Create a Professional and SEO-Optimized Website
Starting your own law firm is a big step and you need to consider how you’ll promote yourself and find clients. There are many ways to attract clients, such as referrals, advertising, and old-fashioned networking. However, when you’re just starting out, a website is one of your best tools to tell the world about your practice. Let’s look at some of the most effective promotional practices for a new law firm, including how to optimize your website for the search engines.
Kick Start Your Law Firm With Local SEO
When people are searching for a lawyer, they are looking for someone nearby. You need to apply local SEO guidelines to make it easier for people in your area to find you.
- Make sure you have a Google My Business listing. This is a place where people can see your listing, find directions to your office using Google Maps, and see any reviews that former clients have posted. It’s important that all your information is accurate and up to date.
- In addition to Google, attorneys can list their practices with sites such as Nolo, Avvo, Lawyers.com, and others. Don’t forget Yelp, which also lists lawyers. You can also find other law firm directories in this Top Lawyer Directories for 2019 article.
- Use local keywords in all your content. It’s best to do this in a way that sounds natural rather than like an SEO gimmick. You don’t need to repeat keywords over and over. If you’re in Minneapolis, for example, include the city name on every page.
- Remember keywords that people might search for. In addition to your city name, mention your neighborhood, region, and any landmarks that are nearby. This is useful to let people know where you are and it helps with local SEO. Someone might search for “lawyer near City Hall,” for example.
- You can utilize SEO tools including SEMRush.com to research your competition, explore keyword friendly blog topics, and find the best backlinks and directories to get listed on.
Create a Page for Each Practice Area
No matter what type of law you practice, you probably handle at least a few different types of clients and cases. This is where you can start applying SEO tactics to your website. When people need a lawyer, they are dealing with a specific issue. When you make a separate page for each service, you’re making it easier for your potential clients to find you. For example, you might have pages with titles such as:
- DWI Lawyer
- Tax Lawyer
- Personal Injury Lawyer
- Divorce Lawyer
If you focus on a certain area, you could still create pages for the sub-categories people are likely to search for. For example, if your specialty is family law, you might create pages for divorce, custody arrangements, estates, and other issues.
Create a Blog and Keep It Active
Each page on your law website will help you attract clients. One way this occurs is by ranking for keywords, which will be in your page titles and the content on each page. You can greatly expand your site’s SEO by creating blog posts or articles on various topics. This will accomplish two important tasks.
It will help you establish your authority as an expert. You can write simple posts that provide guidance for people who might be in need of your services. There’s no need to actively promote yourself. In fact, it’s better if you focus on providing helpful information. Each blog post will also make your site stronger as Google will have more topics and keywords to index. Remember, the purpose of your blog should be to educate your website visitors, not sell them on your practice.
Build Social Proof With Review Collection
Online reviews and ratings are getting more important all the time. Many people want to see social proof before they try out any kind of new service. Some clients will leave reviews without being asked. However, you can accumulate more reviews by actively soliciting them. Contact past clients and ask if they’d be willing to leave a review on Google, Yelp, or your website. Include a link to your Google Map listing on your email signature is another great idea. You can use this Google Review Link Generator to easily create a link to your Google My Business listing.
Video reviews are especially valuable for your website. When you start getting reviews, you also have to monitor them carefully. In case someone leaves a negative or mixed review, be sure to respond promptly. In many cases, you can get customers to revise negative reviews by reaching out and doing what you can to fix the problem. You can utilize a company like ReelLawyers.com in Minneapolis, Minnesota for your law firms videos.
Share Your Expertise With the Community (both locally and online)
In addition to blogging, you can promote yourself by writing articles for other websites and to publish on third-party sites such as Medium and LinkedIn Pulse. You might also offer to write for local publications to get your name out there. If there are any free promotional publications in your area, offer to write a column for them. Even if you don’t get paid, it can be a powerful way to attract attention and position yourself as an expert.
You can also position yourself as an authority offline, in your local community. Giving live presentations is a powerful way to complement your online efforts. You might be able to give a lecture at a library. Create your own MeetUp and give a presentation. Perhaps you could give a course at the local community college. Creating an online course on a platform such as Udemy is another option.
Have a Clear and Compelling Call to Action
A call-to-action (CTA) is what turns website visitors and other prospects into clients. You need a persuasive CTA with every promotional strategy, including your website, social media, and ads (both online and offline) to convince busy and often distracted people to call or email you. For example, after you explain your services, you might end with a CTA such as “Call me today for a free consultation.” Keep in mind that many potential clients might be reluctant to call a lawyer out of fear of being billed for a consultation so making it clear that the initial conversation is free can help you land more calls.
You may also want to try NGageLive.com a chat service where you don’t have to chat with website visitors but this company will handle this for you. By having live chat, you can be assured you will convert a higher number of visitors into new clients.
Another great consideration for lawyers looking to accept credit card payments on their website is LawPay.com which handles all major credit card transactions for your clients.
Be Active on Social Media
In addition to your website, social media provides you with another effective way to connect with more clients. Here are some social media tips to keep in mind.
- Optimize your profiles. Make sure you describe your profession and the services you offer in all your social media profiles. This includes having a quality photo, your specialty, and the location where you practice.
- Stay in touch with any contacts related to your law career as well as your law school. Simply staying connected on Facebook and LinkedIn can be good for networking. Other attorneys can send you clients who are more suited to your practice. Contacts may think of you when they need an attorney.
- Create a Facebook page for your practice. Many people today use Facebook pages in a manner similar to websites. You should, of course, link to your website from your FB page. Post frequent updates, such as links to relevant articles.
- Experiment with features such as Stories and Facebook Live. You can often reach a wider audience using popular features such as Stories (which are on SnapChat, Instagram, and Facebook) and live streaming video. You might create short, informative videos or schedule Q & A sessions on Facebook Live.
Your Practice Will Grow Over Time
Many of the best strategies to promote your law firm take some time before you see consistent results. SEO, for example, is a cumulative and ongoing process if you want to rank highly in your area. The more reviews you have, the more people will contact you ahead of your competitors. Take action in each of these areas and you’ll see results. Of course, many attorneys are busy and don’t have time to learn all about SEO, web design, and social media.
The best solution to this challenge is to outsource these tasks to experts with experience at helping law firms grow. Mankato Web Design can help you create an attractive, professional, SEO-optimized website to help you attract clients. To learn more, contact us.
