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Law Firm Marketers : How It Is Done

June, 19 2018
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Jo Stephens
Lawyer Web Site Design

Law Firm Marketers : How It Is Done

Insiders step-by-step looking into attorney marketing

Most law firm’s want more cases. That is obvious. Law firm marketers across the country (and the world in fact) compete for the top spots on Google for their law clients. This article takes an insiders step-by-step look into how law firm marketing companies and lawyer web site design experts alike take a site from zero to #1.

1. Site Evaluation

The first step is to evaluate the website. There are several tools out there to do this and our favorites are:

Google Webmaster Tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/#?modal_active=none Raven Tools Site Auditor: https://raventools.com/learn/seo-management/site-auditor-overview/

SEM Rush: https://www.semrush.com/lp/site-audit-2/en/?kw=web_site_seo_audit&cmp=US_SRCH_Site_Audit_EN&label=Site_Audit&Network=g&gclid=CjwKCAjwsJ3ZBRBJEiwAtuvtlJK8hZU3jXR7JVU_m5UGyM-3stYNrt-uKUeCgt-Nu_WkS0fK19TPZBoCnIIQAvD_BwE

Google and the other search engines want to see several things happening (and not happening) on your website which are:

Grammar and punctuation are perfect

The site doesn’t have broken links that frustrate users

It is optimized for speed and mobile devices

It has fresh, relevant content

The site auditors help with some of the above but human, expert hands and eyeballs have to do the rest.

2. Competition Review

Understanding what your competition is doing is the second step in how law firm marketers get your site to the top of the search engines.

SpyFu ( https://www.spyfu.com/) has some really innovative tools that are not 100% accurate all of the time but it is close. They have this tool that lets you see what the competition is focusing on for SEO and PPC. Wonderful tool to use for beginners and experts.

3. Backlink Strategy

A backlink is a link from one website to another. Google originally was called Back Rub due to it’s focus on backlinks. The search engine giant has not departed from its focus on using backlinks to separate the good from the bad websites.

Over the past couple of years Google has updated its algorithms to penalize websites with poor backlinks. What makes a bad backlink? Let’s say you are a personal injury lawyer in Atlanta and a dog food company in Germany is linking to your website. You have never done business with this company and have no affiliation with it.

That is considered a bad backlink. It is critical that the backlink is either taken down or “disavowed”. Google will allow you to report this backlink is bad and you want nothing to do with it. They will remove it for you from their database so it no longer penalizes you.

This may be the single most ignored law marketing strategy out there currently. It is time consuming, hard to do and clients usually can’t see the direct effects of it.

4. Reputation Management

Have you ever tried to Google your name or the name of your firm? What should pop-up is a map with your firm name on the right side of the browser screen (if you used Google to search) along with some reviews (if you have any) and photos of your firm.

You should also see articles or other sites that have you listed on them. Many times there will be posts that are negative in nature. Reputation management works on getting those negative sites and reviews less and less exposure and thus pushing it off to the second or third page. The more an article is clicked, the higher the ranking in most cases.

5. Ongoing Reporting

Law Firm Marketers that are worth their salt will hold themselves accountable to you monthly. Each month you should get a report on:

Current rank

Traffic

Competitors rank and traffic

Leads and new cases generated

Number of calls

Strategy for next month

The reports don’t have to be lengthy but it is important that you get the information you need to know if you want to keep investing in this type of marketing.

Summary

Lawyer web site design and marketing is a highly competitive and diverse field. There are so many law firm web designers providing this service it is hard to know who to trust. When investigating a new company to provide you attorney marketing services, ask them how long they have been in business, if they have a guarantee and have them explain to you what specific tasks they are going to perform in the first 90 days. They should include all of the above steps. If they don’t, buyer beware.

Law Firm Sites has been marketing websites for lawyers for 18 years. We guarantee our results and are transparent through each step. A more informed customer makes for a more happy customer in our opinion.

Please call us at (800) 932-8242 if you are interested in getting a price quote or learning more.

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