Digital marketing is the primary source of marketing for many of the most successful law firms in the world.
The Top 6 Digital Marketing Strategies for Law Firms are:
• Search Engine Optimization
• Web Design
• Content Marketing
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising
• Email marketing
• Social Media
In the United States, or just about any country in the world, people are likely to seek legal counsel at some point in their lifetime. The majority of these individuals looking for lawyers will turn to the internet as a readily accessible source to find a lawyer.
Since many people start searching for legal information online, your law firm needs to establish an online presence. Remember that it is where potential clients are searching for legal services.
With this in mind, I suggest utilizing digital marketing strategies today if you have not used them before. If you have, make sure that you optimize your digital marketing.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing involves a series of strategies or techniques to drive traffic to a website, convert leads, and increase sales for businesses and companies.
Today, it is considered as an affordable option for businesses in all industries. I strongly encourage any law firm today to incorporate this type of marketing into their marketing strategy to increase their reach and engage more potential clients.
The importance of digital marketing
Today, the backbone of marketing your law firm is no other than – digital marketing.
Around 97% of consumers worldwide who need a product or service will go straight to a search engine to find what they are looking for. Any company or business, including law firms that do not utilize digital marketing, will be left behind.
Like other businesses, law firms also depend on digital marketing for growth in this rapidly-evolving world. Effective digital marketing depends on various factors, including a distinct and compelling website, social media integration, and good-quality content for the website.
When all these factors are combined, it creates a highly-attractive force that draws in potential clients. I will discuss the top 6 digital marketing strategies for law firm websites so you will understand the essential components of digital marketing.
A close look at the top 6 digital marketing strategies for law firms
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the top 6 digital marketing strategies that lawyers can use to get the most out of their law firm websites.
I highly recommend incorporating SEO into your marketing campaign. A good SEO strategy can help ensure the long term viability of your law firm.
It also beat the high ongoing costs of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing.
SEO is a process in which a website is optimized to gain a higher rank in the search engine results for the targeted keywords or phrases.
When people search for legal services in your area, you aim to make your law firm appear at the top of the search engine results. As your website ranks higher, the more clicks and views it will gain. In no time, more people will find out about your law firm, and you will get more inquiries and clients.
The technique focuses on increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website via organic search engine results. If you want to understand the meaning of SEO, I will break it down for you:
• Quality. It is vital to attract visitors who are interested in the products or services that you offer
• Quantity. When you reach more people through the search engine results pages (SERPs), you will get more traffic to your law firm’s website, which is very advantageous.
• Organic results. Advertisements cover a significant portion of many SERPs. When it comes to organic traffic, you do not have to pay for it.
Remember that optimization has various forms. It can include highly informative title tags and meta descriptions and the appropriate length to pointing internal links at your best pages.
Even if you are the best legal service provider in your area and have a well-designed website, potential clients will not organically find your law firm unless you correctly utilize SEO.
Web Design
When people visit your website, they should be able to find the information that they require quickly. If not, they will click to a different site.
As one of the top 6 digital marketing strategies for law firm websites, having a good web design is an absolute must.
A well-structured and organized website for your law firm reduces the bounce rates. It ensures an improved online experience for your potential clients.
For law firms out there, potential clients must find the contact information easily.
Additionally, your web design should include details of your lawyers and links to their profiles, blogs, and academic publications that they have contributed.
The website should also be responsive and readily available on all platforms. Since many people search for legal information on the go, they need to access your site from their mobile phones or tablets. If they happen to encounter a navigation or site speed issues, it will only take seconds for them to click a competitor.
Although SEO can attract qualified leads to your website, I strongly urge that having a great web design will keep them “hooked” and eventually convert them into happy clients.
Content Marketing
I believe that when it comes to content, a law firm should have a highly informative website about the services being offered. Since potential clients are looking for legal services, ensuring that your website has all the information about your practice area is a must.
Content marketing includes everything – blog posts, videos, infographics, eBooks, etc. All these go hand in hand with SEO since search engines prefer good-quality content.
When it comes to legal services, law firms should provide information on a variety of topics. As one of the top 6 digital marketing strategies for law firm websites, content marketing will help establish your law firm as a leader in your field.
If people look for legal advice and find a blog post on your website that provides the answers, they are more likely to look through your website and find more information about the legal services you are offering.
I highly recommend content marketing since it is a worthy, long lasting, investment and a useful relationship-building tool for law firms.
I will share some of the main reasons businesses and service providers today put a lot of effort into their content marketing.
• Potential clients will find you. People ask questions and look for information using search engines such as Google, and the primary goal of your law firm is to be at the top of the search results on page 1. Answering questions via blog posts, videos, eBooks, and other types of content is the key to make this happen.
• Building and engaging the audience. Your content is only as precious as its capability to grow your audience and get them to engage with your services or products on an ongoing basis. When you have an audience, your content will increase sales, gather useful insights from clients, and motivate your followers as brand advocates.
• Acquiring new clients. If your objective is to generate revenue, content marketing is a reliable driver. Once you have an audience that trusts you and they are eager to learn more, they are likely to make use of your services.
• Building better revenue with current clients. Content marketing can help create more loyal clients, which can boost sales via cross-selling or up-selling.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising
With pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, your law firm can designate the keywords and phrases to trigger advertisements. Once your bid is in the top rank for a specific term, the ad will appear above the organic results.
Sadly, the legal terms are among the expensive keywords in both Google and Bing, typically averaging up to $100 per click.
Once you decide to include PPC advertising, though, your law firm will likely gain immediate results. When you launch a campaign, it will start to drive qualified traffic to your website. The difference with SEO techniques, which takes time to see the results, the PPC campaigns can quickly boost the views and overall revenue of your website.
The most widely-used form of PPC is search engine advertising. With this type of PPC advertising, advertisers bid for ad position in the search engine’s sponsored links when a person searches for a keyword or phrase related to the services or products they offer.
When an ad is clicked where the visitor moves to your website, you pay a minimal fee to the search engine. If the PPC campaign is working correctly, the fee is trivial since the visit is worth more than what you are paying for.
In my opinion, if you want to see immediate results when marketing your law firm, PPC advertising is the ideal way to boost your online presence in the search results while establishing organic rankings through SEO marketing.
Social Media
Lawyers greatly depend on social interaction with current and potential clients and business associates to gain fresh leads for their law firms.
Today, almost every person in the globe has a social media account – Facebook, Twitter, you name it. With this in mind, I suggest using social media to widen the perspective.
Social media is the ideal networking tool, and it allows law firms to easily connect with potential clients while at the same time, increasing awareness of the available legal services you are offering.
Furthermore, law firms can utilize social media to share useful information and eventually gain a position as a frontrunner in their selected field of practice.
Email marketing
As a cost-effective method to reach out to new clients, email marketing is worth considering as part of your promotional efforts.
When you include email marketing in your campaign, make it a point to skip on any legal terminology in your emails. I know for sure that no one will spend time reading a lengthy composition explaining a new law to the ordinary public.
Focus on providing useful resources that can help potential clients in their search for legal information. Once your recipients like what they read, a good outcome is for them to reach out to you or forward the email to others they know who might be interested.
You can also include links to your website and social media accounts. This will make it easier for potential clients to take the next step and get in touch with your law firm for more details on the legal services that they need.
Make your law firm website stand out.
The focal point of digital marketing today is no other than your website. Law firms must include digital marketing in their promotional campaigns. Remember that a business or service provider is not complete without having a secure and highly informative website.
Your website is the first and primary source of information about your law firm that potential clients can check out. When people are interested in your legal services, they are likely to search for you on the Google search engine.
For most, it will be a disappointment to find out that your law firm does not have a website. A high percentage of people decide the overall quality of a law firm by its website’s general appearance.
The web design of your law firm should be responsive and user-friendly. Make sure to include quick answers to a “Frequently Asked Questions” section on your website. You might also consider providing live customer support. Although it might be costly to hire customer support agents, it is worth investing in the long run.
Lastly, I strongly suggest making sure that your website runs fast and smoothly. Many people are likely to press the “back” button if a website does not load within 3 seconds. You do not want potential clients to switch to the competition because of your website that loads at a mediocre pace.
Final thoughts
There you have it – the top 6 digital marketing strategies for law firm websites that you should focus on today. I highly recommend these digital marketing tactics due to the benefits they provide for any law firm.
These benefits include improving rankings on search engines, better conversion of leads and sales, and by assisting you to get established as a leader in your field of practice.
If you want your law firm to stand out from the rest, use these digital marketing strategies today!