world wide web — Legal Practice Pro

How Vulnerable Are Your Online Legal Marketing Efforts?

August 12, 2010 By Jay Fleischman

Even if you’re at the top of the search engines, you’re vulnerable to new competition. Go to sleep at #1, wake up at #4. Is this a risk you’re willing to take when marketing your law firm online?

A few days ago, I was semi–involved in a debate that was raging on an e-mail discussion list in which I am a member. One person asked a question about marketing your law firm online with a blog, and a lawyer started touting the fact that his website ranked at the top of the organic search engine results for his chosen search term. The lawyer in question does no blogging whatsoever, and essentially stated that blogging was worthless to his efforts at marketing his law firm online.

Of course, this being a marketing discussion group, chaos ensued fairly rapidly. The resident legal marketing professionals jumped all over this poor guy, and basically proclaimed him to be full of shit.

But here’s where it gets interesting. Not only does the lawyer in question do no blogging, he produces no content on any of its websites. They’re all extremely thin, and none of them stand out whatsoever. They’re all filled with the same trite, empty language that is so pervasive on law firm websites. To him, marketing his law firm online didn’t require any content production strategy. And his results were, to his mind, proof that his theories worked.

If I were to hazard a guess I would say that the attorney has ensured his high rankings based on off–page search engine optimization. By that I’m talking about massive numbers of back links to his site from other sites, with appropriate anchor text tied to his chosen search term.

Assuming this to be the case, and further assuming that there is no funny business or “black hat” tactics being employed, then I applaud this attorney for his efforts. Undoubtedly, he gets a tremendous amount of traffic and, I would assume, quite a bit of business as a result of his efforts to market his law firm online.

So, you see, this stands as proof of the fact that you need not blog in order to attain a high search engine ranking for a single term. I would go so far as to say that you don’t need to blog in order to do well for any term whatsoever.

The fact, however, doesn’t mean a thing. We all know that Google and the other search engines reward websites with more content over those that are thin. We also know that people who visit your website are more inclined to hire you after seeing the depth of your expertise reflected in your blog posts.

So even if this attorney ranks very well for a narrowly-defined search term (which may or may not get enough traffic to sustain him), it’s unlikely that he’s able to capture a tremendous percentage of those site visitors and convert them into paying clients. People are searching for information, and won’t stop looking for answers until they find them. If they happen to find them on the top–ranked site that matches their query, then they will go no further. However, if their first click does not result in an informative answer to their question then they are likely to move to the next site presented by the search engines.

I’m sure that my colleague does very well now, but his attitude with respect to his efforts to market his law firm online makes him an easy target. If one of his local competitors establishes a new website and continually adds content that is relevant, in formative, and optimize for the search engines as well as for human visitors then the likelihood is that this new site will quickly rise to the top of search engine rankings with very little effort.

How about you? Are you willing to take on this sort of risk when marketing your law firm online?

Image credit: mlhradio (Flickr)

Filed Under: Legal Marketing Tagged With: blog, engines, internet, internet marketing, law, law firm, law firm websites, Legal Marketing, marketing, marketing your law firm, online, Search Engine Optimization, search engines, vulnerable, web search engine, website ranking, world wide web, your website

5 Ways To Capture Ideas For Your Legal Marketing Efforts

June 6, 2010 By Jay Fleischman

Ever have a great idea about something while doing some random chore or activity? Try as you might to remember it later, it eludes you. Frustrating, no?

We’ve talked about how important content creation is in your legal marketing efforts. We agree that inspiration can come from a variety of sources, and that you should always be on the lookout for legal marketing ideas. How you promote your law firm’s offerings can come from the subtle way that a waitress gets you to order a second piece of pie, or a headline in an ad that convinces you to buy that doo-dad.

My head is always running in a million directions. How to help my clients, an observation about how someone is doing business the right (or wrong) way, or a random thought. One minute it’s gone, the next … poof.

How A Real Lawyer Uses Social Media

June 4, 2010 By Jay Fleischman

Can a real, live lawyer use social media for real, live business?

Social media for lawyers – specifically Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin – has been getting a ton of coverage in the past few days on the heels of this article in Mashable. And it seems to have ignited a bit of a debate on Twitter because there are a few attorneys who question whether the experts quoted are able to speak from experience.

I don’t think there is such a thing as a social media expert. I do believe that there are people who are well-qualified to discuss how to build trust, relationships and communities for business purposes. These are the experts, the ones who teach us how to be more human in the way we conduct business. When these people talk about using the platforms at our disposal, I listen and take notes.

Social media is an all-encompassing term that speaks to platforms, and how they are used to accomplish a particular goal. Those platforms currently include legal blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Tumblr, Posterous, Foursquare, Gowalla, and the list goes on and on. But bear in mind that these are platforms only, and are subject to change without notice. A few years ago it was Friendster. A decade ago it was Usenet. And on and on.

To say that you’re an expert in Twitter means that you know how to set up an account and use the tool. It doesn’t mean you know how to connect with people or businesses who may have some use for your service. When Twitter goes away or, more likely, evolves in ways we can’t currently imagine, the “Twitter expert” will be as useful as a “mimeograph expert”.

The person who’s skilled in the broader skillset of creating and maintaining relationships will continue to thrive. Because that’s not just good marketing, it’s good for life.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I thought it would be useful to outline how I use the various social media platforms to achieve my goals. Those goals, by the way, are fluid. Sometimes I’m looking for help with something. Other times I’m promoting my expertise as a bankruptcy and consumer protection lawyer, or as a guy who knows a thing or two about marketing a law firm. Maybe I’m going to be a new place and need some recommendations for a good place to have dinner. In all cases, the song remains the same overall (hat tip to Robert Plant and Jimmy Page).

Content Distribution And Promotion

Every time I create content on this or any other platform, I promote it on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Doing so exposes my work to people who find the subject matter compelling, and cements my standing as someone who knows about the fields in which I spend my time.

Information Sharing

I’m a newshound, and read hundreds of blogs each day. When I find something that catches my eye, I share it with people. More information is a good thing, no?

Connecting With Interesting People

Here’s where people say Twitter is a waste of time, right? I mean, why would I spend time typing out 140 character messages to strangers? Well, why would you spend an evening at a networking event filled with a diverse group of people? To meet them, get to know them better, and establish a relationship. Maybe that plumber I meet will never have need of my legal services, but I’m betting that he knows of someone who will eventually need me. The stronger my relationship with Mr. Plumber, the more likely I am to be the name and number (OK, email address) that he passes along to his friend who’s going into foreclosure and needs help.

What if Mr. Plumber is in Oklahoma, far from my state of admission (which is New York)? No worries – I can send the referral to one of my colleagues in Oklahoma. I’ve connected with some of them on Twitter, others on Facebook and some on “old school” listservs. Send a referral to a trusted colleague and I get good karma in return. It’s happened so often I’ve lost count, and it increases the chance that I get a referral in return. Karma’s like that, you know.

Strengthening Bonds Established Elsewhere

Let’s say you meet someone offline – a networking event, a social event, whatever the case may be. You connect with them on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Twitter or whatever platform you choose. Now you’re exposed to them on a regular basis, and they to you. Share information, keep up with one another, and allow your humanity to continue to unfold before one another. It takes a causal meeting with a total stranger and allows you to make something more of it.

Now you want me to prove that it works, right? Here are a few of the things I’ve accomplished by using the platforms available to me:

coverage in print and broadcast television (Twitter and LinkedIn);
paying clients (more than I can count from Facebook in particular, Twitter less so);
quotes and attendant backlinks from highly-regarded online sources, which has increased the ranking of my own site and resulted in more clients (primarily Twitter, but Facebook and LinkedIn to a certain extent); and
referrals from other lawyers as well as from non-lawyers who deal in consumer finance issues (Twitter).

Of course, none of this speaks to the business my firm has received over the years as a result of a never-ending commitment to content creation through our blog and elsewhere.

Is this list comprehensive? Does it take into account all of the nuances of how a real lawyer can use social media to help his or her practice? No, but it does give you the high notes and prove to you that this isn’t just another time suck.

What do you think?

Filed Under: Legal Marketing Tagged With: facebook, goals, lawyers, Legal Marketing, linkedin, marketing, online social networking, social media, Twitter, web 2.0, world wide web

Online Legal Marketing Demands A Reason, Not Just A Plan

June 1, 2010 By Jay Fleischman

It drives me crazy to listen to all of these legal marketing folks talking about getting together a plan. Not because they’re wrong – in fact, I think they are all very right – but because the notion of an online legal marketing plan conjures up visions of this step-by-step routine that you’ve got to follow in order to make it all happen. My experience is that it just doesn’t work that way for the solo and small firm lawyer.

I call this technique the “marketing diet.” You’ve got to start blogging, engage on social networks, get into video marketing (which means you need to understand how to use that video camera), podcast, on and on and on down the line. Exposure! Fame! Fortune!

Of course, it all comes with price tags attached. You get a kick-ass blog designed, a killer email marketing campaign, and even a customized Twitter background. Why? Because you’ve got to be there. If you’re not, you’re falling behind.

So you cut those big checks and go your merry way. The blog goes live, you submit to the “training session” (which goes by so fast you can’t pay attention), hook up Tweetdeck or some other Twitter client du jour, and are sent to meet your success.

You chug along dutifully for a few weeks, bouncing around in the dark with that blog and that stream of tweets. But when your coffers don’t fill up in that time period you get seriously bummed out and burned out. ”Why avoid that cheesecake if I’m not going to drop 20 pounds in time for my brother’s wedding next month?” seems to be the same thinking that creeps into your life right around that time.

Online legal marketing is clearly a fraud. You’re not hitting the top of the search engines. Twittering masses aren’t hanging on your every word. That blog isn’t getting any traffic.

You fail slowly at first, then really quickly because you never ask for a reason.

At first it’s a missed blog post. Maybe a day away from Twitter or Facebook. A Craigslist post doesn’t get put up because you’re too busy. But whatever it is, there’s a small hiccup in your online legal marketing plan. Sort of like an extra piece of cake after dinner. It feels bad, like you’ve done something wrong. Down deep you’re guilty. But there’s another voice in your head telling you it’s OK because this stuff doesn’t work that well in the first place.

If you’re like me, you just stop doing anything at all. When I first got online I was podcasting, blogging and (trying to be) active in a variety of places. At first it was fun. But it wasn’t feeding my business in a way that made it compelling, so when I stopped there wasn’t a reason to go back to “the grind.”

Until I took a look at my goals, and how my online legal marketing plans fit into them. Remember, I was doing this to feed my practice and my family – not as a cool experiment in futility.

I’d been sold on the bright shiny object of the platform rather than on the ways in which a particular one fit into how I wanted to market my law firm.

Sound familiar at all?

When you turn the notion of an online legal marketing plan on its head and focus instead on your business goals, your strategy becomes clearer.

You need to ask yourself, “Why should I engage in this legal marketing medium? Why should I spend my time here on this platform?”

Look at your goals and objectives. Then do your homework to learn how you’re going to get found on a particular platform by the people most likely to have need of your services. Doing so will lead you to the platforms that will work best for your online legal marketing efforts rather than the other way around.

Best of all, it will help you understand the importance of engaging on a particular platform and save you money and time on wasted efforts in the wrong places.

Save money, use your time wisely, get the results you’re looking for.

So here are my questions: why do you use a specific tool for your online legal marketing efforts? What is the defined goal for that particular tool? And how exactly is it working in your favor?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blog, Legal Marketing, online legal, online legal marketing, online legal marketing plan, plan, Twitter, video market, world wide web

4 Online Legal Marketing Trends Every Other Industry Knows About

May 25, 2010 By Jay Fleischman

Don’t you wish you had a crystal ball to peer into the future? Some way to tell what the next few years would bring? What would you do with that information? Would you put money on the Super Bowl? World Series? Or would you take the opportunity to move ten giant steps ahead of the competition?

OK, it’s no and either-or sort of thing. You’d probably do all of those things and a lot more. But when it comes to marketing your law firm online there’s a certain amount of forecasting we can do without any help. All it takes is a quick glance around to see where the rest of the world is today.

That’s right, we can see the future of online legal marketing by looking around us right now. As a backwards-looking profession, we live in the past. It’s in our legal pleadings, our reliance on precedent, and our education. But the fun thing is that the rest of the world is living in the present.

Lawyers Who Blog (And Those Who Want To) Should Buy ProBlogger

April 26, 2010 By Jay Fleischman

I have a confession to make – I read a lot more than normal people. In fact, I read more than abnormal people. It’s a habit I picked up when I was a kid, and it kept me from learning how to play sports (my wife tells me she likes the fact that she’ll never be a football widow) and getting a proper tan (lower risk of skin cancer is good, but I’m pretty pasty).

As a lawyer who blogs, much of my legal marketing reading comes to me in the form of other blogs. Also podcasts, which are really nothing more than blogs for my ears. Television bores me for the most part, though I’m a treasure trove of Family Guy references (my dog’s name is Griffin because my wife refused to let me name him Brian).

Last year I was listening to a podcast where someone was talking about his goal of reading 52 books in 52 weeks. Kindle in hand, I set about the same goal.

Today’s purchase was ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income (that’s an affiliate link), the second edition of the excellent book by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. Both of these guys are successful bloggers in their own right, as well as social media icons. Darren is heavily involved in Third Tribe Marketing, and Garrett is new media consultant.

First, a confession (well, I guess this is the second) – I never read the first edition of the book.

Second confession (which is really the third) – I am currently zipping through the new version. I even bought it in (gasp) physical paper form because the Kindle version won’t be out until after I’ve gone to San Francisco for the weekend and was going to read it on the plane there. At this rate I’ll be done long before then.

I can’t tell you if it’s better or worse than the original, but I can tell you that this is good stuff for anyone who wants to use a blog to make money.

In the book they discuss tools used for blogging, and there are a bunch of screenshots and descriptions to help you along. There’s also an excellent chapter on using social media for your blogging efforts.

The really nice thing for lawyers is the back story Rowse brings to the table. He began blogging out of passion, not as a business. In fact, his Digital Photography School had nothing to do with money when he started it. What he had, however, was knowledge about a core topic and a desire to get his information out to the public.

That sounds a lot like lawyers, doesn’t it? Lawyers have information about a niche subject and can use that knowledge to begin their online legal marketing efforts using content generation.

The title is obviously a huge draw for people who are looking to blogging as a way to build a business, and most lawyers aren’t going to use some of the monetization strategies used by that crowd. But the underpinnings of social media and content marketing for lawyers is compelling and cuts across industries – right to ours.

Filed Under: Blogging For Lawyers, Legal Marketing Tagged With: blogging, chris garrett, darren rowse, lawyers, problogger, social information processing, world wide web

Legal Marketing At The End Of The Honeymoon

March 12, 2010 By Jay Fleischman

Your online legal marketing plans have taken shape, and you’re serious about generating new business for your law firm. You haven’t abandoned your offline marketing but you’re looking at those media like distasteful relatives you are required to invite to your home for holidays.

Your law firm blog is all shiny and new, the pictures beautiful and the designer paid. You’ve got your Facebook fan page, Twitter account, whatever you’ve decided to work with. Your legal marketing efforts are all ready to go.

Welcome the the online legal marketing honeymoon, when it’s all wine and roses, romantic sunset walks along the beach and passion.

You start off easy, with a blog post about the basics. You get so excited it takes you 900 words to describe the most mundane subject, but that’s OK – you want to be thorough, right?

Of course, it’s dry and boring to the outsider. But it really showcases your knowledge of the field, sets you apart from the rest of the competition. That’s what legal marketing is all about, right? Full steam ahead!

The next day you go onto Twitter and follow everyone and their mother, all in a mad rush to beat Ashton Kutcher and Oprah in numbers of followers. The more people you follow, the more will follow you back!

You have no idea who these people are, or why they would want to follow you. But they sure to use Twitter a lot! Your Twitter stream gets clogged up within seconds, but you send out a link to your brand new blog post and know – just KNOW – it will send your traffic skyrocketing.

Of course, next up is Facebook. Two bazillion users, and they are all pining for your wisdom. You set up your fan page, so you send out a suggestion to all of your Facebook friends that they become fans. You send out your blog posts there, too.

You are a legal marketing Goliath. Market domination is within reach. You can sense your competition trembling in their offices, fearful of your wrath and legal marketing prowess.

Now, check your website analytics. Re-check them. Keep checking. Where’s that rush of traffic?

The online legal marketing honeymoon is over. And as with all long-term relationships, the hard work begins.

Your spouse doesn’t bring you flowers anymore (cue the song, please). No more all-nighters filled with insights into one another. It’s time to start figuring out who’s going to load the dishwasher at night.

So, too, with your online legal marketing efforts. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you aren’t going to be an overnight success. Nobody is. It takes hard work, nose to the grindstone, day in and day out.

And even worse is the fact that it never ends.

You have a blog but need to feed the machine. Forever.

You are on Twitter, but if you don’t interact and reach out to new people then it’s nothing more than another broadcast mechanism.

Facebook is bigger than ever, but if you’re there and don’t work on your presence then you might as well go home.

Because the competition is waking up, and doing it faster than you realize. Lawyers are hitting Avvo hard, learning the Facebook ropes, and embracing blogging like never before.

Maybe you’ve never heard of them, maybe their legal marketing efforts aren’t on your radar yet because you’ve got your nose buried.

It doesn’t matter. They’re out there. And your competition isn’t just spending money on some company that claims they’ll get you on the first page of Google (not that it matters even if they could – if you’ve not nothing to add to the conversation then nobody’s going to stick around your site for long).

So stop asking how long you’ve got to keep at this marketing and content creation thing. Forget about when you can start going to sleep early and sleeping late again. It isn’t going to happen – not now, not ever.

You signed up for this, after all. You decided that you wanted to run your own law firm, to be the master (or mistress) of your own domain, to eat what you kill.

But ask anyone who’s been married for 50 years if the hard work has been worth it. Most will say it was some of the most rewarding work they’ve ever done.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blog, facebook, law firm, Legal Marketing, offline marketing, online legal marketing, online social networking, social media, Twitter, world wide web

Online Legal Marketing – 6 Ways To Reduce Your Bounce Rate

October 21, 2009 By Jay Fleischman

You’ve committed to marketing your law firm online. Your bankruptcy website is getting 10, 20, 50, 100 or more unique visitors each day, which is pretty good. After all, the site hasn’t been touched in months (if not years) and it doesn’t cost much to keep it online. Even if you’re a regular legal blogger, it still doesn’t take anything but elbow grease and some time to maintain your site.

Any clients who come to you from your online legal marketing efforts are freebies, so you’re not paying much attention to the disparity between visitors and clients.

Let’s step back for a moment and say you’re getting 25 unique visitors per day. Not a ton, but still 750 people each month.

Out of those visitors, you’re getting 20 new clients from your online marketing efforts. If you’re charging $1,000 for an average case, that’s $20,000 a month. Cool, right?

Not so much. How about all those people to surf to your website and leave, vanishing into the ether?

They’re gone, off to another lawyer. Worse yet, they’re off to no other lawyer.

Maybe people are getting to your website and realizing that there’s no compelling reason to stick around. Maybe they read a bunch of pages and then go elsewhere. How do you know?

The key is to studying your website’s bounce rate. To my mind, it’s a critical aspect of the data you should be looking at closely.

What Is The Bounce Rate?

Avinash Kaushik, the Google employee who lives website analytics, defines bounce rate as, “I came, I puked, I left.” More technically, he defines bounce rate as, “single page view visits divided by entry pages.” Avinash goes into a bit more detail on the Official Google Blog.

In other words, the percent of people who land on your site, do absolutely nothing whatsoever, and then close the window and head for somewhere else.

I call it the failure rate. Someone came to my website, took one look at what I was talking about, and decided that is had absolutely ZERO value.

The Intersection Of Bounce Rate And Online Legal Marketing

When you’re marketing your law practice online, you are looking to create a connection with your audience. Whether it’s a blog or a static website, you understand (at some level) that it’s tough to make any lasting positive impression on someone if they stick around for only a few seconds. therefore, one of your goals is to give people a reason to stick around as long as possible.

What’s A Good Bounce Rate?

The short answer is, “I have no clue.” Do you want people to come to your site and surf for a bunch of information? Do you want them to land on the site, get your phone number and call you? Do you want them to get lost in your site, delving deeper and deeper? Or do you want them to log on, find your Facebook page, and then go there to become a fan?

Your ideal bounce rate will depend based on your motives. But suffice to say, if you’ve got a 60% bounce rate then you’re definitely not engaging your visitors. It probably explains why you’re getting 20 visits per day and only 1 phone call from a new client.

6 Ways To Improve The Bounce Rate On Your Law Firm Website

Know What You’re Dealing With. Figure out the bounce rate per referring site and keyword search term. You will find that some sites give you good traffic (i.e., traffic with a low bounce rate) and others not so much. In addition, you’ll find that some search terms result in a high bounce rate. This means that your content may be optimized for the search engines (i.e., people see your site when they search for a specific term) but not for visitors (i.e., once they get to your site they realize they’ve been short-changed).
Next, concentrate on getting more referrals from the good sources. Maybe people who come to your site from Facebook stick around whereas people who visit from Twitter bounce out a lot. Send more of your links to Facebook and take the time to test what other types of tweets might encourage more people to visit and stick around happily.
Spruce Up Your Site’s Navigation. If people can’t figure out how to navigate around your site, they’re going to leave fast.
Update Your Website Content. If I come to your site today and see the same stuff I saw yesterday, I’m not going to have a reason to stick around.
Create More Internal Links. Internal links are hotlinks on a page that go to other pages on your site. When you create internal links it encourages visitors to move from one page to another more easily. A good thing to do is create a link from legal terms to pages with definitions (in other words, link the word “discharge” to another page that has a definition for that term). It’s good for users to get clarification when they don’t understand something.
Use Visual Cues To Draw In Visitors. Eye-catching pictures and video content encourages people to stick around for awhile longer.

Your law firm website’s bounce rate is important, and tells a lot about what appeals to your website visitors. Work on reducing your bounce rate and you’ll find that your site’s effectiveness rises exponentially.