Attorney Marketing

All attorneys are subject to strict rules when it comes to communication with prospective clients and advertising.  If you’re in the process of developing a new website for your law practice or outsourcing the project to a web designer, it’s absolutely essential that you take the 5 actions outlined below to make sure you’re in compliance with all state bar requirements.

Success is always subjective. For some firms, website success may be achieving a top spot on a local Google search. For another, it might be getting four leads a month from the firm’s main site. And yet another may just consider having a professional-looking website as online marketing success.

We meet a lot of attorneys at conferences and networking events. Of course, the topic of their firms’ websites always comes up. The most common reaction we hear from lawyers is “I have a website but it could be better.” After digging a little deeper, we often find out why it could be better. Often the graphics just aren’t great, the content was never completed, the site is outdated or it looks nice but it just isn’t bringing in business. In an effort to help attorneys better understand the potential of their marketing efforts, we’re pleased to offer free, no-obligation website assessments.

¿Habla español? Parlez-vous français ? If your office is multilingual, it’s a good idea to include website content in all of the languages that you speak so that you can effectively reach and connect with all prospective clients, not just English-speakers. Ideally, your firm should have a separate website in each language or, at the least, several pages devoted to the different languages you (or your staff) speak.  Many firms, however, do not have the time to undertake the translation of site content so they rely on plugins like Google Translate which can be added to the firm’s website and will translate site content once a visitor selects his preferred language. Although convenient, these automated translation services can be detrimental to your business development goals.

A basic component of any legal website is the almighty attorney profile page. There are hundreds of articles devoted to drafting an effective attorney bio which conveys experience while engaging the reader. And while the subject of attorney profiles has been widely explored, discussion of whether or not support staff should be included on a law firm’s website has been rather limited.

During the site development phase, attorneys often ask us whether or not they should include their email addresses on their websites. Our answer is always resounding no! If you are considering adding an email address to your site (or already have one up there), we recommend that you reconsider.

When a prospective client stumbles across your website, you can be pretty certain that your site is not the only one they will visit. Chances are they will also check out three or four other local firms online. We hear from many practices that acknowledge this inevitable fate and state that they want the “wow factor” so they really stand out to prospective clients. As a team of marketing consultants and graphic designers, we love when firms want to move outside of the box but we’re often surprised by their vision for “standing out.”

Recently as I was skimming through our Twitter feed, I came across a blog post from a marketing consultant that we follow. She wrote about a blog challenge which she had undertaken, vowing to post a new entry every day for 90 days straight. And while it seems like a tremendous undertaking (she is currently about three weeks in), it will undoubtedly have significant benefits on her website and the way she connects with online visitors and clients.

The issue with most people and committing to long-term marketing goals is that we want instant gratification. Most firms we work with start blogging because they know it will help their websites “do better.” They post twice a week for three weeks and then they give up.

Most of the firms that we work with have no shortage of links on their websites. These links take users to websites for colleagues, organizations that the attorneys belong to, online resource guides and news articles. And while strategic links to well aligned websites can make your law firm’s site a great tool for visitors, they can often require frequent review and modification.

Of the 500 attorney websites we’ve developed over the past 5 years, the overwhelming majority have been for solo practitioners or firms with 5 or fewer lawyers. Not to tip our own caps, but we have become the experts in small firm marketing. When we ask most of these firms what the main message is that they’d like to convey with their new websites, the large majority say, “that we’re different.” Many have come from Am Law 100 backgrounds and want to shed the reputation that many firms carry with them—that they are expensive and largely inaccessible. And while this message of being different, with lower rates and more personalized service is appealing to some prospective clients, it is not different from many of the firm’s competitors. In fact, in small law firm marketing, it’s become the status quo.

Many law firms host educational events for clients, colleagues and prospective clients throughout the year. These seminars can be a great way can be a great way to demonstrate your expertise and drum up business, but they do require a bit of “advertising” on your end to ensure you have a significant number of registrants. To get the word out about your upcoming events and make them a great success, consider the following promotional tips: