Where do your clients find you? According to the Clio legal trends report, more than a third find you through an online search.
If you’re ignoring digital marketing as a law professional who owns a practice, you’re ignoring a massive chunk of potential income. Likely, the sniveling attorney down the street who gives you sideways glances when you walk into the courtroom is getting your online business.
Don’t let the sniveling attorney down the street get your business. Pay attention during the next few paragraphs and you’ll learn how to hack the marketing world to your advantage and reap the rewards.
Content Will Hook Them
Your potential clients have questions about their legal situations. You’re the expert.
Just as you might come to my site for marketing law firms trends potential clients might come to yours for legal advice.
But the question is, how do they find the content on your site? Unless they have your business card or see an ad, they’re not going to know you’re there with advice to give.
This is where SEO comes in handy. Combining well-written and useful content with search engine hacks is the best way to put your site in front of their eyeballs.
Research Keywords
Search engines haven’t changed over the past ten years as much as you might think. Google started out as a mere indexing directory and it’s essentially the same thing now. It’s always used words to help it index and organize websites.
These words are called keywords.
How it uses and determines keywords has changed. Once upon a time, you could simply insert a bunch of keywords into a page and Google would index your page for that keyword.
Today, Google’s machine learning algorithms can determine context. Why would Google do this? Their interest is in providing searchers the most accurate information on the internet while weeding out cheaters.
You see, keywords are still important, but they must be contextual and natural.
How to Research Keywords
Not all keywords are equal. Some are harder to rank for than others.
You want to be on the first page of said keyword or you may not be found. Most people don’t search past the first page.
Use a program like SEMRush or Moz and look for keywords that are easy to rank for. Each program ranks keywords differently, so be sure to research how to determine ease of ranking. Often it has to do with how many backlinks you need to rank for your keyword.
The Internet is a Web
When someone else uses your content to prove a point in their content, this is proof they see you as an authority. Google understands this and in an effort to weed out spam, they’ve created a system to measure authority.
The internet is a web of sites. That sounds simple, but it’s complex. The more connected you are on the internet, the easier you are to find.
I’m being vague, but all you need to know is that other people linking back to your content is something that needs to happen. If those sites are similar to your site (law news sites, law information sites, etc.) then Google will see links on their site as imputing authority to you.
Seek out these sites. See if you can maybe pay to insert links in their content. Be sure to use natural anchor texts.
If you can’t gain a link, even a mention would be great. Ask them if they could at least mention your firm in their content somewhere.
A Social Media Presence is Gold
While Facebook hasn’t garnered much in the way of positive press coverage lately, it’s still the top place to market your services. Why? Because Facebook is massive.
While its true that people aren’t going to be specifically looking for legal service on Facebook, they’re going to be on Facebook a lot more than on Google. How do you market to people on Facebook?
Viral Videos
Facebook videos go viral if they’re funny, informative, or engaging. Bonus points if they’re all three.
I once saw a video created by a law firm in California. These guys weren’t your typical suit and tie lawyers. They wore street clothes and wore sunglasses.
What was their content? Police encounter advice especially when it came to marijuana or medical marijuana.
They were funny and they gave excellent advice. In the end, they provided a call to action. “Use your one phone call to call us.”
If you’re going to market with video, you can’t be overly concerned about “image.” Professionalism doesn’t have to be stuffy. You can create professional videos without boring your potential clients.
So, remember, if you want to market on Facebook successfully, create engaging and informative videos.
Instagram Marketing
Instagram may not seem like a place for a law firm. It’s full of colorful photos and kids using filters.
Yet, your potential clients, especially younger ones, are going to be on Instagram. And Instagram is easier to market on than most other platforms.
Hashtag Haven
Why is Instagram an easy place to market? Hashtags.
Hashtags are an indexing tool. They’re tags to help Instagram know what your content is about.
Think of the kind of law you practice. Now think about what kind of content people who avail of your services would be attracted to.
Just like my Facebook video example above, if you deal with cannabis charges, you might use cannabis-related hashtags. Create an advertising campaign centered around common mistakes people make when dealing with the police and cannabis even in states where it’s legal. Use the same images and hashtags on your Instagram account.
You’ll quickly find that you gain a following.
Be sure to take advantage of the URL in your bio. If you’re creating content for your site, announce new content on your Instagram account and change the URL in the bio to match.