Online Marketing

The law firms we work with often get notices from domain vendors offering to sell them highly coveted domain names for a small fortune. These attorneys generally call us to ask if the desirable domain name, which is supposed to be top-notch for SEO, is worth the investment. For many years, having a domain name that was an exact match to the search query essentially guaranteed top placement in the search engine result pages (SERPs). With this great SEO benefit, exact match domain for highly competitive searches like “Chicago Bankruptcy Lawyer” (chicagobankruptcylawyer.com) could easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

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.

It’s not at all uncommon to see law firms include a list of upcoming events on their websites. After all, it’s a great way to showcase your expertise, demonstrate an active presence in the community and inform clients and colleagues about these events so they can attend or spread the word. Unfortunately, far too many attorneys let this powerful resource fall to the wayside—allowing it to become outdated, stagnant or fail to implement tools which will make the listing of events a true resource for site visitors. If your law firm is considering future events and making these a part of your website, be sure to utilize an integrated event management system which features the following tools:

You draft a clever email message and send it off to hundreds, or even thousands, of contacts and there you have it – your firm’s monthly e-newsletter. Seems simple but without the right program, these email blasts can do more harm than good. Just yesterday, we received an email blast from a law firm which committed all of the cardinal sins of e-newsletters. While the greeting was a nice one, the delivery and presentation of information was grotesque and potentially unethical on the part of the firm. We thought we’d share these mistakes so you can make sure your firm doesn’t repeat them by using a well-designed e-newsletter program.

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.

Every day we’re contacted by prospective clients.  Many ask the same questions like how well do your clients rank with Google? How long is the development process?  How extensive is your content management system? One consideration which is far too often overlooked when selecting a website provider is loading time. How quickly does the server respond when a visitor arrives at a new site?

A slow loading time can be harmful in a number of ways.

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.

Even though we're all about technology here at Amicus Creative, we have to admit that tech terms can be confusing. There are lots of them and when developing a website, many lawyers face the difficult task of familiarizing themselves with all of the basics of domains, websites, DNS hosting and email. To save attorneys time, we thought we'd create a little cheat sheet of key terms and how they are all connected when it comes to your law firm's website.

If you’re a regular reader, you know how we feel about content; we love it! We encourage law firms to add as much content to their websites, as often as possible, to create an effective online presence. Our love does have some limits though. Sometimes, there really is just too much content on one page. We often find this on the home page. Firms attempt to combine a firm profile, information on multiple practice areas and contact information all on one page—very often the first page that a visitor sees when they land on the site. And while this information is pertinent, guess what happens when visitors see so much information?

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.

About a year and a half ago, we created a Twitter account for Amicus Creative Media. Like most businesses starting up on the social media network, we hoped that the account would bring us new business, allowing us to engage with attorneys who might be in need of a new website. We created a branded Twitter profile, studied all of the Twitter terminology and devised a long-term social media engagement plan.

A year and half and 1500 Tweets later, we’ve learned a lot about Twitter from a B2B perspective. Our clients often ask if it’s worth their while to be active on the social media platform so we thought we’d share the 5 main lessons we’ve learned on Twitter.