Online Marketing

In speaking with attorneys about search engine optimization, we’ve received thousands of questions about the process. Many want to know what exactly it is, how it’s done, what works and what doesn’t. In discussing the necessity for high-quality information, many attorneys are quick to question how the search engines are actually able to crawl each website and decipher good information from subpar content. Once we had an attorney comment that Google must employ millions of web surfers to do this well.

Last week, several members of the Amicus Creative team attended Agency Day hosted by Google. This exclusive event invites a number of select Google Partners to join members of the search engine’s Account Strategy team for a day of education and networking.  Along the way we learned quite a few fun facts and helpful tidbits that we wanted to share with you:

Larger law firms usually have CMOs, business analysts and a team of accountants who are the numbers people. Unfortunately, solo practitioners and small firms usually don’t have this luxury, and in addition to practicing law, attorneys in these boutique practices must also double as business development experts.

Every day, we meet attorneys who are just hanging out their shingles and struggle to know exactly which questions they should be asking and what data they should regularly analyze to assess the health of their practices and business development goals. Below, we’ve compiled a list of questions that all business owners, including attorneys, should be able to answer with ease. 

When we ask attorneys how many calls they receive each month from visitors to their websites, the large majority are quick to reply that they’re not certain. This lack of information is in many ways understandable, albeit problematic if you really want to measure your site’s ROI. Of course, you can train your receptionist to ask each caller but that system can be susceptible to human error. Even when your receptionist is sure to ask the question of the individual on the other end of the line, callers often fail to answer this question accurately.  You can regularly check your Google Analytics data and try to manually determine which visitors turned in callers but that can be incredibly time consuming. Luckily, there is another way to more definitively track calls from your website – through the use of call tracking.

As a digital marketing agency, it’s not often that we’re challenged with a marketing project that really pushes us outside our comfort zone. On a daily basis, we design great websites, implement killer SEO campaigns and make some mean logos, and while each project presents its own unique challenges, marketing basics and our unique experience allows us to bring real value, and peace of mind, to each one. Recently, however, we decided to create a radio campaign where we would highlight our services to professionals. Our own marketing team had never created a radio spot, and while it was undoubtedly challenging (and a bit scary), the project allowed us to step into our clients’ shoes and reminded us of the very same marketing lessons we often try to share with the attorneys we serve.  

We thought we’d share a few of these valuable lessons:

If you take a trip around the web, and visit the websites of companies, organizations and even government entities, you’ll find that many contain animation. Simply defined, animation is a simulation of movement created by a series of rotating photos or frames. For many years, web animation was largely synonymous with Flash (it was created using Adobe’s Flash Animation software). However, as we detailed in a blog several years ago, HTML5 animation is now the prevailing technology allowing animation to be experienced across all devices.

Animation can be a great way to showcase the different strengths of your law firm, highlight multiple practice areas, showcase big settlements that you’ve attained for clients or can be subtly integrated to add a more professional feel to the design. If you’re contemplating animation for your practice’s website, consider the following:

At Amicus Creative Media, we don’t just make great websites; we provide our clients with the tools and resources they need to create an effective marketing campaign that continuously generates new business for their practices. One of the ways in which we do this is by offering educational programs for the legal community, and we’ve lined up a number of great events in the weeks ahead. Be sure to register soon - space is limited!

You don’t have to look far to find a company that offers Search Engine Marketing (SEM) services. In fact, you can find millions of sites touting these services by doing a simple Google search. To help consumers find knowledgeable experts and set a sort of standard for SEM consultants, Google manages a partner network which is comprised of approximately 5,000 companies around the globe. At Amicus Creative, we’re proud to be a certified “Google Partner”, offering attorneys across the country top-notch SEM services.

Each year, Google makes hundreds of algorithm updates, many of which go undetected and have a relatively minor impact on a very small number of sites. In the past few weeks, however, Google rolled out Penguin 3.0 which was both a data refresh and an algorithm update; this update is expected to have impacted a much larger number of sites across the globe. Much like the earlier versions of Penguin, this update looks to further penalize sites with spammy backlinks.

There is a lot that goes into effectively marketing your firm on the web. If you’re like many attorneys, you likely find yourself using a hodgepodge of applications and software providers to manage it all. Every day, we hear from firms whose marketing “tool kit” consists of:

Increasingly, with the rise of social media and technology, individuals are becoming more accustomed to real time results.  With most daily tasks, we can complete them immediately. Want to hear the weather? You don’t have to wait for the segment on the morning news, just head to the app on your phone. During your late night T.V. viewing, you see a commercial for an upcoming comedy show but the ticket office is closed; no problem, Ticketmaster online is open 24/7. We are increasingly becoming conditioned to expect instant gratification. The same is true of your website visitors. Are you providing real time value and ways to connect with your practice immediately?