Transforming Your Website Visitors into New Clients

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Larry Bodine

This article is based on my presentation at the PILMMA Summit in Chicago in July. You can get a copy of the slides I presented at the bottom of this article.

Let me share what I’ve learned since I started blogging 10 years ago. Using the tactics I am about to describe, my blog at Larrybodine.com has gotten 1.2 million visits. When I was editor in chief of Lawyers.com we built the traffic up to 4 million visits and 7 million page views per year.

It’s true that the more you blog, the more clients you will get. A law firm website should be updated 2-3 times per week with articles running 300-400 words long.

We all know that the #1 way that consumers search for a lawyer is on the Internet, and a Hinge survey proved that this was true. However lawyers focus at the wrong part of the sales process — trying to increase the number of leads and visitors they get with PPC and SEO techniques. Instead you would be smarter to pay attention to the prospects and visitors who already come to the site, and turn them into clients.

For starters, law firms must have five visitor conversion basics in place:

• A chat feature to talk to clients live.

• An online form to contact the form.

• A toll free number displayed at the top of the page.

• Videos about settlements and verdicts.

• Lawyer bios that discuss client service, that is, how well you explain legal options to clients. Read more

What Google Hummingbird Means for Your Legal Marketing

Posted on November 7, 2013 by admin

Google likes to keep their mechanics under wraps, but new information about their latest update has come to light. Google recently upgraded its search algorithm in order to provide higher quality search results to its end users. Rather than traditionally targeting keywords in searches, the new algorithm focuses on answering the searcher’s questions and better determining the intent behind their search. A focus on “conversational search” is what drove the recent major upgrade. However, it is up to the lawyer or law firm to create fresh website content that will tell Google to bring searchers to that specific page. Read more

Penguin vs. Panda Explained: What Lawyers Need to Know

Posted on April 22, 2013 by admin

One thing is clear, potential clients are using Google to search for lawyers. Maintaining a strong online presence that follows Google’s best practices is the only agreed upon way to at least have a chance at ranking organically in the search engine results page, or SERP.

How well someone’s website shows up in Google depends on how well they follow Google’s search algorithm. This algorithm is always changing. Google has consistently unveiled updates every couple months. Two extremely important updates that all lawyers should be familiar with are the Panda and Penguin updates.

What Is Panda?

The Panda update, first released in 2011, deals with the content on one’s website. Any duplicate or thin content is penalized. Google recognized that sites lacking rich, original content are ‘low-quality’ and do not deserve high organic rankings.

What is Penguin?

The Penguin update deals with another set of issues; links. A website may be penalized if they have a backlink profile with numerous links from low-quality sights. Google sees that as an example a of black-hat SEO and may issue a penalty.

Penguin also deals with keywords. Incorporating targeted keywords into one’s online content is perfectly acceptable. However, it must be natural. For example, if you include Basking Ridge Divorce Lawyer every time you write ‘lawyer’, Google may penalize your practice’s website.

Google constantly makes changes to its search algorithm. There are minor updates every few months. In order to combat this new reality, there is one maxim to live by; only publish thought provoking, original content. These are the signs of high-quality sites, according to Google.

Producing original content can take time and effort. Writing a blog and then posting it all over the web can sometimes hurt your law practice’s website. When publishing your content, it’s important to broadcast it across channels that can provide you with additional reach. At blog.lawyer.com, we provide our Lawyers with the opportunity to become contributors. These blogs are distributed across our social media channels and include valuable outbound links.

If you are interested on blogging or learning more about Google’s algorithm updates, feel free to contact Lawyer.com at support@corp.lawyer.com