Every business owner in 2021 must use digital marketing tools to boost their online presence. More than before, digital marketing for lawyers has become critical to reach their target audience and achieve short-term and long-term goals and objectives. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has made it vital to every solo attorney and law firm to elevate their online presence to stay relevant.
With the way the market currently is, clients now want beyond a lawyer that will only stand for them in the courtroom. With the emergence of digital marketing for lawyers and how discoverable you can become online, some clients will virtually meet with their attorneys. By noticing an increase in the number of people looking for lawyers, a lawyer or a law firm must invest more in their digital presence to achieve long-term business growth.
This guide will highlight a few ways that digital marketing for lawyers can help improve a lawyer's online presence and generate more leads.
Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The best way to rank highly online on Google organically is by utilizing search engine optimization. Since the legal vertical industry is now a very competitive one for SEO, a lawyer can ensure that they are still the first on Google for their targeted keyword(s) if investing in quality legal SEO services.
SEO brings the lawyer or law firm closer to their target audience. If your law firm invests in SEO, is creating high-quality blog content, and building quality backlinks, you should, in time, rank highly for your desired keywords and generate more organic traffic and leads. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the best way to generate organic traffic. Even if you stop investing in SEO, you hold your keyword rankings for however long it takes for someone to outrank you.
Potential clients looking for lawyers are always on Google, searching for a lawyer close to their hiring location. When a law firm's search engine optimization is improved, they'll rank first on Google when searching. If you have page one rankings as an attorney, you will increase the possibility of getting hired by new clients and winning more cases.
The best way to achieve page one rankings is by knowing the right keywords to target and the best kind of content to create surrounding each keyword. To best understand which keywords to target and what type of content to make, you need to do your keyword research. Once you have your keywords researched that you'd like to target, you'll then have an idea of the competitiveness and what it will take to rank.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing
Pay-per-click marketing is another excellent way of doing digital marketing for lawyers.
It involves running paid advertising campaigns on Google to improve the online presence of a law firm. The only difference between this and SEO is that you'll get page one rankings immediately. But, you're paying a high price for it, and as soon as you stop paying for it, you drop right off. Pay-per-click marketing could be tricky, especially if the law firm doesn't have someone with a vast knowledge of pay-per-click. We recommend building a custom landing page where the target audience can get enough information about their service and have a way where visitors can submit their contact information requesting a callback or more information. If you point your visitors to your website's generic page, you'll most likely have a lower conversion rate as you're not pointing them to take a specific action.
Within pay-per-click, especially for lawyers, there is much competition and sometimes very high cost per click. For example, to bid for the keyword 'personal injury attorney NJ', the cost per click (CPC) is $29.51 per click!
So, with lawyer PPC, be prepared to spend a good chunk of change each month. But, if done correctly and you're converting clicks into leads and leads into paying customers, the ROI will be great!
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the most prominent digital marketing tactics for lawyers to adopt. Despite being popular, most times, it is utilized incorrectly by many law firms. There are many social media platforms to use, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Some lawyers only use one, not understanding the different types of audiences they are dealing with on each channel.
The type of social media platform to use depends on the target audience. Once you've identified your target audience, the law firm will know the best social media platform for their marketing. Using Facebook is a waste of time and resources if the target audience mostly uses Twitter.
See what we mean?
If you're trying to figure out which channel produces the most engagement for you, it's best to go through a trial and error period where you track specific metrics like likes, comments, shares, and more.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is among the oldest type of digital marketing. By creating quality, educational content, you're already contributing to a massive part of your SEO success as an attorney. It is essential to know that clients are not only searching for a service page of your law firm; they are also searching for pieces of information and answers to some questions ruminating in their minds. This process throughout the sales funnel best explains why content marketing is the best SEO strategy for any firm to adopt. Content marketing will help a lawyer offer their services to clients even without notice or in-your-face marketing.
You can create content in a variety of ways that will help to produce meaningful results. Blog posts, email marketing, eBooks, and review sharing are only a few ways of creating content for marketing purposes. As a lawyer, we get it; you're busy! Your law firm should hire a content writer or SEO agency with experience in writing content in a niche that your law firm practices. The content writer's job is to craft articles that are search engine optimized to generate more traffic and new leads.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is essential for lawyers in today's day in age. If your law firm is not discoverable online by potential clients, you're only limiting the amount of growth that your law firm can experience.
At The Dillon Ross Group, we help small businesses with their digital marketing and support their lead generation efforts. If you're looking for a reliable and transparent SEO partner, contact us, and let's set up a time to hop on a no-pressure discovery call to see if we're a good fit for each other!