Category: Legal Technology

5 Serious (& 1 Lighthearted) Legal Web Marketing Predictions for 2015

Consultsweb Logo

Where is legal web marketing headed in 2015? Do we need to prep for any upcoming roadblocks? What about exciting changes to anticipate? Are there any new technologies that will help the industry?

If these are questions you’ve been asking, I’m right there with you. When I have legal marketing questions, I turn to the expertise of my teammates at Consultwebs.com. I asked their predictions as to where legal web marketing is headed in 2015.

Here’s what they said.

Ashley Krohn, Outreach Specialist, @tweetinash

Ashley Krohn
Outreach Specialist
@tweetinash

  • Mobile will continue to grow. Your site MUST be optimized for mobile in 2015.
  • There will be a great focus on the user: understanding who they are, what content they consume, and how they view it.
  • We will see more personalized, targeted content marketing. Content will be optimized towards the purchase funnel, or the journey a visitor will take on your site, in whatever format works best for your audience.
  • Watch Reddit. If your audience is there, then you would be wise to start putting resources there.

Mike Dayton, J.D., Manager of Content Services, @senorpibb

Mike Dayton, J.D.
Manager of Content Services
@senorpibb

The message for content is moving toward: “Go deep!” Google is rewarding longer, substantive articles and website sections. Our Content Team will continue its emphasis on resource sections that signal our clients’ authority and expertise in their practice area niches.

John Damron, Senior Marketing Strategist, @consultwebs

John Damron
Senior Marketing Strategist
@consultwebs

My prediction is that mobile technology will become even more of an important tool that law firms (and all businesses) will use to connect with their clientele. Not just for lead generation and online search, but also case management, client payments, and communication.

Jennifer Frame, Local SEO Specialist, @jmframe

Jennifer Frame
Local SEO Specialist
@jmframe

I think we’ll see even more importance placed on mobile friendly sites. Google launched a mobile friendly checker last month, google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly, and results that get a passing grade will have a mobile friendly badge next to their name in results. This is yet another hint to site owners that mobile is of critical importance and that Google is rewarding the sites that are mobile friendly.

Derek Seymour, Senior Web Engineer, @derekseymour

Derek Seymour
Senior Web Engineer
@derekseymour

As far as web technological shifts in 2015, I predict we’ll see a trend towards statically-generated websites (as opposed to dynamically-generated, such as WordPress).  Much of the power and functionality given to dynamically-generated sites today is being outweighed by slow performance, security risks, and a barrage of product updates.  Static sites, however, tend to be much cleaner, respond extremely quickly, and help minimize the amount of vulnerabilities available to hackers.  In addition, tools for static sites have come a long way in recent months and many of the common features found in sites can now be implemented using HTML/CSS/JavaScript libraries and frameworks in conjunction with the method of generating static sites known as ‘compiling.’  While some limitations remain, the barriers to building static sites are quickly going away with the plethora of resources available and we’re likely to see an increasing number of businesses and professionals taking advantage of this in the coming year.

Michael Wice, Online Marketing Consultant, @consultwebs

Michael Wice
Online Marketing Consultant
@consultwebs

Matt Cutts will move to Alaska and build a cabin like Dick Proenneke, never to return to Google. He will grow a mountain man beard and catch salmon from streams with his teeth.

Seriously, it’s worth noting that Cutts’ leave from Google was extended into 2015. His future with the search engine is something to track in 2015.

Social Media Marketing for Lawyers: What It Can Do for You, How to Do It Right

The Rainmaker Institute

Many attorneys I talk with want to know if social media will deliver real value for the investment in time and effort that it takes to develop and implement a social media marketing program.

Social Media Marketing

Here is what I tell them:

Social media will help you build trust, but it will not make a “bad” reputation better. Social media is a meritocracy – if you’re good, people will know it. Conversely, a bad experience will also get talked about. Building trust is crucial for attorneys, and social media helps you build trust by providing a robust platform for sharing your particular insights and knowledge. Once people trust that, they will use you and recommend you to others.

Social media will get you leads, but it will not turn them into paying clients. People who follow you on Twitter, are a fan of you on Facebook or interact with you in any way on a social network have indicated an interest in what you have to say. These are leads. To capitalize on them and turn them into paying clients, however, requires effort on your part in following up.

Social media will give you visibility, but it will not replace a good client experience. Social media is a 365/24/7 world, allowing you to engage with prospects at any time, and they with you. You must be vigilant about responding to posts and questions the same way you would in responding to a prospect that calls or emails you. Every point of contact is an opportunity to make a great impression.

Social media is the fastest way to build your sphere of influence, but it won’t happen overnight. Your sphere of influence is defined as how many people know (1) who you are, (2) who you help, and (3) why you are different.  If you only have 20 people who know enough about you to send you the right referrals, then you are severely limited in how much you will be able to grow your practice.   Social media is a long-term play, and you need to commit to spending the time and money (either yours or hiring someone else) to achieve success.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
OF
The Rainmaker Institute

Simplify to Maximize: Register now for the LMA New England Regional Conference, Nov 13-14, Boston

The National Law Review is proud to bring you information about the LMANE 2014 Regional Conference. Register today!
LMA-NE-2014-3

 

When

NOVEMBER 13 & 14

Where

Revere Hotel, Boston, MA

REGISTER NOW!

There are many benefits to attending the LMANE Regional Conference, below are just a few:

LMANE Legal Marketing Association New England Boston Regional Conference

You will walk away feeling energized and full of new ideas to bring back to your firm!

 

Only two more weeks until the Retail Law 2014 Conference – October 15-17, 2014, Charlotte, NC

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming Retail Law Conference:

Retail Law 2014: At the Intersection of Technology and Retail Law
Retail Law 2014: At the Intersection of Technology and Retail Law

Register Today!

When

October 15-17, 2014

Where

Charlotte, NC

The 2014 Retail Law Conference takes place October 15-17 in Charlotte, NC. This year’s program is stronger than ever with relevant, compelling and interactive sessions focused on the legal issues affecting retailers. In partnership with the Retail Litigation Center (RLC), RILA will host legal counsel from leaders in the retail industry for the fifth annual event.

This year’s Retail Law Conference will feature issues at the intersection of technology and law, how the two spaces interact and the impact that they have on retailers. Topics will likely include:

  • Anatomy of a Data Breach: Prevention & Response
  • Privacy: Understanding New Technologies & Data Collection
  • Advertising Practices: Enforcement & Social Media
  • ADA Implications for New Technologies
  • Legal Implications for Future Payment Technologies
  • Policies & Procedures of The “Omnichannel” Age
  • Patent Litigation “Heat Maps”
  • Union Organizing Campaigns
  • Wage & Hour Litigation
  • EEOC Enforcement
  • Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
  • Corporate Governance & Disclosure
  • Election 2014
  • Dueling Views of The U.S. Supreme Court
  • Legal Ethics

The Retail Law Conference is open to executives from retail and consumer goods product manufacturing companies. All others, such as law firms and service providres, must sponsor in order to attend, and can do so by contacting Tripp Taylor at tripp.taylor@rila.org.

Attend the Retail Law 2014 Conference – October 15-17, 2014, Charlotte, North Carolina

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming Retail Law Conference:

Retail Law 2014: At the Intersection of Technology and Retail Law
Retail Law 2014: At the Intersection of Technology and Retail Law

Register Today!

When

October 15-17, 2014

Where

Charlotte, NC

The 2014 Retail Law Conference takes place October 15-17 in Charlotte, NC. This year’s program is stronger than ever with relevant, compelling and interactive sessions focused on the legal issues affecting retailers. In partnership with the Retail Litigation Center (RLC), RILA will host legal counsel from leaders in the retail industry for the fifth annual event.

This year’s Retail Law Conference will feature issues at the intersection of technology and law, how the two spaces interact and the impact that they have on retailers. Topics will likely include:

  • Anatomy of a Data Breach: Prevention & Response
  • Privacy: Understanding New Technologies & Data Collection
  • Advertising Practices: Enforcement & Social Media
  • ADA Implications for New Technologies
  • Legal Implications for Future Payment Technologies
  • Policies & Procedures of The “Omnichannel” Age
  • Patent Litigation “Heat Maps”
  • Union Organizing Campaigns
  • Wage & Hour Litigation
  • EEOC Enforcement
  • Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
  • Corporate Governance & Disclosure
  • Election 2014
  • Dueling Views of The U.S. Supreme Court
  • Legal Ethics

The Retail Law Conference is open to executives from retail and consumer goods product manufacturing companies. All others, such as law firms and service providres, must sponsor in order to attend, and can do so by contacting Tripp Taylor at tripp.taylor@rila.org.

Grow Your Email List for Free in 5 Simple Steps

The Rainmaker Institute

Lots of law firms struggle with compiling and maintaining a robust email marketing list, and they really struggle with how to keep adding qualified names to help them build a better list.  If you are recognizing yourself as you read this, then the good news is that you can actually build a great list for your firm and it doesn’t need to cost you a dime.

Here are five simple steps you can take to keep growing that important list of people you want to market to:

Grow Your Email List for Free in 5 Simple Steps, Money Tree

1.  Provide something of value.   Take the top 5 or 10 questions that clients ask you most often, write down the answers and turn that content into an e-book or report.  Post this on your website and blog and offer it as a free download to people who provide you with their name and email address.  The people who take you up on your offer are good prospects since they are clearly interested in the kind of problems you solve.  Add their names to your email marketing list to continue the conversation.

2.  Tell them what to do.  Your e-newsletter, your website and your blog should always contain easy-to-find calls-to-action that invite readers to subscribe, download a free report, make an appointment for a free consultation — anything you’d like them to do that could lead to business for you.  All your calls-to-action need to be simple and have the ability to collect email addresses for you.

3.  Keep reviewing your offers.  If your readers are not responding well to your calls-to-action or offers, then what you are offering is clearly not appealing to them.  First be sure that they are easy to understand.  If you’re still not getting a good response, change up your offers.  You should do this anyway every few months to keep things fresh.

4.  Use social media.  Using social media to spread the word about your valuable content and offers is a great way to attract more prospects that you might have otherwise missed.   LinkedIn groups are a great way to spread the word, but be sure you’re not being too promotional too often.

5.  Pay attention to the analytics.  You can gain valuable insight into what people are responding to on your website and in your e-newsletter by scouring the statistics.  Google Analytics is a free add-on for your website and blog and provides great information on what pages people are spending time on, and what isn’t working so well.  If you use Constant Contact or a similar service for your e-newsletters, these services provide information on how many people opened and read your newsletter and what they clicked on. 

By using these five simple steps, you are not just adding names to your list, you are getting truly qualified leads for your marketing efforts.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
 
OF
The Rainmaker Institute

What’s the Deal? Why Do Accounting Firms Use Initials Instead of Names? – Part 2

Fishman Marketing logo

We know that for many professional-services firms (e.g. law, accounting, consulting, etc.), using initials is simply a necessary compromise — a less-controversial way to abbreviate the firm’s name.  You get to shorten a cumbersome name without seeming to favor the first one or two people over the others whose names come later on the door. It seems like a reasonable solution, but it’s actually a big step backwards, as we discussed in our previous “Don’t Use Initials” blog post.

Some of our valued blog readers wanted more supporting evidence, another way to explain it to their firm’s own professionals.  This post shows how I explain this issue to the marketing committees, to help them make a good decision:

1. Look at this random collection of accounting firm logos I found on Google. (Disclosure: We don’t work with any of these firms.)

Look carefully:

Initials Accounting firm Bad Logos Page One copy

2. OK?  Got it?  Now I’ll shuffle them around and changed just one of the logos.

See the group below? Can you tell which of the following logos is different?

Initials Accounting firm Bad Logos Page TWO copy

You couldn’t tell, could you?  Of course not.

3.  OK, now I’m going to shuffle them around again and insert a new logo we designed recently.

Can you tell which of these logos, below, was added to the mix?

Initials Accounting firm Bad Logos Page THREE copy

It’s pretty obvious, right? 

Here’s the true test of marketing:

If you needed to find one of those companies on Google tomorrow, which one of them would you remember?

So, before changing a perfectly good name to a random collection of forgettable initials, think whether you’re advancing the firm’s strategic goals, or actually making your existing marketing challenges even harder to achieve.  Most of the time, a name, even a challenging one, is a better option than the firm’s initials.

ARTICLE BY
Ross Fishman

OF
Fishman Marketing, Inc.

Best Times to Post on Social Media [SLIDESHOW]

Bad timing can kill a business, a relationship and, sometimes, a social media post.

Digital marketing intelligence firm TrackMaven has broken down the research on the best times to post on the major social networks as well as the best times to post to your blog and send that marketing email and distributed it via SlideShare.

You can download this slide show and keep it on your desktop or laptop to refer to when you’re scheduling your posts.  Picking the right times is no guarantee that your posts will go viral, but posting at the right times to get maximum potential viewership for what you have to say is just smart marketing.

ARTICLE BY

Stephen Fairley
OF
The Rainmaker Institute

Attend the Retail Law 2014 Conference – October 15-17, 2014, Charlotte, North Carolina

The National Law Review is pleased to bring you information about the upcoming Retail Law Conference:

Retail Law 2014: At the Intersection of Technology and Retail Law
Retail Law 2014: At the Intersection of Technology and Retail Law

Register Today!

When

October 15-17, 2014

Where

Charlotte, NC

The 2014 Retail Law Conference takes place October 15-17 in Charlotte, NC. This year’s program is stronger than ever with relevant, compelling and interactive sessions focused on the legal issues affecting retailers. In partnership with the Retail Litigation Center (RLC), RILA will host legal counsel from leaders in the retail industry for the fifth annual event.

This year’s Retail Law Conference will feature issues at the intersection of technology and law, how the two spaces interact and the impact that they have on retailers. Topics will likely include:

  • Anatomy of a Data Breach: Prevention & Response
  • Privacy: Understanding New Technologies & Data Collection
  • Advertising Practices: Enforcement & Social Media
  • ADA Implications for New Technologies
  • Legal Implications for Future Payment Technologies
  • Policies & Procedures of The “Omnichannel” Age
  • Patent Litigation “Heat Maps”
  • Union Organizing Campaigns
  • Wage & Hour Litigation
  • EEOC Enforcement
  • Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
  • Corporate Governance & Disclosure
  • Election 2014
  • Dueling Views of The U.S. Supreme Court
  • Legal Ethics

The Retail Law Conference is open to executives from retail and consumer goods product manufacturing companies. All others, such as law firms and service providres, must sponsor in order to attend, and can do so by contacting Tripp Taylor at tripp.taylor@rila.org.

HTTPS – Should I Implement It on My Site?

Consultsweb Logo

Google announced last Wednesday, August 6, that the search engine will use https as a ranking signal. HTTPS stands forHypertext Transport Protocol Secure, which protects the data integrity and confidentiality of users visiting a site. For example, when a user enters data into a form on a site in order to subscribe to updates or purchase a product, a secure site protects that user’s personal information and ensures that the user communicates with the authorized owner of the site. For the HTTPS connection to work properly, websites require an SSL certificate, which is what enables the site to make a secure connection.

HTTPS Hypertext Transport Protocol Secure

Even though Google is making this change, it is not something that webmasters should jump into lightly. Webmasters should implement https only when they really need it and have sections in their site where they need to protect their visitors’ information.

Before making any drastic changes to the site, it is important to take into consideration that Google stated that this change will affect less than one percent of queries, carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content.

Cons of using https

  • Up until this recent announcement, it was recommended only using https on the sections of the site that needed to protect the confidentiality of user data, such as payment forms that collected credit card information, the site’s login section or any page that would sends/receive other private information (such as street address, phone number or health records), because using https in the whole site can overload webservers and make sites slower, which affects negatively on a site’s ranking.
  • Changing to https also means that all of the URLs in your site will change and it will be necessary to redirect all of the URLs on the site, so that they can be indexed by Google and avoid having duplicate content between https and http URLs. Redirects usually increase the load time of the site, which can be negative ranking factor and reduce the link juice coming from external sites pointing to http URLs.
  • SSL certificates cost money, and certificates signed by well-known authorities can be expensive.

I advise against making an immediate decision to change to https because it is a recent change and apparently the effort to switch exceeds the benefit obtained in rankings. Right now it is better to stand back and observe how the change affects those sites that alter their URLs to https.

 

ARTICLE BY

Robert Padgett
OF
Consultwebs.com, Inc.