Tag: blogging

13 Signs It Is Time to Hire an Outside Marketing Professional

Marketing is the backbone of your law firm’s growth. Think of it this way: a bad attorney can still drum up a substantial amount of business with an impressive marketing plan, but an excellent attorney’s skills will not save them from a weak or nonexistent marketing plan. If you are wondering if you have outgrown your current marketing plan, look for these signs that you need an outside professional.

1. Marketing Takes Up More Than 15 Minutes of Your Billable Time

As an attorney, you should spend most of your time doing what you do best. If you spend more than 15 minutes per day writing and scheduling tweets, checking marketing metrics, or optimizing your blog posts, you are wasting time that should be spent researching, meeting with clients, or preparing for court. Outsource these tasks to a professional.

2. Your Returns Have Plateaued

Seeing big returns on your law firm’s marketing efforts is exciting, which is why plateaus are so disappointing. Without in-depth marketing education and experience, you are unlikely to know what it takes to overcome those plateaus. And while there is a wealth of online information on how to do it yourself, it is a better use of your time and skill to involve a professional consultant that can highlight new ways to bring in potential clients.

3. You Want to Take Your Marketing to the Next Level

No matter how brilliant and creative you are when it comes to selling yourself and your practice, you would be amazed at the opportunities and ideas that a professional can bring to the table. Whether it is identifying a potential sub-market that could grow your law firm, or developing new branding ideas that speak to a different demographic than your typical client, an outside marketing consultant can enhance your current strategy and increase your return on investment.

4. A Big Change or Event is Approaching

An important event or big change in your firm is a massive marketing opportunity, but can also be a massive source of stress. With so many small details to consider, as well as pressure for the event to be successful, a holistic marketing company can provide you with wrap-around support for your event. Not only can they show you the best ways to market your event, but may also offer event planning services, subcontractor management, and even discounted purchasing on your behalf.

5. Your In-House Team Has Become Complacent

In-house marketing teams can work as well-oiled machines, properly allocating their efforts across different team members and projects. In some cases, though, they become complacent and stop giving your firm the time and effort necessary to bring in new clients. Instead of trying to motivate a team that has lost passion for seeing your law firm succeed, consider adding an outside marketing eye to your mix. Often legal marketing consultants offer hourly consultation rates that are perfect for when you simply want a fresh perspective and a new direction without a long-term commitment.

6. You Are Striking Out on Your Own

Starting your own law firm is a significant accomplishment. Avoid the trap of saving money by engaging in DIY marketing. Although it may seem like a good way to cut costs at the outset, shoddy marketing and tone-deaf messaging can actually do far more financial damage than the amount you might save. From logo design and business cards to innovative pay-per-click campaigns and social media marketing, it is better to start out on the right foot with a solid marketing team or consultant that can give you a solid foundation for the future.

7. Circumstances Call for Rebranding

No one is perfect, and every law firm has had its fair share of blunders. However, when a huge mistake smears your name and causes any Google search of your firm to reflect poorly on your brand, it is time to call in a professional legal marketer. They can help mitigate reviews, consult on best next steps, and develop a re-branding strategy that can save your business before negative press starts affecting your bottom line.

8. You Do Not Have Time to Pursue Further Credentialing

In the legal world, reputation is key to success. For many lawyers, this means participation in cause marketing, leadership in relevant associations, and pursuing awards and credentialing opportunities. Unfortunately, not every lawyer has the time, means, or energy to research these opportunities and develop them. A good outside marketing consultant will be able to review your experience and professional strengths and use them to find appropriate places for you to speak, guest author, and submit yourself for public recognition for the good that you do.

9. You Want Help Understanding Your Marketing Analytics

Whether you work with an in-house marketing team or do your own law firm marketing, detailed analysis is a vital part of knowing what is working with your marketing strategy. This can become very frustrating, especially if you are receiving or running reports that you do not understand. Instead of trying to give yourself a full marketing education, turn them over to a specialist. An outside legal marketing consultant can review your analytics with you, highlight the areas that are meeting expectations and give suggestions on how to improve those areas that are slow.

10. Blog Upkeep is Getting Away From You

Companies with blogs get, on average, 67% more leads than companies without blogs, according to Demand Metric. It is not enough to create a new post whenever your schedule allows; blogging has to be a scheduled and highly prioritized part of your marketing plan. If your updates are becoming more and more infrequent, a marketing specialist can create a content calendar and even help you hire a ghostwriter to ensure that the posts keep coming.

11. Your Presentation and Publication Schedule Is No Longer Manageable

If you are not on top of your presentation and publication schedule, a marketing specialist can help you organize, prepare for, and promote these important parts of your marketing strategy. Remember, every presentation you make and every publication you produce is a chance to reach new clients. It makes sense to hire someone who knows how to best identify new avenues for this kind of credentialing and can take the time to ensure that everything is in order so that you are set up for success with no stress on your part.

12. Client Prospects Are Drying Up

Every law firm has slower spells and busy times. Still, if you are noticing a downward trend, it is time to analyze whether it is a normal dip in activity or a problem with some element of your marketing plan. If you have already exhausted your current networking and marketing efforts but business is still not picking up, a marketing professional can give some much needed insight.

13. Your Online Properties Are Out-of-Date or Poorly Managed

Your image is everything. Attorney websites with broken links, attorney bios that have not been updated in years, and abandoned blogs can lead clients to think you are no longer practicing. Hire a marketing specialist to consolidate online properties and manage their upkeep.

Choosing the right marketing expert can breathe new life into your client prospects and take your success to the next level. With the right support, your law firm can be flexible and relevant, able to identify new opportunities that will keep your law firm growing into a legacy worth having.

© 2020 Denver Legal Marketing LLC

For more on marketing for law firms, see the National Law Review Law Office Management section.

How to Build a Legal Blog from the Ground Up

Blogging is one of the most straightforward ways to share your legal expertise, strengthen your reputation amongst peers and potential clients, and become a valuable resource to your community. Once you know basic SEO principles and have a writing schedule that you stick to, it can be fairly simple. You already have the expertise. Now, learn how to share it by creating an engaging, educational, and helpful legal blog.

Before All Else, Know Your Law Firm’s Target Market

Being an expert in your area of practice is one thing; effectively sharing that knowledge with your target market is another. One issue that legal professionals run into while blogging is failing to write to their audience. When writing to non-lawyers, avoid using legal language that lay people do not understand, cite sources in a way that does not interrupt the flow of your writing, and avoid an overly formal tone.

You already know who your target market is: your clients and potential referral sources. If your goal is to connect better with potential clients, write in a way that appeals to their needs and is easily readable. It is easy to write about complex, multifaceted issues in a technical and legally accurate manner, but it is an art form to write about those same topics in a way that a person with no legal background can digest.

If your target market is lawyers—as is the case when you rely primarily on other attorneys for referrals—feel free to write in a way that connects with other attorneys. Still, avoid jargon and make sure that your work is clear and concise, as unnecessary “filler” bogs down your writing and can lose readers.

Regardless of who you are marketing your blog to, make sure that your tone matches your branding as well as your intended audience. If you are not writing in a way that connects with your audience, the time you put into your blog will not pay off.

Top SEO Tips for Law Firm Blogs

Knowing just a handful of common SEO tricks and techniques is enough to get you started. As you expand your legal blog and spend more time using it as a marketing tool, you may wish to invest in marketing services that allow you to expand your reach. To begin, use these techniques in your writing:

Diversify Your Law Firm Blog Posts

This is a tough balance to strike. You want to be narrow enough that people know what type of topics to expect every time they visit your blog, but you also want to be diverse enough that people do not get bored. Mix up your content between evergreen topics and trending topics. Articles that are not contingent on timely topics bring in readers over years, while trending topics can bring big boosts of readers as they are relevant to current events. Both are necessary to maintain high traffic and get new eyes on your website.

In addition, consider diversifying blog post lengths. Data from HubSpot indicates that long-form posts perform best, with the target range being around 2,000 words. Still, if 200, 500, or 1000 words will suffice, padding it out to 2,000 words is a waste of your readers’ time. What this does mean is that you should spend considerable time crafting in-depth posts that answer questions and offer clear value to readers. The shorter posts can also be helpful when the point is clear and they are meant to be quickly read through.

Make Law Firm Blog Posts Engaging and Attractive

No one clicks on a blog post and wants to be hit with a wall of text. There are many ways you can make your posts easy to digest, attractive, and welcoming. Make use of subheadings and bold text within your posts, which not only break up your information, but signal important key topics to search robots. White space through paragraph breaks is a great way to increase readability of longer posts.

In addition, posts with relevant images get 94% more views than those without images. To avoid copyright issues, use royalty-free image sources like:

You can also create or commission infographics that sum up the main points of your post into an easy-to-share format.

The Power of Consistent Action

When you commit to blogging, commit fully with a realistic schedule. When lawyers begin blogs, they often plan on posting whenever their schedule allows. Unfortunately, this often translates into occasional posts or an empty blog. A blog that has not been updated for weeks or months tells potential clients that you may not be active, that you may be too busy for new clients, and that you may not even be in business anymore. By creating a consistent blog schedule, you can get into the habit of producing high-quality content and steadily increasing your readership each week.

Your legal blog could help you reach an entire new audience. From new professional connections to new clients, the benefits of a legal blog are endless.

© 2020 Denver Legal Marketing LLC\

For more on legal marketing, see the National Law Review Law Office Management section.

Seven Ways a Blog Can Help Your Law Practice

blogFor many attorneys, maintaining a blog is like eating kale – we know it’s really good for us, but we just can’t seem to get all excited about it. But if eating kale was the best possible way to get your law firm coffers to overflow status, I bet you would be digging into a plate of it every day.

And so it is with blogging, which is one of the best possible ways for you to dramatically increase your lead flow, improve your firm website’s SEO and traffic count, and build a sterling reputation online – all of which can lead to a healthier bottom line for your firm.

Many attorneys I speak with feel they should be blogging, but are not really sure why. Here are 7 ways that blogging can help your law practice:

  1. Increase client engagement. A blog provides an opportunity for you to open a dialogue with prospects and clients and share with them more about who you are, what kinds of legal issues you can help them with, and why they should hire you.

  2. Improve SEO rankings. Blogs are the number one way to add new content to your website, which search engines like Google reward with higher rankings. Over the last few years, Google has favored larger websites with more content over small websites.

  3. Humanizes your firm. People don’t want to hire faceless companies. They want to know they are cared for personally. Blogs provide you with the opportunity to tell the stories of clients you have helped (leaving out their real names and identifying information to protect the innocent), and nothing is better for putting a human face on your law firm. Include videos in your blogs to really humanize your firm.

  4. Showcases your areas of expertise. Regular blog posts keep your website up to date and relevant, letting prospects know you are on the leading edge of emerging legal trends. You can highlight the areas you truly specialize in.

  5. Market segmentation. If your law firm includes more than one practice area, you can segment this more effectively by creating blogs for each specialty area and speak directly to those targeted prospects.

  6. Repurpose content. Your blog posts can be effectively repurposed for free reports, e-books and in your monthly newsletters.

  7. Build trust. Current research shows that 81 percent of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs.

ARTICLE BY Stephen Fairley of The Rainmaker Institute
© The Rainmaker Institute, All Rights Reserved

Digital Marketing and Your Law Firm: Essential Tips for Attorneys

RW Lynch Company, Inc.

If you have been in law for a long time, you may never have envisioned having to pay attention to digital marketing to help your practice grow. But the good news is, law firm marketing can benefit tremendously from digital marketing techniques, and there are many you can put into place yourself, without major investment.

The key to succeeding in digital law firm marketing is commitment and consistency. You shouldn’t try to tackle everything at once, because you may be overwhelmed. If you have never done any digital marketing, your first step will be to map out a strategy that’s reasonable for your level of time and resources.

Document a Content Marketing Strategy

A 2014 survey on digital content marketing found that companies that actually write down a content marketing strategy are more effective than those that either have a verbal-only strategy or no strategy at all. Documenting your content marketing strategy helps ensure that all participants are on the same page, so to speak, helps you to remember the tasks you set out for your team, and gives you a baseline document you can use to help you determine the effectiveness of the various digital marketing strategies you use. A documented strategy sets the tone and the pace.

Phase in Social Media Marketing

You might think writing a few Tweets per day, or updating your firm’s Facebook page is a trivial activity. However, consistency is essential for successful social media marketing. Too often, businesses start out with a blitz of social media content that they are unable to maintain, and this can detract from their brand. Quality is more important than quantity. Start small, perhaps on one social media site, ramp up your social media posts, and learn to use the site’s built-in analytics. Once you get into a consistent posting schedule and can use analytics to learn what is and isn’t effective, you can branch out to other social media platforms.

Essential Tips for Attorneys

Ensure that mobile users can learn about your law firm on the go.

Ensure Mobile Friendliness

Digital marketing today must be mobile-friendly, particularly for local businesses like law firms. There are a number of ways to use mobile platforms for law firm marketing. You can develop a mobile website or an app, for example. People have mobile devices with them around the clock, so if you can reach people on their mobile devices, you have many more opportunities than if you rely solely on them finding your website on their desktop. Thirty-one percent of traffic to law websites is from mobile devices. You don’t want to ignore an audience of that size.

Blogging Can Benefit Law Firm Marketing Significantly

Blogging, like social media marketing, requires commitment. Fortunately, you can outsource blogging to ensure your blog has a steady drumbeat of fresh content. Again, quality trumps quantity, so don’t rush to add a lot of content to your blog without ensuring it is timely, relevant to your practice, and well written. Topics for law blogs can come from any number of places, including government statistics, news stories, and even popular culture. As your blog grows, so does your credibility as an authority source, something that will inspire confidence in those who hire your firm.

Non-Text Content Broadens Your Reach

Digital law firm marketing doesn’t have to consist solely of text content. Visual elements can take digital marketing to a higher level and make a measurable impact. You can add visual content in many ways, such as creating a video holiday card for your clients and business partners, creating captivating infographics (using free sites like piktochart), or hosting online webinars that you publicize on your blog and social media. If you create a YouTube channel for video content, create a Google+ profile as well to help boost your content in Google results.

Don’t be afraid of digital marketing for your law firm. With the ability to target audiences on social media and take your content to a potentially huge audience, digital is the future of law firm marketing. You need a defined strategy, commitment to maintaining it, and the ability to use web analytics to determine what works best.

ARTICLE BY

Brian Lynch
RW Lynch Company, Inc.

Fix These 4 Problems on Your Blog to Maximize Search Engine Optimization

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1.   Make It Useful

Write about something that will provide value to the person reading it. Write with your audience in mind. Keep the writing simple but professional. Remember: Your clients do not have a law degree and if your writing confuses them, they will look for answers elsewhere.

Legal MarketingThink about your client base. Are they middle aged woman, seniors, mostly male, individuals with physical handicaps? Target your posts to their interests, needs and questions. Avoid general articles that could be for anyone. Have the reader in mind when you are writing content and show your expertise. Answer the reader’s unasked questions.

Targeting a specific demographic will help with the social signals as it will probably be shared more and will earn links. Fluff content may get you some rankings for staying relevant and regularly updating your website, but if an actual human goes on your site and does not find value in what you have posted, chances of a return visit are slim—and your ultimate goal should be people returning to your site based on the quality of its content.

2.   Make It Local

Think about your local area and any news or hot topics that you can cover in blog updates. Can you add unique value to these stories? The more your topics and writing speak to your local audience, the more engaged they will be with your site. Write about charities or events you are involved in.

3.   Engage the Audience

How does the page look? Content is not just words. Content can be text, images, videos, charts, graphics and data. Use video and image assets to help tell your story. Visual content engages the user and instills respect for the quality of the information presented on the page.

Also, long blog posts allow you to fit a lot of good information and keywords onto the page, but you will need to divide it in to short sections or into an FAQ format to enable visitors to scan the page for the information they seek.

Use your employees for feedback. Ask them to share your content. If three months have passed and no one has shared anything, it is time to start asking why.

4.   Get the Technical Details Right

Effective title structure is key to generating good organic traffic and a high-quality user experience. Utilizing headings (H1, H2, H3), alt text and description tagging is important for user experience (UX) and for search engines to understand and optimally display your content.

Article By:

Tanner Jones
Of:
Consultwebs.com, Inc.

Google Sticks a Fork in Guest Blogging for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The Rainmaker Institute mini logo (1)

Last month, Google’s Matt Cutts, who heads up the search engine giant’s webspam team, wrote this on the Google Webmaster blog:

So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a link building strategy.

So should you halt your guest blogging efforts?  Well, in a word, no.  Because SEO is not the only reason you guest blog – either on other blogs, or hosting guests on your own blog.  Which is why Cutts later updated his original post to say this:

Google SEO Search Engine Optimization

It seems like most people are getting the spirit of what I was trying to say, but I’ll add a bit more context. I’m not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they’ll continue into the future.

Guest blogging used to be ONE way to develop quality links back to your own website or blog. Unfortunately, those trying to game the system with low quality content have made it – as Cutts says – a spammy practice.  Those that use guest blogging as their sole source of link building will now be out of luck and may even be penalized.

But I would still recommend guest blogging as a way for attorneys to spread their authority to other audiences that may not have otherwise been engaged by your own blog or website.  It can also still be a great way for you to improve the visibility of your firm and, when shared on social media, can help your SEO efforts from that standpoint.

As this blog post and other recent developments at Google demonstrate, you can’t go wrong when it comes to SEO if you pay attention to these 3 things:

1.  Designing a website that provides users with a superb experience – from the way they navigate the site to the information they find there.

2.  Developing high quality, relevant content for your area of practice that people want to read to help them solve the problems they would hire you for, populated with relevant keywords.

3.  Being an active participant on social media networks that your prospects and clients frequent, sharing all that great content you’ve developed for your website and your blog and engaging online with your target market.

Article by:

Stephen Fairley

Of:

The Rainmaker Institute