Legal Internet Marketing Blog

According to its website, "LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 70 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals." Viewed by most as an authoritative site for business professionals, lawyers can certainly join LinkedIn. In fact, they SHOULD join LinkedIn, especially if they want to establish themselves as authorities on subject matter pertinent to their law practice. How can this be accomplished? Simple - employ the same type of effective marketing techniques to your LinkedIn profile that you do in order to rank well in Google and other search engine web results. Still confused? Ultimately, it all comes down to optimization, search engine optimization, that is.

Keywords are essential in ranking well on LinkedIn. According to an article featured on computerworld.com, LinkedIn is essentially the same thing as Google, the primary difference being that you have to sometimes pay in order to rank well in Google, whereas LinkedIn is completely free (all you need is an email address). In addition, LinkedIn has the added benefit of being recognized as a self-promotion site for professionals, which means that it is a perfect forum for attorneys to establish themselves as credible sources of law knowledge. Factor in a question and answer section where LinkedIn members can ask for advice and/or guidance on a variety of issues, including a "Law and Legal" section, and attorneys have an opportunity to make themselves stand out in the legal world. Remember, LinkedIn is a public search directory, meaning that profiles and even Q&A topics will show up not only in LinkedIn search results, but outside search engine web results (e.g. Google) as well.

The key to any marketing strategy should be exposure. Getting your message out there, establishing yourself as a person who knows what they're talking about, and interacting with clients in a more personalized manner than a personal website can allow are all sure fire ways of establishing credibility and ultimately increasing your number of clients. After all, people nowadays rely heavily on self research, most of which is conducted on the Internet. If it comes down to your law firm, which has little to no presence on the Internet, a second law firm that has a fancy website, but little else, or a third law firm that not only has a website, but also has established itself as an authority on law in the social realm, interacting with potential clients and demonstrating its expertise on an array of legal topics, which law firm do you think an Internet user is going to be more inclined to find out more information about?

With an effective marketing plan, which includes a presence on social networking sites such as LinkedIn, you can rest assured that your law firm will be the one that potential clients will gravitate towards on the Internet. According to the article, LinkedIn profiles can be optimized if you simply remember to generate pertinent keywords and learn how to effectively meld those keywords together with your profile. Good luck!

On the Internet, there are numerous ways for us to establish our identities. Regardless of how we do it, our end goal is to provide others with information about ourselves that gives them information about who we are. Establishing one's brand is an entirely different matter. Specifically, one's brand isn't who we are, but what we represent, how we represent it, and is ultimately dependant on how we market it. Now, while these explanations may seem vague, further examination reveals more precisely how brand and identity are different and how each are intertwined.

Pretend your name is John Smith, and you own a bakery. You log onto social networking sites, provide those sites with your name, place of employment, and a brief description about your company. This is your identity, plain and simple. Now let's say you create a blog talking about your bakery, you Tweet about product specials, and you interact with customers on a more one-on-one level via social networking sites like Facebook. Here, you are promoting your brand, essentially giving customers and clients further insight into what your company is about via marketing your business. See the difference? Effectively marketing oneself on social networks isn't simply about being there (having an identity), it's about establishing yourself as an authority, showing customers and potential clients that you can be a trusted source of information, and that you are more than a business store front that is simply trying to secure profit. At the most basic level, our brands show others what we care about, and help them connect with us on a more interactive level.

According to a recent mashable.com article, companies whose CEOs have an established identity on social networking platforms tend to experience more tangible, real world results via sales than those companies whose CEOs do not have such a presence. Higher levels of satisfaction, user endorsement, and recommendation are all cited in the article. For law firms, such positive results can be obtained by not only establishing a presence/identity on the Internet, but also implementing an effective marketing campaign that promotes your brand (law practice). Furthermore, establishing your law firm as an authority on specific subject matters is essential in encouraging potential clients to turn to you for legal assistance if they need it.

Nowadays, it is important to remember that the vast majority of people like to fact check before they enter into any sort of business arrangement. Whether it's consumers scouring the web for product reviews before they buy a television, or typing a law firm's name into Google in the hope of learning more about that firm, consumers are now prone to gathering as much information as possible about a product or service before they actually use it. Therefore, for attorneys and law firms who want to effectively market their businesses, the best course of action in any marketing plan should always involve establishing not only an identity on the Internet, but a brand as well. While it may seem unconventional to spend resources on social networking, it is important to remember that most consumers are on these sites, interacting with one another, talking about products and services that they have found especially useful, and providing law firms and other companies with unsolicited advertising. Now doesn't it make sense for a law firm to be right there next to the consumer? You never know...an established legal web presence may mean the difference between one client choosing your firm over another, which is a risk that can easily be avoided by establishing not only one’s online identity, but also one’s online brand.

Regardless of which search engine you use, chances are you refer to the actual action of searching as "googling" something. The word "Google" (used as a verb) has entered the lexicon of speech as a reference to searching for something online. Similarly, when "social networking" comes to mind, Facebook is generally going to be one of the first sites that you think of. In their respective fields, both Google and Facebook are leaders amongst their competition. As a result, it may be easy to assume that both companies are content: one company being the king of search, while the other is tops in the social realm. But Google and Facebook are locked in battle, seeking to stake out a claim in the other's respective field, and neither seems willing to concede defeat at this point.

According to an article on mashable.com, the question of whether or not Facebook is becoming bigger than Google is being debated, particularly since Internet users are now tending to use social networking sites more often than they do search engines. In fact, in March of this year, Facebook actually overtook Google in terms of overall web traffic in the United States. Statistically speaking, this recent victory for Facebook was relatively inevitable. That is, given the more static growth of search engine use versus the ever (steeply) increasing use of social networking sites, a close on the traffic gap was bound to eventually happen. However, neither Internet giant seems content with their place on the Internet, which could spell increased exposure for law firms and other businesses that market themselves using these two Internet sources.

Facebook, in partnering with Microsoft's Bing, has ventured into the world of search, currently ruled by Google. Likewise, Google, in hoping to secure some of Facebook's users, has entered into the social networking realm with its own such service known as Google Buzz, connected to Google's ever popular Gmail service. Interestingly enough, both companies are essentially in the same place when it comes to growth in their new ventures: Google Buzz has generated little if any buzz, and Facebook search is hardly a rival for the search behemoth known as Google. However, the fact that each company is attempting to secure market share from the other is an interesting notion, particularly when you take marketing businesses, such as law firms, into account.

At this point, marketing your brand on Google is still a must, and having a presence on Facebook is becoming more and more mainstay as the Internet, according to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, becomes a more social place where people want to interact with one another and share ideas. With Facebook and Google both venturing into each other's respective fields, this simply adds two more places where companies would be wise to establish a presence: Google Buzz and Facebook Search/Bing. Now, those two places may not be terribly beneficial at the moment, but the Internet is an unpredictable place, and new developments are changing the face of search and social networking every day. Had you asked someone a few years ago whether or not Facebook would eventually experience more web traffic than Google, even a less tech savvy person would have probably said you were crazy. Similarly, had someone told you that Google would soon create its own social network, you may have laughed it off as nothing more than a fad that would hardly be able to challenge Facebook for web supremacy.

Ultimately, by keeping tabs on the latest trends in social networking and search, businesses such as law firms should be able to adapt their legal internet marketing strategies accordingly. Law firms are able to maintain a web presence not only on the Internet's hot spots of today, but also on the sites of tomorrow that may eventually gain market share and supplant the current industry leaders.

Regardless of what happens, it's important to be prepared for anything. As the battle for the Internet ensues, law firms would be wise to keep up on the latest trends, especially given the latest speculation presented in the article. That is, according to mashable.com, "…while social networks such as Facebook don’t pose an immediate threat to search engines for their core functionality — organizing the web and helping people find content — they do pose a large threat to search engines’ largest revenue source - advertising." The topic of advertising revenue is a topic for another day though.

The growth and upkeep of any legal internet marketing plan requires continuous effort. Simply having a website is not enough, but it is definitely a start! Even after your website has been created, the work is not over. One way to make sure that your search engine rankings continue to grow is to add new content to your website. However, adding fresh material to your website is a balancing act in and of itself, requiring more than just putting the content up on the site.

Think of your website as a garden. If you leave it unattended for too long, what happens? Plants start to wilt and weeds begin to take over. Don’t allow all of your hard work in developing a website go to waste. Instead, make the effort to add new content – but not just any content. Search engines respond to relevant keyword-rich, but not over-stocked, content that is fluid and has accurate optimization.

By creating a website with pertinent content, you’ve developed a foundation, planted the seeds. Now it’s time to tend to the site in a way that supplies it with intentional, well thought-out content updates. When you add new content to your website, you should think about what material will be the most informative for your target audience. Why are visitors coming to your legal website? They need help and you must provide them with the valuable resources and guidance that they need to get them started.

It is important to point out that your “old” content is still valuable. When adding new content to your website, you are not getting rid of the foundation you’ve worked so hard to establish. These older pages have been indexed by the search engines and have contributed to your Internet presence. This is why these pages should not be removed. Re-writing some of these pages or adding new content and optimization to them will provide more up-to-date information (new legislation, statistics, government reports, firm announcements, etc.) that the search engines will pick-up on. You can also create new pages and link them to/from older pages as resource centers to provide more details about the areas of law in which you and/or your firm practices. Remember, though, that adding new content to your existing website is something that must be done with precision. Rushing through this process has the same effect as overwatering plants or putting too many flowers in one bed.

Adding new content with effective legal SEO to your website will help these pages get indexed by the search engines, thus enhancing your website’s rankings by driving more traffic and getting your firm recognized for certain terms. If you think that your website contains all of the material that it possibly can, then it’s time to get creative. While no website should be jam-packed with pages in a careless, hurried fashion, a new web page can give your legal Internet marketing some momentum.

If you went around asking people what Twitter is, some of them would probably be unable to answer. Others might say something along the lines of, "It's like a status update," or, "It's where you can post links for people to see." However, what many people do not realize is that Twitter can be used, quite effectively, to market one's law firm or business.

While it is true that Twitter is nothing more than a 140-character blurb about a particular topic, the power of those 140 characters often goes untapped.

The best way of thinking of Twitter, just like all social media, is that users on Twitter are like guests at a party. Everyone is mingling together, discussing a variety of topics, absorbing what people say, and then in turn repeating to other people what they've just heard. Guests at a party want to be themselves, but simultaneously want to be interesting. Guests want to be heard, and engage in conversations about topics that they have some knowledge of. Or, guests want to hover around a particular person because that person is an authority on a particular topic that is interesting. Simply put, when at parties, guests are essentially marketing themselves so that others will engage with them. How does this analogy translate into marketing a law firm or business? Well, as an authority in his or her respective field, an attorney or business owner has an opportunity on Twitter to engage potential clients with their expertise, while at the same time establishing a connection with those clients that may ultimately prove profitable.

First and foremost, it is important to remember that Twitter users want to be engaged, typically because they're interested in a particular topic. However, Twitter users don't want to connect with just anyone. That is, one of the most important aspects of engaging an audience is enabling that audience to connect with you on a one-on-one level. If you, as an attorney or business owner, are constantly tweeting about your firm or services, yet failing to interact with your audience on a less business-like level, then your audience is going to grow increasingly bored and seek out someone else who is not only informed, but interesting as well.

Therefore, the second thing to remember when appealing to potential clients via Twitter is that people want to follow tweets of someone who is a real person - not simply some entity in cyberspace who tweets links and nothing more. Get your message across. Be interesting! Word-of-mouth will undoubtedly help spread whatever message you are trying to get out.

That's it! Just two steps to follow and you're done. How you choose to involve your audience is the important thing though, as well as the legal Internet marketing strategy that you set out to apply (both of which will take a considerable amount of thought and effort in order to be successfully utilized). While some strategies are certainly more effective than others, there are relatively sure-fire ways to ensure, at the very least, that your Internet marketing message is being delivered to potential clients. Whether those potential clients choose to engage your message is another matter entirely, but can certainly be accomplished using an intelligent legal marketing campaign that gets to the heart of what customers want and does so in an interesting manner. So tweet away! But remember, no one likes party guests who talk and talk and never really listen to what others truly want ;)