Law Marketing Monitor - law firm Internet marketing | law firm SEO | lawyer website marketing | technology for attorneys

Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. Adult males, also called silverbacks, range in height 1.65–1.75 metres (5 ft 5 in–5 ft 9 in), and in weight 140–200 kg (310–440 lb). Occasionally, a silverback of over 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in) and 230 kg (510 lb) has been recorded in the wild. Obese gorillas in captivity have reached a weight of 270 kg (600 lb).

In other words, they're big.

Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians (or "irregulars") use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and less-mobile traditional army, or strike a vulnerable target, and withdraw almost immediately.

In other words, it's lean and strategic.

On Wednesday, I listened in on LexBlog's "SEO for Law Blogs," free, hour-long webinar. Their approach to SEO in the context of blogging was solid.

They covered some of the basics of blog SEO and how search engines "rank" web pages.

They also provided some actionable tips, specifically applicable to lawyer-bloggers about both what "to do" and what not to do.

And while the specific blog SEO tips were really quite good, it was a point that Kevin made about how a law firm might think about approaching SEO, and internet marketing more generally, that resonated with me.

His point was that if you are a larger firm with a significant marketing budget, who has been aggressively marketing and advertising in the offline world, you will probably approach internet in a much different way than if you're a small firm or solo, with a very limited (or nonexistent) marketing budget.

In other words, how you approach internet marketing will depend, to a large extent, upon whether you're more a gorilla or a guerilla.

And while this might seem like an obvious distinction, failing to consider in advance whether you're more of a gorilla or a guerilla can have a significant impact on whether you meet the goals of your internet marketing campaigns.

Gorillas

Have you historically spent big advertising marketing dollars on yellow book, television, radio, and billboard advertising? Does your firm use direct mailers?

Does it sponsor industry trade shows, seminars, charity events, and scholarships? Does your firm have a recognized brand?

If so, you might be a web marketing gorilla.

Web marketing gorillas typically take an aggresive comprehensive approach to their web strategy. They usuallly commit large budgets to paid search marketing and have professional paid search managers optimizing their accounts.

They may also make significant investments in paid online legal directory advertising, content distribution platforms, and a variety of other internet advertising programs.

Gorillas also invest heavily in web design and development. They often purchase complex websites with custom designs, video integrations, live-chat features, and a host of other web bells and whistles.

Some gorillas will be able to leverage in-house resources like attorney-writers, subject-matter experts (like doctors, engineers, nurses, etc).

Typically, the gorillas we have worked with have benefitted from high-level agency strategy support, managing, maintenance, and consulting.

Whether they're looking for a quarterback for their existing efforts, or want more turn-key solutions, the common theme is that they want to cast a comprehensive online net and measure, track, and analyze how these different moving pieces are working to increase the firm's online footprint, and ultimately deliver new business.

They're usually not interested in getting mired down in all the specific details and prefer the 30,000 ft. view of how the internet is adding value to their practice.

Guerillas

Are you a solo or small firm lawyer? Do you typically stick to only the most proven and efficient forms marketing and advertising? Are you committed to doing most of the heavy-lifting yourself?

Would you rather invest your time than your money into building your practice? Do you find yourself analyzing where the competition is weak and positioning yourself against those weaknesses? Do you prefer the scalpal to the shotgun?

Then you're probably a web marketing guerilla.

Typically, guerillas put a higher priority on efficiency and effectiveness. They want maximum bang for their buck and aren't looking for a lot superfluity.

They put a higher priority on marketing strategies that are lean, versatile, and affordable.

They're willing to spend some of their own time learning and executing proven web marketing strategies.

They want a professional web profile, but not necessarily all the bells and whistiles. They usually handle the majority of content development, link acquisition, and campaign management themselves.

The guerillas that we've worked with have benefitted more from individualized education sessions where they can get answers to specific questions about a specific aspect to web marketing.

They're interested in understanding the role the web can plan in word of mouth referrals.

They usually appreciate someone watching over their shoulder to make sure that they're avoiding common mistakes.

They like having access to professionals to help point them in the right direciton, but prefer to execute the various strategies themselves.

Why It Matters

Determining whether you're a gorilla or a guerilla should be a huge factor in how you build your web marketing program.

For example, if you're a gorilla, you might be disappointed with campaigns that don't provide you maximum online exposure across several channels in a short period of time.

On the other hand, if you're a guerilla, and you elect a campaign that attempts to take gorillas head-on, you might find yourself exhausting your budgets before they are able to generate a return.

Understanding your identity in this respect will help you structure your marketing initiatives in a way that makes the most sense for your specific goals.

Nonetheless, whether you're a gorilla or guerilla, before you spend a lot of time or effort on a particular strategy or to hire a consultant, you should:

• Spend some time learning about how the web and search engines can actually serve to complement your existing marketing efforts.
• Think about your specific marketing message, budget, and short and long-term goals.
• Talk to similarly situation lawyers about their experiences with various strategies, consultants, and vendors.
• Before you hire anyone, ask a lot of questions about "how this stuff works" and what level of transparency, accountability, and reporting is available.

While implenting the "right" internet marketing plan can serve as an excellent piece of your firm's greater marketing campaign, getting stuck with the wrong plan can put a dent in your pocketbook, harm your professional reputation, or even get you into legal ethics hot water with your state bar.

There's just no substitute for learning about internet and search marketing before you dive in head first.

If you ask most lawyers about their best source of new clients, the overwhelming majority will answer "word of mouth referrals." Which makes sense. A lawyer develops a relationship with her client, provides great service, and when that client's friends or family needs a lawyer, the client is motivated to refer people they know to the lawyer.

And before the internet, the person who was referred was likely to call or visit the lawyer to inquire about retaining the lawyer's services.

And as part of that inquiry, that prospective client would be likely to ask the lawyer about her experience, maybe her background, and probably a bunch of specific questions about their specific legal matter.

And based on this interview, the prospective client would make a decision about whether or not to hire the lawyer.

And this, or something relatively similar to this, was pretty much how word of mouth legal referrals went.

That was, until the internet.

In the internet age, when someone is referred to a professional service provider, like a lawyer, they might not call or visit the lawyer directly.

Instead, legal services consumers are more and more likely to research the lawyer online.

They might search for the lawyer in Google. If they have the address, they might visit the lawyer's website or blog directly. Or they might visit a variety of third-party legal websites, directories, informational portals, or directories.

And so the questions become, what will they find and how will what they find influence their hiring decision?

Will they find anything about you at all?

Will they find an obviously outdated website?

Will they find your clients writing positively about you?

Will they find other lawyers writing positively about you?

Will they find that you are regularly quoted and interviewed in the media?

Will they come away with the feeling that you are the right person to help them?

These are just some of the ways that the internet can influence word of mouth referrals.

And while not every person who is referred to you will necessarily search for you online, more and more people are.

So ask yourself, what do people who are referred to you find when they go online?

If this isn't a good enough reason to start learning how to develop your professional profile online, I don't know what is.

In a recent post at SEOmoz, master inbounder, Rand Fishkin made some excellent points on how the internet has changed how people shop for men's clothing.

Since Rand did such a nice job articulating the differences between interruption and inbound marketing, I thought it worth applying these concepts to some ways legal services consumers use the internet to when they think they need a lawyer.

Here's a recent television commercial I saw here in Chicago:

So that's there's no confusion, I don't know this attorney. I don't know what the cost of this campaign was. And I have no idea what kind of return it generated.

However, I do know that when their potential clients think they might be in need of a lawyer, they might do this:

And they might see this:

And some folks might not know whether they even need a lawyer yet. So they might ask a question like this:

And some of those consumers may have been referred by friends. So those folks might do this:

And they might see this:

And this:

And they'll eventually find this:

And they may even get to this:

Whether they're directly searching for a lawyer, trying to get answers about their legal issues, or vetting a referral that they received from a friend or family member, the way legal services consumers find information about their legal issues has been forever changed by the internet.

I don't know if interruption marketing will ever completely die. However, I am pretty confident that providing your potential clients with content that demonstrates your knowledge, skill, and experience, when they are looking for it is much more likely to motivate them to contact and hire you than when you interrupt their favorite television show or sports game.

And the internet provides a variety of ways for you to do that. And most of these are much less expensive than their interruption counterparts.

Choosing a domain name is an important decision when setting up your website.  The domain you choose has far reaching implications extending from your visibility in search results to your use of the domain in offline advertising and marketing. 

Unlike in the offline, brick-and-mortar world, websites don't offer any visual cues about what exactly they are until you visit the site.  All domains have the exact same format (http://subdomain.rootdomain.tld for example http://www.attorneysync.com).  Because of this, it's important that you choose a name that helps identify you as a law firm and better yet, one that can help a client understand your practice.

All things being equal, it is my belief that you should use a keyword rich domain if you have the option.  For example, if you are a bankruptcy lawyer in Montana named John Doe, I would recommend securing Montanabankruptcylawyer.com over JohnDoe.com.  This helps not only with search visibility, but it also provides cues to the site visitor about what your site is about.  Montanabankruptcylawyer.com provides much more information than JohnDoe.com.  While there are reports about Google dialing down the effectiveness of a keyword rich domain in search results, there is still value for the user and I believe it will always play some role in the search algorithm even if that role is "dialed down."

Using our example above, a lawyer might choose to use their name John Doe instead.  In this instance, I believe you are better off adding "law" or some legal modifier to help identify your website as legally related.  In other words, JohnDoeLaw.com is more advisable than simply JohnDoe.com.

All The Best Domains Are Taken

I understand that the legal space online is brutally competitive and many of the best domain names have already been secured.  This means that in order to secure a keyword rich domain you will have to get more creative.  For instance, in our example above there is a good chance that MontanaBankruptcyLawyer.com or your local, geographic permutation for this name is already taken.  You can try adding a suffix such as "group", "blog", or "info" to your desired domain name and check it's availability.  You will simply need to get more creative than just checking on the availability of an exact match domain and calling it a day.

That being said, here are a few things to avoid when choosing your more creative domain:

Avoid uncommon top-level-domains - A top-level-domain is the extension that proceeds the domain name you choose (.com or .net are top-level-domains).  Avoid registering TLD's such as .info, .cc, .ws, and .name as they are indicators of spam.

Avoid domain names longer than 15 characters - Names that get too long appear spammy and are difficult to type into the address bar.  The following is a real website domain name for a law firm http://nursinghomenegligencemalpracticeaccidentsabusephiladelphiapa.com.  Needless to say it is too long and filled with too many keywords to be an effective domain.

Beware of permutations - In the book Search Engine Optimization Secrets the author gives a good example of this.  the owners of ExpertsExchange.com built a brand and large website before they realized that the name could be misinterpreted as ExpertSexChange.com.

Finally, when you are researching possible names to use, I recommend using a domain search engine such as domize to make your life easier.

Photo by Ivanpw (http://www.flickr.com/photos/28288673@N07/)

In light of Google's recent "Farmer's Update", farming themes have been running rampant throughout the online marketing community. So I figure, what's one more.

If you've ever spent any time online (or even using email), someone has probably told you that you need links to your website in order to "rank better in google."  Next, they probably tried to sell you some links.  Sound familiar? What they aren't telling you is that not all links are created equal.

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As reported by The New York Times:

Online video is becoming a first stop for many customers. It is akin to what the Web page was a decade ago — something that can give early adopters an edge over competitors. It gives them a channel to talk directly to customers in ways previously accessible only to large companies that could afford TV advertisements.

As Google continues to increase the visibility of videos in its universal search results, the value of producing videos for your business will undoubtedly continue to rise. However, like other forms of web content, not all videos are created equal.

If you go to YouTube and perform a quick search for lawyer, it is likely that you will find an abundance of very poorly executed lawyer video advertisements. These are remnants from the TV and Yellow Pages advertising days. They are simply ineffective on the web. Here's why. People use the Internet for a variety of reasons. However, looking for advertisements simply isn't one of them. If you want to advertise online, buy advertising. It's that simple. Then compare the performance of your online advertisements to other web strategies (like blogging).I bet that you will find that there is really no comparison. That's not to say that online advertising is bad. It's just different.

Effective online videos do provide early adopters a competitive advantage. In other words, as of now, there's a lot less competition for video visibility than there is for organic search visibility. However, how will the consumer react when they do see your video? Will you have provided them with something helpful? Or will you have told them how awesome you are?

While people go online for a variety reasons, at one time or another, most people will probably use the Internet to solve a problem. In fact, aside from consuming news & stalking your friends on facebook, I would venture to guess that some form of problem-solving is probably contributes to a great deal of Internet usage and search behavior. That is why, as the owner of a law firm, everything that you do online to grow your professional reputation should be designed around solving problems.

This really should come as no surprise. As it has been since ancient times, people call upon advocates to help them solve their problems. Whether it be answering questions, counseling through difficult decisions, or litigating their matters at court, lawyers have always been called upon to solve our problems. And so, the first step to any online professional reputation development should be brainstorming your potential clients' problems.

What Is The Problem?

Unfortunately, many legal professionals conclude that the problem their prospective clients are facing is that they don't know enough about them. That is why they spend so much time and effort adding biographical information about themselves. They write about how hard they work and how much experience they have. They include images about professional awards that they have won and the number of years it has been since they first got their license. But is this truly the problem that prospective clients have? Are they out looking for this information? Perhaps eventually, but not at first.

Solving Their Problems

The first problems they are trying to solve have to do with them. How can I get out of this financial mess? How will I pay my bills now that I can't work because of an injury? What amount of jail time may I be facing for my drunk driving arrest? These are the problems that Internet using prospective clients are trying to solve. And these are the problems that legal professionals should be helping to solve online.

And so, your online professional reputation building should be invested in techniques that solve problem. Here are some excellent ways to help solve-problems online:

• Blogging - Blogging about the problems that your prospective clients are facing, and more important, how you can help them solve them, is one of the most effective ways to communicate the value of your services online.
• Q & A Sites - Sites that provide forums for questions and answers are another great opportunity to help prospectice clients solve problems online.
• Content Syndication - In addition to developing problem-solving content, it's important to get that content in front of those that have the problems that you're trying to answer. That is why content syndication is so important.
• Commenting on Blogs - You may be surprised as to how effective blog commenting can be in terms discussions and problem solving.
• Educational Materials - Whether in the form of guide downloads, e-books, traditional books, or videos, providing a variety of educational materials geared at solving problems is extremely effective online.

So the next time you find yourself tweaking your "about us" or "attorney profile" pages, spend some time thinking "about them". What are their problems? How do you help them solve those problems? How can you effectively communicate your ability to help them solve those problems.

Once you have addressed their problem and how you may be able to help them solve it, only then is it time to communicate your adeptness for solving those problems. Interestingly, it has a lot less to do with where you went to law school and how long you have practiced than it does about how you are able to communicate your ability to solve their specific problem.

Captions are an important component of your blog posts.

It's common knowledge amongst bloggers that crafting an interesting, catchy headline can help to increase the click-throughs and readership of your article.  It's also well known that incorporating photos into your posts is a great way to grab your reader's attention (If this wasn't well-known to you then it is now).

But there is a component of your blog posts that you may be overlooking (I know I was).

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While there is little question that social signals influence search, specifically how social media signals will impact traditional seo factors is still largely in flux.

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Law firm testimonials are becoming much more important to effective law firm seo. As search engines and the web become more and more local and social, client ratings, reviews, and testimonials play an increasingly important role in terms of building visibility online. But how can legal professionals increase the quality and quantity of online reviews?

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While it's well-over 2 years old, NYT Small Business writer, Kermit Pattison's post Managing an Online Reputation, remains one of the most insightful articles on the subject of building and nurturing your business and your professional reputation online:

Your customers are talking about you — and the whole world is listening.

In the time since the article, review sites, online social signals, and local signals have gained more and more importance for business owners, including legal professionals. This has happened primarily from the demand for trust online. Some social and local signals provide a trust element that just hasn't existed online in this form.

However, to me, the real insight from the article comes from Greg Sterling, a San Francisco-based Internet analyst who specializes in small business and local search:

“It’s all common sense — the best way to ensure that you have positive reviews is to offer good products, good service, have integrity and be diligent,” said Greg Sterling,. “It’s really just the rules of dealing with people in the real world, translated online.”

With all of the buzz surrounding social media, SEO tricks and secrets, and the various other forms of Internet snake oil, the truth is that effective online marketing, in many ways, parallels its offline predecessor.

Successful law firm web marketing really comes down to some simple ideas. Provide the best possible service for your clients. Develop a professional presence with informative content and get that content in front of people who are able to publicize it, link to it, and share it with your target audience of potential clients.

Per usual, very important stuff from Rand Fishkin in Google + Bing Confirm that Twitter/Facebook Influence SEO:

As of yesterday, both Bing and Google have confirmed (via an excellent interview by Danny Sullivan) that links shared through Twitter and Facebook have a direct impact on rankings (in addition to the positive second-order effects they may have on the link graph). This has long been suspected by SEOs (in fact, many of us posited it was happening as of November of last year following Google + Bing's announcements of partnerships with Twitter), but getting this official confirmation is a substantive step forward.

Does this mean that you can "tweet" and "Like" your way to the top of Google's organic results? Unequivocally, no. However, this is yet one more reason that business owners, like legal professionals, shouldn't ignore social media and networking or dismiss it as kids' stuff.

Unfortunately, this revelation will probably mean an increase in phone calls, emails, and other forms of solicitation from "social seo experts" claiming to be able to get clients for attorneys by blasting out huge amounts of tweets and Likes. Fortunately (or at least hopefully), Google is much more sophisticated than that (although in light of recent Googbarrassment, one begins to wonder).

It also probably means that we are likely to see an influx of "spam tweets" and "spam Likes" flooding our social circles. 

Nevertheless, the real takeaway from this validation is that participation in the social web is playing an increasing role in search engine visibility. While some legal marketing professionals believe that Twitter is a complete waste of time for lawyers, others believe, "you'd have to be flat out nuts these days not to be monitoring real time conversation on Twitter mentioning your firm, clients, competition, and keywords & phrases related to the niche in which you practice."

Like everything else in life, finding the right balance for effective participation will present a challenge that each individual legal professional will have to address for themselves. Like it or not, the social and local web are here, probably to stay.

Even those that have been skeptical about the effectiveness of social media and social networking for their law practice are now forced to face the simple fact that social signals will impact their precious Google rankings.

I'm a huge fan of defense. I always find myself cheering for teams that play great defense. I draft defensive players in my fantasy football league much earlier than I probably should. My favorite college football player is Charles Woodson. And so, in the spirit of great defense, I want to discuss playing professional reputation defense online.

I was recently contacted by a fellow law firm web visibility consultant who had a client with a problem. She, an attorney, had represented a woman in a divorce proceeding. For whatever reason (presumably sour grapes), her client's husband decided to launch an online attack. He set up a free google site and opened an adwords account. He targeted her name and ran an ad saying something to the effect of before you hire so and so, read my story. On his site he explained why this attorney was so terrible.

Now you might be thinking, hey this is great publicity for her. If her client's adversary despises her so much, she must be doing something right. In any case, the site said some less than flattering things about this attorney and so she went to her web strategist to talk about some ways that she could diminish the impact of the ad. Here were a couple ideas:

• Run a counter ad pushing his ad down.
• Complain to Google to remove the ad.

Needless to say, each of these methods isn't without limitation. In fact, in my experience, getting Google to remove an ad is a painstaking process that takes a long time, if you they are willing to do it at all.

But Adwords ads aren't the only reputation defense problem that legal professionals may face online. As attorney Lee Rosen points out in Can You Get a Bad Review Removed from Google?, review sites, including Google Places, can present reputational issues for attorneys as well:

Let’s say a former client trashes you on your Google Places page. The client rips you a new one and tears you from limb to limb. Can you get Google to remove the review? What if it isn’t your client, but instead it’s your client’s spouse? Can you get Google to remove that review? Google says it “reserves the right to remove reviews that include any of the following:

 

Inappropriate content

We want to provide a clean and positive user experience for all users. We may remove reviews that contain or link to unlawful content, or content that violates our Google Places content policy. We may also remove reviews that include plagiarism or are copied from other sites.

Advertising and spam

Nobody likes spam and it can only make its author look bad. Don’t use reviews for advertising or post the same or similar reviews across multiple places. Obviously, don’t post fake reviews intended to boost or lower ratings.

Off-topic Reviews

Reviews should describe your personal, first hand experience with a specific place. Please do not post reviews based on someone else’s experience, or that are not about the specific place you are reviewing. Reviews are not a forum for personal attacks, rants or crusades. Please also do not use reviews to report incorrect information about a place — use the Report a problem link for that place instead.

Conflict of interest

Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if well-intentioned, a conflict of interest can undermine the trust in a review. In addition, we do not accept reviews written for money or other incentives. Please also do not post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the place you are reviewing.

From these guidelines, I would agree with Mr. Rosen that it seems that you may be able to get adversarial reviews removed. On the other hand, guidelines don't always equate to action.

For example, we recently had a client who had received spam reviews that had been posted on several other attorney place pages as well. We submitted our request to have the spam removed. After several weeks, the review was finally taken down.

As these issues become more an more prevalent, I have no doubt that review sites will become more active in addressing them.

Whether you are trying to decide whether you need outside help, are in the process of interviewing consultants, or have already retained a web strategy professional, asking some informed questions can make a big difference in your online success.

Here are some basic questions that can make a big difference:

• Can you provide examples of your work and share the results? - There is no substitute for experience. Hold your web strategy partner accountable for delivering tangible results.
• What is your position on Google's Webmaster Guidelines? - The Webmaster Guidelines certainly leave some room for interpretation. However, how your prospective consultant interprets these guidelines will have a significant impact on their success and the risks to your professional reputation.
• What results should I expect? - From the beginning of your web strategy partnership, you should set tangible goals and expectations. If your goals and expectations don't match those of your web strategist, you are likely to be disappointed.
• How long will it take to obtain those results? - Timing and patience are critical to successful web strategy. While you shouldn't expect results overnight, you shouldn't have to wait years to see significant results. Depending on the strategies in place, we generally like to see significant improvements within 6-8 months.
• How do you measure results? - This is one of the most critical questions. Too many consultants track the wrong metrics. Ultimately, you should measure any marketing on how well it increases business to your firm. You should also measure search engine positions, traffic to your site, and potential client inquiries from the web.
• What's your experience in the legal industry? - Just because a web consultant has had success in other industries, doesn't mean they will have success with your law firm. Web marketing for law firms is highly competitive and presents unique challenges that don't exist in marketing other businesses.
• What's your experience in my location? - Understanding the competition in your specific geographic region is also very helpful. Web marketing in New York City isn't the same as marketing in suburban Arizona.
• What strategies do you plan on implementing? - It is absolutely essential that you understand what your strategy professional plans to do for you and why. That is why it's so important for you to learn law firm seo basics.
• Will you communicate website changes, information on your recommendations, and the reasoning behind them? - Successful web strategy requires communication. There are very few "secrets". Mostly, online marketing success comes down to knowledge, skill, experience, and leg work. Don't get duped into buying "secrets", "special relationships", or other magic seo.

Asking these basic questions will help you avoid many of the most common web consultant traps. Are you considering hiring a consultant? What questions / concerns are you facing? Have you interviewed web strategy consultants? What challenges have you faced? Do you have a healthy partnership with your web strategists? What have you found makes your partnership work?

Free Guide: Hiring A Law Firm SEO Consultant Learn How To Go About Hiring An SEO Consultant For Your Law Firm Including: Hiring a Professional vs Do It Yourself Finding The Right SEO Consultant Pitfalls To Avoid Google’s Recommendations Questions To Ask An SEO Before You Hire Them

I was reading a post from a blog on evolutionary psychology discussing fear.  In the post, they quote 50 Cent (I know...bear with me) and Robert Greene from their book The 50th Law:

In the beginning, fear was a basic, simple emotion for the human animal. We confronted something overwhelming -- the imminent threat of death in form of wars, plagues and natural disasters -- and we felt fear...Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion known to man, something deeply inscribed in our nervous system and subconscious...

Over time, however, something strange began to happen. The actual terrors that we faced began to lessen in intensity as we gained increasing control over our environment. But instead of our fears lessening as well, they began to multiply in number. We started to worry about our status in society -- whether people liked us, or how we fit into the group. We became anxious for our livelihoods, the future of our families and children, our personal heatlh, and the aging process. Instead of a simple, intense fear of something powerful and real, we developed a kind of generalized anxiety. It was as if the thousand of years of feeling fear in the face of nature could not go away- we had to find something at which to direct our anxiety, no matter how small or improbable.

Fear creates its own self-fulfilling dynamic- as people give in to it, they lose energy and momentum. Their lack of confidence translates into inaction that lowers confidence levels further, on and on. If you view everything through the lens of fear, then you tend to stay in retreat mode.

I thought this was not only interesting, but relevant to the way a law firm might approach their marketing.

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I've read that at any given time, Google is running hundreds of experiments with various search results.  Sometimes you notice one of these experiments in the wild.  It's interesting to analyze such an experiment and consider where Google might be headed with it's search results.

It's no secret that Google Places, or the Google 7-Pack, is integrated into many search results with local intent.  A search for a key phrase such as "Chicago bankruptcy lawyer" is going to display the Google Places results, prominently at the top of the page.  Google is also trying to better understand your geographic location even when a search is performed for a generic keyword such as "lawyer".   I came across a method Google was testing the other day to deliver localized search results for "lawyer".

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While accessing link networks can be very effective in terms of building your law firm's web presence, developing, organizing, and managing a comprehensive link building strategy is essential to increasing your visibility for higher volume, more competitive search phrases. 

Generally speaking, you should identify high-quality domains that are relevant to your practice and location. In other words, focus on legal domains that relate to your practice and/or state.

More specifically, you should look at:

- State Bar Websites

- Legal Blogs

- Law School Websites

- Charities Related To Your Practice (i.e. Innocence Projects and Social Justice organizations).

Usually, these sites will be established and authoritative domains that will significantly enhance your law firm seo success.

On his legal marketing blog, Tom Kane, citing Internet marketing consultant Tom O'Leary states:

That may be a bit strong. But not too far off for law firms that market to consumers vs. corporate firms. Tom O’Leary, a law firm internet marketing consultant, reports his clients are telling him that they are doing much better with Google Local Listings than with their web sites. In fact, some of his clients don’t even care where their web site shows up in regular search results.

Warning: Lawyers, DO NOT ignore your visibility in organic results!

While there is no question that legal professionals that market to consumers should be concerned about their visibility within Google Places (or Google maps), there is also no question that the overwhelming majority of clicks on Google still take place on the organic listings. In a nutshell, ignoring, or not caring, about whether your website shows up in organic search listings is simply a mistake.

First, Google Places listings only appear for a segment of the the total search phrases that may generate targeted traffic to your website. If you are ignoring your visibility in organic results, you are missing out on many targeted legal service consumer searches.

Second, Google Places listings are in a constant state of flux. While there are certainly strategies that can be implemented to increase your visibility there, they are much less reliable than organic positions.

Third, while the local business listings do have prime placement on the results page and maps integration, they don't have detailed titles and descriptions. Therefore, while consumer that are looking for offices near their homes may prefer local listings, many others will still read and click the more detailed organic links.

Finally, at the present, the analytics tools and customer support provided from Google's Places team is wanting. Small changes can have a significant negative impact on your visibility in the local business results. This makes your local business listing fragile and subject to huge fluctuations in traffic.

The bottom line is that you should be focused on your visibility in Google Places however, you should absolutely not be ignoring your visibility in organic search engine results. If you do, there is no question that you will be missing out on a lot of new client opportunities.

In the unequal democracy of search engines, links to a website are votes for that website. Therefore, getting a quantity of quality links to your website and/or blog, should be a large part of your web strategy. However, it's important to understand that not all links are equal. Likewise, it's also very important to recognize that "link strategies" are not equal.

Law Firm Link Networks

One of the most common, and currently highly successful, link strategies is link networking. While these networks take many forms, the very general structure looks something like this:

• Law firms pay the network administrator for access to the network
• Links to the law firm's website or blog are added to some or all of the networked sites.
• Access to the link network provides a variety of links from several domains back to the participating law firm websites or blogs.

As previously stated, at present, there are several powerful legal link networks that are generating excellent results for their participating law firms. There is no question that firms accessing these networks are enjoying very strong search engine positions for rather competitive search phrases. The relative impact of accessing the link network depends on both the number and quality of the participating websites.

While a link network strategy can generate significant results in terms of search engine positioning, it is not without limitation.

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My business partner always likes to say that sometimes people have to "touch the stove" in order to learn.  For those who haven't heard the expression, what he means is that you can tell a person a stove is hot and not to touch it.  Some might heed the warning and stay away.  However, a lot of people need to touch the stove and burn their hand in order to make the connection.  In other words, they have to experience the outcome of their actions in order to change their behavior.  

I recently watched a documentary on Warren Buffett.  In one of the segments, his children tell a story about their household growing up.  It's a great example of teaching through experience.  The story resonated for me because in order to effectively market a law firm, you're going to have to get comfortable "touching the stove".

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There was an interesting post on Seth Godin's blog recently discussing taxi drivers.  The post describes how taxi drivers in New York were initially reluctant to start accepting credit cards.  They thought the credit card fees would be too expensive and they would lose money.  As it turns out, the tips increased......dramatically.  Seth explains:

Because most of the machines offer a shortcut for the tip: $2, $3 or $4.

You can decide to be a cheapskate and hit the $2 button. Except...

Except that if you had paid cash, you probably would have tipped 75 cents for that $4.25 ride. It takes a few more clicks to type in 75 cents, and hey, $2 is the lowest and it's a more 'normal' amount.

It's a three second decision that happens over and over. People really like cues.

 

The same snap decisions are made online every day.  Just like people choosing their tip prefer cues on what to do, so do the visitors to your website or blog.

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I came across this interesting video discussing lawyers and emotional intelligence on Youtube.

As the video articulates, emotional intelligence is a very important skill set for attorneys and one I think is often overlooked when evaluating what makes a successful attorney tick.  

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In The Art of War, Sun Tzu discusses strategy vs. tactics:

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

I often find myself speaking with attorneys about their online marketing only to become mired in discussions about tactics and logistics.  Now don't get me wrong, understanding the tactics someone will use to market your firm is important.  However, if you do so while ignoring your overall strategy than your odds for success are minimal. 

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Getting your content in front of other legal professionals is a core component of growing your professional reputation online.  One place to consider publshing your content is the ABA's Law Practice Today:

Law Practice Today is a Webzine, a Web-based magazine written by lawyers, for lawyers. We focus on issues that face the practice of law today. Each month we publish articles to our Webzine focusing on legal marketing, management, technology, and finance issues. Each month we highlight an article from each area through our e-newsletter to over 16,000 ABA Law Practice Management Section members, 11,000 opt-in e-mail subscribers and 3200 RSS feed subscribers.

By checking out a couple articles in the current LPT issue, the benefits of publishing here should quickly become apparent.  It should also give you a couple good ideas for articles of your own.

You will also probably recognize some familiar names.  Several law practice experts write for Law Practice Today, which is another great way to build online relationships with industry leaders.

Be sure to maximize the benefits of your author box.  Make sure that your readers can easily recognize who you are, where they can find you online, and how they can get in touch.

I've been reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis (great book by the way).  At the very beginning of the book, before the story even starts, Mr. Lewis has a quote from Leo Tolstoy that encompasses many of the themes you are about to encounter.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

What struck me about the quote was the relevancy it has for lawyers and the various attitudes towards online marketing.

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What Is The Perceptual Contrast Effect?

Changingminds.org offers us the following description of the perceptual contrast effect:

When we make decisions, we tend to do it by contrasting between the decision item and reference items. When two things appear close to one another, we will tend to evaluate them against one another more than against a fixed standard.

A simple physical way of illustrating perceptual contrast is to put one hand into hot water and other into cold water, then move them both to lukewarm water. The cold hand will feel hot and the hot hand will feel cold.

I know this may sound interesting, but seems irrelevant to your firm.   Let me explain a bit more so you can get a better understanding of how to use the perceptual contrast effect to your firm's advantage.

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"I don't have time to do social media."  "I set up profile and am getting zero results."  "Social media hasn't produced one client for my firm." 

These are some common complaints we hear from legal professionals about social media and social networking.  While I have little doubt that these statements are true for the attorneys that have made them, the very nature of the statements indicates a lack of understanding of the very nature of social media and social networking.

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As the web, social media, and social networks continue to change the very nature of human interaction, it is important not lose sight of the power of face to face meetings.

In Lawyer Marketing: You Have to Get Away from Your Computer to Make Rain, experienced law consulting professional Cordell Parvin shares an important point made by attorney Angie Davis:

You absolutely must get out of your office to become a rainmaker.

While the Internet provides an extraordinary vehicle for the "virtual you" to get out of the office, your strongest relationships are still those that are nurtured through real-life interaction.  

Despite the fact that more and more legal professionals are embracing online relationship building, fewer are successfully bridging the online/offline relationship gap.  Fortunately, the web even provides tools for us to turn our web relationships into old-fashion face to face interactions.

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If you've ever looked into online advertising for your law firm, more specifically at paid search advertising, there is no doubt you've been overwhelmed by the staggering number of companies looking to manage your ad spend for you.  

Just so we are all on the same page, when I refer to paid search marketing I'm talking about spending money on programs such as Google Adwords, Yahoo Advertising, Bing Advertising, and others.  More specifically, what I want to discuss are the host of companies that offer to manage these online advertising and search marketing campaigns for your firm.

In the last few days, I've spoken with 3 different attorneys asking for my opinion and thoughts on different paid search management companies.  It occurred to me that many other attorneys probably have the same questions.  I thought the best way to go about this was to present the most popular paid search management pricing models and explain the pros and cons of each.

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So you're spending time blogging, attracting Twitter followers, and getting likes on your firm's Facebook page.  You've got 3,000 Twitter followers, 368 Likes to your Fanpage, and you throw up a blog post every once in awhile.

My questions for you are: 

• What's your end goal with your efforts?  
• Are you attempting to build relationships through these outlets or are you trying to get the small number on your various profiles to tick upwards? 
• Do you want to generate increased business for your firm? 
• Are you looking for more referrals and connections?

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I think one of the most difficult parts of marketing a law firm is crafting your marketing to connect with people on an emotional level.  It's the balance of achieving this while maintaining a level of professionalism and of course remaining ethical with your marketing.  Unfortunately, most of the law firm marketing I see out there is plain, boring, "do what the other guy is doing" type of stuff.  A mediocre marketing message will bring back mediocre results.

The art of marketing is creating a message that allows people to connect to your service on an emotional level.  No one does this better than Apple. 

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While those in the legal profession, and legal marketing industry disagree on a lot, there is one thing on which most of us agree:

Referrals are one of the best sources of new business for any law firm.  However, generating consistent referral sources alludes even some of the most experienced attorneys.

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Seth Godin wrote a post the other day entitled Betting on smarter (or betting on dumber).  In the post he explains the following:

Marketers fall into one of two categories:

A few benefit when they make their customers smarter. The more the people they sell to know, the more informed, inquisitive, free-thinking and alert they are, the better they do.

And most benefit when they work to make their customers dumber. The less they know about options, the easier they are to manipulate, the more helpless they are, the better they do.

Seth's post really struck a chord with me.  It allowed me to reflect on the philosophy and methods I use to market my business as well as the law firms I work for.  I can actually point to the specific experience I had that changed my marketing philosophy; the process of purchasing an engagement ring.  Let me explain.

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At the time of this post, Google's external keyword tool reported 1,000,000 monthly exact match searches for "attorney" in the United States.  While we can debate the accuracy of the tool, there is little doubt that the keyword attorney has some major search volume.  Which got me thinking, who is enjoying all that traffic?

Here is a little info on Google's top 10 organic results (on July 6, 2010 searched from Chicago, IL and excluding local business listings) for the search term "attorney":

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From key phrase targeting, to on-page optimizing, to link building, increasing your law firm's web visibility can seem like an overwhelming task.

However, with so much attention being paid to "getting found" online, there is another component to Internet marketing that is too frequently overlooked.

Gerrid Smith, President of SmithSEO, asks this important question:

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Looking for concrete examples of the benefits of investing in a web presence for your law firm?  In his article, Using Social Networking as a Legal Tool, WSJ's Nathan Koppel reports on the successes Parker Waichman Alonso LLP has had leveraging informational sites related to the oil spill.

The New York-based plaintiffs' firm set up websites with names like bigspills.com, oilspillclaims.com and oil-rig-explosions.com, and it filled them with news related to the disaster and invitations for visitors to provide their names and contact information.

More than 1,000 people have now completed the forms on the websites, and Parker Waichman, which has 23 lawyers, has filed about a dozen suits related to the oil disaster.

Implementing news and informational resource sites in this manner has proven to be one of the most successful ways to gain exposure for law firms online.

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Video marketing has become very popular with lawyers.  While some excel at video marketing for law firms, others have, well, let's just say they have been less effective.

If you decide that video marketing is right for you, it's usually best to talk with a couple experienced video marketing agencies.

In addition to producing a professional, high-quality, and informational-based video, you will also want to make sure that your production company has at least some familiarity with video marketing on the web.

While many companies may be able to produce videos of high production quality, there are far fewer that are experienced with best practices related to video crawling and indexing by search engines.

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