Integrity Marketing

How Do We Keep Pace With Google For Law Firm Marketing?

Whatever is working today to keep your law firm website on the first page of a Google search may not be working tomorrow. That is the frustrating truth of search engine optimization (SEO) and the bane of every web company and SEO expert’s existence. Google’s algorithms change almost daily, major algorithm changes occur routinely and a big change can send your website to a distant planet. That’s not even considering the impact of a competing estate planning law firm with a generous Adwords budget.

We’re not being bleak, just realistic. The competition for the first page is brutal because it matters. IMS websites are developed with two users in mind: Google bots and human end users. We are skilled in the programming needed to keep your website on the first page and we stay in touch with all things Google to ensure that your website is not left out in the cold.

There are certain things that you can do to support the successful position of your website.

Lawyer videos. We have been talking about lawyer videos for a long time, for good reason. They are how you engage people on an emotional level and overcome a number of obstacles that keep them from picking up the phone or filling out a contact form. Google loves video. People love videos. We are making videos with high production values that are the cinematic equivalent of any professionally-produced broadcast. This is what people expect to see on a professional website, and what Google bots look for.

Responsive design. Websites that don’t provide a superior mobile user experience are not going to perform well in searches. We announced it when Google did: Google now creates and ranks search listings based on the mobile version of content. If you took a shortcut and barely converted your website to responsive design without undergoing a complete revision, your SEO performance may have already taken a dive.

Content still matters. Trying to outsmart the brilliant minds at Google with black hat SEO techniques and tactics is asking for trouble. In the long and short run, you are better off focusing on creating a great user experience and providing relevant content to your human visitors.

Bounce rates: simple but important data. If you only have time to look at one piece of information, ask your IMS account rep to talk to you about bounce rates. Bounce rates measure the number of people who arrive at your website only to leave without visiting additional pages on your website. If your bounce rate is very high, that means that people who are visiting your website are not finding the information they expected to find, or they are not engaging with your website. Either way, a high bounce rate indicates that something needs to be fixed.

If you have questions about any of these issues, call James at 877-352-2021 x 80 or submit a support ticket. Don’t let your website be an under-achiever!

Estate and Elder Lawyers Who NAP Consistently Do Better With SEO

NAP is not a short snooze that you enjoy after lunch. It’s Name, Address and Phone, and having this information appear consistently wherever your estate planning and elder law firm appears on the web is very important. NAP is sometimes referred to as Local Citation Building, and sometimes just “citations,” in case you do further research and come across this phrase. Google takes this data into account when its algorithms are placing values on sites for geographic-targeted searches. Most professionals make the mistake of assuming that their NAP or citations are consistent, but you’d be surprised how often errors occur, and how they build up over time.

There are many different kinds of online directories, data aggregators and regional sites that pull your NAP information from your website and use it, without your even being aware of it.

The most common problem with NAP occurs when the name of the firm changes and suddenly all of these directory listings are inaccurate. Some of them can be uncovered and updated, but others are less easily accessed. The same problem occurs if your phone number or address changes.

Anytime there is a change made that impacts your NAP, you’ll need to do some digging to make sure that you update any online listings that can be updated. Best starting place? Google your practice and your name, and make sure to include Yelp, Facebook, and any regional directories. Don’t stop after you’ve gone through the first page of Google, by the way. Go at least two pages in.

Why should you care about your NAP?

The most important audiences you don’t want to confuse are Google and clients and prospects. If Google sees more than one address, a variation in your firm’s name, or phone numbers that don’t match, it may think that you are different law firms. It may also lower your quality score on local search. Consistent NAPS indicate authority and relevance to both the algorithms and the humans you are trying to reach.

And by the way, your address needs to be complete, wherever it appears. If you use the phrase “159 Main Street, Suite 100” in one location and “159 Main Street, #100” in another, you will create some confusion for Google.

The consistency of your NAP matters. You do have to accept that there may be some online listings that you will not be able to fix, but try to fix as many of them as possible.

Should Your Kid Handle Social Media for your Estate Planning and Elder Law Firm?

This brings back memories from the 1990s, when many otherwise savvy professionals handed over their websites to their kid or someone’s relative who dabbled in what was then a brave new world. We got the phone calls when the website built by someone’s son or niece was crashing and/or wasn’t generating any new business. That was when law firms realized that their websites were far too important to be handled in such a casual manner.

Today the same sentiment is informing some social media campaigns. Yes, millennials and Generation Z members are way more comfortable with social media. Their news comes from Reddit and Buzzfeed, Facebook is considered old school and as far as they are concerned, there’s no reason why they should ever be separated from their phones. But unless they are savvy marketers also, your social engagement may end up in the same place as those 1990s websites.

Here are a few questions to consider before you let Uncle Freddy’s nephew manage your social media platforms:

Do they understand the market that you are targeting? Estate planning and elder law firms span a wide group of prospects, from the senior who is preparing for a spouse’s medical care to millennials who understand that they need estate planning to protect their toddler’s future.

Do they know what messages your practice wants to convey? One estate planning law firm may restrict its clientele to those with estates valued at $15 million and above. Another may not have any asset-level in mind when reaching out to clients, as associates handle smaller asset estates and partners speak with the multi-millionaires. Different practices have different messages.

Are they all Twitter, all the time? It often seems like every day brings another new social media platform. While your Generation Z or millennial helper is more likely than a practicing attorney to be tuned into the latest social platforms, consider your target market. If they are all over Facebook with photos of their grandchildren and their golf games, you won’t reach them on Snapchat in 2016. We know, you might reach them there in 2017, as the number of people and the age of users on Snapchat are growing. But not this year.

Do they understand law firm culture? A series of over-the-top claims could swiftly land you and your practice in front of the bar association’s ethics committee. Posting private information about clients, even in the most positive manner, could be equally damaging (and costly) to your practice. And law firms, even when they are somewhat casual, are expected to maintain a certain level of professionalism at all times.

If Uncle Freddy’s nephew is a wiz at social media for lawyers, then it’s worth a conversation. Otherwise, have someone in your office or a professional manage your social media.

What Really Matters with SEO Today

Much has changed in the face of search engine optimization over the past ten years. With each break and new solution for rank improvements follows over-used and out of date practices.

Join your team at IMS on November 09, 2016 at Noon central (CDT) for a webinar designed exclusively for the Essential Attorney™ and staff*!

This month's webinar will review some of the changes in search optimization along with tips and best-practice solutions that everyone can utilize. From NAP to domain strategy, we'll highlight what's important now and review what you can do to support your online SEO.

Join us for this free 20-minute webinar to learn how your firm's team members can be leading players in the game of search engine optimization.

This webinar is particularly valuable to new Essential Solution clients or new staff members. You may register at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2671755359770988548

Note: Your registration must be approved by the webinar organizer.

See you there!

April, Dana & Kelly

*This webinar is for Essential Clients only and all registrations must be approved in advance.

 

 

 

 

Sharing is Caring

As boomers age and millennials mature, both have changed their expectations when it comes to purchasing professional services. Both generations expect, and in many instances, demand, a dialogue that is based on a level of mutual respect and honesty. The millennial especially needs a good reason to be talking with a live person, rather than using an app to create an estate plan.

The millennial also wants a narrative to go with the person they are talking with. They want to know who you really are, and while they don’t mind at all telling you their own life story, they expect the sharing to be reciprocal.

Think of this as a request by a prospect for the marketing message, the answer to the questions clients think but do not say: who are you, really, and can I trust you with my most personal legal needs?

Answer that question through your marketing materials, and you have unlocked the key to authentic marketing.

Who are you, really? An honest and direct answer will serve you better than a list of credentials. A long list of initials after your name with no explanation will confuse them. Their insurance broker has a lot of initials, so does their financial advisor. They know that you went to law school, and they will appreciate knowing that you are up to date with the latest in this area of the law. If you have gone to a law school or college that they know, they will feel a bond, but that is just for starters.

Are you the same person they see on social media? This is about more than blog posts. The new legal services consumer is looking you up on every possible social media platform. Do your personal posts align with your professional narrative? If your law firm website is all about community service but there’s nothing but conspicuous consumption on your Facebook page, you may lose them. Consistency is comforting and feels real.

Who are you is also a question about where you came from. Has your family lived in the area for generations, or are you a transplant? Did you move to a new town to be closer to your spouse’s family? People like to know who they are trusting their own family secrets to. Sharing your history gives them comfort and an enhanced sense of knowing who you are.

The new legal services consumer seeks authenticity, connection, history, and an experience of building community when they engage with a professional. They also know that there is a real person behind the marketing curtain, and that’s who they want to connect with.

Sometimes Things Change … Here's What's New!

Keeping up with the ever changing platforms of social media, technology, and the best-practices for website and search engine optimization is a never ending task. If you are stuck in the land of keyword stuffing and over-populating your website with outbound links as a means to boost your search engine ranking, it's time stop.

Join your team at IMS on October 12, 2016 at Noon central (CDT) for a webinar designed exclusively for the Essential Attorney™ and staff*!

This month's webinar will review some of the changes in the online community that you may or may not have noticed. Topics will include user experience, going mobile, social cues and more. This is an opportunity for your team members to get on board with your marketing program and catch up on a few easy to implement best-practice marketing solutions.

Join us for this free 20-minute webinar to learn about changes in the online community and how they may affect your online marketing.

This webinar is particularly valuable to new Essential Solution clients or new staff members. You may register at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8234675066236558084

Note: Your registration must be approved by the webinar organizer.

See you there!

April, Dana & Kelly

*This webinar is for Essential Clients only and all registrations must be approved in advance.

Can Clients Test Drive Your Law Firm?

You can take a new sports car out for a test drive, try on a designer dress, even rent before you buy. But professional services don’t work the same way. Clients are either fully on-board or they are someone else’s client. That’s why getting clients through the sales funnel and overcoming obstacles is tougher than other sales cycles. That’s another reason to incorporate video into your marketing plan.

The sales funnel for professional services starts with clients being able to find you, and for digital marketing, that means having an online presence that works as well for human visitors as it does for the Google bots that crawl the web and deliver rankings back to the mother ship. Have we mentioned lately that Google loves video? Because if for no other reason, the impact that having videos on your website has on SEO is reason enough for you to invest in videos.

If estate planning attorneys in your area have videos and you do not, you’ll have to have something extremely compelling on your website to compensate. And if they don’t have videos, you have an opportunity to take a quantum leap ahead of them.

Here are more reasons why we like our clients to have videos on their websites:

While you are out of the office, on vacation or at your kid’s softball practice, these videos are working 24/7. They are never out of the office.

Videos introduce you to clients before they even meet you and help clients get comfortable with you. When they walk into your office, they already know what you look like and what your voice sounds like. If you are old enough to remember video dating (1970s), you know the basic premise!

And in case you didn’t realize it, just as we optimize your website with title tags, keywords and descriptions, we do a lot of the same things to optimize your videos. They are working hard for you.

Still a little anxious about lawyer videos? Consider this: you are not entering the world of lawyer videos on your own. Your marketing team at IMS is right beside you every step of the way, from crafting a strategically planned script to making sure you look great on camera to determining the most impactful way to use those videos. We’ve got you covered!

Keeping Up Appearances

You wouldn’t let your reception area get shabby and run-down. Clients walking into an unattractive, outdated waiting area will wonder if they should let you handle their estate planning. High end clients will walk out the door if they don’t think your practice is up to snuff. The same thing goes for your website, which is your public face to the entire world. Failing to keep up appearances–in this case, not keeping your website up-to-date in design and functionality–could have some serious consequences for your online success.

Look and feel. Websites look different than they did three or four years ago. The emphasis is on a horizontal layout with a lot of graphics and videos that are the shining stars of today’s website. It’s a clean, modern look that looks great on phones, tablets and desktops.

Responsive design. We are always amazed when we visit an attorney website on our phone and find that the numbers aren’t big enough to read or the entire first screen is dominated by a page that isn’t sized correctly. There are two reasons to update your website if you have not already done so: Google is ignoring you because you failed to listen when responsive design, that is, websites designed for smart phones, became a priority and because your website visitors who live 24/7 with their phones are not going to tolerate a website that is not phone-friendly.

Photos and videos. We live in a highly visual age, where people are tuned in to photos, videos, images and graphics. Infographics are a huge part of how millennials communicate. And Baby Boomers are now using reading glasses, so they love to see an abundance of photos.

Make it easy to connect with you. Shorter attention spans and intense competition means that your website has to be as easy as possible for visitors to connect with you. That may mean a “Click to Call” link, your phone number in larger, bolder typeface than the rest of the content or a one-click email address. Skip the long forms that ask for a lot of information.

Good content. “Make yourself useful” isn’t just a good reminder for children. It’s also a good rule for websites. Provide checklists, up-to-date information and relevant links to websites that your visitors can use.

If your website has not been updated in recent memory, chances are you are in need of a refresh! Submit a support ticket or call James at 877-352-2021 ext 80.

Football Analytics

By Anneliese Krull

When you receive your monthly analytics report, it can often be daunting. What exactly do the numbers and categories mean? Need the rundown? Here is play-by-play coverage based on a very American sport: football. So grab some chips as we review the analytics report playbook.

Touchdown: Worth six (possibly seven) points, touchdowns are the ultimate goal of any football team. Every strategic action or play called is ultimately designed to provide an opportunity for this event. How does this translate? Your goals for your firm and your analytics are conversions, i.e., consultation requests. Why? These ultimately translate to clients and income. When viewing your monthly analytics, remember that consultation requests may also come in via phone depending on the client.

Three-point conversion: Sometimes you will be unable to get a consultation immediately. Instead, a person may fill out a contact us form, register for a workshop or subscribe to your eNewsletter or blog digest. These are valuable goal completions for putting you ahead of your competition.

Time of Possession: In football, you want to control the game. Often this is measured by how many minutes you are on offense. Similarly, the average session duration shows how much pull your website has and the opportunities available for conversions.

Turnover percentage: Like the turnover percentage, the bounce rate should be low. In general, these numbers both show potential missed opportunities.

Page views per session: Consider the number of sessions, amount of new users and page views per session to be first down completions. Although these may not be conversions in and of themselves, they are what set you up for conversions. As long as you have these, you are still in the game.

In football, many factors contribute to a team’s win. In the same way, every part of your marketing should work together to set you up for success. Our Essential Solutionâ is a proven playbook, providing ample opportunities for these conversions.

Still, many clients benefit from strategic planning retreats with their firm. At these retreats, your team is analyzed and a strategy is customized for your firm. Call James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80 to schedule one of these retreats for your firm.

Real Websites versus “Brochure-ware”

Today’s website has to work as hard as you do to generate new clients, enhance your SEO and educate prospects 24/7. If it’s just a bit of what we call “brochure-ware,” that is, a series of web pages with no energy or engagement, then your estate planning practice is missing out. Today’s website should be bringing you leads on a regular basis. If it’s not, ask yourself these questions:

Is it mobile friendly? Responsive design became standard when Google announced that sites that were not responsively designed, i.e., were not designed to work well on mobile device, would lose ground to those that are. If your website is not mobile friendly, submit a support ticket. We need to address this for you, and we need to do it fast.

Do you have any videos or animation on your website? No, you don’t need to become a movie studio or become Walt Disney. But you do need to realize that today’s legal services consumer expects your website to have good production values. That is, it needs to look like a contemporary website. Visit any website from companies or professional services firms in any area and we are sure you will find videos, infographics and animation. This is necessary to keep current and stay ahead of your competition.

When was the last time you updated your content? If your website is going to pull its weight when it comes to SEO, it needs fresh content on a regular basis. That means everything from new content, which is often a blog post, to making sure that your photos, bios and pages are up to date.

Are visitors engaging with you? Are you engaging with them? Here’s the paradox of websites for attorneys: we want to tell them all about your accolades, awards and accomplishments. But remember that the website is only partially about you. It’s also about your visitors. It must pose questions and provide answers to their problems. It has to make visitors feel comfortable with you, feel like you will be able to solve their problems, and make it easy for them to contact you.

If you aren’t sure if your website is making the grade, call James at 877-352-2021 ext 80 and find out how your website can reach its full potential.