Grow Your Law Firm With Proven Strategies That Increase Leads And Clientele

What is Today’s Path To Law Practice Profitability?

It is effective law firm marketing, better known now as, “law firm digital marketing” or “internet marketing for attorneys.”

Successful law firm marketing involves properly branding and placing a trusted, known and respected law firm in front of new and existing clients. Also, a well perceived firm will attract new talent to call their office.

Online (digital) marketing leads your visitors through a well-developed buyer’s funnel that interests and engages them deeper into your information and converts them into an action that you preplanned known as a Call To Action).

The content must be written so it is interesting and relevant to the specific audience that seeks your service. The higher the quality and more relevant the content, the more engaging it will be. It will also outperform your competitors for that client and rank higher in the search engines.

Vanguard Legal Marketing Uses Proven Marketing Systems for Attorney Law Firm Practices

Who is This Marketing Information For?

• Vanguard Legal Marketing focuses on growing multi-partner law firms and solo practitioner attorneys.
• Firms that have the passion and idea to grow their law practice to higher levels of profitability.
• Vanguard Legal Marketing has a fully developed blueprint, tried and tested, for several areas of law.

We focus on attorneys in the following areas of practice:

• Criminal Defense Attorneys

We Can Help Your Firm with Online Marketing Using Effective Proven Systems and Strategies

The goal for our law firm client’s is to develop and attain new leads through powerful and proven;

• SEO strategies
• Website design and sales funnel creation
• Lead generation systems
• Brand building with public relations strategies including social media and press releases
• Content creation and curation
• Reputation management and development
• Local directory development
• Media creation with video, photos graphics, and podcasting
• Online paid advertising services
• Email marketing services
• Analytics and reporting services 

Two Important Questions Attorneys Are Asking:

• “How do we get new clients for our law firm?”

And…

• “How can we get new and better talent to work in our law office?”

Almost a decade ago, the legal field became over-saturated with attorneys.

Currently, most law firms are still experiencing the very same glut of attorneys. Based on the law of supply and demand, this makes it harder for firms with two critical areas for growth and stability:

• To acquire a continual stream of new clients.
• Competition makes it harder to hire the right talent to work the law cases.

This is why most law practices are looking for better ways to obtain more clients and hire the best new attorneys for the firm.

Vanguard Legal Marketing is The Solution
For Law Firm Online Marketing
888-418-5540

How to Market a Law Firm in 2020

Marketing for law firms was easier years ago when search engines were not as advanced as they are today. Algorithms are far different than a few short years ago.

In the early days of the internet, attorneys still worked mostly from referrals and used traditional marketing strategies. It consisted of the Yellow Pages and other print ads, billboards, TV commercials and other mail pieces. They always seemed to have the same repetitious direct message stating;

“If were YOU were unfairly injured and want to be compensated, call us now!”

Today’s Marketing Message is Very Different!

Since the public now spends at least on the average 8 hours online a day, they are looking for legal services on their devices. A whopping 97% of them now search on Google rather than look at print advertising.  The old print ads don’t give the analytics that online search can which is now a huge advantage for law firms to track and measure where the viewers are coming from or what kind of person is viewing the information.

Statistics show that 70% of them would rather get their questions answered about your law firm through online articles and reviews rather than ads, and most of their research is done on a mobile device.

Putting all of this information together brings us to ten critical marketing facts and strategies for attorneys that help law firms attract new clients as well as truly dominate competing law firms.

Eleven Legal Marketing Pillars That Will Build Your Law Firm Now

1. Develop a following through clear and consistent posting of high- quality content on social media platforms and blogs directly to the right audience. 
2. Be consistent with content and new prospects will know when to look for your information. This holds true for posting blogs, posting social media, creating YouTube videos or podcasts. 
3. Build relationships and engage every visitor with quality information. 
4. Turn your law firm’s website into a professional, engaging 24/7 sales tool. 
5. Invest in attorney SEO. 
6. Publish only Quality Content. 
7. Use online advertising consistent with your audience using platforms like YouTube Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads. 
8. Utilize video to convey your message and allow your audience to recognize your expertise and knowledge, deeming you as an authority. 
9. Manage your reputation and engage with any comments, positive or negative. 
10. Dominate Your Competitors on every level, online. 
11. Track, measure, and analyze every campaign and platform.

It is likely that your competitors are not fully utilizing each of these foundational pillars. If your firm follows through with each of these, it is highly likely your firm will out rank your competitors and increase your business dramatically.

Build your practice to the higher level you choose. You have the choice.

We Can Help Your Law Firm with Online Marketing Using Effective Proven Systems and Strategies

Here is an explanation of the 11 marketing pillars cited above;

1. Develop a following through clear and consistent posting of high-quality content on social media platforms and blogs directly to the right audience. 

Search engine algorithms have gotten smarter and much more advanced. Google has become the dominant search engine based on its goal of giving the searcher the best user experience (UX) available by delivering content that best focuses on the most relevant information from the search queries.

High quality content on many platforms such as blogs and social media enable the searcher to answer a question or solve a problem. Your law firm must have a clear and consistent posting of excellent relevant content on highly visible platforms where potential and existing clients are continually viewing.

Law Firms Need A Strong Presence on Social Media

Should your law firm utilize a Facebook page?

Absolutely. The reason is because 95% of millennials expect to see brands on Facebook. It is the Gen X’ers as well, with 87% of them thinking that every brand needs a Facebook page. 

Having a Facebook page brings a “face” of the business to the forefront and shows the law firm’s personality and integrity. It allows people to see what is behind the curtain.

The Facebook page can lighten up the reputation of a frightening persona of 3-piece suits and huge costs.  Social media can show people that you care and past successes.

You can prove that potential clients need you and they can understand and identify with your firm. You can prove you are human and can truly help them.

What is The Right Social Media  Platform to Use For your Law Firm?

This depends on your type of law practice.

For example, if you are a criminal defense law firm, it may be better in most cases to use Facebook for posting and advertising than LinkedIn for local targeting as well as the type of audience.

Connecting with people on platforms like Facebook also greatly contributes to SEO because it:

• Creates engagement which is one strong criteria of Google to recognize you as an authority.
• Increases online visibility and sends traffic to your website.
• Increases brand recognition and ultimately your law firm’s authority.
• Enhances content and further distributes it throughout the internet.

It is important to note, however, that it takes money to have consistency in posting and using “paid” online advertising called ad-spend. This ad-spend puts your name out into the public and must be pre-planned and tested for better results.

2. Be consistent with content and new prospects will know when to look for your content. This includes posting to blogs, social media, creating YouTube videos or podcasts.

Delivering content consistently is important. It is the keeping of a promise to those who have become loyal to your information. If there is no scheduled times of posting or delivering information, the following community around your law firm loses momentum and often enthusiasm falls away from your hard work and engagement.

Having a schedule of ready content going out weeks or months in advance adheres to organizational integrity, reflecting consistency and stability.

3. Build relationships and engage every visitor with quality information. 

Building relationships is a foundation of growing the law practice. Its the development of gaining the trust and respect of people within your city, town or community.  People generally work with people they know, like and trust. Continual giving of quality information they need will label you and your firm as informed, experienced and perhaps the one who can solve their legal problems.

By using a medium such as email marking with a continual stream of relevant information enables you to keep your name in front of a lot of people, both current clients and potential clients. Good quality and relevant information will continue to build interest and perceived value of your law firm. 

4. Turn your law firm’s website into a professional, engaging 24/7 sales tool.

Your firm’s website is one of the most important assets that the firm owns in terms of marketing and perception. Visitors to the site judge the firm based on its appearance and content.  If the design does not reflect professionalism or the right message, the visitor will be gone.

Additionally, if the site is not set up correctly for the search engines, meaning formatted and optimized correctly, the “Google Spider bots” that crawl the website code, will not stay or send the right signals to Google. However, if it is done correctly, a vast amount of traffic can go to the website, making the site highly visible and help search engine rankings. This can enable the firm to maintain high positions in Google and it is highly likely the phone will be ringing with new and current clients.

The law firm’s website, done right can be a 24/7 sales tool that brings new business, clients and leads as well as interested candidates for positions to the firm.   

A professionally designed and highly functional website is a foundation and a must for the firm.

Your firm’s website needs to be:

• Professionally designed
• Well developed with a sales funnel that draws in your audience with Calls To Action
• Optimized
• Fast To Load
• Mobil Friendly*
• Content rich with eye catching graphics and videos

Make sure to update or build your website with relevant content that aligns directly with your audience and draws them into your sales funnel.

*The website must also be responsive meaning it is mobile friendly so people will view it from their mobile devices and tablets. This will increase traffic dramatically.

professionalism that screams authority. Include excellent web elements like videos and infographics to entertain the visitors as they learn about your services.

5. Invest in SEO For Attorneys 

Your law firm’s website should be easily found by the search engines. 

First, let’s assume that there are two areas of focus when starting a marketing plan:

• Most law firms are have a local presence (opposed to national)
• Most attorneys provide services as needs based.

These are important criteria meaning that focusing on your location as the authority in the eyes of Google and Bing. You must have very clear information of your presence in the area from which you practice.

Needs based means your firm must focus on keywords that need to be properly building content around, optimizing and bringing it to the top of the search engines for visibility of your audience.

Capturing new clients is created with Search Engine Optimization for attorneys and through Conversion Marketing.

Search engine optimization is the work on your firm’s website to enable it to show up higher in search engines like Google and Bing, when people are searching for your services.

Once your law firm’s website has top positions, it needs to have the ability to interest and engage the visitors, turning them into highly interested potential clients (conversion marketing).

These days, when people are on the go and searching for goods or services, they use their phones or tablets and “Google” their search. Your law firm needs to be on the front page in the search results and the higher the position, the better. Research shows that 62% of all traffic comes from the first 3 positions in Google.

Google Result Page Rank	Average Traffic Share
1	32.5%
2	17.6%
3	11.4%
4	8.1%
5	6.1%
6	4.4%
7	3.5%
8	3.1%
9	2.6%
10	2.4%

Many marketing firms claim that they are SEOs and some of them are. It is war out there for those highest positions in Google and only really, well studied marketers who have tested search engine results through trial and error, mentoring and experience can claim to be ninja strategists when it comes to true technical SEO, providing real results. 

Applying the right SEO for attorneys is one of the most powerful forms of marketing and the ROI can be extremely profitable for the firm.

Here are some Vanguard Legal Marketing SEO tasks that provide power to your ranking and visibility.

• Add schema for attorneys (additional Javascript coding that Google understands). This helps search engines understand with certainty what your practice is about along with your location.
• Create links to and from many high-quality websites. For example, we will take a video, optimize it and send out through to hundreds of platforms throughout the internet including your social media.
• Optimize your website pages so they have the correct formatting for Google to read and understand better.
• Add specific keywords like “legal advice for truck accidents in Des Moines” or “San Francisco personal injury litigation.”
• Add correct titles, images, and heading tags to every page on the website.
• Optimize images and add keyword-focused descriptions.
• Add high quality, fresh and relevant content to every page and update blog content.
• Properly interconnect web pages and blogs as well as the Google My Business account.

Call Vanguard Legal Marketing
For Powerful SEO For Attorneys
888-418-5540

Your Audience Only Wants To Works With Leading Firms SEO Creates Branded Visibility

Searchers in need of an attorney only want to hire a law firm that exhibits authority and success in the area of practice they are seeking to solve their problem. 

People with legal concerns want to win and want the most professional and successful attorney they can afford.

This makes it clear that your law firm’s website must have a professional design that sends the “WOW” message exhibiting content that is their solution.

Start your Law Firm SEO with the following: 

Verify Your Google My Business Account and Make Sure it Has The Correct Information

Starting with the Google My Business (GMB) account is important since it is the foundation of local SEO. It is the starting place of ranking your firm’s website in the location of your practice. This is how you start working the practice to higher positions in local Google rankings.

As noted earlier with keywords, the goal would be to rank every major keyword around you practice in your local area as well as the surrounding areas of the practice location. The top three positions in Google draws approximately 62% of the traffic for that keyword. It would be highly beneficial to be there.

The “Map Pack” is the highly visible results under the paid ads section on the search engine results page and above the organic results.

 

Use Local and Relevant Citations

Another important source of information for local domination are the use of local citations. These are simply local directories that give Google strong verification that your practice is a true entity in your area of practice.  A citation is a directory like Yelp or City Search. Here is a list of powerful local citations for every law firm needs to use to start with for both practices and local businesses.

Citations for Attorneys

Important citations are those are relevant and pertain to your law practice like FindLaw, Avvo, Superlawyers and Justia. These citations need to have the correct name , Address and Phone Number (NAP). Some of the top legal citation sources are as follows and should have your proper information listed: (Please note this is NOT suggesting to join a paid service, but simply having your firm listed).

• Justia
• Findlaw
• Nolo
• Wallethub.com
• Avvo
• Lawyers.com
• lawyers.uslegal.com
• Hg.org
• Lawinfo.com
• Lawfirms.com

Vanguard Legal Marketing creates and Implements
citation lists for local domination for Law Firm clients.

6. Publish Only Quality Content

Having quality content is what people and the search engines ONLY want. They want “meat” instead of fluff and this is what your target audience needs and wants to see to keep them engaged and continually following you. Your quality content will keep your firm on Google’s love list.

Your website would be rewarded handsomely with ranking and visibility as the authority in your area of practice in your location.

Anything else is mediocrity and your firm would fall into the same category as most other law firms.

The use of content written simply and easily understood is what will get your blogs, posts and web pages read. The internet is all about content and most importantly, relevant content that addresses the needs and problems of your clients and potential clients. It’s the relevant content that will convert visitors to buyers of your legal services.

Content on your website should be original, updated and consistent. Blogging is one way of staying current and addressing issues your audience wants to read.

7. Use online advertising consistent with your audience using platforms like Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram ads, and LinkedIn Ads.

Online advertising is a powerful way to get fast traffic. It must be done correctly or it can end up being either a loss of time and money or result in a limited ROI. Properly done online advertising with Google ads, Bing ads, YouTube ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads or Instagram ads can provide a solid lead source and excellent return on investment. Testing for the right ad platform is prudent measure.

Use Paid Search Ads (PPC) For Attorneys

PPC is unlike SEO and aims for quick results in terms of traffic to a website. If your firm correctly turns up the volume with PPC, results are generally immediate. When you lessen the ad campaigns, the traffic decreases respectively.

If your firm wants to extend your brand and increase your SEO, Vanguard Legal Marketing recommends:

Pay Per Click (PPC) for attorneys.

Paid search ads on Google and Bing can go a long way in terms of reaching your audience quickly. Your firm will pay every time someone clicks on the ad, hence “Pay Per Click.” Done right, it can be a profitable investment. Done incorrectly, it an be an expensive, unproductive endeavor.

PPC ads are shown at the top of every search engine results page giving huge visibility. When a person goes to Google and searches with a keyword, the top listings are usually advertisements from Google’s AdWords.

Keep in mind that other savvy law firm marketers are doing the same PPC advertising so Google needs to choose based on a quality score and price paid for the ad which firm is placed at the top of the page.

The average Cost Per Click (CPC) for attorneys is between $5 and $300.

Costs can be lessened by properly using PPC remarking, which is the process of showing ads to people that have once visited your website or have given their information to you. This is done through a coding “dropped” on the searcher when they were looking for information. We have all experienced this when we see an ad for something we looked at which has followed us to another location on another search. A common question is “how did they do that?” That’s remarketing!

8. Utilize video to convey your message and allow your audience to recognize your expertise and knowledge, deeming you as an authority.

Video is considered the strongest medium used to communicate on the internet. If a photo is worth a thousand words, a professional video speaks in the hundreds of thousands of words
Viewers can see the information and know who you are along with facial and visual expressions. Video is considered immersive and offers the combination of sound and visuals. It’s the closest way one can get to being in the same room with your audience without actually being there.

Video can be used for everything from instruction to reviews or testimonials. It is certainly a way for law firms to introduce themselves, create recognition, as well as discussing a topic of choice.

A professional way to differentiate yourself from your competitors is to have a YouTube channel with Playlists discussing different topics. Topics can be about you and your firm, areas of your practice, or even informative knowledge-based information. This form of video marketing is a powerful process that can touch hundreds to thousands of people with your brand and your message. Video can be placed on many different platforms including all of your social media.

YouTube ads are very popular and have the must see 5 seconds before people can watch their video of choice. People are now viewing YouTube ads on TV with their Smart TVs.

Using video for your practice correctly is one sure-fire way of getting known, branded and increasing the visibility of your law firm.

Here are video statistics proving the importance of using video for your law firm:

• YouTube has over a billion users which is almost one-third of all internet users.
• 45% of people watch more than an hour of YouTube or Facebook videos per week. Many people watch video up to 6 hours per day.
• More than 500 million hours of videos are watch every day.

9. Manage your reputation and engage with any comments, positive or negative.

“If people like you they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.” —Zig Ziglar

Generate Reviews and Develop
More Trust Than Your Competitors

Reputation for attorneys is important because it is an indication of trust. Reviews can actually make or break a law practice. About 91% of people regularly use online reviews. About 84% of these people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.  This ultimately becomes a basis of their decision to work with the firm. Developing as close to five-star average reviews as possible is highly advantageous for leads and new business.

However, poor reviews are part of everyday business and the public is aware of this. Negative reviews can be managed, responded to, appropriately addressed and replaced or pushed down in many (but not all) cases.

Managing your law firm’s reputation is also an online presence important as a recruitment tool. 

 Take a look at these important statistics:

• For “near me” searches, a star rating increase of just 1 could increase the conversion rates of a business location by 25%.
• 83% of people use online reviews as the first step to finding an attorney.
• 70% of people are willing to go to an attorney’s office in a less convenient location if they have better reviews.
• 75% of people seeking an attorney over the last year used online resources at some point in their process.
• 10% of website traffic value is attributed to online reviews.
• 65% of people found ratings to be moderately or extremely influential in their decision to work with an attorney.

10. Dominate Your Competitors on every online level

Analyze your online competition first and foremost!

This key step will put your firm on the playing field of knowing what you need to work with to dominate your competitors. Use their strengths to boost your online presence. Maybe their website has certain content that is showing Google they are an authority. Never copy but use these very ideas if it makes your practice stronger.

• Look at their social media
• Review their content
• Understand and study their website.
• Look at the ads they are placing in Google, Bing or on social media.
• Learn what are the sources of traffic they are getting.
• Research the keywords they are using.
• Use tools to research links they have created
• Find what associations have connections with them.

Knowing the competitor and understanding everything about them is a step up for your practice. It is not uncommon for client traffic that would have once gone to a competitor now comes to your firm because of the betterment of your online presence from changes in content and optimization.

Track, measure, and analyze every campaign and platform possible.

Tracking content and sources from where and why visitors come is extremely important. Understanding what is working and what is not working is prudent business acumen. Law firms can push up the strengths in their online content and media while also minimizing what may be considered weak.

Tracking metrics enables firms to improve overall results and align processes with growth and business objectives.

The following benefits of tracking metrics are given:

• Measure performance of the website online – vital for having an understanding of traffic sources and demographics.
• Provide an actionable way to understand marketing campaigns, social media as well as business goals.

Working with Google Analytics will give you the insight you need to track the information to measure and grow your practice.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”—Peter Drucker

Lawyers don’t have the time to waste and should not throw away hard earned money on ineffective advertising. Tracking results is, therefore, a very important process for every campaign.

Attorneys tracking their marketing should be looking at Key Performance Indicators (KPI) which consist of the following:

In terms of following the financials of the firm, these are the KPIs that really matter for a digital marketing process.

• Number of New clients
• Number of Leads
• Revenue Stream To the firm
• Return on investment (ROI) for marketing
• Lead-to-sale conversion rate
• Booking rate (from calls)
• Cost per lead (CPL)

The Secret to the Best Lawyer Marketing Strategies? A Law Firm Marketing Agency that Knows What It’s Doing

Your law firm can execute a marketing plan flawlessly, but if all of the pieces of the plan are not working together, it may not have the true effect you need to reach powerful levels of leads and new business. Having your competitors continue to out-perform you, and get clients that should be calling you is not what Vanguard Legal Marketing is about. We know it is a battleground out there and we take winning very seriously for every attorney with whom we work.

Get your free analysis for lawyer marketing services and let us know how we can help to bring your law firm to the next level.

Call Vanguard Legal Marketing
888-418-5540