Legal Technology

For the past year, we’ve held educational monthly webinars covering a wide array of online marketing topics. In the year ahead, we’re teaming up with experts across the legal industry to present informative programs on an even more diverse group of topics. These online events are free to attend, and will undoubtedly give you expert insight into strategies and tools you can employ to propel your practice in the year ahead.

In order to gauge whether or not your law firm’s website is truly effective, you must have insight into visitor behavior.  What are prospective clients doing when they come to your site? Does one page have a particularly high exit rate? Knowing this kind of valuable information can help you to identify problems within your site and make changes to improve your online marketing strategy.   Google Analytics is a free service which tracks activity on your site. We highly recommend that all law firms utilize this tool but as anyone who has ever used this service can attest, there is a lot of information to comprehend and for many, it can be overwhelming.

During your many trips around the web, you’ve likely encountered “live chat” on a site. Usually it comes in the form of a small pop up window with a message along the lines of “Hi. I’m Sarah. Can I help answer any questions for you today?”

The main goal of this feature is to encourage interaction with visitors before they jump off of the site. This tool allows the web user to make contact in the most non-committal manner; after all, they don’t have to pick up the phone or submit a contact form. Heck, they don’t even have to give you a name and they get an instant response.

Guest post by: Peggy Emch

Once you’ve got your new website up and running, there is a lot it can offer beyond just serving as a marketing tool to engage prospective clients.

Your clients will find your website useful for resources like document storage, article libraries, interactive calculators, and FAQs.

You can also make your website a great resource for employees by integrating your Timesheets.com account with your website allowing them to track their hours right from your site Employees can enter hours, look at timesheet history, request time off, and see what’s in the time off bank. All right from your own website!

With the holidays just around the corner, your inbox is probably overflowing with promotional messages from retailers and service providers.  And amidst this influx, you’ve probably noticed an increase in holiday greetings sent out from neighboring law firms and colleagues by way of e-newsletter. With the number of people using email continuously increasing and the cost of postage sky-high, it seems that electronic newsletters are a no-brainer, but finding a good provider for your firm can be difficult. There are many different options on the market. Some companies simply provide a distribution system for your e-newsletters, allowing you to send out an e-mail blast. Others provide a more substantial database management and distribution system while a few others offer even significantly more with content options.  So how to choose one?

Our platform offers a myriad of tools and features to make your site dynamic and interactive. We know it can be hard to keep track of all of these options so we’ve compiled a list of the top five features that your firm probably isn’t using but should be.

Special Reports: Our special reports module allows you to add a report to your website. Prior to viewing the report, website visitors must first submit their contact details. All contact information is then stored within the Site Manager and also emailed to you so you can reach out to the interested individuals at a later date. This tool is a great way to provide informative articles to site visitors while capturing leads.

Password Protected Pages: With the Site Manager, you can easily convert any page into a password protected page, meaning that site visitors must enter in a username and password prior to seeing the information. Firms often use these pages to house client resources or information for fellow advisors. Although these pages are not visible to all, they can be a powerful marketing tool and encourage website visitors to contact you so that they too can receive this limited access.

Social Network Sharing Tools: With the growth of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, it’s absolutely essential that you include sharing links on your blog page. These links allow blog readers to easily share your work through social media outlets.

Audio/Video: Your site is a great place to post informative videos and audio. Using the Site Manager, adding these types of files only take a few seconds and you can add as many as you’d like. Happy uploading!

Click-to-Call Technology:  The less work site visitors have to do to contact your firm, the better. Our advanced Click-to-Call technology makes that first call even easier. A visitor simply enters their phone number on the site and a call is automatically configured between your office and the interested party.  Law firms who subscribe to this feature report a noticeable increase in the volume of calls received from their website.

To learn more any of these great features, call or email us today.
 

As we begin 2011, many attorneys are looking for ways to enhance their marketing strategies and improve their practices.  For some lawyers, technology can be the toughest aspect of firm growth. The tech scene is forever changing and with attention focused on billable work, and little technological background, many firms resist new technologies and their practices suffer.  To help you get on the right track this year, we’ve developed a list of the top 6 “tech-musts”.

1. Up-to-date website:  At this point, EVERY law firm, regardless of size or expertise, needs to have a good website. What constitutes good? Well, your site should have a modern design, dynamic copy and interactive tools for visitors. It also needs to be optimized for the search engines. In the Google age, you just can’t afford to have a website that cannot be found online.
    
2. Email: So you are probably sitting there saying everyone has email. You’re right, most firms we work with have email but you’d probably be shocked to learn how many firms use email that does not match their site’s domain name and still use their AOL or Yahoo email accounts for business purposes. This looks unprofessional and may actually deter potential client or colleagues from doing business with your firm. Also, since so much of your communication with colleagues and clients is now done via email, be sure that you have a professional looking signature on all messages and include the firm logo where appropriate.
    
3. Attorney Blog:  For generations, attorneys have established credibility and received great recognition for their contributions to legal journals. Journals are still alive and well but another medium for contributions has also emerged—the legal blog. Increasingly, more and more attorneys are utilizing easy to use blog platforms to post their thoughts and insights on the law and news. These blogs help to establish credibility and increase visibility in the legal world.
    
4. Social Media: You’ve probably already heard that in 2010, the number of visitors to Facebook surpassed those to Google. With the popularity and influence of social media increasing, there has never been a better time to get onboard.  At the least, your firm should have a profile on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Social media will help you connect with clients and colleagues.
    
5. Online Document storage: It seems that just about everything can be done online these days. You can bank online, order your groceries online and even attend a conference online. With this shift in the way business is conducted, it is no surprise that more and more lawyers are looking for ways to store their clients’ documents online. Keeping documents in the firm’s fireproof file cabinet is just no longer sufficient. LegalVault is a great option for storing documents. With this platform, your clients can log in to their account securely 24/7 to access their most important documents.
    
6. Practice Management Software: Running a law firm is no easy task, especially if you are a solo practitioner or small firm without a ton of resources to devote to support staff. Practice management software can combine your billing matters, scheduling, time tracking and document management into one platform and improve the efficiency of your practice substantially.

In no way is this meant to serve as a complete list of all tech tools for lawyers but it serves as a basic outline of the six online tools which you must have in place for firm growth in the year ahead. To learn more about growing your firm’s online presence in 2011, contact us today.