How does a lawyer effectively market his services online? In this video Eric Spellmann shows you the best practices used by a number of his customers in their goal of generating qualified prospects, strengthening their brand, and credentialing their attorneys.He explains the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), testimonials, and the power of Linked-In. If you don’t feel your online presence is truly reflective of your firm, watch this video!
Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice! Hey I am Eric Spellmann with Spellmann & Associates. And today we’re gonna be talking about Online Marketing for Lawyers. Now some of you must be saying “Eric I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a law firm. Why would i watch this?” There’s gonna be a lot of useful information in here that you can be applied to no matter what you do, so watch closely and see how you can use up some of these tips.
First of all what is Online Marketing? I have other videos on this subject but basically to keep it simple; it’s reaching your target prospects through online means. As many of you know we’re moving more and more of our advertising budgets no matter what business we’re in, into the online arena away from some of the other traditional advertising methods. So, online marketing might include Social Media, Blogs, Websites etc. It includes a lot of things. It’s not just a website.
What is your online goal? You’ve got to have an online goal. Before you ever pay anyone to do any kind of online marketing for you, you must know what you’re gonna get out of it. What is the point of all of this? What is your goal? One of your goals may be Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In other words, you wanna come up better when people do a search for law firms in your city, or for your specific type of law firm practice.
There’s different ways to come up. And as you can see in Google, coming up really depends on what you type in. So rule number 1 is to figure out what are your customers typing in? What are your prospects typing in that you definitely want to come up on? It’s not what you think they’re typing in, it’s what they’re actually typing in. So it might help you to actually go out there and ask them “Hey if you were looking for what i do and you didn’t know the name of my firm. What would you type into Google?”
Credentialing is another big piece. And this is where we go in and give yourself a props sort of speak, but its professional props. In other words, people want to know what you’re doing. People want to hire a lawyer that has his stuff together, that has done this before and that is on a winning team. Credentialing is key and in fact on a law website credentialing is HUGE! You want to make sure that those pages that give you credentials are really well established and emphasized.
And generating qualified leads is big also. You want a website that when people go to it and look at it, they’re actually gonna get leads from it. So keep in mind that all of these are good goals to have. They don’t have to be in any particular order, but you do need to have a goal at least.
Let’s talk about Search Engine Optimization for a second. Understand how Google ranks. Remember there is actually a mathematical formula on how Google ranks one site over the other. And some people tell me that Google uses over 150 different criteria when ranking one site over another. None of us know what all that criteria is. It’s kind of top secret!
We figured out what some of it is, simply by testing. But keep in mind Google changes this all the time. So, don’t let anyone tell you they can guarantee you number 1 spot on Google, because they can’t. And that’s because no one except for a few people at Google know the actual mathematical equation on how one site is ranked above another.
Now there are a lot of things that Google does use we know about, for instance content. Google loves content. In other words, unique content that they won’t find anywhere else. We discovered that the more content your website has on a particular subject, the more likely Google is to rank you above everybody else. And those sites that have a lot of unique content do better than those sites that have none. Also keep in mind that it must be unique. And I’ve said this before.
It can’t be anywhere else. Some of you may want to just copy and paste from an association website or from someone else’s blog. Don’t do that! Because only the first people to create that content and have it out there get SEO credit from Google. Everyone else gets nothing. Google wants unique content. So whether you have to pay someone to write it or write it yourself, make sure that it’s out there.
Also, Google looks at how frequently you update your site. If it’s like a billboard and it’s only updated once every 6 months when someone changes, Google is gonna note that. But if your website is changing every week with maybe a new blog or a new article or something, Google is gonna notice that too. And it’s gonna consider your site more relevant. And therefore it will rank higher.
Look at the number of inbound links. And what I mean by that is how many other websites are linking to you? There’s easy ways to do that and I’ve shown you on previous videos how to do that. But basically websites that are considered highly relevant themselves in Google, when they link to you, pass on that relevance to you. And so if there are websites where you can actually ask them “Hey would you link to us for this?” Google will see that and it will up your SEO score.
Credentialing is huge with law firms. In fact it’s almost just with law firms. My company makes websites for a lot of different industries but in the case of law firms, we found that credentialing seems to be the biggest goal of most legal websites.
Rule number 1 when i talk to my clients who are lawyers is to go update your LinkedIn account. Yeah I know some of you must be going “What? LinkedIn. Isn’t that the business Facebook?” Yes! But it’s also where a lot of the lawyers are checked out. Also keep in mind that Google puts a lot of relevance on LinkedIn.
So if you put all your practice areas in LinkedIn and maybe some of the articles you’ve written in LinkedIn, Google will see that. And I’ve actually seen situations where an attorney’s LinkedIn profile ranks above their website. Heck i don’t care as long as they come up. So, don’t ignore LinkedIn. Go fill it out completely. Put all your information in there and then update it as you write more papers.
Your website profile. Every website of a law firm needs to have a section where the basic information or bio of each attorney is listed. I prefer to give each one on their page, that way Google can find it easier. And a lot of times these pages will pull up. Keep in mind when people are searching for a lawyer many times they are actually searching for the name of the lawyer and not the law firm. And so by having separate pages for each attorney indexed well for their name, many times this will come up first.
Generating leads is one of the biggest parts of a law firm’s website. You want people to call you and say “Hey i was on your website. What can you do for me?” Before anyone ever contacts you, you’ve got to lower something called the trust barrier. The trust barrier is what keeps people from contacting you. It’s kind of like you’re assumed guilty until proven innocent. Think about it. Every time you go to a website, do you immediately pick up the phone and call them?
No. You scan it, you read it, you try to figure out if they’re gonna be able to meet your needs and then and only then you might pick up the phone and call em. Well the same is true with your website Mr. Lawyer. They’re gonna go to your site and try to figure it out whether you can help them or not before they ever call you. Some of the things you can have to lower the trust barrier so that more of those people will call you are Testimonials. Everyone knows you’re gonna praise yourself and say you’re the best things in slice bread. But when they see someone else saying that Mr. Joe Bob Attorney helped me and i highly recommend him. That’s huge! That’s a third party objective opinion.
So on most legal websites i recommend that there be testimonials somehow embedded somewhere. Sometimes i sprinkle them on every single page so that it’s reinforcing whats on that page. I prefer to put testimonials having to do with particular practice areas on those practice area pages so that people say Hey they do have a winning experience in this particular area.
Videos are also huge. And I’ve seen huge success with them myself as you can well imagine. But in a law firm you can make a video about anything like How to avoid this or How to do this etc. One of the reasons i like videos is not because you’re actually just giving content. You’re showing your personality. Remember this. People connect with people, not businesses.
When someone does business with you, they’re connecting with you as a person, not the business. And so one of the key criteria in choosing a lawyer is someone that you connect with, someone you can feel you can communicate with. And when you produce a video and they can watch it, you’ve actually made it much easier for them to connect with you. That’s how you measure the success of online marketing, especially for lawyers.So videos are huge. I’ve seen some law firms that incorporate videos; especially video introductions by the lawyers do 2-3 times as much business as law firms who simply have a lot of text.
Keep in mind you can offer the trade. And if you don’t know what the trade is, i have a whole video just on it. Go watch it on videos. But basically no one will give you their personal information until you give em something in return. So, think about what’s the trade gonna be on your website. Whether it’s gonna be information that helps them or whether it’s something that has a cash value. Either way, you’re giving them a reason to contact you and get that meeting.
There’s a lot of mistakes people make when building a website, especially a legal website. Number 1 is unfortunately a lot of people create an ego site. You’ve seen em before where they’re standing up there with their arms crossed and looking really strong.
Unfortunately I’ve seen some legal websites that are created simply so that the lawyer can show his golf buddies that he has a website. I don’t think that’s the best reason. You want a website that speaks to your potential customers. Keep in mind why do most people need a lawyer? It’s because they’re in trouble or they don’t want to get in trouble. And so your website needs to speak to that. It doesn’t need to be a big Hollywood picture of you.
Also one of the big mistakes I’ve seen is a lot of legal websites; the lawyers measure their success on their website simply by the amount of traffic going to it. Keep in mind, i could send millions of people to your website but if none of them turned into customers, what was the point? The key is not traffic; the key is what we call conversions. The key is qualified leads. How many people actually called you up and you were able to turn them into customers after talking to them. Remember, your goal is not traffic. Your goal is customers.
No mobile site. Remember a lot of peoples’ only Internet experience is on their smart phone. Many of em don’t have computers or they might be in their cars and won’t have access to one. So a lot of times they will pull up their smart phone and Google you. And whatever comes up, is what comes up! If all you have is an actual website that looks good on a computer, then keep in mind someone with a smart phone will have to wait for a while before it even loads up.
Or, they’ll have to expand it again and again and zoom and pan all around to even read anything on it. What i like to do for my customers is to give them their own mobile website. That looks really good with big thumb sized buttons. It automatically detects if they’re coming up on a smart phone and gives the basic information. It also comes up quick. Because you never know someone may have a very slow phone and you want your website to come up quick.
Well as always if you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. I am Eric Spellmann; I’ll see you in cyberspace.
First of all what is Online Marketing? I have other videos on this subject but basically to keep it simple; it’s reaching your target prospects through online means. As many of you know we’re moving more and more of our advertising budgets no matter what business we’re in, into the online arena away from some of the other traditional advertising methods. So, online marketing might include Social Media, Blogs, Websites etc. It includes a lot of things. It’s not just a website.
What is your online goal? You’ve got to have an online goal. Before you ever pay anyone to do any kind of online marketing for you, you must know what you’re gonna get out of it. What is the point of all of this? What is your goal? One of your goals may be Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In other words, you wanna come up better when people do a search for law firms in your city, or for your specific type of law firm practice.
There’s different ways to come up. And as you can see in Google, coming up really depends on what you type in. So rule number 1 is to figure out what are your customers typing in? What are your prospects typing in that you definitely want to come up on? It’s not what you think they’re typing in, it’s what they’re actually typing in. So it might help you to actually go out there and ask them “Hey if you were looking for what i do and you didn’t know the name of my firm. What would you type into Google?”
Credentialing is another big piece. And this is where we go in and give yourself a props sort of speak, but its professional props. In other words, people want to know what you’re doing. People want to hire a lawyer that has his stuff together, that has done this before and that is on a winning team. Credentialing is key and in fact on a law website credentialing is HUGE! You want to make sure that those pages that give you credentials are really well established and emphasized.
And generating qualified leads is big also. You want a website that when people go to it and look at it, they’re actually gonna get leads from it. So keep in mind that all of these are good goals to have. They don’t have to be in any particular order, but you do need to have a goal at least.
Let’s talk about Search Engine Optimization for a second. Understand how Google ranks. Remember there is actually a mathematical formula on how Google ranks one site over the other. And some people tell me that Google uses over 150 different criteria when ranking one site over another. None of us know what all that criteria is. It’s kind of top secret!
We figured out what some of it is, simply by testing. But keep in mind Google changes this all the time. So, don’t let anyone tell you they can guarantee you number 1 spot on Google, because they can’t. And that’s because no one except for a few people at Google know the actual mathematical equation on how one site is ranked above another.
Now there are a lot of things that Google does use we know about, for instance content. Google loves content. In other words, unique content that they won’t find anywhere else. We discovered that the more content your website has on a particular subject, the more likely Google is to rank you above everybody else. And those sites that have a lot of unique content do better than those sites that have none. Also keep in mind that it must be unique. And I’ve said this before.
It can’t be anywhere else. Some of you may want to just copy and paste from an association website or from someone else’s blog. Don’t do that! Because only the first people to create that content and have it out there get SEO credit from Google. Everyone else gets nothing. Google wants unique content. So whether you have to pay someone to write it or write it yourself, make sure that it’s out there.
Also, Google looks at how frequently you update your site. If it’s like a billboard and it’s only updated once every 6 months when someone changes, Google is gonna note that. But if your website is changing every week with maybe a new blog or a new article or something, Google is gonna notice that too. And it’s gonna consider your site more relevant. And therefore it will rank higher.
Look at the number of inbound links. And what I mean by that is how many other websites are linking to you? There’s easy ways to do that and I’ve shown you on previous videos how to do that. But basically websites that are considered highly relevant themselves in Google, when they link to you, pass on that relevance to you. And so if there are websites where you can actually ask them “Hey would you link to us for this?” Google will see that and it will up your SEO score.
Credentialing is huge with law firms. In fact it’s almost just with law firms. My company makes websites for a lot of different industries but in the case of law firms, we found that credentialing seems to be the biggest goal of most legal websites.
Rule number 1 when i talk to my clients who are lawyers is to go update your LinkedIn account. Yeah I know some of you must be going “What? LinkedIn. Isn’t that the business Facebook?” Yes! But it’s also where a lot of the lawyers are checked out. Also keep in mind that Google puts a lot of relevance on LinkedIn.
So if you put all your practice areas in LinkedIn and maybe some of the articles you’ve written in LinkedIn, Google will see that. And I’ve actually seen situations where an attorney’s LinkedIn profile ranks above their website. Heck i don’t care as long as they come up. So, don’t ignore LinkedIn. Go fill it out completely. Put all your information in there and then update it as you write more papers.
Your website profile. Every website of a law firm needs to have a section where the basic information or bio of each attorney is listed. I prefer to give each one on their page, that way Google can find it easier. And a lot of times these pages will pull up. Keep in mind when people are searching for a lawyer many times they are actually searching for the name of the lawyer and not the law firm. And so by having separate pages for each attorney indexed well for their name, many times this will come up first.
Generating leads is one of the biggest parts of a law firm’s website. You want people to call you and say “Hey i was on your website. What can you do for me?” Before anyone ever contacts you, you’ve got to lower something called the trust barrier. The trust barrier is what keeps people from contacting you. It’s kind of like you’re assumed guilty until proven innocent. Think about it. Every time you go to a website, do you immediately pick up the phone and call them?
No. You scan it, you read it, you try to figure out if they’re gonna be able to meet your needs and then and only then you might pick up the phone and call em. Well the same is true with your website Mr. Lawyer. They’re gonna go to your site and try to figure it out whether you can help them or not before they ever call you. Some of the things you can have to lower the trust barrier so that more of those people will call you are Testimonials. Everyone knows you’re gonna praise yourself and say you’re the best things in slice bread. But when they see someone else saying that Mr. Joe Bob Attorney helped me and i highly recommend him. That’s huge! That’s a third party objective opinion.
So on most legal websites i recommend that there be testimonials somehow embedded somewhere. Sometimes i sprinkle them on every single page so that it’s reinforcing whats on that page. I prefer to put testimonials having to do with particular practice areas on those practice area pages so that people say Hey they do have a winning experience in this particular area.
Videos are also huge. And I’ve seen huge success with them myself as you can well imagine. But in a law firm you can make a video about anything like How to avoid this or How to do this etc. One of the reasons i like videos is not because you’re actually just giving content. You’re showing your personality. Remember this. People connect with people, not businesses.
When someone does business with you, they’re connecting with you as a person, not the business. And so one of the key criteria in choosing a lawyer is someone that you connect with, someone you can feel you can communicate with. And when you produce a video and they can watch it, you’ve actually made it much easier for them to connect with you. That’s how you measure the success of online marketing, especially for lawyers.So videos are huge. I’ve seen some law firms that incorporate videos; especially video introductions by the lawyers do 2-3 times as much business as law firms who simply have a lot of text.
Keep in mind you can offer the trade. And if you don’t know what the trade is, i have a whole video just on it. Go watch it on videos. But basically no one will give you their personal information until you give em something in return. So, think about what’s the trade gonna be on your website. Whether it’s gonna be information that helps them or whether it’s something that has a cash value. Either way, you’re giving them a reason to contact you and get that meeting.
There’s a lot of mistakes people make when building a website, especially a legal website. Number 1 is unfortunately a lot of people create an ego site. You’ve seen em before where they’re standing up there with their arms crossed and looking really strong.
Unfortunately I’ve seen some legal websites that are created simply so that the lawyer can show his golf buddies that he has a website. I don’t think that’s the best reason. You want a website that speaks to your potential customers. Keep in mind why do most people need a lawyer? It’s because they’re in trouble or they don’t want to get in trouble. And so your website needs to speak to that. It doesn’t need to be a big Hollywood picture of you.
Also one of the big mistakes I’ve seen is a lot of legal websites; the lawyers measure their success on their website simply by the amount of traffic going to it. Keep in mind, i could send millions of people to your website but if none of them turned into customers, what was the point? The key is not traffic; the key is what we call conversions. The key is qualified leads. How many people actually called you up and you were able to turn them into customers after talking to them. Remember, your goal is not traffic. Your goal is customers.
No mobile site. Remember a lot of peoples’ only Internet experience is on their smart phone. Many of em don’t have computers or they might be in their cars and won’t have access to one. So a lot of times they will pull up their smart phone and Google you. And whatever comes up, is what comes up! If all you have is an actual website that looks good on a computer, then keep in mind someone with a smart phone will have to wait for a while before it even loads up.
Or, they’ll have to expand it again and again and zoom and pan all around to even read anything on it. What i like to do for my customers is to give them their own mobile website. That looks really good with big thumb sized buttons. It automatically detects if they’re coming up on a smart phone and gives the basic information. It also comes up quick. Because you never know someone may have a very slow phone and you want your website to come up quick.
Well as always if you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. I am Eric Spellmann; I’ll see you in cyberspace.
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