The internet provides several channels for conducting a lawyer marketing campaign. Perhaps one of the most successful ways to market a law firm online is with search engine optimization. Law firm SEO involves many techniques. However, not all techniques are created equally. Some will produce much better results than others. Further, some may actually be counter-productive.
Lawyer search engine marketing includes many techniques. The goal of each is to increase your firm’s site’s visibility in the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. When properly implemented, these techniques will generate more targeted web traffic to your site. From that point, your site needs to be optimized to convert this traffic into actionable leads for your law firm.
Lawyer search engine optimization involves getting your lawyer website to rank in the natural results of a search engine results page. There is an important difference between natural results and paid results. For example, for every ten clicks on a search engine result page, 7 clicks will go to the natural listings and only 3 to the paid listings. Obviously, ranking naturally opens up far-more traffic opportunities.
Obviously, the biggest distinction between natural listings and paid listings, is that your pay for clicks on paid listings while you pay nothing for clicks on organic listings. In terms of return on investment, ranking in the natural results opens the possibility for much higher returns on investment as your cost for traffic acquisition remains fixed. In paid search, your acquisition will grow depending on your conversion rate (a topic for a different article).
Successful lawyer marketing campaigns need to be built on a strong law firm SEO foundation. From this foundation, you can build out other lawyer internet marketing campaigns including social media marketing and press releases. However, each of these additional efforts will be more effective if they are based on a solid law firm search engine optimization foundation.
When considering hiring a third party to perform your law firm search engine optimization, it is critical to consider the unique requirements and regulations of lawyer marketing in your state. Make sure that any search firm that you are considering employing is familiar with the regulations in your state.