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

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Google Places – Tampa, FL

Google Place – San Francisco, CA

Not mentioned in the state report below, this law firm received an overwhelming majority of traffic from Law Firm Newswire.

We love marketing law firms, improving brands, and helping you communicate in a way that brings in new clients. But we are also competitive, so when a report is released showing one part of SEO | Law Firm’s marketing plan sending more traffic to lawyers than Lawyers.com, FindLaw’s directory, Yellow Pages and other legal directories, we have to share the news.

Every quarter, we do a customer-wide analysis to see how our attorneys are doing. We look at the detailed statistics to see where traffic is coming from, what visitors are doing and for how long, conversion rates, and a bunch of other data. With news releases on Lawfirmnewswire.com being a strong part of our lawyer marketing plan, we like to see how Law Firm Newswire compares with legal directories.

The result?

Lawyers in popular practice areas can capitalize on hot news items. This client (not mentioned in text report) did just that and reeped the rewards.

100% of SEO | Law Firm clients got more traffic from Lawfirmnewswire.com than Lawyers.com, FindLaw.com, online Yellow Pages, and legal directories in the 4th quarter of 2011. We cannot share individual client data, so we picked a few real clients and titled the law firms by the state in which they practice.

The number on the right reflects visitors for the quarter. The left reflects the website that referred the visitors.

Arkansas

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 136
Yellowpages.com – 6
Whitepages.com – 4
Yellowpages.superpages.com – 3

California

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 125
Lawyers.com – 35
Avvo.com – 14
Nolo.com – 11

Florida

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 225
Nolo.com – 23
Lawyerratinz.com – 4
Yellowpages.com – 3

Illinois

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 121
Findlaw.com – 19
Lawinfo.com – 13
Yellowpages.com – 8

New Jersey

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 146
Findlaw.com – 18
Superpages.com – 9
Yellowpages.superpages.com – 8

New York

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 206
Lawyers.com – 202
Martindale.com – 28
Yellowpages.com – 4

Ohio

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 298
Lawyers.com – 10
Yellowpages.com – 6
Martindale.com – 4

Texas

Lawfirmnewswire.com – 567
Lawyers.com – 20
Avvo.com – 4
Hotfrog.com – 4

In all events, Lawfirmnewswire.com was the number 1 referrer of traffic. In the released report, we omitted non-directory websites from the lineup, however Lawfirmnewswire.com was the top referrer of traffic among ALL website sources not just when compared to directories.

Other websites that generally gave more visitors to the law firm’s websites than directories (but less than Lawfirmnewswire.com) included:
Facebook.com
Linkedin.com
Practice area specific networks (i.e. specialneedsalliance.org, injuryboard.com, etc)
Twitter.com
Forbes.com (for lawyers that are blog contributors)

We decided to share the one case (New York) where Lawyers.com almost took away our crown as they only under delivered by 4 visitors. It was the only case where any referrer was close but we found it to be interesting. The location and niche practice area might have something to do with the result.
News releases are just one part of our marketing plan. When we factor in traffic from high ranking Google Places pages, syndicated blog entries, social networking, published content, and search engine results, I am reminded why we have so much fun doing what we do.

We love building bigger law firms!

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

A couple of large companies that have popular lawyer directories merge the statistics of a website and directory listing to make it appear as though the website is getting more traffic than it actually is. Some do not provide website statistics at all.

Let’s look at an example. Smith & Smith Law Firm had their website built by the XYZ company. XYZ has a large directory of lawyers that consumers use to find legal counsel. In this case, the directory is generally the only “marketing” tool Smith & Smith is getting from XYZ. Since XYZ spends a lot of money on pay per click, television ads, radio, and print to get consumers to their directory, it gets most of the traffic.

To justify directory and marketing fees of $500-$1,000 per month (which does not include any “real” marketing and only provides just a listing) they have to make it look like they are sending a lot of traffic to Smith & Smith. Thus they merge statistics or just show directory statistics.

When XYZ sends a report to Smith & Smith, it shows stats that look something like this:

You received 2,500 views in January 2012.

You received 300 clicks in January 2012.

The first problem with this is that its useless. The second is that the report says “you” or “Smith & Smith” rather than deciphering between “listing views” and “website views”.

If someone went to Examplelawyerdirectory.com and searched for an accident attorney in Los Angeles, they would see a long list of injury attorneys in L.A. That would count as a “view”. All of the attorneys on the lineup in L.A. are getting “views” at the same time. If the person clicks on the listing to learn more, that is a “click” – which does not in any way mean that they clicked on Smith & Smith’s website, only that they clicked on the XYZLawyerFind.com listing for Smith & Smith.

Your website should have a statistics package that gives in-depth information about your website’s visitors. Some companies have their own statistics tools but should allow you to also have Google Analytics or another statistics tracking tool that is unrelated to the company that will allow you to audit the results with your own third party stats reporter.

Generally, for the money you are spending on a big lawyer directory, you can have a marketing plan that provides long term benefits to your firm and improves traffic to your website, not just your directory profile.

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

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

Before we go into writing blog entries, let’s first talk about what exactly a blog is.

The word blog is a contraction of “web-log”. In the early days of commercial Internet access, message boards and forums did what blogs now do. The goal of the blog was to offer a simple to edit interface that allows anybody from any skill level to add entries to a website/blog generally based on a niche topic.

Additional features such as user commenting can add a community feeling to your website but the effort involved in moderating comments for spam and inappropriate messages generally leads law firms to disable this feature. Also, most of our clients disable commenting as community interaction is more prone to take place on Facebook or other social networks.

The other benefit of a blog is increased exposure through RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds. All popular blogs offer an RSS feed that basically takes your blog entries and syndicates it into other blogs, search engines, and forums.

You may not know this but Google has a search engine just for blogs called “Google Blog Search”. By your website having a blog, you are eligible to have your blog entries published in (and syndicated through) Google Blog Search – a free service. If you are using WordPress for your law firm website’s content management system and blog, it will automatically submit your website to Google Blog Search. You can also do so manually at http://blogsearch.google.com/ping.

So now that you know what a blog is and why you should have one, let’s talk about how to write blog entries.

Writing Blog Entries

Blog entries, unlike articles, do not require any special formatting. You just need a title and a couple paragraphs. You can also assign tags that act as keywords for your blog’s search function.

Here is an example of a blog entry for a fictional Boston divorce lawyer we will call Smith & White.

BEGIN SAMPLE
A Divorce is Not Always Immediate

Couples seeking a divorce in Boston, Massachusetts are of course subject to Massachusetts laws governing family law matters. What many separated couples do not know is that your divorce is not immediate after a judgment is issued.

In many cases, a judge will review a separation agreement. If the judge finds that the marriage is in fact irreparable, a hearing will be scheduled for approximately 30 days from then.

Assuming all things go as planned, the judge may issue a judgment at the hearing but this does not mean you are divorced. Your divorce will not be finalized until 90 days after the judgment is issued.
With four months being all but guaranteed at the end of your divorce, it is important to work with an experienced Boston divorce lawyer. All of us at Smith & White have spent years navigating Massachusetts family law and know how to avoid costly mistakes and save time.

To learn more, contact a Boston divorce lawyer, Boston divorce attorney, or Boston family law attorney at Smith & White by visiting http://www.example.com or call 1.555.200.9121.
END SAMPLE

The blog entry was concise, useful, and relevant to this fictional firm’s area of law. Notice in the footer of the blog entry where we included their keyphrases. Those are the most popular keyphrases that Smith & White are optimizing for. In the blog entry we hyperlinked those keyphrases to the law firm’s website (in this sample’s case, example.com). Hyperlinking keyphrases improves the relevance of that website for that keyphrase.

Something you may be wondering is why would we put a website and contact information at the footer of a blog that is being posted on that particular website. The answer is that you should write your blog as if the reader is reading the blog entry on a syndicated website. Remember, your blog entries will be submitted to Google Blog Search, http://blogsearch.google.com/, and other websites. It might also be syndicated on various third party websites. This will bring inbound links to your site and offsite exposure to your 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

1) Start Spreading the News – A monthly press release routine keeps your firm in the spotlight, creates inbound links that help with search engine optimization, and delivers web traffic. Comment on events and legislation related to your practice area. Host seminars and send out press releases about them. Press releases drive traffic immediately after they go live. Having a monthly press release routine is a great way to build a bigger law firm in 2012.

2) Update Your Brand – Law firms that have been around for a while are established and well known in their community and legal fields. Unfortunately, established firms may become such permanent fixtures that they appear stale to prospective clients. With a detail-oriented eye and expertise, a lawyer-branding specialist can give your firm a fresh new look while maintaining the notoriety of the firm’s established presence. Rebranding motivates your staff, associates, partners, and also draws attention from prospective clients. For firms that have clients on retainer, a fresh new look tells your existing clients that you are growing, evolving, and prepared to take on the challenges of the future. A fresh new look is a great way to build a bigger law firm in 2012.

3) Follow Your Visitors – When someone visits your website and does not call your firm or fill out a contact form, find out who they are, get in your car, and follow them around. Well, you can’t actually do that and your state bar probably prohibits such a thing. However, Google can do it for you with remarketing. This product is a Pay Per Click service that can accelerate your website’s conversion and work with your search engine optimization campaign.

Here is how remarketing works:

Your banner follows them around for a period of time determined by you (1 day to 500 days) and can dramatically improve your website’s conversion. Plus, it makes your firm look huge! After all, to your former visitor it appears as though you are advertising everywhere.

These three law firm marketing tips can make 2012 the year you build a bigger law 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