Category Archive:
Posted by Ryan Nelson on February 28, 2012 at 8:40 am
In a few recent studies, including one from the ABA about Social Media ROI, many law firms and attorneys are stating that they have seen positive ROI and attracted new business from the use of social media and blogging. The important numbers from the report, which surveyed 179 attorneys from law firms varying in size, show that:
- About 85% of attorneys are using social media in some form, and 70% are using a blog.
- 50% of firms have received leads from their blogs and/or social media.
- Over 40% received publicity and inquiries from journalists related to their blog.
Another study from Hubspot, which is a company that does SEO of all kinds, showed that:
- 57% of companies with a blog have gained at least one new customer from their blog, while an astounding 92% of companies who blog multiple times a day have received at least one lead.
- 77% of Business-to-Consumer companies have received at least one new customer from Facebook.
- 62% of companies using LinkedIn have gained one or more customers through the network.
While many law firms have used these networks and blogging platforms to help with law firm internet marketing by directing links and further traffic to their legal website design, we are now starting to see solid data showing that law firms are receiving direct leads through these platform.
As more consumers are spending more time on the internet and social media sites, they are often finding services they need through these sites, whether directly or indirectly.
Additional sources: www.therainmakerblog.com
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on January 4, 2012 at 11:07 am
Each year, a law firm’s online presence becomes more important, and having a solid online presence will continue to give added value to attorneys each year. If your firm does not have a good legal website design and legal practice marketing solutions, that needs to be your 2012 New Year’s resolution.
Here are 5 things you must do in 2012:
1. Design a website that focuses on user experience.
While Google’s exact algorithm is unknown and not published to the public, it is obvious what their goal is: To give search engine users the best experience possible and help them find what they are looking for. Creating a site with lots of relevant content (and coding it correctly for Google to index) is key to achieving rankings and driving traffic.
2. Set up a Google Places page and ask clients to write reviews.
Places pages help you get ranked for different keywords in your area. Make sure your page has images and describes accurately what you do, with ALL of your contact details. This can be the easiest and cheapest way to achieve a top-5 ranking, depending on your area, and can be done for about $300 by any attorney internet marketing company. Getting reviews and having images will create a good user experience and Google will reward your page for it. Send clients a newsletter that asks them to review you on the Places page.
3. Address Social Media – it’s not going away.
While Facebook and Twitter may not be your favorite sites to visit, they are for millions of people and potential clients. You must manage your reputation and create a brand on these pages. If nothing else, it reminds current clients that you are there if they need your help or one of their family/friends can use your services.
4. Start using video to market.
Video is a great tool and can be used a number of different ways: introductory videos, educational videos, news videos, etc. The latter two – especially educational videos – can be optimized and help you show up in search results. For example, if you are a criminal defense attorney and make a video on what to do when you get a DUI, Google will very likely put your video on the first page when searches related to that are made. Set up a YouTube channel that links to your site so people can contact you.
5. Consider Pay-Per-Click paid advertising.
Setting up a simple campaign and running it can be very affordable, and it allows you to compete with larger firms. Google is constantly doing promotions to give you up to $200 worth of clicks for free when you sign up. Depending on what you do, that can bring in over 100 visitors to your site, which generally means about 2-3 leads if you have a good, well-converting legal website design. Usually, the setup from a reputable company will be about $500-$1,000 and you can turn the campaign on or off depending on how busy you are.
For more information on these services and more law firm marketing solutions, Contact Us.
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on December 19, 2011 at 1:58 pm
At the end of the day, the most important–read: only–factor of a legal website design is whether it will convert visitors into leads. There are a number of factors to take into consideration when creating your legal website. Is it aesthetically appealing? Do the colors and overall design look professional? Does the layout call visitors to action?
Ultimately, the answers to these questions will determine whether your website will convert your potential clients that are looking at your site into visitors. Many web design firms have done studies to find out what converts the best, but it is still hard to know definitively if it will. Often, old or out-of-date sites will convert well, while the newest designs do not capture the attention of visitors and built trust for your firm.
Why? There are a number of factors, and many believe that often older sites convey to visitors a sense that the firm has been around for a long time and is trustworthy. At our legal practice marketing firm, we have a number of tools that we use to find out what is good about your site and what needs changing. We will use these tools to constantly refine your site for the highest conversion rate possible. One of these is called the Click Test.
Using the online program, we are given feedback by both machines and living, breathing people. The site will upload your website and monitor where people are clicking and what they are looking at. The visitors will then give honest feedback on what they think and how you can approve. The screenshot here shows the activity on one of our client’s sites, which helps us make crucial changes that will help capture visitors’ attention.
These tools are vital to a well converting website. The difference between a site that converts at 1% versus one that converts at 3-4% can make or break your legal practice marketing efforts.
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on November 28, 2011 at 4:41 pm
When you last performed a search on Google did you notice that several of the results where displayed on a corresponding map? If you simply attributed this to the genius of Google then you’ve ignored a powerful tool that can help gain your firm greater recognition.
Becoming registered in Google places can be a great proactive way of reaching millions of users quickly and for free. Searching for businesses online is now more common than any other method. This makes it evermore important for your firm to be found easily online. With Google places you can create a listing for your firm in just a few minutes with added extras such as photos, descriptions, videos, coupon offerings, and other details that will encourage potential clients to contact you. You can gain all of this exposure even if you don’t have a website and best of all its free. If you do have a website, Google places can help promote better organic ranking by adding Search Engine Optimization value.
Your firms listing is easy to edit and manage so you can make sure its details are current and correct. Through a simple verification process your firm can have its Google places listing up and running in just minutes. For help and advice on getting set up, contact our affiliate at Legal Web Experts about attorney website design and marketing.
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on November 3, 2011 at 11:50 am
Next week the ABA is holding their third legal marketing conference that will focus on how to market a law firm or solo attorney practice. The conference, titled the Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference, is the third in the series and has been dubbed R3, as the core points are reputation, referrals and rankings. These points will include advice on how to market your law firm, create an effective attorney website design, and increase your ROI through smart marketing spending.
The conference will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia and takes place this Tuesday, November 8th and Wednesday, November 9th. The ABA has brought on board a number of presenters, including keynote speaker Dan Hill, President of Sensory Logic, Inc., who will be discussing how to create a marketing message that conveys trust to potential clients. He is an expert in ‘facial coding’, and uses body language to measure the effectiveness of a message.
The other keynote speaker, Peter Shankman, is the Founder of Help a Reporter, a successful website that provides reporters with experts and helps experts promote their business through the press. His talk, titled “‘In Search of…Lawyers’ How the Internet Has Changed Everything,’” will focus on how networking has changed with the rise in popularity of social media, instant search, and online communication.
Here at Modern Legal Marketing, the talk we will be keeping close tabs on will be “ROI: Examining the Return on Investment for Business Development Spending” which will focus on how to plan on your marketing budget and where you should spend your money. Expected topics will be legal website design, Search Engine Optimization, and how to use Google Analytics to measure your online marketing campaign.
On Day 2, Steven Silverberg, Partner at Silverberg Zalantis, LLP, of White Plains, NY, will be moderating a talk on Social Media, which will focus on a more custom approach to this new aspect of marketing. The idea is that many firms will give you a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to using Social Media, but in reality, all firms and attorneys need a custom law firm social media plan that they are comfortable with and can realistically implement.
On a final note, if you are going to or will be following the conference, we recommend listening to Nick Gaffney’s talk on utilizing law firm video marketing. Video is becoming more common on the internet and it is a great medium to get your message across. Also included in this talk will be tricks for how small firms can stretch their marketing dollars creatively to compete with the larger firms.
The event is still open for registration. Visit www.lawpractice.org/marketingconference for details.
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on September 14, 2011 at 3:46 pm
We come across law firms with all sorts of budgets in our company, from as low as $100 per month up to thousands of dollars each month. Here are a few steps you can take based on your budget to help your site perform in the search engines.
Small Budget
$100-$500/mo
Consider having your site built in WordPress or another Content Management System (CMS). With a custom site, it will cost you a bit more up-front to program, but it is a one-time fee. Many legal web design companies have template solutions with a CMS that are more cost efficient than a custom site.
With a CMS, you can change and update content yourself. The most basic of internet-users can make site edits on a weekly or monthly basis to help improve content and make your site perform better. SEO plugins are available, and if you do a bit of research on how to use them properly, you should be able to improve rankings to some extent. Some companies may be able to work within this budget if your practice area is local and the competition low.
Medium Budget
$500-$3,000/mo
Here you can afford to hire a legal practice marketing company to do the work for you. Start with designing a well-optimized site and let the professionals do what they do best. The process is complicated and search engines choose their rankings based on more than 200 factors, but a good SEO company will know how to rank your site in relevant keywords that will generate leads.
Consider spending a portion of your budget on Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) paid advertising. This will bring you immediate traffic, while your organic, unpaid results will take more time.
Large Budget
$3,000+/mo.
At this stage, most SEO companies will be able to rank your site in numerous keywords and ones that have higher competition, such as national keywords. If you have $5,000 or more, many companies will assign a staff member (or hire a new one) to be dedicated mostly or entirely to your site.
Having a dedicated staff member means you will have multiple articles written about your firm each month that will generate awareness and drive links to your site. On top of that, you can likely afford to have your marketing company run a social media campaign, and they will make frequent on-page changes to your website to enhance its performance in search engines.
For a large budget, you should strongly consider spending some of it on forms of paid advertising, whether in Google’s ad network or across other sites.
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on September 8, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Following up from our last post on 3 social media myths for lawyers, here are 3 facts you show know about the topic…
1. It all comes back to the search engines.
You should be able to get your law firm’s Facebook, Twitter, blog, YouTube channel and/or LinkedIn account ranking in the search engines (at least for the firm’s name). A well-optimized law firm social media page will often rank higher than a firm’s website. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as your social media page has all the necessary information for potential clients and links back to your website. Google uses social sites for rankngs as well. In fact, it is explained well in this video:
2. Think of it as branding more than direct marketing.
Have everyone in the firm link their personal Facebook and LinkedIn account to your firm’s profile page. The person who was briefly introduced to you at a party and you became Facebook friends with? Well, now that person knows what you do and can contact or refer you to someone if they need your services.
3. Social media is one piece of the large online marketing puzzle.
Blogging, tweeting, and posting on Facebook can have huge benefits for your site. On facebook, wall posts on a fan page containing links to your site or blog have value in search engines and will be indexed by Google, Bing and Yahoo. Also, YouTube videos are a great way to give people a quick piece of advice and can often get you on page one quickly. For example, if you’re a DUI attorney in Cleveland, consider making a 1-2 minute video titled “What to do if you get a DUI in Cleveland.” When people search the term “dui attorney cleveland,” there’s a good chance they’ll choose to watch your short video over sifting through a few pages of information.
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on September 2, 2011 at 12:51 pm
1. Social media markets my practice using the same methods as my law firm website. 
Don’t think of a Facebook or LinkedIn page as a replacement to having a good legal website design and doing online marketing. Social media works differently than website marketing, but the two systems complement each other.
Traditional online advertising markets your firm by increasing web traffic, and tactics like SEO aim to boost visibility in the search engines. Other methods like branding and graphic design give your legal practice a unique identity and help ensure that clients remember you when they need your services. Social media for lawyers, however, allows you to directly interact with your clients. You’re able to post updates, answer comments and reviews, message them or start group chats, and keep in touch with them on a daily basis. Being active on social media websites allows you to reach out to clients over a medium that’s comfortable and familiar to them, and you’ll also be able to address any negative comments about your firm before they reach the rest of the online community. It’s essential to set up and maintain social media profiles to stay connected with your potential clients.
2. All I need to do is set up a profile page for my firm.
In order for your social media accounts to have any benefit for your firm, you need to keep them up-to-date. Keeping them current and active will help keep your followers interested. Put someone in the office in charge of posting articles or news about your firm on the sites 1-2 times a week (these posting guidelines don’t apply to LinkedIn).
3. Only kids and teenagers use social media; it’s not meant for anything serious.
If you think social media is simply a way for kids to keep up with their friends, it’s time to re-examine. On Facebook, 53% of users are over the age of 25; on LinkedIn, the average age of someone with a professional account is 41. It is also known that social media followers of a particular brand are more likely to purchase that product. Social media helps create buzz for your law firm as well as helping you to reach out to your clientele. Facebook and Twitter aren’t just for college kids anymore.
Check in next week for 3 FACTS about social media marketing for law firms
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on August 11, 2011 at 12:41 pm
CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)—About a week ago, Total Attorneys published its 2011 Small Law Firm Technology Report
. The report is based on online survey responses from 318 attorneys on topics such as case management systems, mobile devices, communication style, and remote access.
Figures show that case management systems are evolving; although 25% of the attorneys surveyed still manage their cases using hard copy files, about half of them manage their case files on computers. While the size of the firm doesn’t seem to affect these results, the seniority in legal practice does. In the survey, 83% of the attorneys that have been licensed for less than three years use digital case management systems while only 60% of “veterans” use this kind of case management system, which may include a Virtual Law Office, other Software-as-a-service (SaaS), and even legal website design. Furthermore, about 50% of the attorneys not relying on digital case management say it is very likely or possible that they will use it in the coming year. So, the attorneys who have been licensed from 4 to 10 years are more inclined to change their habits in the coming year.
As far as communication is concerned, 40% of the attorneys surveyed are using office telephones as their main tool, while email is more popular among new attorneys. Moreover, only 20% of attorneys use video conference to communicate with their clients, though many say they plan to start using this technology.
Now so more than ever, it is essential for attorneys to have remote access to their files, calendars and accounts, since about 30% of attorneys work outside the office and more than 54% report using mobile device to read or send business email.
Generally, the trend is to rely more on new technology for law practice management as we can see that a lot of attorneys starting to use more modern management styles such as remote access and less traditional tools such as fax machines or mail.
About Total Attorneys, L.L.C.
Total Attorneys delivers marketing, Software as a Service and industry-focused call center services to small law firms and solo attorneys through its powerful technology platform. The platform allows the company to accomplish its mission of improving lives through innovation in access and delivery of legal services. Total Attorneys was ranked in the top five on the Crain’s Chicago Fast Fifty lists for 2009 and 2010 and listed 169th and 219th on the 2008 and 2009 Inc. 5000 lists of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S.
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Posted by Ryan Nelson on July 18, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Updated 7/19/2011 – When we speak with lawyers in our business, which we do every day, we often hear complaints about the mounds of paper that add up in
the office. We also hear that communication is not what it ought to be between employees, clients, and even with judges. The new tablets on today’s market may be changing both of those things substantially.
When the iPad first came out in 2010, it was looked at mostly as a toy for gaming, watching movies, browsing the web and reading books. Now, thanks to its open platform for creating apps, there has been an explosion in useful utilities for business professionals and lawyers to use. Furthermore, with Google’s Android tablet platform, the price of tablets has dropped to where just about anyone can afford one. Google’s Android platform is also open source, so anyone with the programming knowledge of the platform can create a useful app. A recent ABA technology survey estimated that about 130,000 lawyers (or 13%) nationwide use an iPad.
As a legal website design firm, we are beginning to see the desire for attorneys not only to find useful apps for their firm, but also create their own to help out their practice or business. Tablets can not only be used with Virtual Law Offices to access client data, but also with other more conventional software like Microsoft Office. For presentations, attorneys can simply plug in their tablet to show an exhibit in PowerPoint.
Many larger firms are distributing tablets to their employees to allow better inter-firm communication as well as the ability to locate files from anywhere, even sometimes showing documents to judges from a tablet. Having this quick and easy access to such necessary documents in a courtroom is invaluable to those who are utilizing this technology now. Starting from as low as $100, there is no reason every firm does not have at least one tablet to try out in their office.
Two personal injury lawyers in Arizona, Marc Lamber and James Goodnow, give iPads to all of their personal injury clients. The iPads enable clients to contact them 24/7, take photos of accident scenes, videos of injuries, and exchange legal documents over dedicated email addresses.
We make websites in the medical industry as well, where we have seen tablets rise in popularity, even long before the iPad was spoken about. The issue thus far has been that they are cumbersome, slow, and use inefficient software like Windows, which was not made to run on a tablet PC. With Apple and Google’s newer platforms, those issues are resolved. The increase not only of tablets in doctors offices, but also apps to help physicians, has spiked in the past year and is not likely to stop. The great thing about open-source app development is that even if your device is older, you can get the newest apps to make your device better and more valuable to you than the day you bought it.
Bottom line: Go buy a tablet now, you won’t regret it. Our recommendations are the iPad 2 for Apple or the Samsung Galaxy Pad with Google Android.
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In a few recent studies, including one from the ABA about Social Media ROI, many law firms and attorneys are stating that they have seen positive ROI and attracted new business from the use of social media and blogging. The important numbers from the report, which surveyed 179 attorneys from law firms varying in size, show that:
