What is Digital Marketing for Lawyers?

Digital marketing for lawyers is about using smart strategies to help your law firm get noticed online. It includes different methods such as SEO, PPC, CRO and more... to bring in new clients and grow your online presence. If you are not a prosecutor, public defender, or corporate lawyer, you need a steady stream of new clients to do well in the legal world. Digital marketing can help your law firm stand out in a competitive market.
What is Digital Marketing for Lawyers?

Digital Marketing Funnel for Law Firms

Awareness

Brand Marketing - Focuses on building awareness and establishing a brand's identity within the market. At the top of the funnel, the goal is to reach a broad audience and make a memorable impression, rather than to drive immediate conversions.

Consideration

SEO - SEO is essential for law firms advertising online, ensuring that potential clients can discover you, whether they're searching for your attorneys, your firm's name, or seeking legal representation for their issues. This solution captures audience from the top funnel, but also the bottom funnel as well if you are able to rank for service-related keywords.

Conversion

PPC & Advertising - Digital advertisements can allow you to perform retargeting, which means showing your ads to people who have already seen your company through SEO or social media. This means your ads will only target people who have shown interest in legal services, and have a higher chance of conversions.

Loyalty

CRO - After drawing people to your website via SEO or PPC, you must now ensure that they are converted into leads. This solution belongs to the lowest end of the marketing funnel, and is also the most crucial part, as this is where you really sell yourself to would-be clients.

Why Do Law Firms Need Digital Marketing?

Why Do Law Firms Need Digital Marketing?

Why Do Law Firms Need Digital Marketing?

Is hiring a digital marketing agency necessary for your law firm? If you aim to excel in the competitive legal sector, the answer is “Yes!”

An agency can enhance your market presence, provide a strong return on investment, attract new clients, and track campaign progress towards your growth targets.

Law firms might hesitate to engage an agency, questioning the necessity and value. While firms can find online marketing success independently, it requires time and resources. At First Page, we’ve seen that even law firms with astute lawyers in marketing roles recognize the time savings and value an agency brings.

By partnering with a marketing agency, lawyers can focus more on practicing law and less on business development. Agencies can often execute marketing strategies more quickly than in-house efforts.

Avoiding the pitfalls of DIY marketing, a specialized agency can expedite your growth with expertly managed websites, SEO, and PPC campaigns, propelling your firm forward with a robust online marketing approach.

Digital Marketing for Law Firms Step-By-Step Guide

Digital Marketing for Law Firms Step-By-Step Guide

Digital Marketing for Law Firms Step-By-Step Guide

1. Research Your Target Audience

Before deciding on the platforms where you’ll share content and advertise, it’s important to know where your law firm’s clients are coming from and where you should be marketing. For instance:

  • A personal injury attorney might acquire most of their clients from local organic searches, which direct visitors to their regularly updated accident blog.
  • A divorce attorney might get numerous case inquiries due to their active participation and question-answering in various divorce support communities.
  • An employment attorney might receive case assessment requests via their LinkedIn page.

2. Set Up Goals

The primary goals of a law firm are retaining clients and enhancing your firm’s reputation as a trusted legal advisor. Achieving these broad goals requires setting specific, smaller objectives that guide your attorney internet marketing efforts toward success.

Examine the path clients take to engage your services. Consider their search habits, how they discover your firm, the ratio of website traffic to conversions, and whether increased social media presence and website enhancements could capture more clients.

Digital marketing demands clear, actionable goals, as the endgame is acquiring clients, not just online engagement. You must align every marketing move with your firm’s goals, setting precise targets for client acquisition and time frames to avoid the pitfalls of ambiguity and ensure productive outcomes.

 

3. Calculate Your Marketing Expenses

Top-tier law firms treat marketing as a strategic investment, with client acquisition serving as the measure of return on investment (ROI). To translate this approach into action, you must calculate the cost of each marketing strategy:

  • Developing a website requires web development, designers and maybe SEO costs.
  • Advertising campaigns requires you to bid for different keywords in various prices. For instance, the highest cost-per-click for keyword “lawyer hong kong” was HK$33.53 page bid in November 2023.
  • Creating educational content requires content writer expenses.

Each element works towards the ultimate goal of increasing your client base and maximizing your marketing ROI.

 

4. Select The Marketing Channels Based On Your Goals

Choosing appropriate marketing channels is crucial for the success of law firm marketing. Different channels have unique qualities that match various goals. Knowing your target audience is essential, guiding you to the channels that will most effectively connect with potential clients.

Options such as social media and content marketing provide broad exposure and interactive possibilities. Email marketing is particularly effective for cultivating client relationships with personalized communication. Podcasts and videos can position your firm as a thought leader by leveraging compelling narratives.

Evaluate the synergy between digital and traditional marketing tactics, determining their effectiveness in achieving your objectives. Continuously track the performance of each channel against your goals to fine-tune your marketing strategy.

Goals Channels
Thought Leadership Podcasts, Videos, Content Marketing
Brand Marketing Seminars, KOL Marketing, Social Media
Audience Engagement Podcasts, Videos, Social Media
Lead Generation Content Marketing, CRO, PPC
Client Retargeting PPC
Building E-E-A-T SEO, Link-Building, Awards
Online Visibility Social Media, Videos, Infographics
Client Retention Newsletters, Email Marketing,

 

5. Create A Website

All clients expect your law firm to have a website. If your practice doesn’t have a website to prove it’s credentials, describe it’s services and provide a business presence, nobody would trust your law firm is a credible one.  An effective law firm website accomplishes the following for potential clients:

  • Highlights the expertise of your legal services
  • Lists contact information clearly
  • Shares narratives of successful case outcomes
  • Reflects the core values of your law firm
  • Answers frequently asked questions to establish trust and improve search engine rankings

Your law firm’s website should be designed with user-friendliness in mind, ensuring ease of navigation on desktops, tablets, or mobile devices. It must be search-engine optimized for better visibility, and every page should include a distinct call to action, encouraging potential clients to take the next step in engaging your legal services.

 

6. Kickstart With SEO

SEO is valuable as it attracts free organic traffic to your website and enhances your visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).

In a competitive field like law, where a single click can cost HKD $50-$100, accumulating to over HKD $1000+ for just 10 clicks, an effective SEO approach could yield 10,000 clicks at no additional cost per click.

Why is SEO Important for Lawyers?
SEO matters greatly as it enables potential clients to discover you. Attorneys should keep in mind that SEO isn’t only about what they do on their website (on-page SEO), but also what they do on other websites and social media (off-site SEO).

Google’s sophisticated algorithm dictates the rankings on its search engine pages, and with ever-evolving ranking criteria, it’s crucial for your website to stay SEO-optimized to adapt to these shifts.

SEO is key to capturing leads actively seeking your services and provides several critical advantages:

  • Elevated rankings often lead to increased trust.
  • A strong market presence that drives specific traffic and boosts conversion rates.
  • For community-based law practices, SEO helps generate reviews through local search inquiries.
  • SEO ensures visibility to potential clients on various devices, including smartphones and tablets.

 

7. Local SEO

The Localized keyword “Law Firm Hong Kong” results in 720 average monthly search volume. This shows how important local SEO is for law firms’s search and visibility.

Local SEO is essential for law firms aiming to improve their placement in local search rankings and draw in clients from their immediate vicinity. This is especially beneficial for smaller law firms facing competition from larger firms.

Moreover, law firms with favorable online reviews tend to eclipse those lacking such feedback. Local SEO is adept at matching your services with clients in your area by taking into account both the client’s location and the targeted keywords associated with your practice.

 

8. Optimize With PPC

If we consider law firm lead generation as a “waterfall,” PPC and paid ad campaigns represent the most vigorous flow. PPC services can accelerate lead generation for lawyers much faster than organic content that has worked its way to the top of search engine rankings. In a blink, your website could be exposed to thousands of potential clients.

PPC functions by advertisers bidding on keywords and paying per click to steer traffic towards their websites. The main disadvantage of PPC advertising is its dependency on funding – the moment you stop, the leads stop too. Paid ads can be substantially costly, depending on the nature of cases you are targeting.

 

Why is PPC Important for Lawyers?

PPC ads play a crucial role in swiftly connecting with new clients. Evergreen content that is both relevant and informative, like a practice area page, requires time to climb to the top of Google search results. For new attorneys, it can take years for their content to reach the top of search engine results pages.

 

Lawyer PPC Keywords Examples

Here are a few lawyer PPC keywords example to get you started on your lawyer PPC campaign.

Keyword Volume Cost Per Click (HKD)
law firm hong kong
720 $30
criminal law firm hong hong 140 $25
real estate lawyer 10 $80
divorce law firm 10 $10
legal services 90 $23
immigration attorney 170 $24
marriage lawyer 10 $3.50
employment lawyer 30 $25
intellectual property lawyer
110 $60

 

9. Write More Content

There is a saying in 2023, and will even be more emphasized in 2024. “Content Is King”. Every content piece you share can drive new visitors and leads to your law firm. Simply put, content marketing helps with search engine optimization. Do competitor research for your content. If competitor law firms publish 3,000-word articles on a topic, Google may rank your shorter content lower in search results. Headers, readability, bullet points, structure, reference links also play a part in content strategy. A guide of how to become a legal blogger will be listed below.

 

10. Wrap Up With CRO

Conversion Rate Optimization is all about effectively utilizing the leads acquired through your various strategies. CRO entails gathering contact information from potential clients and establishing a follow-up process to further engage them into the sales funnel. Without CRO, your lead generation techniques might not significantly influence your business.

Common Law Firm Digital Marketing Mistakes

Common Law Firm Digital Marketing Mistakes

Common Law Firm Digital Marketing Mistakes

1. Lacking Online Presence

If prospective clients cannot find your firm through search engines, or your website doesn’t expand your presence to new people, your business will never grow.

— Solution

Adopt robust SEO tactics to enhance your online presence and elevate your position in search engine results, particularly on platforms such as Google.

 

2. Inadequate Marketing Budget

You can’t expect to rank well for informative keywords that has lots of search volume, if you do not invest in good content writers for them to do in-depth keyword research, heading structure buildups and descriptive writing. You also can’t expect to bid for competitve keywords for PPC, if your budget couldn’t match Google’s cost-per-click algorithms.

— Solution

Dedicate a significant part of your anticipated revenue (between 6% and 10%) to marketing activities and seek guidance from seasoned digital marketing professionals. Ask them to provide traffic forecasts and PPC forecasts before embarking on a digital marketing campagin to estimate ROI.

 

3. Not Creating Positive Reviews

Reflect on your personal experiences as a consumer reading reviews. For instance, have you ever sought reviews for a movie, a restaurant, or a product on an e-commerce platform like Amazon? Even if you’re not in the habit of writing reviews, chances are you’ve read reviews and testimonials while contemplating a purchase, opting for a service, or planning to visit a business.

— Solution

Genuine online reviews from actual clients are essential to building trust. Just as with blogging, keeping things current is key. On your website, your “testimonials” can be timeless and need not be dated, but you should regularly solicit reviews on third-party websites like Google and Yelp. Remember to include review schema once you added them on your website, so Google can understand them better!

 

4. Targeting Wrong Search Intent

Search intent is the purpose behind a user’s search on the internet. It’s crucial for SEO because it helps provide the most relevant results.

For the keyword “lawyer services”:

  1. Informational Intent: Users want to know what services a lawyer offers.
  2. Navigational Intent: Users are trying to find a specific website related to lawyer services.
  3. Transactional Intent: Users are looking to hire a lawyer.
  4. Commercial Investigation: Users are comparing different lawyer services.

Understanding these intents helps tailor content to meet user needs, yet sometimes our lawyer clients might make the mistake of targeting the wrong keywords of the wrong intent.

— Solution

Look at what Google shows on the SERP when you type in the keyword in the search bar. When you read more of these results, you will start to gain insights and patterns on what type of keywords Google prefer to rank for which search intent.

How To Write Educational Legal Blogs?

As mentioned previously, SEO is a key to a successful law firm digital marketing campaign. In order to achieve this, lawyers must constantly publish educational, helpful legal insights to boost their website’s E-E-A-T. This is how you prove to your potential clients that you are an experienced, trustworthy lawyer that can help them with their legal issues.

 

1. Choose a niche topic

Lawyers starting a blog should focus on a tightly defined niche. Niche content can rank higher in search engine results for targeted keywords, as there is often less content available on specific, narrowly-focused topics. A well-defined niche also caters to a specific audience seeking specialized information, leading to higher engagement from readers who have a direct interest in the topic.

Below are some blog ideas for lawyers to write:

  • Child custody and parental rights
  • Immigration procedures
  • The divorce procedures
  • How to choose a defense lawyer
  • Documents required for immigration
  • How to draw out an employment contract

 

2. Prioritise Content Quality Over SEO

I understand this section might be quite confusing. Didn’t we just said we’re doing this BECAUSE OF SEO? While SEO can improve online visibility, you should emphasizes quality content as the priority. Engaging, informative posts are more likely to be shared by influential readers, naturally boosting SEO.

 

3. Ongoing Publishing

Blogging is conversational. Stay updated on relevant current events and provide your take to ensure a continuous flow of content. Subscribing to other legal influencers or Twitter or Linkedin can help getting insights and references on what kind of new topics for you to write.

 

4. Focus on Client’s Interests

Instead of promoting your firm, answer common client questions through your blog. This approach positions you as a helpful resource and encourages repeat visits. For example, a real estate lawyer might blog about property types to avoid.

 

5. Just Start Writing

Begin your blogging journey without fretting over perfection in every post. Use WordPress or a similar platform, name your blog after your firm or specialty, and write about topics you’re passionate about. Maintain a consistent posting schedule to establish a writing routine and let your personality shine through to define your brand.

Frequent Asked Questions From Our Law Firm Clients

Results can vary based on the strategies used. SEO efforts often take several months to show significant results, while PPC campaigns can provide immediate visibility.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, conversion rates, and social media engagement can measure success. Also, tools like Google Analytics provide valuable data.

Monitor reviews and social media mentions, respond to negative feedback constructively, and encourage happy clients to leave positive reviews.

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on your site, like filling out a form. It’s a key metric in assessing the effectiveness of your digital marketing.

It depends on the size and complexity of your campaigns. Smaller firms may use a single individual, while larger firms may benefit from a dedicated team.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps your website rank higher in search engine results, making it more visible to potential clients.

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