However, law firms that invested heavily in improving their Google Places ranking were hit with a surprise in November when Google merged the search engine rankings with the Google Places ranking in most markets.

Before this took place, local listings were displayed next to a Google Map at the top of the search results page with links to five to seven attorneys to the right. Below the maps area were 10 standard search engine rankings based on the search engine optimization of those websites.

When Google merged the two, everything changed. While some markets still see the traditional top map and lower rankings, most are starting to see and feel the effects of the combined search results.

Now, when you search locally for terms made up of City Practice Area Lawyer (ie: Boston divorce lawyer) you see a combination of regular search engine rankings with Google Places ranking (these have orange balloon icons next to them).

With the merging of Google Places and the search results, Google has begun looking to the website that is linked with the profile to determine the placement of the Google Places profile and search engine ranking.

This means search engine optimization is not obsolete for local attorneys, but rather the driving force behind all local online marketing.

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 | Law Firm Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

Having an e-mail newsletter is a great way to attract future clients by building a database of people who are contacting you today then staying in touch with them. While running your law firm, you need to outsource and automate as much of your legal marketing as possible. Combining blogging and e-mail marketing is something that automates a process without the need of outsourcing.

First, you need to sign up for an account with an e-mail list provider. You certainly have a few options, but we highly recommend MailChimp (http://eepurl.com/cmWKf). Their easy-to-use control panel, list manager, and support serves such companies as the BBC, MTV, NOLO, Law Firm Newswire, and half a million others. They offer a free account and one starting at $15/month, making them an affordable addition to your legal marketing strategy.

After creating an account, you want to click on the “Create Campaign” button and the “RSS Driven Campaign” link.

It will then ask for your “RSS FEED URL”. It will look something like this:

http://www.example.com/blog/feed/

You then select how often you want it sent out. Daily, weekly, monthly? Then set a time.

The next steps allow you to modify your e-mail template and schedule your e-mail list.

If you set this for monthly, your subscribers will receive an e-mail with a few headlines and links back to that month’s blog entries on your law firm’s website. If you are using another email service, ask them if they offer an RSS solution, most services do.

If you are already blogging, this a great way to automate a monthly e-mail newsletter. It would allow you to do stay in contact with prospects without adding one more monthly to-do to your already cluttered schedule.

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 | Law Firm Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

As we explain this to prospective firms day after day, many lawyers question how Twitter and Facebook will work for their firm. Will someone following them on Twitter then get in a car accident and call them? Probably not.

Will someone become a fan on Facebook and when his or her marriage goes south, give the firm a call? We have seen it happen, but that is not necessarily the goal.

It is all networking. Much like you introduce yourself to other lawyers in hopes of getting referrals, you interact on Twitter and Facebook to get your content published, syndicated, distributed, and sent across the web. Lets walk through the process.

1) You write a blog entry on organizing your assets prior to getting a divorce.

2) This blog entry is tweeted to your profile linking back to your blog. The tweet looks something like this “Organizing Your Assets Prior to Getting a Divorce – lawurl.com/abc123”.

3) The blog also goes across Facebook.

4) A follower of a follower or a friend of fan sees your article and is in the process of a filing for divorce.

5) Through your network, you have a new case lead.

Social networks also help your firm to get referrals from other attorneys. As other lawyers follow your content, they get a feel for your expertise in your area(s) of practice. As they also network online, they may run across cases in your expertise in your city. Remember, the Internet is a big place, but the interconnectivity of social networks makes the globe a little smaller.

The later case of lawyer referrals is the most common success of social networks. However, with your content circulating the networks, it gets republished on other sites (blogs, forums, etc). When that happens, links point back to your law firm’s website.

So routine tweets and Facebook postings can get you leads, referrals from other law firms, links back to your website, and ultimately lead to a higher search engine ranking.

And that is just one part of the online law firm marketing process.

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 | Law Firm Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

In the legal community, there is a misunderstanding about social networks. As they see their children communicating on Facebook and gossiping on Twitter, many lawyers tend to relate the value of social networks to nothing more than the new high school experience.

This mindset takes me back to the mid ’90s. Everybody was on AOL, Internet ventures could get half a million dollars in capital just for registering a dot com, and many small businesses looked the other way while their competitors jumped on board and embraced the next generation of commerce. The most popular features on AOL were, of course, chat rooms and Instant Messenger, which made the web seem like one big convention center.

Lawyers who saw the potential of the newly connected world now enjoy web monopolies on their keywords. After your website has been in Google for 15 years with search engine optimization, you are pretty much untouchable. Google loves quality and nothing screams quality louder than the test of time.

The same is true in social networks. Considering that Facebook is the No. 2 most visited website on the internet (second only to Google) and that gossiping children are still the nation’s minority, it is safe to assume that business is being conducted across this goliath network.

Right now, your competitors are integrating social networks into their law firm marketing strategies. Right now, they are getting followers to read their Twitter updates. Right now, you are losing market share by looking the other way while social networks become the platform of the new Internet.

Of course, there is more to social networking than Facebook and Twitter. Content and blogging ultimately drive these networks. It is a content-driven world where marketing, information, ideas, and social interaction become one.

As with all marketing tools, it is not so much the tool you are using but how you use it. Professional applications of social networks help lawyers get new clients from the web. And ultimately, isn’t that what your web presence is all about?

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 | Law Firm Social Network | Legal News | Attorney Press Release Distribution

He then continues to explain how social networks are like cocktail parties which is where this week’s metaphor begins. When attending a social event, you always find different people, but they can be classified in similar categories.

Can’t Hold Their Liquor

This classification of party patron can be interpreted online as the online users that talk too much about too little. This is a parallel to the users who post comments on twitter keeping you up-to-date from getting out of bed, to morning cup of coffee, to shower, to mouthwash, to driveway, through morning traffic, and into the office. Generally, these people provide little to any value to the internet as content is currency on the web.

The Attention Grabber

We have all seen this person. They scream “me” at the top of their lungs with the way they dress, their just-slayed-the-world’s-most-dangerous-dragon smile, but when you finally get a chance to speak to them you find that their conversation is little more than a regurgitation of their autobiography and many great accomplishments, proven or imagined. They have no interest in why you are talking to them only that you are, thus giving them an audience for the many great things they think about themselves throughout the day.

An Informative Presence Is All They Need

Now we tie this into your law firm marketing strategy. The last person in the cyber cocktail party is who your law firm needs to be. This is the person whom everyone goes to because they have the answers. Real answers. They give a brief bio of their history and qualifications, but the preponderance of your conversation with them is about you. You have questions and this confident but warm person has helpful answers. Your law firm needs to position itself on the web.

Your law firm’s news releases, website content, and social media marketing need to focus on your clients. What problems are they facing? What solutions can you offer? Who else are they talking to? There is a chance that prior to talking to your law firm, they have had a disappointing conversation with the “look at me lawyer” who provided an impressive resume with no solutions to their problem. They have also ignored the attorney on TV who is filmed in a boxing ring and on his boat doing things that have nothing to do with their legal needs.

Your firm needs to be about solutions. If your website and marketing content talks about solutions with just a brief bio of your expertise, your law firm will become the presence in the room that gathers an unsolicited audience which ultimately means new cases.

If you haven’t already, I recommend reading Scott’s book as it will help transform your view of online marketing as being more than just search engine rankings but rather a combined marketing effort with many different solutions coming together to achieve one goal: making your law firm grow.

Recommended Reading

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

In the last couple of months, we have seen a lot of fluctuation in rankings which is a pretty good sign that the upgrade is well underway. But one of things we are also seeing is that Google is looking for a new third element, social networks.

It appears that the world’s largest search engine is paying attention to how often a website is linking with popular social networks as a way to gage popularity. Some experts even speculate that they monitor Tweets and Re-Tweets.

The clear message to take from this is that you need a social networking strategy to compete online. It’s that simple. If you are currently working with a marketing company that is not implementing a social network strategy then it’s time to change quickly to catch up with the new Google search.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

Due to hectic schedules, most lawyers do not have the time to fully handle their online marketing efforts, but we have a few tips and tools that can easily be squeezed into a heavy schedule.

Social Networking

Social networks are quickly becoming the backbone of search engine optimization. It’s theorized that search engines are looking at links being posted through social networks to gage popularity. But aside from that, social networks have an audience. If you post content on a blog on your website (which should be done) you will be reaching out to the audience of people who find it on Google blog search or are already visiting your page.

However, running a blog on a social network immediately gives you an audience. Currently, the SEOLawFirm.com Law Firm Network is being tested by a few firms and we invite you to sign up and try it out. The blog will be set up for you at sign-up. Like other social networks, we have our blog feeds syndicated to different blog directories and search engines so that members of our community get immediate traffic to their Law Firm Network blog.

This attorney centered network is also helpful for firms that market themselves to other firms; those that practice in similar areas of law but in states in which you are unable to work. Connecting with these attorneys can open up a referral network for your firm.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

To successfully integrate social networks into your law firm marketing strategy, you need to begin by knowing what to look for. Websites like MySpace have a very young market and will probably not be the best place to start.

When selecting a social network, you should look for one very important feature: a hosted blog. While some business social networks may be built for professionals, with a hosted blog you won’t get an opportunity to fully show off your expertise and attract other members.

The other very important benefit of a hosted blog within a business social network is its ability to build links back to your law firm’s website. This will drive traffic to your website while increasing the number of inbound links pointing to your site.

You may want to try a niche network like “The Law Firm Network” at http://law-firms.ning.com/ or LawLink at http://www.lawlink.com/. Keep in mind we have no relationship with LawLink so you should review their terms and privacy policy prior to using their service.

Both of those law firm social networks will allow you to create a blog within your profile, which can be used by posting either short blog entries or longer articles. Always make sure to link back to your law firm’s website at the end of the article or within the body of the blog entry.

Of course the other side of social networking is well, being social. You should try to connect with like-minded members in complimentary practice areas. For example, a personal injury lawyer in Georgia could find a knowledgeable injury attorney in a neighboring state to possibly set up a referral relationship, to receive and give referrals across the state border.

If you use a law firm marketing company, you should insist on having social networking become a part of your plan. By not using this growing marketing medium, you truly are missing out on new cases.

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

Other Resources: Find a Lawyer | Law Firm Social Network

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