Websites need to serve two types of audiences: readers and people wanting to connect with a lawyer right now. You need to have valuable content on your website, but for the visitor who is anxious to contact an attorney, a lead funnel can go a long way.

Let’s take a family law practice for example. Generally, your visitors will be interested in one of three practice areas – divorce, child custody, or child support. By adding three buttons at the top of the site, you can instantly split the traffic so that the eager visitor does not have to look through your menus and navigation for the popular practice area that relates to their issue.

The next step is very important. Rather than linking those buttons to content-filled sub pages, you should link the conversion funnel buttons to a page that has little more than a client testimonial, bullet list of how your firm can help, and a contact form.

The key to a successful website is serving both audiences. Quality content encourages links, Facebook shares, and Google +1′s. However, you have simultaneously rolled out the red carpet for that visitor that can become a lead, right now. A simple conversion funnel can make that happen.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: The Bigger Law Firm magazine | Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

Be a Fan on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Join our Circle in Google Plus

See us on JD Supra

Google Places – Tampa, FL

Google Place – San Francisco, CA

When it comes to design, unless you have a creative background with the technical knowledge to go with it, designing your print collateral is a job best placed in the hands of a professional.

When deciding on your print designs, keep in mind that simplicity is the key. If you hand a brochure to clients that is overflowing with too much copy, they are probably going to look at your logo, your website address, and disregard the rest.

Use bulletins to outline how you are going to help the prospective client with their problem. Always include more imagery than information and do not be afraid to utilize white space. If you ask any designer with high end experience, they will tell you that designing with white space and simplicity is much more difficult than a complicated design.

This topic brings back a memory of a local attorney who had hired a designer to put posters up in his office to emphasize his practice areas. Rather than create simple one sentence statements and use appropriate stock photography with noticeable placement of the attorney’s logo on the bottom, the designer took a different approach.

They placed the logo at the top of the poster. This is a mistake. Your logo should always be below your message. How you can help always comes first.

Second, they included four lines of content. That is excessive. To add insult to injury, they used four different fonts.

Third, they used freely available stock photography. While you might pay a little more for high resolution professional stock photography, there is no excuse to use anything but professional imagery.

All of those elements together resulted in five posters that the attorney kept in poster tubes in his storage room. When asked why he approved the posters for printing he said “I didn’t. My designer showed me the compositions, I was tied up on a case for a few weeks then one day, they just arrived.”

Which brings us to the fourth and most important tip for professional print collateral – have a contract that clearly outlines the process of design and approval. Creative services, by their very nature, are subjective. I always recommend not using designers from your personal contacts. This often leads to hesitating about voicing your true opinions on their work, which may lead to boxes of print collateral in your storage room. Plus, just because you know them does not mean they understand law firm branding.

Designers are used to their work being critiqued and a professional graphic artist will not take it personally. Ultimately, every designer and branding firm wants a nice piece to include in their portfolio and a satisfied customer they can point to when pursuing future projects. You need to focus on what matters to you, which is reaching a design that you are proud to show off as the face of your bigger law firm.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

You may not have remembered signing up for a Plus 1 account but if you have a Gmail account, you probably have activated Plus 1.

Let’s use an example to show you how this can improve your online law firm marketing.

Emily visits the brand new website of a Boston divorce lawyer. She hits the Plus 1 icon on the page. This is the Google equivalent of the Facebook “like”. Joe connects to Emily…perhaps Joe and Emily have emailed one another from Gmail or perhaps they have actively set up their Plus 1 account, circles, and settings. Regardless of why, Joe and Emily are connected.

The Boston divorce lawyer’s website is brand new and not ranking well on its own. But, when Joe does a search for a Boston divorce lawyer, this particular website is going to be ranked in the top 5 of the search results. Why? Because Emily, someone in his network, +1′d it.

As search becomes more social, your law firm is going to need to adapt. However, with this new change in Google’s search results, you can actually increase your rankings by adding a +1 icon on your site and increasing the size of your network.

When someone clicks the +1 icon on your site, you will rank higher when their friends and connections search for your site. The bigger your network, the larger your possible audience gets.

Of course, search engine optimization is still important. If the divorce lawyer used in this example did not have an optimized site, it is unlikely that Google would rank it high even though it was +1′d by Joe’s connections. This is because the website still has to prove it is relevant to a searcher’s inquiry.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

Remember, the goal of your website and search engine marketing strategy is to convince Google’s algorithm that your website is the most relevant for your keyphrase or keyphrases. If you do a search for your region and practice area, you may notice that the attorneys that focus in a particular practice area are generally ranked higher than law offices that optimize for 10 different areas.

There is a value in niche websites. If you want to focus on divorce, family law, child custody, adoptions, etc. these are all relevant practice areas. However, if you want your website to have information on divorce, bankruptcy, personal injury, real estate law, and contract disputes, you can do that, but you need to select a focus.

You might be thinking, “So I need to have a separate website for each practice area?” This is not exactly our point.

If you want to list additional practice areas, that is fine. But your home page content needs to be focused on the practice area that you want to focus on the most.

If you have a group of niche websites for your different practice areas, that is ok and not a violation of Google’s terms. You will have to come up with unique content for each website because duplicating website content will only bring all of your websites down in the rankings.

However, your link building must take place for each domain name. So if you have five domain names and five different websites, you will need to write five sets of press releases and link building content each month. You would need to have five blogging campaigns to link to your five websites. You would need to pay for five directory listings to link to your five separate websites.

On the other hand, if you just have one website with one niche practice area (or practice group) and then offer extensive content in your website’s subpages, you can just have one highly aggressive campaign to improve the search rankings for your secondary practice areas.

When planning 2012′s marketing plan (which you need to start before January) think about the part of your practice you want to grow then build your marketing plan around that practice area.

Let’s start out 2012 with a plan to build a bigger law firm…yours.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

December is by far the busiest time of year for us because law firms use the traditionally slower month to look at their online marketing and see how their current strategy has played out. Is there more traffic? More exposure? More phone calls? Is there a chance this will improve next year?

Do not wait

A lot of law firms come down with “First of the year syndrome”. Law firms suffering from this syndrome put off their legal marketing planning until the next year. Unfortunately, your competitors are not all inflicted with the same disorder and therefore are getting a head start.

It is important to make sure you are working with a law firm marketing company that is innovative. When was the last time your marketing firm had a new idea? Developed a new service? Also, when was the last time you heard from a representative with your current legal marketing firm?

Let’s start out 2012 with a plan to build a bigger law firm…yours.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

Many law firms embraced the technology by having their entire websites made in Flash. Thinking it would help keep the attention of their web visitors, they had slider effects, digital sounds, and flashy transitions. Unfortunately, Google and other search engines were blind to it.

As we fast forward to the present, Flash is all but obselete. In a few unique cases, a small Flash element may still be needed in a header if the design is uniquely shaped but for the most part, Ajax and HTML 5 have taken its place.

If your website is running Flash, here are a few things to know:

1) Make sure your Flash element is only used by a small piece of your website and that it does not have valuable content within the element as Google cannot see it.

2) Mobile Apple users will not see your element. Unlike HTML 5, Apple’s iPhone and iPad users will not be able to see your Flash elements. Android devices will play Flash without a problem but with iPad holding 60 percent of the tablet market, it is adviseable to have your design geared toward these clients.

3) A fresh design may be in order. If your website is running large Flash presentations, it was probably built several years ago. A lot has changed since then and website visitors expect different things. A fresh look can help drive new clients to your law firm.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

Sometimes it is better (and costs less money) to start over with a new website that is built by the same company that is going to market it. However, if you have the right elements in place, you might be able to keep the website you have and move forward with a powerful search engine marketing plan.

Content Management System – Does your current website give you the ability to login and make minor changes yourself? Is it easy to do and easy to train staff members on how to use? If not, you might be able to keep your design but simply have it converted to a friendly, content management system.

Dinosaur or Dynamic – If your law firm’s website is flat, narrow, and from the early 2000s, you will need to get a new design. People expect more out of websites than they did 5-10 years ago. They like wide pages, simplified navigation at the top, heavy graphics in the top half, and content at the bottom. They want easy access to contact methods and links to social networking profiles. If your website is a dinosaur, keep the valuable, aged domain name but give the website a modern face-lift.

Conversion is Key – Ultimately what really matters is how your website is converting visitors to contacts. If you are getting visitors without phone calls or contact requests, it is time to design with conversion in mind. Placement of key elements and intuitive navigation can change the way your website looks and the way it works for your firm. Good design helps convert web traffic to new clients.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

Unfortunately, many firms spend their law firm marketing dollars on ad campaigns that look the same as every other attorney’s advertisements in their region. To quickly catch the eye of a new client you have to look different.

Think for a moment about products and services you buy. Think about the advertisements that you watch and read. If Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and Infiniti said the same thing in their advertisements but simply had a different logo, what sort of impression would that make? This is the same impression prospective clients get when seeing the same words next to five different lawyer advertisements on the interstate.

Here are a few tips that should be applied to your online legal marketing as well as offline advertising efforts.

1) Develop a slogan - Since most law firms are named after a founder or group of partners, a slogan can be easier to remember than the law firm’s name. Avoid generic terms that “We only get paid when you win” or “Put a lawyer in your corner”. These are easily forgettable. Keep it short and make it memorable.

2) Connect your firm with the ultimate goal – Too often, law firms talk about the immediate goal and not the ultimate one. Personal injury lawyers talk about compensation. Family lawyers talk about a finalized divorce. Bankruptcy lawyers talk about getting out of debt. But this is the process, not the goal. After an injury or tragedy, the client wants to move on in their life with a solid financial foundation. An unhappy marriage needs to be dissolved so that the spouses can find happiness elsewhere without this draining relationship bringing them down. Debtors want to rebuild their credit, make new investments, learn from their failures, and start writing the next chapter of their lives. Sell your clients the life they want to have after you win their case.

3) Do not implement the successful campaigns of others – In our November issue of the Bigger Law Firm magazine, one of our columns talked about how law firms are often too eager to copy successful campaigns of other lawyers. This does not work. Imagine if Apple copied Microsoft’s software and Dell’s hardware? Or if Google designed their home page after the cluttered Yahoo! home page? Success does not come by copying a competitor, it comes by creating your own images and brand. You not only have to stand out from your competing lawyers, you have to stand above them with a memorable image that connects to client needs.

The last quarter of the year is the best time to start planning next year’s success story. In 2012, let us not only build a bigger law firm but a firm that dominates in your market.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

An estimated 65 percent of the United States population is made up of visual learners, which shows that people interpret the world in visual ways more than they read text. Therefore, 65 percent of the population remembers graphics and imagery more than textual data. When you want to make an impression, you have to use symbolism.

For thousands of years, civilizations, societies, secret orders, and religions have all used symbolism to communicate with the public and followers.

In fact, historical psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung both agree that the mind has a unique capacity to store symbolic information. Basically, we all think with symbols and imagery, not words. So even the 35 percent who are classified as textual learners still encapsulate their thoughts with imagery and symbolism.

When marketing your law firm, you have to stand out and have some sort of symbolism that your target audience can connect to your law firm. The traditional “Law Offices of” text is really not enough.

When deciding on a logo, you should look for simple and direct imagery that also looks unique. Scales of justice, gavels, large books, and tired clichés should not be used.

Here are a few tips:

1) Think simplistic and symbolic. Your designer should make a logo that interprets the feeling of your target clientele.

2) Work on a catchy slogan that positions your firm. It should be short, not generic, and easy to remember. Perhaps your branding team should work on a slogan, then design the logo around it.

3) Dr. Freud once said, “Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.” Your law firm uses the legal system to help clients resolve a problem, have a successful transaction, or make their life better. You do so through conversations, letters, and negotiations. When trying to appear as a tough advocate, use color schemes, graphics, and subtle styles to convey this emotion. Some lawyers have taken pictures of themselves in boxing rings or with sledge hammers. This is both silly and distracting. When hiring a lawyer, people are more concerned with the attorney’s ability to charm an adversary or jury than their physical strength.

Remember, law firm branding is about communicating with your target client so that you are often remembered when they need a lawyer or have a family member or co-worker in need.

Who knew Dr. Freud could inadvertently give insight on Building a Bigger Law Firm?

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

Google is interested in showing only the most relevant, high-quality websites for each search query. If people search for something on Google and messy, obnoxious websites always show up first, Google loses its credibility. However, if they show quality, clean, easy to navigate, highly relevant websites then they will continue to dominate the search engine market.

If Google is looking at two websites side by side to determine which website is the most relevant for the keyphrase “Chicago divorce lawyer”, which of the following examples would you choose?

Website 1:
Law firm name: The Chicago Family Law Firm
First headline on website: Chicago Divorce Lawyers
Second headline on website: Your divorce, child custody, and family law issues in Chicago are in good hands with the Chicago Family Law Firm.

Website 2:
Law firm name: Law Offices of Smith & White
First headline: Trust the Chicago law firm of Smith & White with your personal injury, divorce, bankruptcy, real estate transaction, and corporate legal needs.
Second headline: Experienced Chicago Lawyers

Looking at the two text-only examples (text is how all search engines see websites), which website would you put at the top of the search engines for someone typing in “Chicago divorce lawyer”?

I am sure Google would choose Website 1.

With that said, you do not necessarily have to build different websites for every practice area. Your website can list different areas of practice that you offer but the focus should be on the top three practice areas you really want to zone in on for new clients and cases.

When your law firm marketing company begins your project, the keyphrases they select should be based on your region and practice area. We have found that most people search for lawyers by typing in the closest major metro area then the area of law they need. However, keyword research is always needed because not every city and practice area combination follows the same rules. Some cities may have more inquiries for “attorney” rather than “lawyer” or the practice area before the city, such as divorce lawyer Boston being more popular than the practice area after the city (i.e. Boston divorce lawyer).

Strong keyword research and a website focusing on a niche practice area can help you build a bigger law firm™.

Let’s Build a Bigger Law Firm™ Together

To learn more about legal marketing, law firm marketing, lawyer marketing, law firm marketing plans, and attorney websites visit SEOLawFirm.com or call 1.800.728.5306.

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | The Bigger Lawyer Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution