MARKETING
15TIPS
TO KEEP YOUR FIRM RELEVANT IN 2023
WE DO WEB
wedoweb.com
1
1.1 What does marketing look like for law firms in 2022?
1.2 How will your law firm compete?
9
Tip #1 Identify your ‘ideal client avatar’
Tip #2 Research localized SEO keywords
Tip #3 Write for people, not for search engines
Tip #5 Land features, guest articles, and earned assets
Tip #6 Grow (and nurture) your email list
Tip #7 Master the art of the follow-up
Tip #8 Demonstrate thought leadership in your content
Tip #9 Engage your audience on social
2
Tip #10 Run targeted PPC campaigns
Tip #11 Diversify your legal content marketing strategy
Tip #12 Tackle your technical SEO
Tip #13 Create linkable assets
Tip #14 Grow your referral network
Tip #15 Prioritize client reviews and testimonials
3.1 Make Your Law Firm Shine Online in 2022
3
The American Bar Association estimates that there are over 1.1 million licensed attorneys in the United States, making legal services one of the most competitive industries in the country.
While this may seem like an intimidating statistic, it doesn’t have to be. With a future-forward marketing strategy, your law firm can rise above the competition and attract its ideal clients, even in the most cutthroat of niches.
In this guide, we’re sharing 15 marketing tips for lawyers to keep their law firms relevant, cut through the competition, and draw in even more clients in 2022.
4
1.1 What does marketing look like for law firms in 2022?
The legal industry is a quickly evolving space. Many traditional marketing methods still work to this day, while others have long gone by the wayside. In order to stay on top of your game, you need to know what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s new on the horizon.
Here are a few trends we expect to see take hold in 2022, based on our experience serving attorneys and law firms for over 12 years:
5
Trend #1: Write for Semantic Search Google’s search algorithm is getting increasingly better at connecting users with the content, products, and services they seek. While using your exact target keywords in your content used to be the standard, now we are seeing a rise in semantic search—search engines interpreting the context of your content to determine what’s most relevant to your audience.
The latest BERT and SMITH algorithm updates provide evidence that Google cares more about whether the content fits what the user is *actually* searching for versus the exact keywords they use. In fact, the algorithm is trained to understand words within the entire context of the content.
What this means is that law firms should create content that appeals to the unique interests of their target audience. This involves building out content that answers users’ questions, focuses on value rather than keywords, and is optimized to provide a better resource for readers than what’s currently ranking.
Google cares more about what
users are *actually* searching
for versus the exact keywords
they use.
6
Trend #2: Get More from Your Content Marketing
Legal content doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, it shouldn’t be. In 2022, we expect to see more law firms creating valuable, engaging content rather than the keyword-stuffed “legalese” we are used to seeing.
Your goal in creating content should be to appeal to your target client, wherever they are in their Buyer’s Journey.
This means creating content that informs and educates, as well as compares and converts. Further, you should diversify your content marketing efforts to reach users across a variety of platforms (website, email, social, video, etc.).
VAL
V
U
AL ABLE CONTENT:
U
Informs
Compares
Educates
Converts
7
Trend #3: Prioritize Local SEO
One thing that hasn’t changed is the importance of local SEO for law firms. Since lawyers most often target a local service area, having a strong presence in Google local search and the “Map Pack” is essential to attracting more clients ahead of your competitors.
However, how local SEO is implemented shows some minor shifts that are worth staying on top of. For example, Google My Business regularly releases new features law firms can take advantage of, and there are always new opportunities to target additional localized keywords with your blog content.
Implementing ever-evolving
SEO practices is essential to
attract more clients ahead
of your competitiors.
8
1.2 How will your law firm compete?
Keeping your law firm relevant in 2022 will involve both doubling down on what already works (tried-and-tested legal marketing strategies) and staying ahead of the curve by implementing some future-focused strategies.
Local SEO, content marketing, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are essentially the “three pillars” of legal marketing, but there are many more legal marketing tips you can tap into to give your firm a competitive edge.
Below, we uncover some of the smartest, results-driven strategies you can use to rise above your competition and keep your pipeline full of new leads.
1
2
3
Local
Content
PPC
SEO
Marketing
Ads
9
Tip #1: Identify your ‘ideal client avatar’
“Whoever knows the customer best, wins.” This is especially true for law firms, as you’re often neck and neck with some stark competitors, all vying for the same pool of prospects.
In order to market to your target audience effectively, you need to know what they want, what their pain points are, and why they are searching for a law firm like yours.
10
Identifying your ‘ideal client avatar’ starts with market research—essentially surveying your audience to find out what makes them tick. You can do this by creating a Google Forms survey and asking them:
• What is your biggest struggle when it
• What is your biggest struggle when it comes to [
comes to [ legal issue ]?
legal issue ]?
• What solutions have you tried to overcome
• What solutions have you tried to overcome this
this issue?
issue?
• What did you not like about these
solutions?
• What did you not like about these solutions?
• What is your #1 goal when it comes t
• What is your #1 goal when it comes to
o
overocoming [ legal issue ]?
vercoming [ legal issue ]?
• What are you looking for most in a law
firm?
• What are you looking for most in a law firm?
Your clients’ answers to
these questions will help
inform your SEO strategy,
content marketing strategy,
and nearly every other area
of your business.
11
Tip #2: Research localized SEO keywords Many law firms make the mistake of targeting broad terms like “legal services” or “lawyer” while neglecting the localized search terms that will serve to narrow down their competition pool. In fact, targeting localized terms is your best bet for drawing in clients within your service area.
One of our top marketing tips for lawyers is to use SEO
tools like SEMRush.com or Ahrefs.com to identify geo-specific keywords. These include terms like “[location]
family lawyer”, “best law firm [location]”, “[location] personal injury lawyer”, and the like—whichever are relevant to your service area and the services you offer.
You will then use these keywords on your web pages and throughout your content to increase your visibility in Google local search and attract clients that are searching in (or for) your service area.
Use relevant geo-specific keywords such as “[location] family lawyer,” “best law firm
[location],” and “[location] personal injury lawyer.”
12
Tip #3: Write for people, not for search engines
With the rise of semantic search, it’s becoming less important for law firms to aim for an exact “keyword density” in their content in order to rank. Instead, you should focus on writing content that provides immense value to the user and speaks to the unique needs of your target audience.
Now, you’ll still want to use your target keywords throughout your content, but you should prioritize writing for people rather than optimizing for Google. After all, Google’s goal is to connect users with the best content—not the content that has the most keywords.
13
Here are a few best practices to follow when writing user-focused content:
1. Write user-specific page titles that appeal to a
question, concern, or interest your audience may
have.
2. Include a concise yet informative meta description
that explains what the page or post is about.
3. Engage the user at the top of the article by
including an interesting, thought-provoking
introduction.
4. Break up large blocks of text into smaller
paragraphs, and use bullet points or numbered lists to
make content easier to scan.
5. Organize your content using eye-catching H2 and
H3 subheadings that keep readers on the page.
Prioritize writing for people
rather than keyword-stuffing
for Google’s sake.
14
TIP 4
Tip #4: Personalize your PR
Peddling press releases to publications or sending generic pitches to reporters is neither an effective nor a cost-effective PR strategy. Likely, you’ll end up wasting time and blowing your budget on pushing content that ends up gathering virtual dust on some publisher’s computer.
Instead, you’ll want to develop ideas that suit the interests of the publishers and their audience. This means pitching interesting stories and/or providing resources their readers can’t find anywhere else.
By personalizing your approach, you increase your chances of getting featured and of creating a lasting relationship with the publisher. This will serve you in the future if you ever want to increase your law firm’s visibility or attract high-quality backlinks to your website.
Personalize your PR approach.
Develop unique stories and
resources for readers to create
lasting relationships
15
TIP 5
Tip #5: Land features, guest articles, and earned assets
Having high-quality backlinks to your website is an important driver of SEO success. By landing interviews, features, and guest posts in other publications, you’re likely to attract links back to your site and drive more traffic.
In doing outreach to publications, be sure to communicate the value you would bring to their readers. Perhaps you can share some helpful legal advice, or be featured in a guest interview. Just remember to reach out to legitimate websites, not spammy sites or “link farms”.
• Interviews
Quality
• Features
Backlinks
• Guest posts
• Podcasts
• Helpful guides
16
Tip #6: Grow and nurture your email list They say “The money is in the list”—the email list, that is.
When you grow your email list, you increase your subscriber base and therefore have a community of leads you can follow up with down the road. You can include a subscription form on your website for users to join your newsletter, or offer them a free downloadable asset in exchange for their email address.
You can collect email addresses by promoting content like:
Ebooks
Case studies
Webinars
Videos
Infographics
Surveys
And more.
Then, you can “nurture” your list by sending recipients consistent content by email, providing them with more valuable information and details about your services.
17
Tip #7: Master the art of the follow-up When people fill out a contact form on your website or call you on the phone, does their information end up in the abyss? Unfortunately, many law firms fail to follow up with leads in a timely manner (or at all) and end up missing out on potential clients. This is why it’s important to master the follow-up.
Create a process for following
up with leads as soon as
possible. This might mean
setting an automated email
message that tells them an
attorney will be in touch with
them soon, or having your
front desk person take down
their details so you can call
them back within 24 hours.
18
Here are a few ways to automate your lead follow up process:
Create an automated email campaign to respond to
new inquiries.
Set up a messenger chat box to respond to messages
and collect user information.
Enable SMS marketing to follow up with subscribers
via text message.
Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
software to follow up with leads, update status, share
documents, and more.
You don’t want any leads to fall through the cracks.
Late follow-ups
result in missed
potential clients.
19
Tip #8: Demonstrate thought leadership in your content
Are you the best at what you do? Prove it—by publishing valuable, informative content your audience will gobble up!
It’s one thing to write about a topic and another to offer your own unique take/angle on it. As a thought leader, you should bring something special to the table, showcasing how your approach stands out from that of your competitors. Every time you write a piece of content, it should be written with your brand voice in mind and serve to elevate your expertise
and credibility.
Law firms can also use
legal directories as a free
resource for publishing
content. Medium.com,
LinkedIn Pulse, and Rocket
Lawyer are all examples of
platforms you can use to
push your content out to a
wider audience.
20
Tip #9: Engage your audience on social It’s not enough to simply share a blog post on social media and hope for the best. You should also be posting thought-provoking content, questions, surveys, and other types of content to get your followers engaged. You should also be responding to comments, questions, and concerns so people know you are active on your account.
Look back at your market research from Tip #1 to see what topics your audience is interested in. Then, you can post about these topics to drum up more engagement on social media.
Valuable content and timely
responses on social media
leads to engagment, which
leads to a broader audience.
21
Tip #10: Run targeted PPC campaigns PPC advertising is a great complement to your existing SEO
strategy, as it serves to drive immediate leads while you wait for SEO to take hold. Running targeted ads to the right audience in the right service area will help keep your pipeline full and improve your cash flow.
Creating targeting campaigns takes finesse, practice, and an understanding of analytics. You should be testing your ads to maximize performance and make the most of your ad spend. If you struggle with PPC on your own, it may be time to hire an expert.
22
Tip #11: Diversify your legal content marketing strategy
When most lawyers think of content, they think of words on the page, i.e. web page content and blog posts. But
“content” can take on many forms: from downloadable ebooks to video content to email and beyond.
Get creative in the types of content you create for your website, social media channels, and other platforms. For example, investing in video content is a great way to drive additional traffic from YouTube, allowing you to further grow your subscriber base, attract website traffic, and follow up with subscribers with email and other types of content.
DIVERSIFY CONTENT
• Articles
• Infographics
• Legal Microsites
• Podcasts • Case Studies
• Comments
• Blog posts
• White papers
• Social Media
•
Ebooks
•
Newsletters
•
Guides
• Videos
• Q&A Sessions
• Printables
23
Tip #12: Tackle your technical SEO
No amount of “great content” will carry an unoptimized site; your website must be technically sound as well. Regularly auditing your website for technical SEO issues will help you keep your website fast and secure, and maintain uptime.
Some technical issues to look out for include:
Slow website load speed
Broken links/URLs
Missing SSL (site security)
Missing page titles or descriptions
Poor mobile optimization
Missing XML sitemap
A trusted SEO professional will be able to audit your site, identify any technical errors, and lay out a plan for how to fix them. Staying on top of this on a consistent basis will help prevent your site from crashing or dropping in the search results. Learn more about our free website audit
24
Tip #13: Create linkable assets Outreach to other publications isn’t the only way to build backlinks. You can also create content on your own site to attract links to you. These are what we call “linkable assets”
and they can be invaluable when it comes to improving your site’s SEO.
Linkable assets should consist of content that, ideally, users can’t find anywhere else and that provides immense value. It is content that other sites want to link to.
25
• Free calculators or tools
• A resource library
• In-depth guides
• How-to articles
• Case studies
• Videos
• Infographics
• Exclusive interviews
Can you think of any other types of content that might attract links to your site? Be sure to work these into your legal content strategy.
Create valuable
linkable assets to
build backlinks.
26
Tip #14: Grow your referral network While many of these legal marketing tips involve increasing your visibility on the web, a traditional method that’s worked throughout the years is networking. You can grow your network both online and offline. And having a source of referrals can be a great way to land more clients.
Networking involves building authentic relationships with other people and business owners in your industry. You can connect with people via:
In-person conferences
Virtual conferences
Facebook groups
Local meetups
Webinars
The goal here is to connect with people who are likely to refer clients to you, and perhaps vice versa. Initiating a conversation, sharing your business card, and promising to connect can go a long way.
27
Tip #15: Prioritize client reviews and testimonials
“Trust” is one the most important factors people consider when deciding what law firm they want to work with. And simply saying “We’re the best!” isn’t going to cut it. Having stellar client reviews is one of best ways to build trust and convince others to work with you.
28
After having a positive engagement with a client, send them an email asking them to kindly leave you a review on one (or several) of your online profiles.
You can ask for reviews on:
Yelp
Google My Business
Avvo
Manta
Better Business Bureau
Yellowpages
And more
Be sure to respond to all of your reviews—even the bad ones—so potential clients see that you care about your clients’ experience. Responding to negative reviews is also a good way to clear up any conflict or confusion that may deter others from working with you.
Also, reviews are an important ranking factor when it comes to your law firm’s SEO. So, you should prioritize getting as many positive reviews as possible to increase your rankings in the search results.
29
Make Your Law Firm Shine Online in 2022
The above marketing tips for lawyers are here to help you outshine the competition and attract more clients in 2022.
While many of the traditional marketing methods still work, there are other, more future-forward strategies you can use to give your law firm a competitive edge.
Above all, you should focus on understanding your target audience—what they struggle with, what they need, and how they are searching online. Then, you can tailor your strategy, including your ads, content, SEO, and other channels, to the unique needs of your ideal clients.
GROW Y
GRO
OUR FIRM IN 2
W Y
0
OUR FIRM IN 2 22
0
At We Do Web, we help law firms master their content to generate more traffic and land new clients. Get in touch to learn more about our approach and how we might help your law firm grow in 2022.
30
