Audit your website

August 1, 2013 by
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When was the last time you audited your website?

Okay, you need to do that. You need to go through the pages of your site and make sure that all of the requisite elements are present.

Like your contact form. Have you made it easy for website visitors to contact you by phone and email (at least)? Is there a link to this on every page?

Or your newsletter sign up form. You want visitors to join your list so you can stay in touch with them until they are ready to hire you or refer someone. That should also be on every page.

How about a page that lists all of your services, with links to sub-pages providing details about each of those services?

But here’s the thing. Your website may have these and other essential elements and you may think you’ve got things covered. But having them isn’t enough. They need to be easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to use. It’s hard to be objective about things like this.

So, after you audit your website, I suggest you find someone who has never seen your website and ask them to do the same.

Ask them to go through your site, page by page, and tell you what they see and what they think. You might do this with another lawyer, i.e., they go through your site and you go through theirs.

Give some instructions, i.e., “find the services I provide,” “sign up for my newsletter,” or “email me and tell me you want an appointment.”

Have them report if they hit any snags along the way. Was everything easy to find? Was it easy to understand? Did anything slow you down? Did you have any questions that weren’t answered?

Have them start on your home page, and then start again on one of your blog post or article pages, i.e., “landing pages” where they might enter your site if they find it via search.

After they read the home page, ask them to tell you what page they went to next. How long did they stay there? How many pages did they click through to get to something they wanted to see?

The best way to do this is to sit them down in front of a computer and watch them. As they go through your pages, have them narrate their journey–what they see and what they think.

See if they can quickly navigate through your site and find everything you have asked them to find and anything else they are attracted to. This is very valuable information.

You’ll learn what your website visitors encounter when they arrive at your site. You’ll see what you need to add, improve, move, or replace. You’ll know what questions visitors ask themselves as they arrive at and click through your site. And you’ll see how long it takes them to find the key elements that make your site work.

In Make the Phone Ring, I identify nine essential website elements for attracting (prospective) clients and getting them to hire you or take the next step. Whether you create your own websites or hire someone, if you want to get more clients online, you need to know what these elements are and how to implement them. Check it out on this page.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Law office management, List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Technology, Web traffic Tagged With: ,

Lawyer advertising on Craigslist: Why You Shouldn’t (And How to Do it)

July 31, 2013 by
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Most people who look for a lawyer on Craigslist are primarily looking for “cheap prices”. The same is true of most classified advertising sites or publications targeted to the low end of the consumer or small business market. Experience, reputation, “customer service,” and other hallmarks of professionalism are secondary.

Offering “discount prices” is, for most lawyers, ill advised. You’re competing with other lawyers who will undercut you, as well as paralegals, form preparers, and others who troll in the lowest depths of the market.

Unless you wish to position yourself as a “discount lawyer” and offer rock bottom “prices,” stay away from Craigslist and publications like it. Clients who hire the best lawyers and are willing to pay top dollar for those lawyers usually don’t look for them on Craigslist.

There are exceptions. Some people who look on Craigslist do want a good attorney and are willing to pay top dollar. They may go to Craigslist out of habit, because that’s where they go to find other deals. But wanting to save money when buying a used car doesn’t necessarily mean you have the same mindset when hiring an attorney.

But how do you find these people unless you are advertising on Craigslist?

You find them not by advertising your services but by advertising your seminar. Or you book. Or your report.

You sell your book or give it away and build a list of prospects. Yes, most of the people on that list will have a “low price” mentality, but so what? Some won’t. Some will hire you and pay your regular fees.

In addition, some of the people on your list know people who aren’t “low pricers” and will refer them. Others on your list who today demand low prices may tomorrow find their circumstances (and attitude) changed and be willing to pay your “higher” fees. (Probably after they hire one of your low cost competitors and find that they got what they paid for.)

Lawyer advertising on Craigslist is possible. Just don’t advertise your services.

How to market legal services on the Internet. Click here.

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Filed Under: Advertising, List building, Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

3 ways to turn boring legal topics into interesting articles and posts

July 26, 2013 by
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If you write a newsletter or blog (and if you don’t, make sure you see me after class), you may struggle with finding interesting topics to write about. The law can be incredibly dry and arcane. Why would clients and prospective clients ever want to read about boring legal topics?

It’s a fair question. After all, if people don’t read your articles, they won’t act on them and, well, what’s the point?

Here are three ways to turn boring legal topics into something people want to read:

1. Write something else.

You don’t always have to write about legal issues and, frankly, you shouldn’t. In my posts, I often write about topics that aren’t overtly about marketing legal services. I’ll write about my wife’s dealings with various vendors, our cat, or anything else that catches my attention. It makes things interesting and provides a never-ending source of topics.

I do tie things together with some reference to marketing legal services, however, because that’s what you pay me for.

You can either start with a legal issue and look for something in your everyday life or outside interests to illustrate or contrast that issue. Or, you can do the opposite, that is, write about your dry cleaner, a movie, or something in the news, and relate it to a legal issue. Or neither. You don’t always have to write about the law.

2. Write about people.

Talk about your clients or other lawyers or judges. Talk about people in the news or in history. Tell stories about how people and the law intersect, how their lives were affected, or will be.

People are always more interesting than a code section or appellate decision. Stories are interesting because they have conflict in them and people want to know “what happened?”

Write about people. Tell their stories. Put most of the “legal stuff” in another article and link to it for those who want to know.

3. Write it anyway.

Boring legal topics are not boring to someone who is facing those issues. Write for those people.

When someone goes to a search engine, they are seeking information about their problem or objective. They want to read about the law, procedure, options, and risks. They want the details, even if most of your other readers (currently) do not.

Write for the person who wants to know.

Your other readers may skip over those articles, waiting for your next post about your cat’s antics or your crazy next door neighbor. They’ll stick around while you help someone with a pressing legal issue. They probably won’t read your posts that are pure legal content, but they’ll be glad to know that if and when they need that kind of information, they know where to find it.

Now, if you can just figure out a way to write a legal analysis post and illustrate it with a story about your cat using your Twitter account to send naked selfies to your neighbor’s puppy. . .

For hundreds of ideas for articles and posts, see Make the Phone Ring.

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Filed Under: Communication, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Presentations, Web traffic, Writing

Email marketing for lawyers

July 25, 2013 by
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I talked to a lawyer yesterday who told me looks forward to reading my emails every day. I hear that a lot.

There’s a lesson in this.

When you deliver value–information, ideas, stories, tips–you can email your list often. Even daily.

Your readers will look forward to getting your emails and they will read them.

The ones who don’t, the ones who either don’t read your email or unsubscribe from you list, would probably never hire you anyway and you can safely let them go.

The ones who like your emails:

  • Know you. They know your name and what you do.
  • Like you. They like hearing your “voice” and reading your advice and stories.
  • Trust you. They see that you are consistent, dependable. They see that you are continually solving legal problems for other clients and believe you could do the same for them.

So. . .

  • When they need your services, they’ll almost always call you instead of any other lawyer
  • When they know someone who needs your services, they’ll refer them to you instead of any other lawyer
  • When you ask them to “Like” your page, share your article, or invite their friends and contacts to register for your seminar, there’s a good chance they will

Compare this to lawyers who don’t have a list. They have no way to stay in touch with prospective clients so none of the above can occur.

And compare this to lawyers who do have a list but either don’t send value or don’t email often enough:

  • When they do email, it goes into spam or is not recognized, so it is not opened and read
  • Or, it’s been so long since they have heard from the lawyer, they don’t really know, like, and trust him, and thus, won’t hire him (or refer)
  • Or, the email is opened and read but it’s been so long since they heard from the lawyer, they’ve already hired someone

You don’t have to mail every day. Once a week is fine. But do mail often and do deliver value.

Your emails can be short and sweet. A tip, a quick story, a reminder. If you write an article or blog post, send that. If you find an interesting article or video on someone else’s site, send them a link. If you have an interesting case or client, tell them about it.

Email marketing for lawyers is simple. Build a list and build a relationship with the people on that list.

You know you’re doing it right when your subscribers tell you they look forward to getting your emails.

Want to know how to build a list and what to send them? This shows you what to do.

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Filed Under: Communication, Email, List building, Marketing legal services, Newsletters, Online Marketing, Relationship marketing Tagged With: ,

Social media marketing for attorneys is not that important

July 16, 2013 by
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If you don’t have a robust social media marketing strategy in place you could soon find yourself left behind. At least that’s what everyone is saying.

This recent article in Entrepreneur is typical. It says that more and more people, especially younger ones, increasingly discover websites through social networks, less so through search.

I say it doesn’t matter. Social media marketing for attorneys isn’t that important.

Let’s think this through.

Joey Prospect has a legal problem and needs a lawyer. He goes to his favorite social network and asks for a recommendation. If his contacts have said recommendation, they provide it and a link to the lawyer’s website. If they don’t have the link, they tell Joey to do a search on the lawyer’s name.

What does this tell us? It tells us that nothing has changed. When someone needs a recommendation, they ask people they know. Yesterday, they may have phoned. Today, they go online.

If someone knows you and thinks you’re a good egg, they will refer people to you (your site) when asked. The people asking for the referral and the people giving the referral may be connected through a social network, but in the scenario above, the lawyer doesn’t have to be connected to either one.

Besides, most lawyers don’t actively engage with prospective clients through social media, nor do they need to. Most prospects don’t think about legal issues unless and until they have one and probably don’t have anything to say to a lawyer or want to hear anything a lawyer says until that occurs.

So, it’s a good thing that your clients and contacts are networking through social media. It’s good that social media is growing as a means for finding recommendations.

But, let’s keep things in perspective. If you handle legal issues that most people don’t want their friends to know about, you’re not going to get a lot of referrals that way. “Does anyone know a good criminal defense lawyer? Yeah, just got arrested for narcotics trafficking, a-gain!”

Search isn’t going to go away. So, lawyers need a website and some basic SEO in place because Joey Prospect is going to want to visit that site to see what the lawyer can do, and if the link is not provided, he is going to “google” the lawyer’s name.

Focus on building a great website with lots of quality content (i.e., solutions). This will (a) let people find you through search engines, (b) show prospects what you can do to help them, build trust, and convince them to choose you, and (c) allow people who know you or find your website to share your content with their networks.

You should provide an easy way for visitors to your site to connect with you via social media, i.e., you should have accounts with the major social media platforms and icons that allow visitors to connect with or follow you. And you should provide share buttons which make it easy for visitors to share your content with their networks.

Let everyone else worry about the networking.

However, social media is a great place for lawyers to network with other professionals. Use it to find and engage lawyers and other potential referral sources and joint venture partners.

And, if you advertise, you should probably allocate more dollars to ad buys on social media.

But don’t get hung up on the idea that you need to have a big list of social media contacts and you need to be conversing with them every day. You don’t. Social media marketing for attorneys, at least the way most people talk about it, just isn’t that important.

Learn more about social media and marketing online for attorneys in my course, Make the Phone Ring.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, SEO, Social media, Social media marketing Tagged With: , ,

Attorney marketing webinar: Here’s the replay (and a suggestion)

June 27, 2013 by
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The replay for yesterday’s webinar on attorney marketing is up.

Here’s the link :

We talked about several aspects of attorney marketing: referrals, social media, client relations, blogging, and a bit about legal fees. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Even though we didn’t sell anything on the webinar, it brought us some great exposure. And it was easy to do. An hour’s worth of work, answering questions about subjects we know well, without having to leave home or put on a tie.

We’ll get traffic to our websites, sign-ups for our lists, and clients for our services.

Would you like to do the same?

Go find someone who has an audience you would like to present to–a blogger, another professional, a principal in a company–someone who sells to, advises, or writes about and for your target market, and ask them if they would like you to do a presentation for their group or readers.

Yes, it is that simple.

You’re doing them a favor. Making them look good to their readers. Providing them something to promote.

Make a list of prospective hosts for your webinar. Contact them, introduce yourself, and offer your webinar (or teleconference).

Then, go do it again.

This is what I do to get traffic and clients.  

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, News, Online Marketing

Law firm internet marketing: How one firm is doing it right

June 26, 2013 by
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If you want to know how to build your practice online, check out The Murthy Law Firm, which is doing it right. In an interview in the New York Times, Sheela Murthy describes what she did and how she did it.

Murthy describes her website as an online community for immigrants. It has resources for immigrants looking for information and answers to questions.

“How’s business,” she was asked. She answered,

Clients are banging down the door. They throw themselves at our feet asking us to take them on. The feeling is, “If they give this much away for free, what must it be like if you pay them?”

And that, my friends, is how it’s done.

Give people information. Give them resources. Answer their questions. Show them what to do. People are hungry for information. They’ll come looking for it, and appreciate you for providing it. And they will hire you, instead of attorneys who don’t provide this kind of information and resources.

When you visit the Murthy site, don’t feel intimidated by all of the resources you see. She’s been at this a long time. Do be inspired by what she has been able to accomplish and learn from her efforts. And make a decision to start or expand your website.

Then do it. Add something today. Add something else tomorrow or next week. Keep at it and watch your traffic and sign-ups soar.

Will clients bang down your door and throw themselves at your feet? I don’t know. But if they do, I want to see the video.

Law firm internet marketing is taught here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Your marketing questions answered in free webinar

June 25, 2013 by
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Tomorrow, attorney Mitch Jackson and I are the guests on a free webinar where we’ll discuss marketing and productivity. Please join us.

The webinar is scheduled for Wednesday, June 26, 2013 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM EDT. You can register here.

The subject is “Trial Attorneys: Dilemmas and Solutions,” but is open to, and appropriate for, attorneys of all kinds. We’ll be speaking about marketing online and offline, referrals, social media, and more. Bring your questions on any marketing topic and, time permitting, we’ll get them answered.

Mitch is a very successful trial attorney (2013 California Trial Attorney of the Year), social media expert, and host of his own video podcast program. I’m excited to be sharing the microphone with him.

The webinar is hosted by Draft n Craft, a legal outsourcing company, and will be approximately 60 minutes. It will be recorded (technology permitting) so get registered even if you can’t make it live and I’m sure they will notify you when the replay is available.

There are no products for sale and no agenda other than helping you. I look forward to seeing you on the webinar.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, News, Online Marketing, Referrals Tagged With: ,

How to attract new clients

June 24, 2013 by
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So, you want to know how to attract new clients? Well, you can’t merely offer services people need and are willing to pay for. That just gets you in the running, along with legions of other lawyers who offer the same services. If you want to attract new clients, you need to be attractive.

You. Personally. Because people hire lawyers, not law firms.

People meet you at networking events, not your firm. They hear you speak, not your firm. They read something you wrote, not something written by your firm. And when they they give referrals, they say, “call my lawyer,” not, “call my law firm”.

One way to be attractive is to show people an advantage to choosing you. Show them how you are better or different. Show them benefits they get hiring you that other lawyers don’t provide. Prove that you are the better choice.

I cover this extensively in Make the Phone Ring: A Step-by-Step System for Attracting Good Clients. It shows you how to get clients to see you not only as the best choice, but in many cases, the only choice.

If you don’t have it, you can pick it up here.

One way to show people an advantage is to show them that you are a leader in your target market or community. Someone people want to follow and listen to. Someone with good ideas. Someone who inspires others to take action.

Leaders attract people who like what they see and hear and want to follow.

In his book, Tribes, Seth Godin said, “The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.”

Do you believe in what you are doing in you practice or are you just making a living? Are you painting a picture of a better future and showing people where you are going? Are you someone worth following?

If you’re not sure if you are a leader, turn around. If there’s nobody behind you, you’ve got some work to do.

Learn how to attract new clients online and offline, click here.

 

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing, Personal development Tagged With: ,

Negative reviews of lawyers

June 20, 2013 by
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Apparently, some attorneys have interpreted my suggestion to post a review of your competition on your website to mean, “post a negative review” and don’t like the idea. They think a negative review will reflect badly on them in the eyes of prospective clients or cause the legal community to see them as a trouble maker.

Fair enough. But I never said you had to post a negative review. The point of my post wasn’t that you should report negative information about another attorney in an effort to dissuade prospective clients from hiring them. The point was to mention this lawyer’s name so that when someone searches on that name they will find your site, read your review, and look at what you have to offer.

You don’t have to post negative reviews of lawyers.

You can post a neutral, “here’s what I know about this firm,” review. Talk about what they do, how many attorneys they have, how long they have been around. Basic information you may know about them or can find on their website.

Or, you can post a positive review. Describe cases where you have worked together and how they were always professional and courteous. If you have witnessed them in court and thought they were good, say that. If you have talked to other lawyers who know them and think highly of them, repeat what they have told you.

You can almost always find something nice to say about another lawyer. (What would you tell a jury about them if you were defending them?)

And yes, a neutral or positive review will make you look good in the eyes of prospective clients and keep legal wolves from baying at the moon. But while this may be the safe approach, it may not be the intellectually honest one.

If you think your competition is a scoundrel, if you have proof that they don’t play fair or they are borderline incompetent, if they have numerous complaints against them, do you think it’s right to sweep this under a rug? If your sister was thinking about hiring that lawyer and asked for your opinion, would you lie (by omission) and let her hire them?

You can post a negative review. If it’s fair and you can back up what you say. Will you make some enemies? Probably. The lawyer you outed won’t like you, but so what? Other lawyers may look down on you for breaching the code that says “we protect our own even when they are bad,” but again, so what?

You may make enemies but you will also make friends. You will be admired for being honest and protecting the public. You will be seen as a leader and you will attract people who want to know you and follow you. People will write about you and link to your blog. They will ask to interview you. They will hire you and refer cases to you.

On the other hand, the odds are that your competition isn’t all bad. So, post a balanced review. Comment on the lawyer’s strengths and positive aspects, and also comment about their weaknesses or shortcomings. Talk about the positive first, then the negative. Or, if negative is too strong a word, comment on their differences.

One more thing. If the idea of writing a review about another lawyer makes you queasy and you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. There are other ways to mention the names of your competition.

You can comment on one of their cases you are familiar with.

You can comment on their ads or their website.

You can create a post that includes them in a “directory” of attorneys in your area who do what you do.

You can promote the charity event they are sponsoring. Or congratulate them on getting married, having a child, or winning an award.

If you want more search engine traffic, it doesn’t matter what you say about them. Just make sure you spell their name right.

Learn more about internet marketing for attorneys. Click here.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Online Marketing Tagged With: , ,
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