SEO for Lawyers: Legal Marketing Experts Share Digital Marketing Tips for Attorneys

1. SEO for Lawyers: Legal Marketing Experts Share Digital Marketing Tips for Attorneys Law industry is getting competitive day by day with more and more players adopting aggressive online marketing tactics. With that said, bids on AdWords are crazily exorbitant, hence it has become even very imperative for law firms and independent lawyers to ensure their organic presence on search engines. Digital Success Team, has collaborated with various digital marketing experts to get their ideas on what proven strategy they would recommend when it comes to brining SEO success to their lawyer clients. Prosper Taruvinga - Livelong Digital Targeting Information Seekers People come to the internet to get information, if your law firm is providing that information, you create a great bond of trust with prospective clients. A lot of people enter into agreements and contracts every day. Some are amicable, some burn the other party. Not everyone reads the Terms and conditions before signing. If a law firm has check lists, tips and things to look at in a contract that they give free, in exchange of an email address, they will build a

2. huge list that they can offer more value to and resulting in them building a loyal following. A lot of law firms are not leaving information to educate people that just want to know the implications of an activity. If such information is produced by your firm, you will basically have a lot of people turning to your blog for resources. You can then pixel this traffic for future campaigns and it is technically a "warm" audience, as they have experienced your work. So lead magnets like legal jargon explained etc. will draw a lot of people to their blogs or website. A couple of LIVE videos explaining these things to people. this will raise awareness of the law firm. During the live feed, send people to the resource and they exchange that with their email address, and then use the email for future campaigns. A lot of Law firms that we prospect, do not have this in place or a pixel on their site to retarget info seekers. Marc Goodwin – Berley Digital Highlight Your Specialty Get specific in your search marketing, customers are looking for specific types of lawyers so make sure your website has pages for all of the different types of cases you specialize in and make sure those pages are ranking well in the search engines. Most consumers are looking for a professional who is knowledgeable and experienced in the type of law they need help with, so showing them this will help conversions dramatically. John Rosato – JohnRosato.me

3. Creating Assets for Your Content Marketing While some "experts" might be preaching for you to create the next viral masterpiece, "Top 5 Reasons Why You Need a Lawyer", these articles rarely do the job of nudging a potential client into your sales cycle. While content marketing is definitely a longer term play - I suggest focusing on "giving away" some popular legal templates to get your foot in the door. Whether it's a website privacy policy, a separation template or a non-disclosure agreement a well-put together content asset can keep you front of mind with your target clients. Next step is retargeting your newly found audience through email (Mailchimp or Drip), Facebook or even Google AdWords. Nurture or upsell your audience into related products or a 'template review' now that you know who they are. Samuel Pavin - SamuelPavin.com Grow an Audience by Offering Pieces of Legal Advice "for Free" Legal professions usually face some restrictions when it comes to marketing and advertising. However, a great tip for legal brands to position themselves in front of their audience and create intimacy is to leverage social media. By creating a consistent visual identity (associated with the brand) and providing bite-sized, real-life, pieces of legal advice, they can easily engage and grow an audience while offering help "for free". Be helpful before anything else. From there, they will tend to become the go-to legal provider for their audience's specific needs. Another opportunity lies in niches. Every business works within a specific industry or targets defined audiences. Lawyers or law firms can partner with members of such ecosystems or the professional organizations heading industries. A great example is within the startup ecosystem where the means and backgrounds from

4. founders vary greatly and where legal requirements are even more important while trying to disrupt industries. Law firms can partner with accelerators to provide lectures or mentoring to founder, hence creating a relationship and trust from the early days of a company's life. Luke Bastin – TinderPoint| Target Prospective Clients When They are “Upstream” Whether your practice operates in a B2C or B2B space, staying top of mind with potential prospects is the key to sustainable, long-term stability and revenue growth. In particular, enabling multi-touch educational experiences without being intrusive is the ideal. One way some lawyers have achieved this is to target prospective target clients when they are “upstream” i.e. not yet in a frame of mind to engage in the lawyer’s services but nonetheless of a profile where at some stage they are likely to need such services. For example, a tax attorney might decide to target all corporations in their state which have incorporated within the last two years and which have made high profile hires in the local press. These businesses are unlikely to know that they need specialist tax advice, but as they grow a decent proportion of them are likely to. One way in which some lawyers achieve this upstream marketing is to set up and manage informational websites based on their areas of expertise. By securing online visibility for these websites, which can include training areas, webinars and pertinent Q&A, lawyers can position themselves and their practice as the “go to” solution when a prospect is ready to buy. Moreover, this form of marketing tends to result in referred work. Donna Duncan - B-SeenOnTop

5. Leverage the Power of Guest Posting In my experience, lawyers do not take full advantage of the benefits of guest posting. Guest posting is when you write and publish content on someone else's website or blog. There are many legal publications that accept and are hungry for content. A few authoritative examples include Above The Law, the Sargent Shriver Center on National Poverty Law, and Attorney at Work. Properly negotiated, this type of arrangement can be a win-win for both parties. Most lawyers are skilled negotiators and have an area of expertise they can easily talk about. The problem comes in the writing. Lawyers value their time and can find it hard to come up with interesting topics to write about. Their writing can be unnecessarily formal and unabsorbing. This is where a good content writer and SEO can add value. A good content writer will use tools to determine the topics, writing style and tone that resonates with the publication’s audience. He or she will interview you and squeeze a whole series of high-quality, fresh and engaging articles out of it. A good SEO Agency for Lawyers can help you negotiate the use of canonical tags and/or author profiles and backlinks that will maximize your return on investment. The publisher gets content. You get backlinks and exposure. A win-win for everyone. Graeme Watt - The Zen Agency Taking Innovative Approach to Analytics and Data One of the most innovative and rewarding digital marketing strategies for the extremely competitive law industry is a more innovative approach to analytics and data. In days gone by lawyers relied on more traditional advertising methods such as television, magazines and radio. Although, these channels could be

6. effective in their own way, actually measuring the results achieved was extremely difficult. In modern times in the age of internet, social media and digital advertising measurability are key. Through modern analytical platforms, Law Firms are now able to measure the success of campaigns and digital work very easily. Law firms are now able to be analytical driven and can rely heavily on the data which they gather. This results in less wasted spend and better results for the firm. This not only provides this better results but also a better overall user experience by serving their audience exactly what they want. Disclaimer –The experts’ opinions featured in this post are entirely their own and may not reflect the views of Digital Success. To read online please click here: http://www.digitalsuccess.us/blog/law-firm-seo-tips.html