subject: How To Make Your Law Firm Stand Out On The Web [print this page] Consider your law firms website as your digital face; an extension of your law office on the Internet. Your potential clients are turning to the Internet and search engines more and more when looking for information on legal services they may need. Your legal expertise is a service that your next client is seeking, and your website needs to communicate this.
The First Step is Being Found
You can have the best designed website with the most comprehensive and informative article library and blogs around, and it will be useless if search engines dont show it in their search results. Any kind of legal marketing or lawyer advertising is useless if its not being seen. You need a combination of 3 things to achieve good rankings in search engine results:
- relevant key phrases used properly in your Web content;
- good Meta Tags (hidden code that identifies the key phrases); and
- relevant Web content thats updated regularly.
The search engine spidersprograms that crawl websites to verify their key phrases are accurately and appropriately used in the sites contentlove to see websites with fresh content added on a regular basis. They rank these sites higher because they usually have more relevant, timely Web content.
The Next Step is Giving Them Something Different
When consumers are shopping around on the Internet, whether for a product or a service, theyre almost always being sold to. They see banners yelling at them to buy now, or, call today. Thats not how legal marketing should work.
Traditional lawyer advertising that yells, hire an attorney now all over their website isnt effective. The real effective websites offer their clients something useful that makes them different from the hire me! websites. This extension of the information olive branch can be in the form of:
-articles about your practice areas;
- detailed FAQ sections;
-informative blogs either expansions on article subjects or current news; and
- offers for free guides, books, or DVDs/CDs youve written/produced.
This is all free, relevant information that shows your client you want to help them understand their situation before you even bother to show them how you can help. This is a great legal marketing strategy that will help you stand out from the crowd. Make sure that all your external advertising ties back to your main website and contact form. Lawyer advertising is no good if it doesnt show clients how to get in touch with you.
Any lawyer can pay a Web design firm thousands of dollars for an impressive-looking website. But a successful website for legal marketing is only as good as what it offers in this case, information. Setting your website up to be found is the first step, then once your client is there, seal the deal with your informative and helpful Web content and free information.
