So, you’re looking into the various online tools and marketing channels to promote your legal practice, and you thought, “Hey, I’ll just Google marketing tips for law firms and see where that gets me!” And sadly, the truth may not be what you were hoping to hear.
Many lawyers and law firms don’t like to hear that improving marketing efforts should be the top priority, if they want their law firm to stay in business, moving forward. The number two priority should be solving your paying clients’ legal problems, followed by staying up to date on the latest news in the legal industry.
In today’s marketing world, TV ads and billboards aren’t going to attract nearly as many prospective clients as Google search results will. That’s why many of the most successful law firms have decided to move their entire marketing budget to digital marketing efforts.
But with so many effective digital marketing ideas out there, how do you know which ones will work for you and your legal practice?
Below, our full-service digital marketing agency breaks down the best advertising ideas for law firm practices in 2023.
Marketing for Law Firms: Tactics for 2023
Did you know: 93% of global traffic comes from Google searches, Google images, and Google Maps?
Did you also know that more than half of our global population (4.76 billion people) is scrolling through social media every single day?
This means that if you want to attract the attention of potential clients, you need to be focusing all of your law firm marketing efforts on appearing on the first page of Google search results and building your social media presence. This is the best way to demonstrate expertise in the current landscape.
Of course, the process of being visible on search engines is much easier said than done.
Many law firms don’t know where to begin with implementing a successful legal marketing campaign. After all, you went through years of law school to practice law, not to stay up to date on the latest creative marketing ideas for the legal industry.
That’s why so many law firms turn to marketing professionals, like Digital Logic, for the best marketing tactics.
How Do I Promote My Law Firm?
Law firm promotion is critical for lawyers to get new clients. But how do you promote a law firm?
In our increasingly digital world, the best marketing tactics for both large and small law firms involve:
- Building your law firm’s brand strategy,
- Investing in a professional SEO campaign,
- Investing in law firm website development,
- Building a strong social media presence,
- Running advertisement campaigns on Google and social media platforms,
- And attracting 5-star reviews from past clients and colleagues.
All of these legal marketing ideas, when implemented together, are guaranteed to generate leads and new clients for lawyers.
Below, we discuss each of these law firm marketing strategies in detail.
Build Your Law Firm’s Branding Strategy
The first step in creating a fool-proof digital marketing strategy for legal services is creating a unique, identifiable brand for your law firm.
This means that you’ll need to create logos, colors, fonts, pictures, and a unique selling proposition (USP) for your law firm.
The whole point of law firm branding is to stand out against all of your competitors because the legal industry is incredibly saturated these days.
How are potential clients supposed to pick between your services and other legal services just down the street from you?
Additionally, you want to make sure that potential clients look at your logo and colors and immediately think of you, not another law firm. That’s why branding on legal websites, directory listings, email marketing campaigns, video marketing campaigns, etc., is so important for the success of marketing campaigns.
Invest in a Professional Law Firm Search Engine Optimization Campaign
Once you’ve got your law firm’s branding handled, the next most important step in your online strategy is hiring a professional digital marketing agency to handle your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
In short, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of ensuring that your law office appears at the top of the first results page on search engines like Google, which will eventually increase organic traffic to your website.
Remember the statistic we mentioned previously – 93% of global traffic comes from Google searches, Google images, and Google Maps. This means that your target audience is out there right now, potentially searching for your legal services on search engines, like Google.
If your website is currently appearing on the 6th page of Google’s search results, then your law firm is essentially invisible online, for the purposes of securing new clients.
Think about it – when was the last time you Googled something and went all the way to the 6th page to find what you were looking for? Probably never.
A potential client isn’t going to look past the first few results on the first page of Google. That means you need to be among those first few Google results, and SEO experts can help you do that with our law firm SEO services.
Here’s how.
Law Firm Practice Area Pages
First thing’s first – content marketing on your law firm’s website.
You need to make sure that all the legal content on your site is well-researched, informative, relevant, and easy to read.
Most importantly, though, you want your law firm content marketing services to boost your rankings on Google search engine results pages (SERPs). This requires an individualized content strategy based on specific keywords that your target audience is searching for.
Let’s say you are a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix, Arizona. Your prospective clients are probably Googling something like “Criminal Defense Attorney Near Me” or “Phoenix Criminal Defense Attorney.” This means that all practice area pages on your website need to have all variations of the top keywords that your potential clients are searching for in order to realize the best results from criminal defense lawyer SEO services.
Additionally, for law firms that are running Google Ads: when your practice area pages are optimized for organic search, then when they’re used as landing pages for your ad campaigns, this will result in a higher Google quality score. This means that optimized landing pages or practice area pages can actually lower the cost of your pay-per-click campaigns.
Blog Articles That Support Your Practice Areas
Another critical part of an effective content marketing campaign is writing relevant blog posts that link back to your practice area pages or landing pages.
For example, you may believe that you secure most of your legal clients by showing up when your target audience Googles phrases like “Phoenix Criminal Defense Attorney.” But the truth of the matter is that before they start to Google “money phrases,” like the one listed previously, they start their quest by Googling questions, such as:
- What Does it Mean to Be Indicted?
- Is Marijuana Legal in Arizona?
- Can You Get a DUI for Driving High?
- What Are Aggravated Assault Penalties in Arizona?
All of these questions are related to criminal defense practice areas and, therefore, can be turned into blog posts.
Having dozens of optimized blog posts that link back to your practice area pages can increase organic traffic and boost your rankings on search engine results pages.
Since the legal industry is so competitive, your website’s important landing pages won’t rank without the help of supporting content, like blog posts.
When we have an important landing page that is difficult to rank for, we try to build out high-quality supporting content.
Local SEO for Lawyers
Unless you’re a huge, national law firm, most of your new leads and clients are going to be local to your area.
This means that in terms of growing your legal practice, your top priority should be local SEO for attorneys.
Why?
When someone in your local area searches for the services that your law firm offers on Google, you should be one of the first law firms in the area that shows up on their search results.
You don’t have to beat all of the law firms in the world to get new clients. You just need to outrank all of the other local law firms. This is why local SEO techniques are so helpful for local law firms.
Law Firm Directory Listings
Legal directories, like Justia, can help with local lead generation. A potential client may search for a local lawyer on Google or on a legal directory, like Justia. So, simply having a profile on popular legal directories can boost your chances of getting discovered.
Additionally, having a law firm directory profile can be a source of high-quality external linking. (External linking means that other websites are linking back to your website.)
If your law firm directory profile links back to your top practice area, landing page, or one of your most popular blogs, you could have higher domain ratings and increased organic traffic value.
This, in turn, helps your online marketing efforts, as a whole.
We provide more information here: Promote Your Practice With Lawyer Directories
Google Business Profile for Lawyers
Having a Google My Business (GMB) profile is also crucial for effective local SEO strategies.
What is a Google My Business profile?
In short, Google offers a free business page for any business entity. This free business page helps Google understand local businesses and how they interact with one another.
Your law firm’s Google business profile should include all relevant information about your law firm: address, phone number, and office hours.
Additionally, once your Google Business profile is set up, prospective clients will be able to see reviews, Q&As, social media profile links, and recent photo uploads.
The more information your Google My Business profile has, the easier it is for locals to find your legal website and contact you for services.
We provide more information here: How to Post on Google Business
Internal Linking Strategy for Legal Services
Internal linking is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy for law firms.
Internal linking is the opposite of external linking; it means that you have a hierarchical structure that links all of the legal content on your website. You provide helpful resources outside of the current page to help “paint the whole picture” for the reader, so to speak.
This way, website visitors can click on relevant blog links while reading your pages and learn more about how you can potentially solve their legal problems.
The more visitors read your pages and blogs, the more your organic traffic will go up.
Additionally, internal linking allows Google to find, index, and understand all of the pages and blogs on your website. Over time, this can increase your rankings, which is ultimately the goal of your search engine optimization for law firms.
Technical SEO for Attorneys
Technical search engine optimization involves making improvements on the “back end” of your website in order to work with the Google algorithm and improve user experience.
Technical SEO can include things like website structure, page speed optimization, URL structure, caching, log file analysis, and more.
While this marketing idea isn’t exactly exciting, technical SEO is an important aspect of helping websites rank higher on search engines, like Google.
Invest in Your Law Firm’s Website Development
The next marketing idea that can help attract new clients is investing in professional web design for lawyers.
Basically, if your legal firm’s website isn’t aesthetically-pleasing, quick, informative, and easy to navigate, no one will want to spend more than a few seconds scrolling through it.
Your website needs to be nothing but a positive experience for the visitor because it’s basically an extension of you. If the visitor isn’t happy with something about your website – whether the problem is how slowly it loads or how difficult it is to navigate – then for all they know, they won’t be happy with you as their lawyer, either.
Below, we list some aspects of good website development that you should keep in mind when creating a law firm marketing strategy.
Add Live Chat to the Law Firm Website
Having a little chat box on the bottom corner of your website can be a great way for law firms to turn leads into sales.
Live chat options give clients and potential clients a way to get immediate answers and help if they need it. Not only will this help the site visitor stick around longer, but it will also give them a great first impression of who you are as a legal professional.
Most law firms already offer live chat options. So, the key to this marketing idea is using the chatbot feature tactfully and without interrupting the overall website experience for the end user.
Ensure Your Legal Website is Mobile-Friendly
It’s safe to assume that the majority of Googlers are using their phones and not their laptops or desktops.
This means that not only does your website have to be attractive and functional on a desktop, but a mobile phone too. If not, you’re going to lose the majority of your website visitors within seconds just because they can’t navigate your site on their phones.
Additionally, Google gives preference to websites that are mobile responsive or optimized for mobile devices. So, having a mobile-friendly website is a simple step that will help improve your search engine rankings.
Improve Your Website's Page Load Speed
Nothing is more frustrating than waiting for more than a few seconds for a page to fully load while you’re desperately trying to get quick solutions for legal troubles.
This is the number one way to inadvertently encourage someone to click off your site and find solutions elsewhere.
According to various Google studies, if your web page takes longer than 3 seconds to load, your bounce rate (the rate at which website visitors leave your website) increases dramatically.
Over 40% of visitors will leave if the page hasn’t loaded in 3 seconds.
Prioritize Website Security
Your site also needs to have adequate protection from hackers, scams, malware, and other cyberattacks. If not, you’re at risk of reputational harm, financial loss, and so much more.
This is less of a marketing idea and more of a marketing standard for law firms.
Work on Website Accessibility
Everything on your site needs to be as accessible and visible as possible: practice area pages, blogs, contact information, case results, and more.
Your website is your number one selling point to potential clients. They need to have as much information as possible at their fingertips in order to choose you over your competitors.
Additionally, Google also gives preference to websites that pass their accessibility standards. So, there’s an extra incentive to ensure that your graphics and content are accessible to those with special needs.
Provide Easy Navigation to Viewers
Law firm websites also need to be easy to navigate.
This means that everything is consistent, organized, clear, and simple. Your menus should be easy to understand and navigate.
Visitors should be able to easily look for the information they need and even find information they didn’t know they needed.
Include Meaningful Call-to-Action Options
Last but not least, there needs to be a “call-to-action” statement on almost every page and blog. This means that you’re encouraging your website visitors to take some kind of action, whether that be calling you, emailing you, or hiring you.
As a lawyer, you know that those who are in legal trouble (or even just legal situations) want to just be told what to do. Most of the time, they don’t have their own plan for mitigating their troubles–that’s why they need your services.
Keep this in mind when you’re considering calls to action.
Leverage Social Media Marketing for Law Firms
Remember that statistic from earlier? More than half of our global population (4.76 billion people) is scrolling through social media every single day. So if you want new leads for your law firm, you have to go where the people are. Frequent social media posts are a key component of a great marketing strategy. For this reason, many firms choose to invest in social media services for attorneys. Some of the best social media platforms for lawyers are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. On these platforms, you can post visually appealing graphics, positive client reviews, behind-the-scenes of your law firm, polls, and so much more.
In the last year or so, more and more lawyers are finding success through posting on TikTok. On this app, you can create short-form videos about almost anything – educational video content or even a funny dance routine with your fellow colleagues. The more you lean into the viral trends with video content on TikTok, the more views and success you will receive.
While this may not lead to more paying clients, it certainly can improve your law firm’s brand exposure.
Paid Social Media Advertising
Social media is also a useful marketing tool because you can pay for different types of ads: Youtube ads, Stories ads, Carousel ads, etc. Social media advertising can potentially increase lead generation over time.
Run Legal Paid Advertising Campaigns
If you want more new clients, social media ads aren’t the only types of ads you should invest in. Google ads, local service ads (LSAs), and retargeting campaigns are also crucial in a top-notch legal marketing strategy.
Google Ads for Lawyers
When we say that most people find law firms through Google, we mean they find law firms through search results and Google ads.
Google ads allow advertisers to have a small spot on search engine results pages to display photos, videos, product listings, and service offerings. Many times when target consumers click on these ads, they’re taken directly to the advertiser’s website or landing page.
Not only can our law firm PPC managers help you create the best and most profitable Google ads campaign, but our law firm SEO team can also help you design the best landing pages to collect contact information from leads.
Our clients have seen great success with our law firm PPC management services.
Local Service Ads for Lawyers
Local Service Ads (LSAs) are similar to other Google ads in that these ads appear on Google search engine results pages. But they’re different in that they only show up for locals who are searching for specific keywords that relate to your law firm, such as “Phoenix Criminal Defense Attorney.” Advertising to only local traffic on Google can often be more effective and profitable.
When you invest in law firm local service ads management services with Digital Logic, we will also call and dispute any calls that were not in relation to the services that you opted to advertise for.
This means that you won’t pay for ANY clicks that weren’t qualified leads.
Retargeting Campaigns for Law Firms
One of the best and most safe marketing ideas for law firms is to run retargeting campaigns.
Retargeting campaigns (otherwise known as remarketing services) work by reeling potential consumers or clients back to your brand, on the off chance that they leave your website without hiring you as their lawyer.
Retargeting campaigns are accomplished through multiple sets of ads on similar websites or search engine results pages.
The goal is to keep reminding the potential client: “We exist! Remember us?” Sometimes a few remarketing ads can serve as the final push the client needs to make the decision to hire you as their lawyer.
A/B Test Google Ads
You can utilize every legal marketing idea in the book, but at some point, you’ve got to pin down which marketing ideas are working for your law firm and which aren’t. This is where A/B testing (or split testing) comes in.
A/B testing means that you’re running two different sets of Google ad campaigns and analyzing the results. The two different sets of ads are shown to different people, but they’re all part of your target audience.
You may be thinking – what is the point of wasting money on two different types of ads?
Well, sometimes the difference between a successful ad campaign and an unsuccessful ad campaign is the way something is worded or even the picture used in the ad.
The ultimate goal is to figure out what phrasing, pictures, legal services, etc., your target audience responds to the best. The ad campaign that performs better will be used more often.
At Digital Logic, we use this strategy to ensure that our law firm marketing services provide the best possible return on investment for our clients.
Attract 5-Star Reviews With Great Customer Service
One of the benefits of having a fully optimized Google My Business profile is having positive client reviews for everyone to see.
Before anyone spends their hard-earned money on any product or service, they want to make sure they’re getting the most bang for their buck. So, they may check out a business’s reviews before they make their final decision.
Investing in a lawyer is an even tougher decision than investing in a nice meal at a local restaurant. Legal problems are usually a big deal, and lawyers are usually expensive (no offense, you get what you pay for, they say).
So, your prospective clients are probably going to spend more time researching and thinking before they make a final decision to hire you.
Seeing plenty of positive online reviews on your Google business profile can be the final push a potential client needs to actually hire you. Not only that, but online reviews can also improve your Google rankings over time.
But for some law firms, getting those reviews is a major challenge.
Our legal clients often ask us: “What’s the best way to get more Google reviews?”
Conduct an Exit Interview
One way to get more Google reviews is to conduct exit interviews with all current clients.
You could thank them for trusting you to handle their legal issue and ask them if there is any way you could improve in the future. Most importantly, ask satisfied clients to leave you a positive review on your GMB profile.
This can feel awkward at times, but if you have done your job of helping the client, then the client will likely have no problem helping you by leaving a simple review. The sooner you get used to implementing this simple marketing idea, the easier you’ll be able to harvest positive Google reviews.
Follow-Up Email Survey
Email marketing can come in handy in terms of getting Google reviews, as well.
All you have to do is email past clients who have received good case outcomes and settlements and ask them to please leave you a kind review. Again, if you built a good relationship with that client and helped them overcome their legal troubles, in most cases, they will have no problem helping you. Just make sure that the person is ok with being added to your email marketing list.
Ask to Share Client Testimonials
Everyone loves a shout-out.
One way to possibly incentivize current and past clients to leave you positive reviews is by offering to put their reviews on your website or your social media page. The client may even share your post about their review, further promoting your legal services with earned media.
Reach More Potential Clients With an Established Law Firm Advertising Agency
Digital Logic is a full-service digital marketing agency based in Northwest Louisiana. Our team of SEO experts has decades of combined experience in creating successful marketing campaigns for our legal clients, which is why we maintain a client retention rate of 97.3%.
Our services include SEO, content marketing, web development and design, PPC management, social media management, and so much more.
We offer:
- Personal Injury Attorney Marketing Services
- Criminal Defense Lawyer Marketing Services
- Bankruptcy Attorney Marketing Services
- Family Law Firm Marketing Services
- Divorce Lawyer Marketing Services
- Immigration Attorney Marketing Services
- Estate Planning Lawyer Marketing Services
- and more!
If you’re not quite sold yet, check out our case studies and then check out our free SEO audit service.
