Organizations from almost all fields will usually need to try digital marketing at some point. When customers need help from a professional of almost any kind, they’ll conduct an online search today. You may not have much hope of reaching potential clients at all without the right digital marketing principles. Local individuals can research ” digital marketing Colorado.” You can spend time looking for digital marketing for associations.
An offline marketing agency should also be able to help you, especially with print marketing. These companies will still have experience with digital marketing, which nearly all of their clients will want. Choosing the right digital marketing agency will be particularly important for any business that’s trying to expand. Working with more than one marketing company might be time-consuming and expensive.
You should pay attention to the business models that digital marketing organizations have, which should tell you about how they operate. Commission based social media marketing might be available. Those marketers will be strongly motivated to make sure that their digital marketing techniques will work. If these strategies work, it might not be obvious immediately. A plan that’s been constructed in detail also may not be effective in practice. You’re still more likely to get genuine results from experienced marketers.
It’s no secret that digital marketing is essential for improving your search engine rankings, your law firm’s reputation, and your client base. After all, the majority of your target audience is online.
However, even though digital marketing is essential, it’s important not to put too many of your eggs in one basket. You could end up watching your online assets disappear after a single Google algorithm update if your law firm is too invested in its organic performance.
The good news is that, by working with a variety of digital marketing strategies, you can keep your search engine rankings and your marketing results high. To help you out, here are some of the top 11 digital marketing strategies every law firm needs to succeed.
Create a strong website
It’s one thing to have a website for your franchising law firm and another to have a strong website for your law firm. Your website is the very first thing that your target audience sees and it can make or break your law firm’s first impression. It only takes a few seconds for a client to view your website and determine you’re not the right law firm for them.
Oftentimes the reason why clients click away from your website is that it just doesn’t have good enough quality. Common issues a lawyer might make on their website include:
- Choosing a font that’s difficult to read either because it’s a serif font or because it’s too small.
- Choosing a color scheme that’s off-putting such as black and red, which can hurt the user’s eyes because of the contrast of colors.
- Choosing a layout that’s too cluttered.
- Choosing a layout that’s too sparse.
- Using stock photos that are stock photos.
- Using an inconsistent writer’s voice in your online content.
- Using outdated graphic design trends.
As a law firm, you must create a website that not only shows your clients who you are but is also strong enough to compete in the legal world. Your website needs to be a reflection of your law firm, its values, and its practices. Remember that you can provide information on your website that you might not be able to include in a marketing ad on social media. Don’t be afraid to put your law firm out there and show what sets your law firm apart.
Your website is the foundation of every digital marketing campaign you’ll develop and so it’s crucial that it’s professional, consistent, modern, an accurate reflection of your brand, and aesthetically-pleasing.
Create solid quality content
Chances are you’ve heard the phrase “content is king” when discussing digital marketing strategies and search engine rankings. But to quote Nicki Minaj, “You can be the king, but watch the queen conquer.” Content is queen in this case. Content is what builds up your website’s credibility in both online users’ eyes and Google’s eyes so the rest of your digital marketing strategies can rule.
Weak content ensures a weak campaign. Your content needs to be as high-quality as possible. In fact, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing methods and it’s able to generate up to three times as many leads.
To establish high-quality content, there are three areas you need to pay close attention to:
- Your web copy. Your web copy refers to the content that’s on your website, but isn’t your blog. This is the content that’s on your home page, your services page, and more. It’s easy to write this digital copy off as advertising. But it’s important to remember what your website is meant to do. It’s meant to generate leads for higher search engine rankings, give your online users the information they want, and convert online users into clients. That being said, your web copy needs to be optimized for search engine optimization and user experience. It needs to be simple and easy to read while including both local and general keywords for your industry.
- Your blog. It’s important when you include a blog on your website that you’re not just using it to info-dump with keywords spread throughout the piece haphazardly to boost search engine rankings. Your blog is also for your users who may read through your articles. That said, your blog needs to be up-to-date with the times. For instance, if you’re a car accident attorney, it may be a good idea to consider writing blogs on what to do if your electric vehicle is in an accident or if you get into an accident while driving for Uber. Consider creating an editorial calendar to ensure blog content stays fresh and current.
- Your social media pages. When establishing a brand for your law firm, you need to have a consistent voice across all areas of your content. That means your web copy needs to have the same voice as your blog content and your blog content needs to have the same voice as your social media posts. Make sure that you’re posting quality, shareable content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and elsewhere.
Create a niche
It can be challenging to set yourself apart as a disability lawyer in New York City when there are thousands of other disability lawyers in New York City. You need to get yourself into the right mindset and skillset to create a niche in your market. If you’re a product liability lawyer, how can you make yourself any different from other product liability lawyers?
You don’t necessarily need to do backflips to set your law firm apart. One divorce lawyer based out of North Carolina is known for his comedic Facebook marketing ads. The trick is to understand your law firm’s culture. Most lawyers offer free consultations whether they’re a chapter 13 bankruptcy attorney helping those grappling with bankruptcy or they’re bail bonds agents providing general bail bond or emergency bail bonds for defendants. Find a method that explores your law firm’s culture and establishes your reputation.
Be selective about social media
Almost everyone online uses some form of social media, and so it makes sense to incorporate social media marketing into your digital marketing strategy. However, you need to be selective about which social media pages you choose to incorporate into your digital marketing campaigns. After all, it wouldn’t make much sense for a criminal defense attorney to use Snapchat.
Consider your target audience and where they’re most likely to be. For instance, most adults are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram every day. But your target audience isn’t necessary every adult. Divorce lawyers may fare better on social media websites where their target audience is most social with other people: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
A product liability lawyer, on the other hand, may fare better on social media websites where their target audience is most likely looking for lawyers such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
Include direct calls to action
There are many great pieces of content out there written by experienced attorneys. Unfortunately, while those great pieces of content may boost search engine rankings, they may not do a lot when it comes to converting leads into clients for exactly one reason: they don’t have a call to action.
Calls to action, or CTAs, are essential when it comes to content marketing. This is because your leads may not think to content you when they’ve finished reading your content. Instead, they’ll either continue to explore your website and then click away or they’ll simply leave your website with the new information they’ve acquired, never to come back.
Once you finish a quality piece of content, consider your CTA. What do you want readers to do once they’ve finished reading your content? Do you want them to reach out to your law firm via phone for a free consultation? Do you want your readers to comment on the blog to help boost search engine rankings? Do you want your readers to share your post on social media? Once you know the answer to these questions, make sure that each content item you write leads users to the next step in the lead generation process.
Use both SEO and PPC
To get the most bang for your buck when it comes to search engine rankings, it’s best to incorporate both organic and inorganic strategies. Google’s search engine crawlers rely on high-quality content and organic keyword use to determine whether your website is worth showing to online users looking for your law firm’s keywords.
However, PPC campaigns, or pay-per-click campaigns, are a great way to make your law firm visible to online users who are looking for services like yours. Using both organic and inorganic SEO strategies creates a “whole” approach for search engine rankings.
Pay attention to meta descriptions
Speaking of using a “whole” approach when it comes to SEO, it’s essential to pay close attention to your meta descriptions when posting content online. While meta descriptions don’t boost your search engine rankings, your online users use them to determine whether it’s worth clicking onto your website.
It’s all too easy to forget about the user experience when you’re so focused on outranking other law firms on search engines. However, it’s crucial to remember that all digital marketing does is put your law firm at eye-level with your potential clients. It’s up to your clients to decide whether or not it’s worth choosing your law firm.
Engage in email marketing
Email marketing isn’t like cold-calling. You’re not sending emails out into the void. In fact, email marketing actually has one of the highest return on investments in digital marketing. Law firms can tap into this digital marketing strategy by asking users to subscribe to your email list when they click onto your website, creating a landing page specifically dedicated to asking for users’ email addresses when users click onto the link via a social media ad, or giving away something free in exchange for an email address.
Use video marketing (but do it well)
Video marketing indeed is one of the best ways to provide online users with a lot of information quickly and efficiently. But you must do video marketing right to make a good impact. For instance, if a user clicks onto your website and a video automatically starts playing, there’s a chance that that user will click away from your site and won’t click back onto it.
That being said, if you use video marketing on your website, you mustn’t use auto-play, don’t take up the entire web page with your video content, and use subtitles as well as sound.
Avoid YouTube advertisements
This might sound counterintuitive when it comes to digital marketing. After all, if your target audience is on YouTube, then you want to advertise where your target audience is. But it turns out that YouTube ads can make online users avoid working with your law firm. This is because YouTube ads don’t always show up at the beginning or the end of the video your target audience is watching.
When your target audience is in the middle of watching content for entertainment or work purposes, an ad for your law firm that shows up in the middle of that content will make them see your law firm as disruptive, annoying, and pushy even if it’s the first ad they’ve seen from your business. This can hurt your brand identity and your law firm’s reputation. Stick to using video marketing on your website or on other social media pages where online users will be expecting it.
Work with a professional digital marketing agency
Staying up-to-date with the latest digital marketing trends and updating your digital marketing strategies regularly to improve search engine rankings and lead generations can take a lot of time and effort. Your law firm may not have the time to do all of its digital marketing campaigns on its own. That’s where a professional digital marketing agency comes in.
By outsourcing a digital marketing agency, you can relax and feel confident knowing that professional digital marketers and content marketing writers are handling your blog content, website development, and search engine rankings.
It can be challenging to get your law firm to stand apart from the crowd. But by following the digital marketing tips above, you can help set your law firm apart from the competition and get a leg up in your industry.