Legal Internet Marketing Blog

If you are wondering why your legal blog does not have as many subscribers or monthly visitors as you would like, you may need to ask yourself this question. While it may feel daunting at first to explore the issues surrounding building legal blog readership, it is helpful to begin with establishing your intentions for your blog. As a starting point, remember that your blog’s content is only a part – although a very important part – of the entire blogging process. Many other vital aspects of your blog should involve effective use of search engine optimization (SEO) tools and other marketing efforts.

First of all, don’t be afraid to create a wish-list for what you would like your blog to encompass. This could relate to layout, writing tone, use of video or pictures, and blog topic choice. Having a blog for your law firm is a great opportunity, not only for you and your colleagues to share unique legal experiences, but also to encourage discussion between other firms and various readers who may be law students or even potential clients.

Simply put, if you don’t care about what goes on your lawyer blog, no one else will. While a blog demands a lot of time and effort, it is beneficial to take those extra moments to write about issues that actually interest you. That passion and knowledge of the area of law in which you practice will come through to readers. You want to stand out on the web with your blog amidst a sea of legal blogs. But how can you do this? Be yourself on the Internet just like you are when a potential client comes in for a consultation. If you hesitate to reach out to those searching for help, they may look elsewhere.

A legal blog is a great place to reflect what you have to offer and how you have helped others. You don’t need to reveal personal or confidential information to discuss the types of cases you have handled and how you and your firm are able to be successful. Another important thing to remember when thinking about your blog content is, don’t give everything away right off the bat. Give them a little and make them want more. You eventually want readers to come to you either through your law firm website, email, or phone – but you have to draw them in.

Legal websites have to strike a balance when it comes to the type of content that is featured on their site. Search engine visibility is at the heart of any good Internet marketing campaign, but the kind of content that search engines like Google, Yahoo & Bing rank favorably is not necessarily the type of content that compels potential clients to pick up the phone and contact your firm. This is best illustrated by using a theoretical case study:

A criminal defense law firm in Colorado wishes to launch a firm site that competes for keywords relating to their main areas of practice. They design a site that has relevant content relating to crimes like theft, DUI, assault, etc., creating unique pages for each of the crimes. After being indexed by Google, that content is thrown into the mix with all the others hundreds of thousands of pages by attorneys on Colorado criminal defense (778,000 according to Google).

In an effort to set themselves apart, they begin to beef up the ‘relevant’ content as Google’s webmaster guidelines instruct them to do. By adding more content to their pages, including things like Colorado legal statutes and discussions of the law, they are able to increase the ranking of their pages. With the addition of incoming links from outside sources that have recognized the website as an authority on issues of Colorado Criminal Law, Google begins to recognize the site as a valuable location with a plethora of information for the keywords the firm is trying to target.

So after a time, the firm is able to get to the coveted first page of Google results for their keywords… but now what? What the firm is left with are pages with thousands of words worth of information on Colorado theft charges that is dry, worded in legal-speak, and quotes legal statutes that most individuals have no interest in.

It is important to remember that any potential client that visits your site is not interested in becoming an expert in the crime that they are accused of committing. They are not interested in practicing law, representing themselves, or reading the legal statute or penal code that they have been charged with. This is exactly the type of legal website content, however, that will result in those pages having a high visibility in search engines. It is the content that Google most readily rewards with favorable search engine rankings.

A potential client wants to know that you can get them out of the mess they are in and defend their rights in court. They want to know that they can trust you, they want to see other cases you have handled like theirs, and they want to hear from people you have worked with in the past. This type of content does not inherently “match” with the content that Google would offer favorable rankings to.

So a balance of both is the best course of action for any website. Write informational content to get better rankings and write compelling information to get potential clients to pick up the phone and call.

Depending on which state you practice law in; you may have a set of stringent State Bar guidelines that you need to follow to advertise your services on the Internet. In certain states, the restrictions can be extensive and extremely restrictive, with even things like testimonials or case results being against ethics rules. In other states, the restrictions are a bit more lax, allowing attorneys a little more leeway in the way they market their firm and law practice.

It is the responsibility of each attorney to insure that all advertising literature, including websites, adhere to state bar ethics rules governing lawyer advertising. Your trusted legal Internet marketing partner will have resources to make sure that you are within the guidelines for your state. The American Bar Association has a webpage devoted to information on responsible client development. You can view that page here: http://www.abanet.org/legalservices/clientdevelopment/adrules/.

A major challenge for attorneys who advertise online is establishing useful, persuasive content on their websites while tiptoeing around the rules and regulations regarding attorney advertising for their particular state. Use of terms like ‘expert’ or ‘specialist’ are forbidden in most states, unless the attorney is specifically credited as such through a state bar sponsored program. It can be argued of course that one of the main goals of any attorney website is to portray that attorney as an expert in the area of law which they practice.

One of the benefits of partnering with a legal Internet marketing firm is that you are consulting with a company that has already had to address this problem countless times. At SLS Consulting, we have real-world experience creating persuasive content for our clients that not only adheres to state bar restrictions on attorney advertising, but takes advantage of them.

By marrying clear, structured site architecture, a wealth of the proper legal information, background on an attorneys’ experience and mission in their practice of law, we can offer advice on how best to craft your websites message to help insure the highest rate of conversion, enhancing your client development efforts.

For more information on how to craft persuasive content for your website while adhering to your state bar’s restrictions, contact SLS Consulting today for a consultation of your current online marketing strategy.

The advent of social media on the Internet has changed the landscape of SEO, search, and legal Internet marketing. It is one of those “game changers” that comes along every so often that makes everyone stand up and take notice. The popularity and frequency of use of websites like Facebook is staggering. According to Facebook statistics – 400 million people actively use Facebook. Of that huge number, 50% visit their profiles ON A DAILY BASIS. That figure is truly staggering.

Utilizing Facebook and Twitter profiles, attorneys and law firms are able to personalize their practice. They can relate to individuals where they gather to interact with friends and acquaintances and by featuring case results, articles about community involvement and an explanation of their firm’s mission, they can humanize their law practice. By publishing links to articles and unique content that the attorney has published, a good Facebook or Twitter account can help educate individuals and establish the firm and its attorneys as authorities in their respective fields.

Lawyers have long maintained that the best source for new business is a satisfied client. When individuals are in need of an attorney, they often ask family and close friends for the name of someone they can trust. A satisfied client is likely to refer an attorney they have had a good experience with. This is where platforms like Facebook and Twitter have changed traditional legal Internet marketing. Many of these word of mouth conversations are taking place online now. Much the way search engines like Google and Yahoo have replaced the yellowpage ads of the past, so too, have Facebook and Twitter accounts changed the way we hold conversations with our family and friends. Sites like Facebook have not only expanded our circle of friends and acquaintances, but they have also changed how we interact with them.

Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIN and AVVO accounts are all integral parts of a sound legal Internet marketing campaign. While it may not be immediately obvious how a social networking account can help your firm gain clients, when you take a step back and look at the fundamental changes that sites like Facebook have had on the way individuals interact, and the way we share and gather information about subjects that interest us, the need for you as an attorney and your firm as an organization to be involved in legal social networking becomes much more obvious.

Protecting your reputation online should be a part of any good Internet marketing campaign. By controlling the first few pages of Google search results for your name and your firm's name, you can be sure that the information that potential clients find about you is not only accurate, but that it also displays your practice and accomplishments in the best light.

At its core, online reputation management starts with the publication of pages on the Internet associated with your name. Be they websites, bio pages, syndicated articles, blogs, etc.; the more you publish in your name, the more likely you are to control multiple listings in searches. Some common tactics that legal Internet marketing specialists will use to gain control of those first few pages of results in Google are:

• Creating individual bio pages on your website for the lawyer(s) and firm name


• Publish and maintain a blog


• Reserving your name as a .com and .net


• Submitting profiles to free and paid lawyer directories


• Publishing articles to syndication sites in your name


• Create/maintain a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, & Avvo account

Creating websites and profiles and publishing articles are only scratching the surface of the work that needs to be done for successful reputation management. It is important that these sites, profiles and pages are optimized properly. It is also important that the profiles, blogs and website have fresh content and are updated often, insuring that they maintain high visibility with search engine results.

A truly effective Internet marketing campaign that is geared towards increasing search engine visibility through SEO will naturally protect your reputation (to a degree). One of the benefits of consulting with a qualified Legal SEM company is that the marketing plan they create for you will account for reputation management naturally. Online Reputation management, especially in the social networking era of the Internet, is far too important a variable to left unaddressed.

A national survey from Arbitron Inc. and Edison Research reveals that nearly half of all Americans over the age of 12 have a profile on one or more social networking Web sites. The study also states that 30 percent of Americans age 12 and older, who have a profile on at least one social networking Web site, use those sites "several times a day" compared with only 18 percent one year ago.

With so many people going to the Internet for interaction with their friends and acquaintances, it makes perfect sense that attorneys make themselves available on these platforms so that they can increase the reach of their online marketing. By creating social media accounts for their firms and themselves, attorneys can build and interact with new readership groups online.

Any good Internet marketing campaign has a social networking aspect to it. At SLS Consulting, we offer the service of creating and maintaining profiles on the most useful and established of social networking sites. By presenting information about our clients and their law firms on websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and AVVO, we can help build a trusted readership and following for the firm.

The key to creating successful attorney social networking accounts, especially on sites like Facebook and Twitter are frequency of use, and the offering of unique, valuable content and information for free. By offering informative articles on subjects of law that people are interested in, the firms establish themselves as experts in the eyes of their potential clients. By keeping the content fresh and informative, the social networking portals continue to attract readers and can have the added benefit of creating an online buzz around current events.

This added marketing source helps to keep your firm in front of the new generation of individuals who use social networking as their source for information. While it is true that not all individuals are in the “market” for an attorney at all times, when unfortunate events do occur and a lawyers’ advice is sought, many individuals will turn to the Internet, and their trusted circle of online acquaintances or “online social network” for referrals on where to find an attorney.

So do you want to know how to make a great website for your law practice? A website that will rank on the first page of Google results for the keywords you want? A website that not only attracts a lot of visitors, but also compels those potential clients to contact your firm to hire you? I’m about to tell you how to do it in this blog article. This is the formula that our firm, and anyone else who has built a successful legal Internet marketing campaign has followed to success and I’m about to reveal it here for you now, for free:

To build a great legal website, you need 3 things:

1. A well-structured and properly designed and optimized website


2. Relevant, compelling content about your law practice


3. Links to your website from relevant outside sources

That’s it. End of story. This is the formula that your competitors, the ones that show up on the first page of Google results for the areas of law you practice, have used to get where they are. This is the 3 step process that any internet marketing firm, legal or otherwise, employs to insure ultimate success.

Now go out there and make it happen for yourself!

... still here? I’m not surprised. I neglected to mention one thing: Volumes of books, articles and "self help" white papers have been written about each of these 3 small steps to Internet dominance. The reason I can tell you this ‘industry secret’ and not fear for our firm losing all of its clients is that very few Internet marketing firms put forth the time and effort required to launch a successful marketing campaign properly. As the homepage of our website states, ‘It isn’t magic, it just takes HARD WORK’.

Continue reading " How to Build a Great Lawyer Website " »

It takes time for a legal blog to gain presence on the Internet and get recognized by search engines. We all wish that creating a legal blog with heavy readership and strong Internet rankings that lasts could happen overnight, but that is not the case.

Deciding to start a legal blog is a commitment. It requires constant attention to several factors such as how often posts should be made, what kind of topics will a blog cover, how many keyword links should be included in a blog and where should they link to, etc. Launching a legal blog cannot simply be a phase or a short-lived interest in trying something new. If you want to see significant results on the search engines and have readers subscribe to and read your blog, you have to be ready to hone-in on your writing skills and read-up on search engine optimization. The other key factor is allowing time for a blog to grow. Be patient with the steps it takes for more visitors to be drawn to your blog and the process of finding more and more topics of value and interest.

If you are thinking of beginning a legal blog, one of the first things you should ask yourself is, “What kind of message do I want to send to readers, fellow colleagues and even potential clients?” Similar to any blog, the drive behind setting up a legal blog is to encourage discussion pertaining to specific issues and provide relevant, helpful information for internet users.

Continue reading " Creating a Legal Blog Presence Overnight? " »