How To Find Better Law Firm Clients
Published on by: James H. Hobson
Any established law firm has probably determined the type of client that best fits their expertise, billing rates and work flow. By refining specific areas of your law firm internet marketing you can make a profound improvement in the quality of clients that contact your firm.
Examine Your Internet Marketing Process
Define Your Ideal Client
The first step is to clearly identify what type of client you want to attract. Obviously you don't have total control over the situation and what comes your way. Sometimes your need for more business may compel you to accept a non-ideal client however working to affect a more desireable outcome is worth your time and money.
A good place to start is by listing the key attributes or characteristics of the desired client. Use the list to then identify ways to appeal to or connect with that characteristic. An example is finding that your ideal client is probably over 40 years of age thus making your website font larger, or realizing your ideal client is female using rounded corners and softer colors on your website.
A second list should be created to identify buying (hiring) motivators for the ideal client. Depending upon the type of client you seek, you can adjust colors schemes, tone of presentation and other design elements for subliminal messaging. For example bright colors, and multiple, oversized fonts tend to convey "inexpensive", while deep jewel tone colors and modest design elements convey sensibility and refinement (which relates to better quality and higher cost). Be sure to include information to overcome objections such as making it clear that you accept credit cards, have extended office hours to meet new clients, etc.
Create Website Copy That Appeals To Your Ideal Client
Using your two lists you can write website content that speaks to the needs of your ideal client. Many law firms develop websites that do more to glorify their firm than to speak to the specific needs of the prospective client. Certainly your law firm's experience is worth showing but the most critical part of your website's message is "here's what we can do for you".
Important website content (important to the prospective client) should be listed in bullet items, as highlighted text or otherwise be made easy to find and read. The A-level clients are looking for your experience in handling serious matters such as a murder defense, corporate level business cases, or multi-million dollar divorce cases. Don't just write rambling text, present critical information!
Develop Your Law Firm's Brand
Every business needs to develop it's brand. Your brand is built around customer perceptions about your quality, pricing, trustworthiness, visual brand elements and similar components. Almost every industry or business segment has a defined set of leading brands or individuals. For attorneys it has been people like F. Lee Bailey, Johnny Cochran or Frank Ragano.
Perception and brand recognition goes a long way towards getting the top drawer clients. Keeping a high profile through well developed breadth of internet listings, media coverage, charity events, social media, or community involvement can make your firm well known, well trusted and a first-in-mind option for legal woes. If you have a reasonable amount of media examples, articles, publications, and other credential builders you should utilize a Newsroom page on your website, or make active use of a blog.
Refine Your PPC Advertising
An example of refining your PPC advertising is dropping the ego-centric temptation to be #1 for every possible term. Become content with whatever ranking you get with each term having a reasonable maximum cost per click. To refine your PPC advertising to find better clients and avoid wasted click charges on low quality traffic you need to control your ad copy. Your ad copy is essentially what generates the click, right? By including a qualifier such as "$350 per hour" or "trial fees starting at $5,000" you can dissuade a lower financial level of shopper.
Target Your Organic SEO
Improving search engine rankings is arguably the best thing you cna do to reach more prospective clients online. Hiring a good law firm internet marketing company is usually not cheap so you want to get the most for your investment. Asking to be ranked for "attorney Chicago" may seem perfect but unless your law firm does every type of law this term is of marginal value. Search terms of 4-6 words are used by people who know exactly what they need meaning they are ready to buy. These long-tail search phrases typically have search volumes that are low however they connect with the ideal client!
Your SEO company should always perform thorough keyword research to identify the terms people are actually using, sort the terms based on monthly search traffic, and then develop a strategic plan to optimize your site to be found for the better terms. With the knowledge of the best terms and high traffic terms you can target your placement to find better clients. By adding qualifying terms such as a city name you can develop an even more precise list of target keywords.
Adjust Your Local Search Marketing
Last but not least, remember that you are more likely to get clients who are relatively close to your practice. For this reason it is absolutely essential to create all possible local search listings and do substantial local search SEO to capture top rankings for your area. There are many fine details to manage to fully optimize a local search listing but anyone can handle the basics such as providing complete and consistent information on all local search sites.
Law firm internet marketing can produce some amazing revenue for your practice. The most important thng to remember is that if you are not on page one of Google for high traffic search terms or highly relevant and specific search terms your ROI may not be very good. When you commit the resources, and hire a good internet marketing company, you can reap the first page benefits of professional law firm internet marketing.
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