Does Your Firm's Website Accurately Represent Your Brand?

I speak with lawyers and law firms on a daily basis about the importance of internet marketing.  Constantly I receive feedback that the firm gets ALL of its business through referrals.  Whether it is client referrals or attorney referrals, having a strong brand image on the web is critical to converting those referrals into actual paying clients!

I often use the restaurant referral analogy when speaking with law firms.  I was in St. Cloud, MN visiting firms and asked the first lawyer I met with where a good spot to grab lunch would be.  He gave me three options with a little background on each.  The first thing I did when I got to my car was look those restaurants up via my phone.  The first eatery had no site, so I moved to the next.  The next place had a site but I couldn't easily find the menu and quite frankly I simply didn't get a good vibe from it, so I moved on to number three.  The last restaurant I looked up thankfully had the menu easily available and the site was easy to navigate.  Did they have the best food?  I don’t know, but the information I could find gave me the confidence to check it out.  (The food was great, thanks Nick's Third Floor, you are doing it right!!)

The same thing happens when getting legal referrals.  Lawyers are usually handing out 2-3 names and clients are doing their research.  To stop the shopping process for referrals, your website needs to be aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate and most importantly accurately reflect the strengths of your firm.  These things build confidence in a prospects mind that they are making the right choice by calling you.

A recent FindLaw study showed that 38% of search traffic to a law firm's website is associated with the firm's brand.  Branded search traffic is a large part of all traffic and it also converts at 60% higher rate than any other type of traffic.
Bottom Line: If your website doesn't actively define and promote your firm's brand you are going to miss out on referral-based clients.

Should Video be a Part of Your Legal Marketing Mix?

In my humble opinion, video should be a part of your marketing mix for various reasons.  Fun Fact - Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd highest utilized search engine on the web?

If your website is getting good traffic but low page views or high bounce rates you need to review your legal website and look at what types of engagement tools you can utilize to keep people on your site.  If your site accurately depicts the strengths of the firm, is easy to navigate and is easy on the eyes, video is a great tool to increase the amount of time a prospect stays on the site.  You also hit different learning styles (think generational gaps here) when you incorporate video - not everyone wants to read your legalese in depth - they want the information they came looking for and they want it quickly.

Video can also humanize and personalize the attorney or the firm with a prospective client, specifically around sensitive legal issues (divorce, custody, criminal defense, sexual assault, etc).  A video can help build that relationship before the prospect picks up the phone.  My recommendation here is to do a firm overview video on the home page and get into more specific topics on practice area pages and have a video library accessible from your home page. 

If you choose to do video there are a two important things you want to consider.  A video has to be well done to be effective - skip the iPhone "selfie" video and get some professional help.  As much as good video can enhance your image and keep people on your site, a bad video can send people screaming from your site.  If you choose to get video done professionally, make sure you get the rights to the video so you can distribute as you see fit.  I would also recommend working with a service that will help distribute the video.  It is one thing to have a nicely done video but you also want to have people see it!!

There are also several SEO benefits to video if done correctly.  Video should be transcribed behind the scenes so you get the keyword benefits.  Video thumbnails also can appear in search and will often get better click through rates than search results that are higher.  

At the end of the day, if you need people on your law firm website longer or if you work in a sensitive area of practice or your target demographic is younger, video can be an effective marketing tool for a law firm.

Are Legal Directories Worth the Investment?

There are literally thousands of legal directories and social bookmarks out on the web.  Are any of them worth the investment to take control of your profiles and populate it with relevant content?  The answer really lies within what you want your firm and your attorneys to be found for.  You can do some vanity (Practice Area + Attorney/Lawyer + Geography) searching on your own to see what comes up on the first page of your favorite search engine.  If legal directories show up, it is worth a deeper look at investing marketing dollars.

You can also do your due diligence by using the Google Ad Words tool to see how often those searches occur.  If it the phrase DUI Attorney Minneapolis has high search volume (it should, there are over 30,000 DUI's in Minnesota annually) and a legal directory is showing up on page one, buying space there should be a cost effective option to driving more qualified visibility to your firm's website.

Legal directories that I often run across during these types of searches are Lawyers.com, FindLaw.com, SuperLawyers.com , Avvo.com and LawInfo.com.

FindLaw receives over 5.5 million visits a month and even though Super Lawyers is a rating service, you see that directory gaining more and more visibility each month.

Bottom line is that if legal directories are showing up on for the searches you want to be found for, they are worth taking a look at regarding investing marketing dollars.