Lawyers need regular marketing activities to increase awareness of their practice and grow a client base. Traditional marketing channels such as print media can be expensive while the obsolescence of the Yellow Pages has left a gap in law practice promotion.
Internet marketing techniques can help small law firms and solo practitioners compete with large and well-established offices by maintaining law firm websites that are designed and optimised for both search engines and potential clients. Law firm websites can communicate a desired image and reach a wide audience at affordable costs. The strategy involves a combination of web development, creating an ongoing supply written content for lawyers’ websites, integrating social media strategies and search engine optimization techniques.
Planning and design
Before creating a website, a law firm must define its Internet marketing goals. Practice areas or special fields of law are identified, and any locations in which the practice may which to target clients are determined.
Ideally, a firm with several fields of practice should devote separate blog categories for each type of practice. This achieves focus and niche targeting. For instance, a law firm can create and optimize a blog category about child custody for fathers and another on intellectual property protection. Blogs can be integrated with law firm websites as part of content development.
Keyword research
Keywords are phrases or terms which potential clients use to find an lawyer or firm on the Internet. When using the right keywords in written content, search engine rankings can be boosted, resulting in very targeted traffic to law firms’ websites. A great idea for website keywords is a combination of a practice area and geography such as “Melbourne criminal law barrister” and “Florida child custody”.
Content creation
A law firm website will have basic content such as About Page, Services description page, Contact page form, Articles, FAQs and Partner and Associate Profiles page. Additional pages will contain compelling and relevant information, incorporating keywords naturally. The key is to publish fresh, unique and interesting legal articles regularly to attract site visitors and search engines. Other types of content are videos, podcasts (audio files), infographics and webinars.
Social media integration
A social media presence in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can generate fresh leads, build trust among potential clients and promote inbound links to a website. Integrating social profiles and posting regular legal updates are essential.
Online marketing for law firm websites may seem complex to lawyers but in many situations, creating quality legal articles on a regular basis provides a good foundation for improving search rankings and attracting potential clients. Marketing legal services online requires time and resources, and the best approach is to choose a legal content writer for crafting legal articles, newsletters and other text content for law firm websites and legal blogs.
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