Law Firm Marketing BLOG

We are in Baltimore right now for the American Bar Association Family Law Section conference.  One of our clients, Theresa Erickson, a California surrogacy lawyer will be speaking at the event this afternoon.  Theresa is a great example of a client that knows a lot about marketing: she uses Twitter and Facebook, as well as her website, including optimization, a BLOG, and more.

The biggest reason for us coming to this conference is because we need more family law attorneys.  AsktheLawyers.com gets dozens of inquiries each week for family law attorneys.  When we have an attorney in the area, we forward the inquiry on; however, there are just too many areas where we don’t have family law clients.  So far, this convention is great and is creating a lot of law firm marketing opportunities for us.

Though we wish it was a few degrees warmer here, we are looking forward to go to the Inner Harbor tonight.  We had a great dinner at the Luna del Sea last night (though I don’t know why it isn’t called Luna del Mar).  They are famous for their crab cakes (though, as vegetarians, we didn’t try them), but their banana fosters are great!

As new technology continues to influence our lives, attention spans continue to decrease. For your law firm marketing website to be effective, viewers should be able to find the information that they need quickly. Many individuals use the Internet for instant information. To hold their interest and entice them to drill down into the site, viewers should be able to find the following information at a glance:

• Who you are
• What practice areas you focus on
• How to contact you

Potential clients will be more likely to stay on your law firm marketing website, and contact you, if they know that you will be able to provide the services that they need. At Attorneys Online, Inc, we believe in the “three second rule.” This means that we design our attorney advertising websites so that viewers will be able to know within three seconds, who are clients are, what they do and how to contact them.

Blogging for law firms is important for many reasons.  First, it helps you start to establish your personal brand in the online world.  It puts your name out there associated with whatever legal topic you start to blog about.  Second, tying your law firm’s blog to your firm’s website helps your search engine optimization. In theory, this means Google and other search engines will start to rank your website higher.  This will help you draw more people to the website that might have otherwise missed it.  And more people on the site means more attention, and more clients.  Blogging is just one more component of law firm advertising.

So what do you blog about?  Well, that all depends.  Take a look at the other blogs that are out there.  Is there a certain need or area that is not being addressed?  Is there a topic that you know more about than anyone else?  It really does not matter what you decide to blog about, you can always refine it as you go.  But staying consistent and on point is important.  Know who your readers are, or who you want them to be, and give them the information that they need.

If you blog is to draw potential clients, write about important news and decisions in your practice.  If it is just a general blog about your area of practice, deliver some new information that people can’t get anywhere else.  And don’t be afraid to take a stand on certain issues, people like blogs that are opinionated.

Attorneys Online, Inc. now offers our clients their own web logs or blogs.  This is your own online publication that you update as regularly as you wish.  This has become are necessary part of law firm web design if you want to keep up with the competition.  You can share thoughts; articles, newsworthy tidbits and link to other sites that you feel are pertinent to your areas of practice.  These web logs help to establish, you, the author, as an authority of different subjects and will assist in the placement of your site in the natural listings of the major search engines because of the fresh content added regularly.  This information will help build loyalty with your readership.

If requested, our staff can provide two posts per week, per blog for a monthly fee.  If you have specific topics that you want your blog to cover, you simply need to submit those topics to us as they come up and we will make the content more specific to meet your needs. A writer is assigned to you and sample posts are written for approval.  After a two week trial, you have the option to let the writer post at will or have a new writer assigned to your account.   Attorney internet marketing is more important than ever.  Drawing readers into your website through interesting blogs also draws them to you.  Is that a niche you want to miss out on?