions with leading general counsel and distinguished
speakers.
• Participate in CLE-eligible workshops led by subject matter experts.
• Enjoy opportunities for informal networking throughout both days.
• Interact with general counsel and other senior corporate counsel in
informal settings and optional evening activities.

Cyber Security Summit – October 22-23, 2013

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming Cyber Security Summit.

cyber security

When:

Where: