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

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

Twitter is a micro-blogging application which allows users to update a list of “followers” on various topics and happenings. The popularity of this ever changing exchange of information has even prompted Bing and Google to integrate Twitter feeds into their web search results when searching for popular topics.

The goal of SEOLawFirm.com is finding new ways to help our legal clients grow their law firms online, and Twitter certainly is one of those ways.

The key to successfully using Twitter doesn’t actually start on Twitter.com but rather your law firm’s website. In order to make Twitter a traffic source for your firm’s site, you need to have an onsite blog that is updated a few times a month at a minimum. A couple times a week is ideal but realistically, that is a time commitment that most firms cannot make.

Once you have an onsite blog with regular updates, it’s time to set up an account on Twitter. Once your account is activated, start following other users you know.

Look for:

1) Professional acquaintances and colleagues
2) Vendors
3) Popular news outlets
4) Organizations your firm supports
5) Local governments

Municipalities are starting to use Twitter to update the public on dockets. This is a great way to tap into a potential group of followers. Following random users is considered Twitter spam so start with the above list of relevant individuals.

After you have followed a group of people, you will start attracting followers to your account. This when your Twitter account is ready to work for you.

As you post new items to your law firm’s blog, copy the long URL and go to http://lawurl.com and paste the URL into the URL shortener. This will generate a shorter URL that is compatible with Twitter’s character limit of 140. Then, go into Twitter and type a message with the shortened lawurl.com link.

To keep things interesting, also Tweet relevant articles from other sources to avoid looking like a self promoter. Popular websites like CNN, NPR, and the ABAJournal have “Tweet” icons on their articles. This is an easy way to keep your followers up-to -date on news that is relevant to your practice area.

Developing a viable community of followers may take a little time, but as it grows and you have more followers, a snowball effect will begin and Twitter will become a powerful traffic driving machine for your law firm’s website.

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

Lawyers may not want to use the same services used by Tween Tweeters so SEOLawFirm.com has just beta released lawURL.com. A URL shortener for lawyers. Simply paste the URL of your full blog entry in the URL field and click “shorten”. Copy the shorter URL and paste it in your Tweet.

A shorter url may earn a longer list of visitors to your website and blog.

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 fully utilize Twitter, you must first get familiar with a URL shortener. You will need this to stay within Twitters 140 character limit. Bit.ly is one of easiest to use and it’s free. Just go to http://bit.ly/ and paste your long URL in the box. It generates a new one that looks like this, http://bit.ly/9CaPNn and takes up less space in your tweet.

Write a blog entry on your website’s blog or social network blog. For example, a family law attorney can write a blog entry outlining some common hurdles in the adoption process. Copy the URL of the published blog entry, go to Bit.ly, and paste it in the long box at the top of the home page. Then, go to Twitter.com and log in to your account. Write a tweet that goes something like this “Common hurdles and delays to expect when adopting – (paste bit.ly shortened url).”

This gives a teaser and a link to your blog post thus driving traffic.

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