The Top 5 Ways that Lawyers Miss Opportunities Online
Let’s face it… Leading web marketing authorities agree that 19 out of 20 websites need major work, and the legal industry is no exception. As in any competitive, service-based marketplace, it is simply not enough to have any old kind of website these days.
So if you don’t yet have a website, haven’t updated your website in ages, or have no real insight into how your website is impacting your practice’s overall business objectives, read on! Amicus Attorney recently hosted a webinar with guest speaker Andrew Cabasso who provided a wonderful overview of marketing your law firm online. Listen to it now!
Are you ready? Here are the Top 5 ways that law firms miss opportunities online:
No Website
Your website should not be an afterthought when it comes to your legal practice. Today, people are finding most answers to their questions online making your website your primary point of contact with your potential client. If you don’t have an authoritative presence at a branded domain name, you are abandoning potential clients
Bad User Experience
Of course, once users get to your site, they need immediate access to the information they require. Often, new website owners will attempt to put too much information on each page, fundamentally overwhelming, confusing, and alienating the user, and resulting in them clicking the dreaded back button on their website browser in order to consult the next competitor’s site that appeared in their search results. Once they have done this, it is very difficult to get them back.
No Targeted Messaging
Make it clear what you’d like users to do. If it’s better for potential clients to call or email you, then prioritize that information or functionality front and center - making it large and universally viewable across your entire site in the header.
Calls to action are necessary even if you can assume that anybody coming to your site is in need of legal assistance in one way or another. In fact, research shows that when we don’t ask people to do anything specific on our websites, visitors tend not to do anything, and that’s bad for business.
Failure to Consider Organic Search
It doesn’t matter how eye-catching your website design is, or how engaging and informative your content might be if nobody sees it. Search breaks down into two basic categories - organic and paid.
Your targeting of organic searches will rely on the types of keywords featured on your web pages that people will use to search for the services that you provide. The most important thing is to opt for words that your clients are likely to use - not necessarily the words you might use to describe your legal practice to a colleague.
Failure to Utilize Paid Search
Paid searches, such as Google Adwords, are a very low cost but high-ROI way to drive traffic to your site. Because advertisers only pay when a user clicks, it is important that the copy placed in ads speak very specifically to the services that users are searching for.
Our webinar with Andrew Cabasso addresses the advantages of paid search quite well. By using paid search, you can drive the property-buying searcher directly to your services page on real estate, ensuring that their first impression of your firm speaks directly to their immediate needs.
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In short, your online decisions should be guided by some sort of digital strategy in combination with your firm’s business objectives. Start with describing your ideal client, and go from there!
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