AttorneySync Blog

Very interesting post from our friends over at Hubspot explaining what blogging can do for your business. I am an analytical person and always enjoy some empirical data to back up an argument. All too often, I think that blogging is pushed onto the legal community as something that needs to be done, but lawyers without a lot of online marketing experience don’t understand why.

Here are some numbers from Hubspot’s study to convince you why your firm needs to be actively involved with blogging:

A study of 2,300 HubSpot customers revealed that businesses that blog witness their monthly leads rise by 126% more than those who don’t.

We compared leads last month with leads two months ago for 6 consecutive months, and the result shows that blogging businesses, whether or not they use the HubSpot platform, experience a 165% lead growth, a much larger increase than that of non-blogging businesses, which experience a 73% lead growth.

The more contacts and leads your site generates, the more clients you will retain, and the more revenue your online presence will generate for you.

Hubspot admits that factors such as a clean landing page, strong keywords, and active presence on social media sites all influence lead generation and conversion rates. However, the fact still remains that blogging is an extremely effective way to market your practice and grow your firm’s client base.

Other Added Benefits of Blogging:

• Blogging helps build your reputation as a thought leader in your practice area
• Frequent blogging helps to grow your footprint on the web, creating more outlets where potential clients can find you
• It creates a forum where potential clients, professional contacts, etc. can interact with you (this is crucial for converting traffic to your site into contacts and leads)
• It attracts links from other sites, increasing the authority and importance of your own blog in the eyes of search engines
• It provides you with new content to share and publicize through social media outlets

Only having a static website for your law firm isn’t going to cut it anymore. It is important that you have a web presence that is dynamic, growing, and evolving. A blog is one of the best ways to achieve this.

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Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

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We discuss the importance of getting more interaction when a visitor arrives on your legal blog all the time with our clients.  I think sometimes lawyers overlook this aspect since there is so much focus on getting found in the search engines and generating traffic.  But who cares if you are generating traffic and most of the visitors choose to leave your site before they interact?  We want them to call, fill out web forms, download guides and e-books, leave comments on your blog posts, etc.  I recently came across a couple of great articles that can help with this:

13 Types of Posts that Always Get Lots of Comments

This is a great article highlighting some of the different types of posts that generate a lot of comments and interaction with your audience.

7 Tips for Effective Calls to Action

Great post from our friends at Hubspot on how to create effective calls to action on your blog or website.

Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

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Don’t take our word for it, see what Matt Cutts from Google had to say about WordPress at WordCamp 2009:

We are excited to release the newest guide for our library: AttorneySync’s Guide To Wordpress Blogs For Lawyers.

Wordpress is one of the most widely used platforms for blogging and websites.  We have put together this guide to help you learn about blogging for your firm with Wordpress including:

• What Is A Blog & Why You Should Have One
• Getting Started With Wordpress
• Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com
• Wordpress Essentials
• Your Wordpress Blog & Social Media
• Wordpress Plugins & Resources

You can download the Guide To Wordpress Blogs For Lawyers here.

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I have come across many lawyer websites with a problem. The site looks fine, they have good calls to action so that the user knows what to do. The user clicks on the “Contact Us” or “Free Case Evaluation” form only to find a looooong questionnaire asking for every detail short of their social security number. The user thinks about how long it will take to complete the form….and bolts.

Your Contact Form Shouldn’t Be An Intake Interview

Obviously the more information you can collect from a potential lead, the better qualified it will be. However, with each question and field you add onto your form, the number of users willing to complete that form will drop. These are potential clients you are leaving on the table (or worse sending to your competitors).

You must achieve a nice balance of properly qualifying the visitors to your site vs. trying to hit home runs with every lead capture. Obviously only requesting an email address isn’t enough….but asking for every mundane detail that you could ascertain from your first conversation isn’t good either. Achieving the harmony of qualification and keeping the request form short and simple will differ from firm to firm depending on your needs.

Less is More

A good way to go about deciding the questions you should have on your form is to examine the beginning of your process for contacting and meeting with a potential client. What are the absolute essentials you NEED to have before your first conversation with this person to address their issues? What kinds of things can you figure out on your first phone call with them? What information will help you to achieve the next step in your process (In other words, help you set up an appointment vs. collecting a retainer). Do you have someone that can assist you with the first contact with your leads? If this is the case, I recommend asking for less information, getting more form fills, and having your assistant filter out the better requests before you spend time with them.

Another thing to consider is creating a guide or an e-book that you offer as a free download in exchange for the consumer’s information. Writing an e-book that is topical and addresses the needs of the specific client you are seeking can be a great way to help qualify the lead as opposed to asking a hundred questions. For example, if you handle personal injury and specifically car accidents, you could create a guide titled “10 Things To Do After You’ve Been Injured In A Car Accident”. The idea is that people looking for this type of information would probably match up well with the services you are offering. Giving them free information helps position you as someone that is knowledgeable and willing to help.

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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.

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When we advise firms on their search engine marketing strategy or legal website setup, we talk about optimizing their site for conversion. This means that your firm’s website and legal blog should be setup in a way that promotes the user to take an action. This might be filling out a web form, downloading a guide, signing up for a newsletter, calling your firm directly, etc. If you think that simply because they came to your site they will perform these tasks, you are wrong. You need to tell them what to do.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that it is a medium where users can interact with your business in real time. Most other mediums, such as television, newspapers, magazines, etc. are one way communicators. A message is sent out and it is up to the consumer to take a subsequent action such as calling or going to your office.

With the advent of blogs, twitter, facebook, videos, websites, etc. we can start a dialogue and nurture relationships with potential clients in ways that we couldn’t before. Unfortunately, many firms make the false assumption that simply having a website up is enough to encourage and start this interaction. This is simply not true. You still need to tell a user what they should do when they arrive. There is a great book entitled “Don’t Make Me Think” that discusses website design and usability.  The book’s basic point is that you need to make sure people don’t have to think too much about what to do when they visit your site. If the purpose of your website and legal blog is to generate contacts, leads, clients, and relationships make sure you aren’t making this difficult for your users.

So What Can I Do To Help Improve Conversion?

1. Create multiple calls to action on your site. In a previous post I wrote, A Law Firm Website Done Right, I discussed this topic. The general idea is that you need to prominently display phone numbers, contact forms, free guides, newsletters, and videos. Don’t assume anyone interested in legal services will go to your contact us page and get a hold of you. Tell them what to do. Make sure you are displaying your contact info and calls to action “above the fold” or on the top part of the web page, not the bottom. Using titles such as “Contact Us Today For Your Free Consultation” or “Download Your Free Guide” above a web form in your sidebar is much more helpful than a small link in the menu that says contact us.

2. Use contrasting colors and images by your calls to action. It’s important that people notice when you are telling them to do something. Have your call to action in a different color than the rest of the site so that it stands out. People’s eyes are drawn to images on a web page. Use pictures of people or an image of your free guide so that people notice.

3. Encourage readers to subscribe to your blog and newsletters. Using RSS and email updates for your blog is a great way to build loyalty, readership, and encourage interaction. However, you need to tell people to sign up for these things. I encourage readers to sign up for my blog updates on the top of my blog, after each post, in the upper corner of my website, etc. The number of followers I have increased significantly once I started encouraging people to sign up instead of assuming they just would.

4. Offer free guides that help to educate your users. Take a little time to write a helpful guide for people with legal problems in your niche. Offer to let them download the guide in exchange for their information. Finally, promote the free download on your site. This encourages interaction and establishes you as someone they can trust to help with their problems.

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5 Lawyer Marketing Mistakes To Avoid Want to learn 5 of the most common mistakes when marketing your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: 5 Lawyer Marketing Mistakes To Avoid.

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I heard a story recently about an unfortunate situation between a legal blog designer and one of their clients.  The lawyer had a falling out with the developer and was told that if  she chose to no longer host the blog with them, she would not be able to take the design or the content.  The blog was created on Wordpress, a popular platform that is free for anyone to use.  There was no agreement in place ahead of time, so she was at the mercy of the developer in this situation.  I am not so much commenting on who is right or wrong in this situation, only that it is important to have the answers to a few questions before you have your blog or website developed.  If you have the proper expectations and are on the same page with your blog designer and host, your experience will be that much better.

Here are 5 questions to ask before making your purchase:

1. Do I get to keep the blog design if I choose not to host with you? The answer to this depends on a number of things.  Some companies have proprietary software that the blog is created on.  The software was created by the blog design company and comes packaged with hosting.  If you choose to leave their company, you can not take their software with you.  Typically you still own the content you created, but will have to move it to another platform if you want to leave.  However, some legal blogs are designed on platforms that are free for anyone to use, such as Wordpress.  A company that creates a Wordpress legal blog might offer to host the blog as well for a monthly fee.  Make sure you understand ahead of time what happens if  you don’t want them to host your blog any longer.

2. Do I get to keep the content I produce? You put the blood, sweat, and tears into writing your legal blog.  Just make sure you get to keep whatever content you spent the time to produce.

3. What kind of changes can I make to the layout myself, such as adding elements to the blogroll, etc? Your blog is a dynamic, evolving thing.  You might want to add different elements to your blog as time passes.  Most blogs give you the ability to add links to a blogroll, but maybe you want your Twitter feed on the sidebar of your blog too.  In any case, make sure you understand the extent to which you can add something to your blog yourself or what you need to make requests for.

4. Do I own the domain name? If you go with a personalized domain name, make sure you own the domain name for your blog even if your blog company takes care of registering it for you.  I’ve heard of situations where firms put in the effort to build the authority and get their domain name ranked only to find out later on their designer owned the domain.

5. Can I get this in writing? It’s funny I am even mentioning this to lawyers, but unfortunately I have seen too many verbal agreements between developers and firms.  Better that everyone is on the same page before a problem arises, not afterwards.

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Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

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So you finally took the plunge and started a legal blog for your firm or you’ve been happily blogging for awhile. Either way, your legal blog is an important part of developing your law firm’s brand. It’s crucial that you come across professional and actually convey a sense of understanding how to put together a cohesive blog. Here is a list of 5 mistakes that legal bloggers should avoid:

1. Erratic posting. This is an easy mistake to slip into, especially for busy lawyers. Post one day, then nothing for a month. Then write three posts in two days and nothing for another five weeks. It’s important to be consistent with your blogging. Whether it’s a post or week or better yet, two to three posts a week. Take some time to plan out a few ideas for posts. Write several when you get the time and then publish them in steady intervals. The key here is being consistent so your readers stay engaged.

2. Creating a category for every post. Categories are meant to represent broader themes that your blog is about. The categories for your blog should be thought about ahead of time, they are the basis for the material you publish in your blog. It is a mistake to create a new category for each post.

3. Using post titles that don’t let readers know what the post is about. I’ve blogged in the past about writing good titles for your legal blog. Your title should convey to the reader the material they will read about in the post. Take a look at the story titles on CNN or in a newspaper. They are usually intriguing, sometimes creative, but they always let you know what the lead is. This is important for your blog as well. You want to entice readers to check out your article, but at least give them a taste of what the material is about.

4. Spreading yourself thin with your blog material. It’s important to have a focus with your blog. The best legal blogs represent a writer’s expertise in a niche of the legal world. This is what helps brand you as a thought leader in that niche. Trying to cover absolutely every practice area you have ever dealt with, every legal news topic, etc. makes your blog appear unfocused and disorganized. It’s better to appeal to your small segment of devoted readers than to a large swath of people across many topics.

5. Have your blog residing on a generic blogging domain name. You are putting in the time (which you have very little of) to write and maintain a legal blog. You want the blog to come across as professional and put together. Spend the extra couple of dollars and get an original domain name for your firm’s blog. Having your legal blog reside on yourfirm.typepad.com or yourfirm.wordpress.com isn’t nearly as professional as www.yourfirm.com.

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Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers Want to learn how guest blogging can help build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Guest Blogging For Lawyers.

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