There was a great post by Seth Godin I read recently called The Wordperfect Axiom. Seth tells us:

When the platform changes, the leaders change.

Wordperfect had a virtual monopoly on word processing in big firms that used DOS. Then Windows arrived and the folks at Wordperfect didn’t feel the need to hurry in porting themselves to the new platform. They had achieved lock-in after all, and why support Microsoft?

In less than a year, they were toast.

When the game machine platform of choice switches from Sony to xBox to Nintendo, etc., the list of bestelling games change and new companies become dominant.

When the platform for music shifted from record stores to iTunes, the power shifted too, and many labels were crushed.

Again and again the same rules apply. In fact, they always do. When the platform changes, the deck gets shuffled.

Law Firm Marketing Online

If you are reading this blog, there is a good chance you already recognize a change in marketing platforms for law firms is occurring. The days of taking out a full page, yellowbook ad and watching the clients pour in are long gone. In fact, with the staggering amount of new lawyers entering into the work force each year, reliance on referrals and local recommendations is a tough way to drive significant revenue for a firm.

I recently talked with an estate planning attorney that said he has no interest in investing in the internet because his clients are older people that don’t use it. While there may be some validity to the fact that an older generation isn’t using the internet today as much as other sources, do you really believe that it will remain this way? Do you think the baby boomers aren’t going to be researching estate planning online? If you need to be convinced you can attract estate planning clients online then you clearly aren’t ready to invest what it requires to have a successful online strategy. You are Wordperfect in my opinion.

The reality is that the internet is the new marketing platform. The law firms that understand this and invest accordingly will reap the benefits. They will be the new generation of law firms leading the way. The ones that fail to get on board will be playing catch up at best and won’t be around at worst.

Photo by Larry Page

Free Guide: Hiring A Law Firm SEO Consultant Are you looking to increase your visibility online but are feeling overwhelmed by the number of service professionals promising the world to you? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Hiring A Law Firm SEO Consultant.

Google Local Business Center Listing

Getting your law firm found in Google is all about local search results.  One of the free tools that Google provides for local businesses is their Google Local Business Center listing.

Optimizing Your Listing

David Mihm has put together a fantastic report to help you better understand the local search ranking factors for your LBC listing. In his own words:

Participants were asked to rate the importance of 49 criteria with respect to their influence on rankings in the Google and Yahoo Local “Universal” search algorithms (those that drive the 10-pack, 3-pack, and authoritative onebox search results; NOT the standard organic algorithms)

This is the second annual report and you can read it here.

Free Guide: Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google Do You Want To Know How To Get Potential Clients To Find Your Law Firm On Google? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google.

AttorneySync’s newest free guide, How To Build Links For Your Law Firm Website, is available for download.

In the world of search engines, links TO a web page equal votes for that page. But not all link-votes are created equal. A link from CNN.com is much stronger than a link from a site that you just set up today. In this sense, links are the “currency” of the web. Any successful search marketing campaign involves link building.

This Guide Will Give You A Proper Introduction To Building Links To Your Law Firm’s Website Including:

• Common Strategies For Building Links
• Why Having A Content Creation Strategy Is Important
• How NOT To Ask For Links
• Types Of Websites You Want Links From
• The Importance Of Having A Diverse Link Profile

Download your free guide: How To Get Get Links For Your Law Firm’s Website today!

There is an interesting post at the Predictably Irrational blog that discusses the author’s troubles he had recently while playing squash. He tells us that he enjoys playing squash as it not only provides exercise, but is also a game of strategy. The strategy comes in as each player tries to build an advantage over the other by positioning the next shot just so. He goes on to tell us:

Anyway, I have not played for a while so yesterday when I played I was out of shape. But what was interesting was that I realized that my thinking ability was also diminished. Usually I try to plan my moves in advance, and think about where my opponent will move, what I will do next etc – but being out of shape made me think very myopically, and focus just on making the next shot. This of course was a very bad strategy and to my delight of my opponent I lost badly.

Perhaps the larger point is that being exhausted (and maybe also being under stress, physical exhaustion, sleep deprived, etc) makes people focus on the short-term and ignore the long-term – and this way become more susceptible to making mistakes….

How This Applies To Lawyer Internet Marketing

Marketing your law firm properly is a time intensive and strategic task. Just as in the squash example given above, there is the execution of your marketing strategy (actually hitting the shot and placing it where you wanted) and strategic planning (thinking about where the next shot should go). One of the problems that I see as an SEO consultant is that firms become so entrenched in their current marketing and getting short-term results, they forget to explore new ways of marketing. They lose focus of the long-term marketing strategy for the firm. Their strategy is focused on just connecting with the next shot, instead of thinking strategically where the next shot should be going.

A good example would be a firm where the entire marketing plan consists of spending money on advertising. The appeal is that by investing money into advertising, you get immediate results. The problem is that advertising costs will rise and if you want more leads, you have to pay more money. I’m not insisting that advertising is bad, it’s just that it doesn’t provide a sound, long-term strategy. You are simply “hitting the next shot”. You are not building equity in something you own that will continue to produce for you even if you stop paying money tomorrow. This is why it’s important to complement your advertising campaigns with other types of marketing avenues that position you for the future such as SEO, name recognition, social media strategy, networking, referrals, etc.

Make sure you are focusing on both your short-term and long-term goals with your marketing plan. Think about where you want your next shot to go in addition to how you’re going to actually hit the shot.

Photo by flydime

Free Guide: Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google Do You Want To Know How To Get Potential Clients To Find Your Law Firm On Google? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google.

WP Greetbox is a plugin for Wordpress blogs that can help build readership to your law firm’s Wordpress blog. The creators of the plugin describe it as such:

This plugin lets you show a different greeting message to your new visitors depending on their referrer url. For example, when a Digg user clicks through from Digg, they will see a message reminding them to digg your post if they like it. Another example, when a visitor clicks through from Twitter, they will see a message suggesting them to twit the post and follow you on Twitter.

The photo above is a snapshot of what WP Greetbox does when a visitor arrives on our blog from a Google search. A dropdown box appears below the title of the article inviting the user to take an action such as subscribing to your blog, retweeting the post, etc. It’s a great way to automate a call to action that appeals to the visitor. Since the call to action is customized based on how they arrived, it comes across as more personal than just a simple “subscribe to my blog” you place on the sidebar.

We have seen our subscriptions and readership increase since using this plugin. I highly recommend it.

On Page Optimization In 52 Seconds

There are many factors that go into a successful search engine optimization campaign. As a start, it’s important that you include properly researched keywords into certain areas of your site. This video will show you several key areas or your site where you should include keyword phrases. You can learn more about implementing law firm SEO strategy by downloading our Short Guide To Getting Your Law Firm Found In Google below.

Free Guide: Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google Do You Want To Know How To Get Potential Clients To Find Your Law Firm On Google? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google.

One of the areas that becomes difficult for lawyers, especially solos and smaller firms, is keeping in contact with potential clients that have not retained your services yet. For example, perhaps you are offering a free guide or e-book to download in exchange for a potential client’s information. Once they download the guide, some lawyers are so busy they don’t even have the time to send out an email or make a phone call. Others may email or call the prospect once. However, if there is not a response back, than that is the end of the communication. Others find that a prospect that downloaded a guide or e-book might be in a different stage of the “buying cycle”. Another words, they are not ready to sign a retainer just yet, but could be ready in the near future. These people need more nurturing before they are ready. This takes time, which is difficult to come by. Fortunately, there is a solution to help with many of these issues.

Lead Nurture Campaigns aka Autoresponders

A lead nurture campaign, or autoresponder, is an email marketing campaign that allows you to send out a sequence of automatically delivered emails. The emails are delivered at a time interval that you decide. You supply the content for the emails and then the software will automatically deliver the emails on your behalf.

A Few Of The Advantages

• The system is automated, you don’t have to personally write and send each email.
• The users receiving your emails have opted-in to receiving them, giving permission for you to contact them.
• You can “nurture” the potential client that is not ready to buy yet. By sending relevant, targeted, informational emails to them, you will build trust and help educate them about the benefits your firm can provide.
• The automation allows you to stay in touch with and handle a much larger set of inquiries than if you had to do it all manually
• It allows you to scale the “salesforce” within your firm without hiring additional assistants

Recommended Services

One of the better autoresponder and email marketing services is Aweber. They provide an excellent suite of email marketing tools at an affordable price.

You Will Need Leads To Make Use Of An Autoresponder System (Duh!?)

Of course, the use of autoreponders and lead nurture campaigns are only effective if you have a strategy in place that is generating leads for your firm. Download our free guide below to learn more about getting your law firm’s online marketing on the right track.

Free Guide: Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google Do You Want To Know How To Get Potential Clients To Find Your Law Firm On Google? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide On Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google.

Excellent information on Universal Search Optimization by Ron Jones at Search Engine Watch.

Universal search refers to video, images, local search, news, shopping, or other rich content that shows up in results. Jones gives detailed advice about how to optimize for:

Image Search

Video Search

Local Search

News

Social Media

and Blogs

There are several advantages to optimizing for universal search. Often times the competition is lower in these arenas. Further, it is clear that universal search is the future of searching on the internet. On several occasions, Google has indicated how drastically different its results pages will appear as a result of universal search results. From a marketing perspective, universal search creates a highly interactive environment that increases the user’s engagement and will likely lead to higher conversions.

When it comes to marketing your law firm online, optimizing for universal search results is one of the strongest online strategies. Despite the saturation of poorly executed law firm videos online, video can be one of the strongest ways to convert a visitor into an actionable new client lead. However, in order to enjoy the benefits that video marketing can have, your video has to “get found”.

Free Guide: How To Get Your Law Firm Videos Found In YouTube Want to learn how to get your law firm videos in front of more potential clients? Download AttorneySync's Free Guide On Getting Your Law Firm Videos Found On YouTube.

There are a host of applications on Facebook that allow you to integrate your blog with your Facebook pages. However, Networked Blogs is one worth using. It allows you to promote your blog to your friends and the entire Facebook community.

You can download the application for you Facebook account here.

Networked Blogs Features Include:

• Works on both: profiles and Facebook Pages
• Import your blog feed to your profile or public page
• A visual blogroll on your profile to promote your blog and blogs you like
• A directory of blogs organized by topic and geographical locations
• Read news and vote articles you love
• A community of like minded people to connect with

We have ours setup to automatically post new articles from our blog on our AttorneySync Facebook Page. It’s worth checking out.

Free Guide: Facebook For Lawyers Want to learn how to utilize Facebook to build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Facebook For Lawyers.

When it comes to using law firm search engine optimization strategies to help your website get found, everything starts with key phrases. Key phrases are the words and phrases that people use to find things online. For example, if you are an injury lawyer in New Jersey, someone might type “New Jersey personal injury lawyers” into a search engine. In the example, “New Jersey personal injury lawyer” is called the key phrase.

One of the very first steps to getting your law firm website found online is determining what keywords and key phrases people are likely to use to find your services. There are three important factors to consider: Relevance, Volume, and Competition.

Relevance

Relevance is the measure of a key phrase’s “relatedness” to your law firm. For example, “lawyer” is more relevant than “pineapple” but less relevant than keywords that more specifically describe your practice. In our New Jersey injury lawyer example, “New Jersey personal injury lawyers” is more relevant than “lawyer”, “injury lawyers”, and “New Jersey”. However, it is probably less relevant than a key phrase containing a more specific geographic modifier or specific injury.

In general, the more relevant a key phrase is, the more likely a visitor that found you by that key phrase is likely to “convert” into a lead or a new client.

Volume

Search volume measures the number of people using a particular key phrase over a period of time. While people have many different ways of searching, certain terms have a tendency to be used more frequently that others. Searchers also develop patterns in their search behavior.

In general, the higher the search volume, the more opportunity to capture search traffic to your site. Additionally, higher search volume may also mean higher competition for the key phrase.

Competition

In general, competition measures how difficult it will be for a website to obtain high position in a search engine result page for a particular key phrase. There are numerous techniques that can be used to gauge a key phrase’s competitiveness. One of the easiest ways is through the use of advanced search operators (a subject for another post).

In general, the higher the competition, the more difficult it will be to get your website to appear on the first page of a search results page. However, competition depends, to a large extent, on your site’s relevance, authority, and optimization for a given key phrase.

Key Phrase Pitfalls

Failure to account for these various key phrase factors can lead to a broken law firm internet marketing campaign. Here are some common examples:

High Relevance – Low Volume: Remember, people search in all sorts of different ways. You might think a key phrase is highly relevant to your practice. Just because you think it’s relevant, does mean that anybody else does. Even if a key phrase is highly relevant to your law firm, if your potential clients aren’t using it in search engines, it won’t increase traffic and leads through your site.

Low Competition – Low Volume: This is a classic SEO snake oil scenario. The law firm SEO will tell you that they can get you ranked for “x key phrase” in a very short time. You feel great seeing your site in the number one position on Google. The catch: no one is using the key phrase in search engines. Which means, you won’t have any increase in traffic or leads through your site. Beware of those selling rankings!

High Volume – Low Relevance: This is another classic situation. You’re number one for “new york criminal defense lawyer” but you’re a personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles. Even if the key phrase has a ton of search volume, if it’s not relevant to your practice, it will probably only generate a lot of un-targeted traffic that won’t turn into leads and new clients.

As you can see, when these key phrase factors aren’t working in harmony, your search engine marketing will not produce results.

Free Guide: Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google Do You Want To Know How To Get Potential Clients To Find Your Law Firm On Google? Download AttorneySync's Free Guide On Getting Your Law Firm Found On Google.