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B2B Content Marketing Strategies for 2013

B2B Content Marketing Strategies for 2013

 

Attorneys who work primarily for businesses as clients can have a harder time creating a brand and marketing that brand than attorneys who market to consumers.  B2B content marketing can seem tough because the clients are tougher—they expect a better product and they're not afraid to shop around.  You can make those attitudes work to your advantage by using these strategies as your firm heads into 2013.

Strategy #1: Make Good Blogs Into Great Blogs

Surveys show that most business oriented firms are already doing some B2B content marketing through blogs.  Lots of lawyers have good blogs.  However, few have truly great blogs.  Why is that?  What separates the excellent from the merely pretty good?  B2B content marketing depends on knowing how to appeal in a way that goes beyond just you talking and informing.

The main thing that a great blog has and a good blog doesn't is a sense of community.  A great blog owner makes room for conversation and community, and knows how to moderate comment sections to minimize animosity and spam while maximizing opportunities for genuine interaction.  Great blogs develop cult followings not just because the B2B content marketing on your page is great, but because you've let your readers and blog become a community that is more than the sum of its parts.

Strategy #2: Don't Be Afraid of Social Media

Many attorneys don't see the benefits that social media can bring to their firm's marketing and brand presence. However, one of the best things you can do for B2B content marketing is to make and share social media content.  You should make sure that if you're doing business marketing, you're focusing most of your internet marketing dollars on LinkedIn.  Surveys consistently show that to be the most commonly used social network by the people who would be most likely to be on your client list.

Good social media conversations are a huge part of B2B content marketing.  Remember that every conversation you have in public on social media websites will become something that other people look at and use to judge whether you're a good firm to do business with.  Put your best foot forward, and don't let anger or frustration cause you to lose sight of your brand image.

Strategy #3: Start Writing Engaging Press Releases

A press release is only as great as the eyes that it attracts.  If your B2B content marketing press releases are only getting published on websites that will publish anything, odds are they're no longer helping your website's SEO ranking much any more.  That's because of some algorithm changes collectively referred to as Google Penguin that effectively shut down the usefulness of those sites.

Instead of writing press releases designed for search engines, start writing ones designed for humans.  If you create compelling storytelling as part of your press release B2B content marketing, you'll have a much easier time getting noticed.  Sending your press releases to the right people can also be a big help to your overall success rate.  Try sending press releases with your B2B content marketing to local business magazines as well as bloggers who discuss local business news.

Strategy #4: Consider Creating Microsites

One strategy that less than a third of law firms are currently using to attract B2B clients is creating microsites.  It's now so cheap to buy domain names that there's nothing wrong with buying a domain for a single very specific purpose—even if that purpose is just to showcase a single piece of B2B content marketing.

A successful microsite will address a direct consumer need in a way that is informative or entertaining.  If you're not paying attention to your clients' needs, your presentation is likely to fall flat on a microsite.  Make sure that any microsites you create are professionally designed—it's all too easy to tell when a law firm has skimped on its website budget.

Strategy #5: Webinars and Webcasts

A large number of law firms are already making at least some use of web broadcasts, including webinars.  If you're not already creating webinars, consider the types of legal subjects that you most enjoy talking about and helping people understand.  By creating a webinar, you let people see you in action, explaining things just like you'd explain them to a client.  It's a great introduction to how you practice law and what a client can expect from your firm if they choose to hire you.  This is one of the best B2B content marketing practices for firms to increase their conversion rates.

Strategy #6: Creating Useful, Targeted E-Mails

You may think that direct email is dead as a B2B content marketing technique.  The old days of just spamming everyone and seeing what stuck are over—spam filters are too good, and even if you get past them, people are too cynical.  Instead, try microtargeting niche guides.  When someone becomes part of your email list, keep track of the things they're actually interested in and only send them emails about those things.  This keeps the number of people who unsubscribe from your email list lower, while giving a higher chance that people will contact you because of your email marketing.

Strategy #7: Mobile Optimized Content

The mobile web is growing in importance at a truly staggering rate.  As more areas become connected with 3G and 4G coverage, mobile traffic online has been doubling every year for the last three years.  It is expected to nearly double once more in 2013, eclipsing desktop and laptop traffic as the most common way for people to access the internet.

This means that the best time to start optimizing your B2B content marketing for mobile was about 6 months ago.  The second best time is today—and you need to hurry!  Other firms are starting to figure out B2B content marketing through the mobile web, but as of now, only 15 percent of firms are actively using it.  By getting in on the ground floor, you ensure that some of the most affluent and connected clients are able to connect easily to your law firm through their mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers.

 

Everything About Local Search SEO for Law Firms

Everything About Local Search SEO for Law Firms

If you've been looking for local SEO tips, you may be seeing a lot of contradictory information.  That's because local search SEO is a relatively new form of search engine optimization.  Already, local accounts for over 20 percent of searches, and over 40 percent of searches made from a mobile device like a tablet PC or smartphone.  Keep reading to find out how you can use local search SEO to get clients whether you're a huge law firm or a solo practitioner who's just starting out.

How Local Search SEO Helps Small Firms

When you're a small law firm, you don't really usually draw in clients from everywhere.  Most small firms bring in clients just from their city and the surrounding communities.  Local SEO tips can help you to get more of those clients without advertising to people from outside your community (who, after all, are very unlikely to ever become paying clients of your firm).

The great thing about local search SEO is that it can help to level the playing field with the larger law firms in your area.  If you use local SEO tips effectively, your website will appear on the same search pages as your larger counterparts.  That's the kind of advertising you can't afford to do in most media—to actually stand shoulder to shoulder with the biggest firms in your area.

Combining Local Search SEO With Mobile Optimization

In today's cell-phone oriented world, mobile optimization has become more important than ever.  Your firm needs some local SEO tips that are designed for mobile devices.  One of the reasons that mobile phones are great for web traffic is that they make it very easy for a potential client to actually call your law firm and schedule an initial consultation.  Local SEO tips that don't include any information on mobile traffic are likely to be outdated—by 2014, most web traffic will be mobile based in the United States.

When you're doing local search SEO with mobile optimization, you'll need to work on a lot of different profiles for ratings websites and Google+ Local.  In addition to hiring consultants who can give you some local SEO tips for mobile, you may want to consider reputation management services.  These services work to monitor what's being said about you online and can provide you with quick and easy takedown of negative reviews in many cases.

Local SEO tips are actually becoming more important than ever because of mobile phones.  Why?  Because most mobile customers just don't want to have to click, scroll, and zoom through many different pages.  They're more likely to just click on one of the top five results of their search than desktop users.  This means that you need to get your local search SEO to the top of Google and Bing if you want to draw in mobile traffic.

Combining Local Search SEO With Direct Ads

One of the biggest disadvantages of local SEO is that even if you use all the best local SEO tips, you're not going to see results today or tomorrow.  It can take weeks, or even months, for your local search SEO to pay off.  Meanwhile, your firm needs to attract business today.

The best way to fix this problem is to look for some direct advertising tips as well as local SEO tips.  Direct advertising gets you new business as soon as you start using it, and can be much faster than local search SEO.  

While you're doing direct ads, though, you should be enhancing your website with local SEO tips so that you can gradually get away from paid search results.  Studies show that only about 20 percent of users actually click search ads, so you'll be better off with effective local search SEO than you will be with even the best advertisements.

Can I Do Local Search SEO For Free?

One of the best parts of local SEO tips is that if you use them wisely, you won't need to keep paying to make your website stick at the top of the search results page.  In fact, if you're willing to do a lot of local search SEO research, you will probably be able to do most of your search engine optimization without paying anything.

That's because local SEO tips blogs are common online, and most of the best tools for local search SEO are actually available completely free of charge.  Google and other search providers like to provide web developers with these tools so that legitimate websites know how to reach the top of search engine results.  You can start your local SEO efforts by just looking around on Google's website and using its built-in tools for local search engine optimization.

Hiring Local Search SEO Services

The fact that it's possible to read enough local SEO tips to do it on your own doesn't mean that you necessarily want to.  If you're having trouble developing a local search SEO strategy, you may want to think about hiring a service to help you do better.

These local search services can do the tedious work of putting all of your firm's information into various profiles and local directory listings.  Instead of spending hours trying to apply local SEO tips to your web presence, the work is done for you and the results will start to build slowly over time.

The Future of Local Search SEO

Local searches are likely to get even more local in the future.  Because people tend to want services right away when they're using mobile devices, you may even be able to focus your marketing strategy on SEO for people right in your neighborhood or other hyperlocal area.

Attorneys in cities have started using local search SEO to optimize for suburban customers by incorporating keywords pertaining to nearby suburbs in their copy.  This is a great way to expand your reach if you're trying to compete in a cutthroat area, and it's a strategy attorneys are likely to use for years into the future.

7 Ways to Do Effective Social Networking

7 Ways to Do Effective Social Networking

 

Maximizing the effectiveness of your social networking strategies should be one of your law firm's top priorities for 2013.  Surveys of attorneys show that over 1/3 of lawyers are still not using Facebook or Twitter,and many of those who are using them aren't using them well.  This guide will help you understand which strategies are actually effective for social networking professionally.  Along the way, you'll learn a few key things not to do if you want to make your social networking campaigns effective.

#1: Differentiate Your Presence on Different Sites

Today, most of the major social networks are linked up, and many allow you to cross-post the same update to several different networks.  Even on networks that don't offer this feature natively, social media dashboards allow law firms to release a comment on several different social media sites simultaneously.

Before you go too wild with the possibilities, remember this: just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.  Crossing too many social media wires isn't good for your business, and you won't get far targeting the same material to fellow attorneys and professionals on LinkedIn to users on Facebook who are more likely to be consumers with less legal knowledge.

#2: Understand Your Market

The era of the attorney who takes any case, big or small, about any issue, is long since gone.  Today, you need to look at niche markets if you want to succeed in the legal field.  When you're marketing to niches, effective social networking requires understanding the concerns and questions of that niche.

Do you notice that at initial consultations, clients tend to have some questions that it seems like almost everybody asks?  Effective social networking depends on your ability to address some of those questions and concerns before people ever come to your office.  By seeing how you respond to their real, commonly asked questions, people can get an idea of what it would be like to hire you as their attorney.  That means that they'll be more likely to pick up the phone and call, instead of just thinking about calling—remember, potential clients who just think about calling won't keep the lights on in your office.

#3: Don't Be Afraid to Advertise

When you're getting involved in social media, you might think that the best indication of effective social networking is not spending money.  After all, if you truly go viral completely organically, you won't have spent much or any money promoting your work.  However, keep in mind that the chances of actually having legal content go viral on a global scale aren't really very high.

What is more likely is that your content could become viral—on a smaller scale, to a legal community or consumers with a particular legal concern.  The best way to get your content passed around and create effective social networking content in these audiences is to make something that's informative, yet entertaining.  If you've managed to make something effective, though, advertise it!  Don't just wait for people to recognize your genius.  Self-promotion isn't just optional in the legal marketing game today.  Effective social networking requires you to actively advertise your brand and get your message in front of new people on social networks.

#4: Have Social Networking Goals

The goals that you set for your social marketing campaigns don't have to look like traditional ROI goals on something like direct e-mail marketing.  Effective social networking doesn't always look like it results in new clients.  However, with more than 85 percent of legal consumers now doing research on the internet before they contact an attorney, you'll do best if you put your best foot forward on social networks.

This means that you may want to have goals for metrics like how many times you engage people in discussion on social media websites, and how many new contacts you make on these websites.  You don't have to see immediate quantitative results for your campaign to have been effective social networking.  Reputation pays off dividends slowly over time.

#5: Listen at Least as Much as You Talk

Don't just use social media as your soapbox.  One of the best things about effective social networking is that it lets you make contact with people and find out what your clients actually love and hate about your brand and your law firm.  If someone has a problem with how you do things, it's not an effective social networking strategy to just shut them down.  Let them speak, hear them out, and you may find out something about your company that you didn't know before.

#6: Guide Discussions—But Don't Dominate

Many attorneys have a tendency to over-police the discussions occurring on their Facebook or Twitter feeds.  Just because a discussion starts with you doesn't mean that you need to interject all the time.  While you should delete harassing comments as part of an effective social networking moderation policy, you should also allow room for dialogue to develop.

This means that a policy of “hovering” over discussions and steering them in a desired direction isn't as effective for social networking as simply asking questions and encouraging people to converse with each other.

#7: Apologize for Mistakes and Move On

Everybody makes mistakes, and it's very likely that at some point you'll try to implement an effective social networking strategy and instead will find out you've offended someone.  When this happens, some law firms react with defensiveness and an unwillingness to apologize.

Effective social networking doesn't require you to be perfect, but it does require you to own up to your imperfections.  When you make a mistake, it's much better for your online reputation if you admit to it, take steps to ensure that it won't happen again, and stop re-hashing it over and over.  Attempting to silence critics will often just lead to online campaigns that will smear your firm and hurt your reputation for the mid and long term.

7 Tips For Creating Social Content That Works

7 Tips For Creating Social Content That Works

 

Over half of marketers think that creating content is the hardest part of their job duties.  That's even more true for attorneys, who often try to juggle marketing responsibilities at small firms and don't necessarily know how to produce effective social content.  In this guide, we'll go over some tips for making content that is interactive and projects a positive brand image.  You'll learn what social media and networking are really for, and how to make social content that shows you “get” what going social is all about.

#1: Think From a New Point of View

Remember that the things that you as an attorney find interesting about the law are probably not what most potential clients think are interesting.  Too many smaller law firms (and other small businesses) tend to post social content that is clearly all about what they find interesting.  In reality, social networking is a relationship building tool, and when you're only talking about what you find interesting, you're not in a two-way relationship.

Try to think about what your potential clients are looking for before you make your social content.  What are their concerns and misconceptions about the law?  What are things most people get wrong or seem misinformed about?  These are places where you have a chance to educate, inform, and generate discussion with potential clients on social media websites.  Your social content will have a chance to really shine when you consider your clients' desires ahead of your own.

#2: Get Creative In Integrating Social and Mobile

Social and mobile marketing are two concepts that work best when they're implemented in tandem.  Forward thinking law firms are already incorporating mobile marketing into their social content.  For example, sponsoring stories on Facebook and other social media websites can be a great way to get new people looking at some of the content you're offering.  Research shows that users of mobile Facebook apps are more likely than desktop users to click on this type of advertisement.

Making sure you have a presence on various web review sites is also a great way to ensure that you're integrating social content and mobile marketing.  Review websites are often checked by mobile users before they contact someone to provide them with a service, including legal services.  Asking satisfied clients to provide you with reviews on the websites where you're establishing a presence can significantly boost your rates of attracing new business.

#3: Show Yourself to the Social World

Too many companies make the mistake of thinking that they need to conform to some sort of marketing ideal rather than projecting a brand image that says something about who they really are.  Your branding efforts should always be focused on presenting a real side of yourself, and your social content should consistently work toward that goal.

If you've been making your social media updates sound generic or like sales pitches, you're not doing yourself any favors.  Instead, work on making your updates sound like your most friendly and professional self.  Don't be afraid to use a bit of humor or to use different tones in different types of posts.  Sounding too generic just makes it seem like you're only going through the motions of creating social content.

#4: Stay Updated About New Social Content Trends

The world of social media has been changing rapidly and isn't showing any signs of slowing down.  2012 brought us a new look for Facebook that caused a lot of complaints when it was first rolled out.  However, those complaints have since died down, leaving marketers with new ways to place social content on the networking giant.

In order to get on board with the next big thing in social media, you'll need to keep up with news and information about social marketing.  Social marketing blogs can help you stay on top of the scene and understand what types of social content are most likely to get results.

#5: Avoid Becoming an Annoyance

While it's great to advertise on social media, many people in surveys indicate that some businesses are being obnoxious with their social marketing campaigns.  Try to avoid creating social content that will oversaturate the friends of your Facebook friends with advertisements for your company—this type of content is best used in small doses.

You should also make sure that you're not inundating everyone who is connected to you on social media with messages and new posts.  Keep your post count lower, but create higher quality, higher value posts each time you do create one.

#6: Interact With People on Facebook

While typically only about 15 percent of people will be able to see any given Facebook Timeline post you make, there are two ways to make that number bigger.  One is to “sponsor” your social content and pay for it to be put in front of all your friends and connections.  However, the other way is to have your content reach the top of friends' feeds is to get a lively discussion going.

When a post receives more Facebook comments and likes on those comments, it becomes more likely to be seen by a larger number of people.  This is why you're likely to have better results with social content that tries to ask some questions and open up discussion than content that doesn't leave much room for commentary.

#7: Don't Ignore the Value of Video

One of the things that some attorneys forget is that social content featuring video is really popular—and more likely than other types of content to go viral.  Even if you're more used to blogging than Youtube, you should consider making some videos to augment your other forms of content.

Attorneys should make sure that any video they upload has reasonable production values and sound quality.  You won't improve your brand image online by uploading videos that are shaky, out of focus, or full of unintentional pauses and hesitations.

Internet Marketing Search Engine

Internet Marketing Search Engine

 

Everything About Internet Marketing Search Engine

If you want to know more about how to improve your website's web presence, you may be looking at PPC search engine marketing techniques, SEO, and social media websites.  This guide will help you understand several of the ways that internet marketing with search engine tools can make your firm's web presence stronger than ever before.  The internet is now many clients' first resource for finding lawyers, so this type of marketing shouldn't be neglected by any firm, large or small.

Internet Marketing With Search Engine Optimization

When you begin to look at marketing your firm online, you may be interested in PPC search engine marketing.  PPC means “pay per click,” and refers to a type of internet marketing with search engine advertisements.  While PPC search engine marketing is one tool you may want to use for your business (and we'll cover it later in this guide), you may first want to consider an alternative that doesn't cost nearly as much: search engine optimization.

When you improve your internet marketing with search engine optimization, you'll appear sooner in search results when clients look for lawyers that take cases in your legal practice areas.  Today's search engine optimization techniques rely on generating a large amount of accurate, informative legal content that can help clients to learn more about the laws pertaining to their case before they call for a consultation visit.

When you use internet marketing with search engine optimization, you'll want to identify key words and phrases that bring clients to your website.  Most clients never look at websites beyond the first few pages of search results—some won't even look past the first page.  Establishing effective keywords at a high enough density to push your website into the front pages of search results can bring you new clients at a rate your firm has never experienced before.

Internet Marketing With Search Engine Pay Per Click Ads

PPC search engine marketing is another good tool for law firms that want to attract new clients to their websites.  If your efforts at internet marketing with search engine optimization have not been as successful as you had hoped, you may want to investigate PPC search engine marketing as an additional avenue for driving clicks and conversions.  A few key tips can help you maximize the return on your PPC search engine marketing and avoid pitfalls common to law firms that are new to internet advertising.  

First of all, you will want to avoid so-called “prestige terms” that are extremely costly on a per-click basis and don't really reflect what people search for in the real world.  While “San Francisco personal injury lawyer” may be a very expensive term, it's also not what most people necessarily search for when they need a San Francisco personal injury lawyer.  Instead, try niche terms that more accurately reflect your practice—a much cheaper way to do PPC search engine marketing that will also help you get more clicks.

When you do internet marketing with search engine PPC ads, you'll also want to be certain that your website measures up to your competition.  Even if you pay for great PPC search engine marketing placement and get plenty of clicks, you won't get clients unless your website looks professional and contains accurate information.  You may want to look at your closest competitors to see whether your website looks up to date and polished in comparison.  Without a great website that draws new clients in, PPC search engine marketing can be a waste of your time and money.

Video Internet Marketing With Search Engine Optimization

One of the fastest ways to ensure that your PPC search engine marketing is successful is to have a website with readily accessible video content.  Research shows that video internet marketing with search engine optimization can greatly increase the chances that a client will decide to call you instead of continuing to click through to your competitors' websites after seeing yours.

Video can show your clients that you are both knowledgeable and personable before they ever call your office.  You can also tag your video using search engine optimization techniques, ensuring that prospective clients can find your video internet marketing with search engine searches.  It is important to make sure that any video you use looks professional and polished before you put it up.  A video that looks unprofessional could actually sabotage your PPC search engine marketing efforts by turning prospective clients off.

Blogs and Legal Content Internet Marketing for Search Engine Optimization

Another way to make your website appear sooner in search results and attract more conversions with your PPC search engine marketing efforts is to have a steady stream of new content coming to your website via a legal blog.  Large firms may decide to hire a legal writer specifically for law firm blog posts and to generate a social media presence.  Smaller firms may not be able to hire someone full time to fill this role.  However, you have several options for creating a legal blog, even if you are a very small firm or a solo practitioner.

If you have writing skills that are SEO friendly and know how to write content that draws in customers, you may want to maintain a blog on your own.  You can blog about topics that are relevant to your clients and your practice, including SEO terms and links to make it more likely that clients will click through to your website.  It's important not to make your blog seem too much like advertising, which is likely to alienate clients.

You may also want to cross-promote your blog using social media websites like Facebook and Twitter.  If you cannot reliably develop blog content on your own, you may want to outsource your legal content to another website or to freelance content writers.  This can ensure that your blog is consistently updated with relevant information that will generate more PPC search engine marketing click conversions.

 

Search Engine Marketing For Lawyers

Search Engine Marketing For Lawyers

 

Everything About Search Engine Marketing For Lawyers

When you begin using search engine marketing tools to improve your web marketing strategies, you'll see an increase in clicks and conversions on your law firm website.  This guide will help you learn more about search engine marketing for lawyers, whether you're just getting started or have been dissatisfied with your previous SEM strategies.  You'll learn about common mistakes that lawyers make when using search engine marketing tools and techniques, and about how to get the most out of your search engine marketing strategies.

Search Engine Marketing for Lawyers: Common Mistakes

Because search engine marketing for lawyers is relatively new, it's easy to fall prey to common misconceptions that can drain your advertising budget without bringing in the new clients you need.  Here are a few of the basic mistakes that lawyers make when they're trying to use search engine marketing tools:

• Bad Website Content.  If you're generating plenty of clicks but your search engine marketing for lawyers still isn't getting new clients, you may want to take a look at your website.  Does it contain information that clients really care about, or just summaries of attorney education and experience?

• Bad Website Design.  Even if you have terrific content, a website that looks dated or has missing links won't impress potential clients.  When your search engine marketing tools show that you have low conversion rates, bad design is sometimes the culprit.

• Thinking in Generalities.  Unless your firm is a behemoth with hundreds of lawyers and several locations, you can't be everything to everybody.  Thinking too generally can lead to overpaying for keywords and failing to be specific enough in your use of search engine marketing tools.

• Putting Your Eggs in One Basket.  If you focus on only one strategy for search engine marketing for lawyers, you could find yourself in a difficult position if that type of marketing goes through sudden changes.  With websites changing regularly, you're better off using your search engine marketing tools to diversify the ways in which you market your niche to clients.

• Changing Too Often.  While it's important to keep what works and ditch what doesn't, give new search engine marketing tools time to work before dismissing them as useless.  Good search engine marketing for lawyers can take time to bring in clients as you build your content base.

Search Engine Marketing for Lawyers: Finding Your Niche

One of the best things that search engine marketing tools can do for you is help you find the niche that your firm attracts the most clients in.  Understanding niche marketing can ensure that your dollars spend on search engine marketing for lawyers go as far as possible.  

You can use your search engine marketing tools for reporting on what search terms have led to online inquiries and phone calls, then build landing pages around those search terms to bring in even more clients.  Search engine marketing for lawyers can also be enhanced by buying pay per click ads pertaining to the specific niches that your firm does best.

Search Engine Marketing for Lawyers: Putting Your Best Foot Forward

When you start using search engine marketing tools, you should already have your website ready to go.  A poorly designed website can steer clients away, but a well designed one can stop comparison shopping clients in their tracks and generate consultations every day.  In order to have the best results with your search engine marketing for lawyers, make sure that you've thought about the brand identity of your law firm.  It's not enough to just be competent—what makes your firm special, unique?  What keeps your clients coming back?

Whatever your firm's best qualities are, make sure that they're represented in the content and design of your website.  Once your firm's brand is consistently represented on your website and in all its content, you'll see more conversions when you look at reports from your search engine marketing tools.  If you're not sure how to build a brand identity for your law firm, you may want to consult with advertising firms that can help you to construct your website's brand.

Search Engine Marketing for Lawyers: Keeping it Fresh

When it comes to marketing your website, content is king.  You can use your search engine marketing tools to figure out what phrases are bringing clients to your website, and maximize the content on your site that pertains to those phrases.  One way to keep new content appearing on your website all the time is by using a blog.  A blog is one of the best search engine marketing tools you can use to make sure that your content reflects the newest search results bringing clients to your website.

When blog entries for your website are written—whether by an attorney at your law firm or an outside freelancer—you should make sure that they reflect the brand image that you are trying to create for your website.  Consistent tone and branding will ensure that your website is seen as organic and professional, rather than as a glorified advertisement.

Search Engine Marketing for Lawyers: Branching Out

No website is an island, and making sure that your website is linked on as many other sites as possible and that your firm is mentioned on other websites can help to ensure that your organic search engine results are as high as possible.  You may want to make sure that your website is linked in chamber of commerce directories or on other local websites to increase your visibility to clients from your hyperlocal area.

Search engine marketing tools can also help you improve your presence on social media websites, which drive an increasing amount of web traffic today.  If you make your social media presence known to clients and have content that is likely to be shared, you will be increasing your number of page views without needing to spend additional dollars on advertising.  Especially in areas where not many competing lawyers have yet established social media pages, his type of outreach can set you apart from your competition.

 

Advanced Web Analytics

Advanced Web Analytics

 

Everything About Advanced Web Analytics

The basics of web analytics for law firms can be tough to master.  But once you already know about your conversion rates and your unique site visits, you may be confused about which web analytics report gives you the results you need to really change your website's effectiveness.  If you want the best results—20 to 30 percent conversion rate increases, doubling of web traffic—you'll need to use advanced web analytics.  Going beyond the basics of your tools can ensure that you're getting exactly what you want out of your web analytics reports.

Why Standard Web Analytics Reports Aren't Enough

Looking at your first web analytics report can be tremendously confusing, but as you've used web analytics reports more frequently, you've probably familiarized yourself with the statistics that are important for your law firm.  You may also start to notice problems—blind spots in your statistics, things you can't figure out from a standard web analytics report.

When you started investigating your web traffic, you may have been surprised at the sheer number of web analytics reports available with your reporting tool.  What you may have learned through trial and error is that one great web analytics report can often be more useful than a thousand that don't give you exactly what you need.  

Quantity is much less important in advanced web analytics than quality.  Many analytics professionals refer to standard web analytics reports as “data pukes.”  It's easy to see why: in spite of the amount of data provided in a web analytics report by Google, Yahoo, or other tools, it can be hard to know how to translate that data into the kind of real-world results that matter.  

For example, your standard web analytics report may report your conversion rate and which keywords are bringing traffic to your site, but you may not know how to figure out which keywords are bringing in the best potential clients.  Advanced web analytics can help you differentiate between keywords so that you can focus on the ones where there is the most potential for improvement.

The important thing to remember is that your business is unique.  Google didn't set up its web analytics reports to help your company specifically.  If you want the best results from your web analytics report, you'll need to use advanced web analytics that keep your firm's goals in mind.

Custom Web Analytics Reports

Creating great advanced web analytics reports means that you'll need to understand exactly what you're looking for.  What are your goals?  What frustrates you about your web analytics report tools?  What information would make your web analytics reports more useful to you?

For example, you may be frustrated by how many bounces are included in your web analytics reports.  While some companies focus on eliminating these bounces altogether, maybe they don't matter as much as you think—especially if you're getting bounces from search engine results, not paid clicks.  This can happen if, for instance, you're highly ranked in search engine results for a topic that involves multiple types of results.  The bounces you're getting may not be possible to convert into paying clients—so why focus on them?

If this happens, You may want to create advanced web analytics that can focus only on your non-bouncing site visitors, so that you can understand how they interact with the website.  You can design a custom web analytics report that helps you focus on the clients who may be most interested in your website—for instance, those who have looked at several pages or watched at least one of your law firm's videos.

Social Media Web Analytics Reports

An increasing amount of web traffic today comes from social media like Facebook and Twitter.  When you want to increase the conversions you get from social media sites, you need advanced web analytics to understand your social traffic.  A standard web analytics report about social media can give you part of the picture, but if blogs, Twitter and Facebook are a major part of your marketing strategy (and they should be), you need to go deeper.

A custom web analytics report can tell you a great deal about how your firm is perceived on social media sources.  You may want to know if a new social media strategy—for instance, starting a new Twitter feed about your law firm's results—has paid off.  When you use advanced web analytics, you can produce a custom web analytics report that details exactly how much value each Twitter or Facebook click has had for your firm.

When you're using custom web analytics reports, it's much easier to keep your goals in mind at all times.  A narrowly tailored web analytics report can give you much more granular information much more quickly than using basic reports, so remember to use advanced web analytics techniques instead of just using what Google or Yahoo provides.

Using Advanced Web Analytics for Redesign

Once you've got your custom web analytics reports, you may want to look into redesigning your website for better traffic flow and increased conversions.  You may, for example, want to use a custom web analytics report that shows which of your pages are generating the most conversions and which are driving clients away from your website.

Next, you can begin to analyze the differences between those pages.  A key part of advanced web analytics is getting inside the minds of your clients by looking at which pages drive your traffic.  If a particular type of content—for example, video—seems to keep people looking at your website for longer according to web analytics reports, you may want to include more video.

Keep in mind that once you've redesigned your website, you shouldn't stop using advanced web analytics.  Using the same type of custom web analytic report can keep you on top of trends that are affecting your client base.  By being proactive with your advanced web analytics, you'll be able to anticipate changes to demographics and site traffic before your competitors using standard web analytics reports even know what's going on.

 

 

Hosted Web Analytics

Hosted Web Analytics

 

Everything About Hosted Web Analytics

With over 50% of Fortune 500 companies using hosted web analytics tools, you may have begun to think about what kind of web analytics you need.  There are a wide variety of hosted and self-hosted solutions that can help you track and analyze visitor data, but trying to figure out which tool you want can be a hassle, especially if you're not familiar with the basics.  There's no one right solution that works for every firm—this guide will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of hosted and self hosted web analytics so that you can make the call that will work best for your clients.

What's the Difference?

The terminology surrounding web analytics and hosting can be a bit confusing.  In general, web analytics refers to tools that gather data, analyze your website traffic and make changes based on the data you've gathered.  Hosted web analytics are the most common type of tools available for the novice analyst.  These are tools that are “hosted” on another website, like Google or Yahoo.  In order to work, these tools need your computer to be connected to one of their host servers.

The opposite of hosted isn't non-hosted, it's self-hosted—in other words, a piece of software that you run on your machines.  Self hosted web analytics are software packages that don't require you to be connected online at the time when you use them, and they keep your data on your machines instead of sending it elsewhere.

Hosted Web Analytics: Pros

There's a reason that the majority of companies use web analytics software hosted by other companies.  Google and Yahoo each have significant market shares for hosted web analytics because these search engines have already put a great deal of work into making search results better.  Helping content producers create better, more user-friendly content is in the best interest of these websites, and they can use the data to make the search user experience better.

One of the biggest advantages of using hosted web analytics is cost.  It may sound too good to be true, but the vast majority of these analytic tools are actually hosted completely for free.  You won't have to pay for expensive software licensing if you use hosted web analytics, and it's also free to upgrade when these web analytics tools get new features.

These tools often offer the widest range of standard reports.  If you're new to using analytics, hosted web analytics can be your best bet because they give a tremendously wide range of data.  There is also more training available for this type of analysis software—not because it's more difficult to use, but because it's so much more common than using self-hosted analytics.

Hosted Web Analytics: Cons

While using another company's hosting has benefits, it also can present problems depending on what your firm's goals are.  An increasing number of law firms don't want a company like Google or Yahoo to have access to all of their data, fearing that it could actually help competing firms as much as their own.

While the range of information available through hosted web analytics can be intoxicating to a new analyst, people with more experience often find that a wide range of standard reports just creates vast amounts of irrelevant data.  Creating custom reports using hosted web analytics can sometimes be difficult, and will usually require additional training.

Self Hosted Web Analytics: Pros

If you choose to use a self hosted analytics application, you can get software that includes a “dashboard” of basics like Google or Yahoo, or a very narrowly tailored program that works on specific types of custom reports.  This flexibility lets you choose analytics that are designed to work for problems exactly like yours.

Self hosting also eliminates any problems with giving up your data.  Instead of having your website traffic data stored off-site and being analyzed by search engineers, you can maintain total control over your information.  The value of maintaining your data depends on what you expect that it will be used for—many law firms simply don't believe their reports need to be kept in-house, and are quite comfortable with using hosted web analytics.

Self Hosted Web Analytics: Cons

If you're using a self hosted solution, you should probably already have a grasp on what metrics are important for you and what your firm's website traffic and conversion goals are.  That's because most self hosted web analytics software costs money—and sometimes a lot of it.  Because analytics are a long term, ongoing process, choosing the wrong tool for your analysis can cost a lot of time and money.  You will want to carefully research reviews of any self hosted web analytics software before you make a purchase.

Because your data is only being stored on-site, you'll need to take special care with backups if you are self hosting.  Hosted web analytics are substantially less likely to experience major data loss problems.  Give some thought to what you'd do even in the unlikely event of a natural disaster, and consider secure off-site data storage or cloud storage.

Which Hosted Web Analytics Software Is For Me?

Everyone's preferences are a bit different when it comes to web analytics.  While Google Analytics is sometimes considered the gold standard of hosted web analytics, other hosted services offer great all-around analytics and specialty analytics as well.

The best way to find out what software you like best is to simply experiment.  Just as the process of analyzing and editing your website involves trial and error, feel free to try out several different services until you find one that you feel comfortable with.  You may find that the graphical interface of one dashboard seems more intuitive and easy to use, or that the tools of another are particularly robust for letting you look at a particular interesting metric.  Because upgrades to hosted web analytics software occur all the time, you may also want to check out different tools periodically just to see if they have anything new and useful.

 

Web Analytics Best Practices

Web Analytics Best Practices

 


Everything About Web Analytics Best Practices

 

Ten years ago, most websites didn't use any web analytics when trying to attract customers.  Some law firms today have still been slow to catch up to web analytics best practices, and because of that, your firm can take advantage of web analytic services to get a leg up on your competition.  You can use this guide to start you on your web analytics journey—once you know more about the terminology and best practices involved, you'll be able to seek out more in-depth information.

 

Web Analytics Best Practices: Key Performance Indicators and Goals

 

When you invest in web analytic services, one of the first things that you need to think about is what defines success for your law firm's website.  What are you hoping to generate with your website's content?  Are you hoping for clients to fill out an online contact form or call your offices?  Identifying these goals can help you understand which metrics should be considered your key performance indicators (KPIs).  

 

You should use caution in deciding what your KPIs should be.  While some law firms initially identify site visits as a KPI, most web analytic services will advise against this.  Total traffic doesn't really make a difference to your firm unless that traffic is converting into clients.  Web analytics best practices require you to give careful consideration to which metrics will really best represent your firm website's overall performance.

 

You also need to develop your goals for improvement.  While these goals will change over time (more on that later), web analytics best practices include identifying how much you want your KPIs to change, and to set clear dates for achieving those goals.  If you're having difficulty figuring out what reasonable goals would be, you may want to hire web analytic services to help you develop actionable goals.

 

Web Analytics Best Practices: Identifying Your Ideal Clients

 

One of the most important aspects of preparing for web analytics data is knowing what kind of client you're hoping to attract.  Every firm has a different ideal client, and if you're having a hard time articulating what kind of client is best for your firm, you should consult with web analytic services to get a better handle on your client goals.

 

When you have identified the demographics and desires of your ideal clients, you can begin to create a website that caters to those clients specifically.  If you hope to attract several different types of clients, current web analytics best practices avoid “one size fits all” websites and focus on differentiating the customer experience for each type of client.  

 

You may want one landing page or website to draw in clients looking to sue after a car accident, but a wholly different page for those who want to sue a doctor after a child was born with birth defects.  For every type of client, consider using different content to drive the maximum number of conversions—even if that means your web analytic services are designing several different websites for your firm.

 

Web Analytics Best Practices: Continuous Improvement

 

When you seek out web analytic services, you may initially be considering using these services for just a short time—perhaps long enough to do an overhaul of your website or see an uptick in conversions.  In order to get the most out of web analytic services, though, you'll want to stay with a service for a long period of time.  Web analytics best practices call for a process of continuous improvement that extends beyond a single site redesign.

 

Ideally, web analytic services can create a positive feedback loop for your law firm.  The more data that is generated by your website, the more that a service can help you to use web analytics best practices to revise your site, improve your search placement, and get the clients you want.  Every improvement can create new opportunities for even bigger goals, so there's no reason to stop with just a few months of analysis.

 

Web Analytics Best Practices: Testing and Experimentation

 

When people start to use web analytic services, they often want instant results.  To get the best results for your firm in the long term, though, web analytics best practices require you to work a little bit more slowly.  Taking your time to test hypotheses and experiment with your data can be the difference between a slight increase in client conversions and having as many calls as you can handle.

 

When you begin to test your hypotheses by creating new content, changing your advertising strategies, or redesigning your website, you gain a wealth

of data that can help you for years in the future.  Remember that even a failed experiment is still, in some ways, a success: knowing what not to do can often be nearly as valuable as knowing what to do.

 

Web Analytics Best Practices: Beyond the Click Stream

 

Web analytic services examine your website's “click stream”—the patterns of traffic flow within your site—using their analytics tools.  When you really want your website to shine, though, it's important to look beyond the click stream for improvements.  Conducting user surveys and demographic research as well as focus group testing is vital if you want to really key in on what customers want.  

 

Trying to figure this out through experimentation based solely in your click stream research can be a process of trial and error, with a lot more errors than successes.  Instead of guessing what your clients want, ask them—especially if what you've tried before hasn't seemed to work.

 

Web Analytics Best Practices: Time Management

 

One of the best pieces of advice for any law firm looking into web analytics is this: hire someone full-time, or hire web analytic services.  If you try to balance the time of a member your staff between web analytics and other critical services, odds are that they won't be able to use web analytics best practices and really give you the results you want.  Hiring web analytic services can be a good alternative for firms that don't want to have a full-time analytics guru on staff, but make sure you get to keep your data for future use if you use one of these services.

Web Analytics Analysis

Web Analytics Analysis

 

Everything About Web Analytics Analysis

 

Today, more people look for attorneys online than in the newspaper, phone book, television, and radio combined.  It takes more than just an accurate or frequently updated website to bring in clients today.  Doing web analytics analysis (not just reporting) can expand your law firm's client base and identify potential areas for website improvement.  Whether you're looking to reduce your web analytics bounce rate (the number of people who leave your website after just a quick glance) or want to know how to use analytics to develop your site for mobile web traffic, this guide can help.

 

The Difference Between Web Analytics Analysis and Reporting

 

Most law firm websites today, especially for larger firms, do some form of web analytics.  However, there's more than one way to use analytics tools, and the sad truth is that most firms aren't doing the best they could do with their information.  Instead of performing real web analytics analysis, many firms simply look at reporting tools without really understanding what the numbers say about their business.

 

Web analytics reporting is easy with today's software packages: you just make a few clicks, and you'll see a report on your dashboard that illustrates one or more metrics.  But web analytics analysis goes deeper: for example, instead of just finding out that you have a high web analytics bounce rate through reporting, you can analyze your bounce rate to see what's causing potential clients to leave.

 

Web Analytics Analysis: What Your Web Analytics Bounce Rate Says About You

 

One of the biggest website statistics that can stop law firms from implementing their marketing plans is the bounce rate—how many clients leave too soon to see enough content to convert.  When you want to reduce your web analytics bounce rate, it's important to know why your bounce problem is occurring if you want to come up with the right solution.  Guesswork leads to wasted time and effort, and web analytics analysis tools allow you to get to the real answer.

 

To figure out what's causing your bounce problem, here are some things to check.  The web analytics bounce rate can be measured in several ways.  The default for most web analytics analysis software is looking at clients who have visited only one page of your website.  But what if that doesn't represent your true web analytics bounce rate?  If someone stays for several minutes, watches a video on the first page, and then calls your firm using the phone number, that's not a bounce—it's a conversion.

 

In order to get a better view of what your true web analytics bounce rate is, consider looking at the difference between reports from the default “bounce rate” and those for site visitors who stay 10 seconds or less.  If the numbers are about the same, you can safely assume that the default represents your true bounce rate.  If clients are staying on one page for a long time before clicking away, though, you may want to focus on making calls to action or attractive links that keep potential clients clicking.

 

Lowering Your Web Analytics Bounce Rate

 

There are several ways to use web analytics analysis to lower the number of potential clients who bounce away.  Keep in mind that one of the biggest reasons that your web analytics bounce rate may be high is that your website is not sufficiently search engine optimized.  If a large number of people are arriving at your website through searches for irrelevant search terms, your web analytics bounce rate will increase every time they click and realize you're not what they're looking for.  Make sure to keep your content clean and focused on your firm's strengths, and verify that any keywords for PPC advertising are related to your firm's practice areas.

 

Another way to lower your web analytics bounce rate, if  your firm uses primarily PPC advertising, is to use negative keywords.  Web analytics analysis may show that a number of people are bouncing from your website after searching for (for example) “free divorce help in Phoenix.”  If you want to make money, you'll need to avoid paying for clicks from people seeking free services.  After you add some negative keywords (like “free” or “sliding scale”), you may see a significantly lower web analytics bounce rate.

 

If you still have a high bounce rate, odds are your content is the problem.  You may want to conduct user surveys or focus groups to help your web analytics analysis and find a content solution.  With some experimentation, you can usually significantly reduce the web analytics bounce rate through diligent analysis and creative problem-solving.

 

Lowering Your Web Analytics Bounce Rate for Mobile Traffic

 

The mobile revolution has significantly impacted web analytics analysis.  Within the next year, up to a quarter of all web traffic will come from mobile devices, and if your firm's not ready, you could see high web analytics bounce rates that just climb higher as time goes on.

 

The best way to make sure that your bounce rate stays low when clients search for a law firm on their phones is to redirect clients to a useable mobile site.  Don't neglect content on these mobile web pages: while you can make content more abbreviated in order to attract more mobile clients, if there's not enough quality information most people will still just leave.

 

It's particularly valuable for law firms to have mobile websites.  When a potential client searches in this way, they already have their phone in hand—and all it will take is a quick touch to call your firm.  This is the perfect environment for generating conversions, so make sure that any conversations your firm has about web analytics analysis includes mobile marketing.

 

Web Analytics Analysis: What Comes Next?

 

The biggest trends in web analytics today involve mobile traffic and social media marketing.  If your firm wants to get ahead of the competition, you need to keep updated about the latest web analytics analysis tools.  Because the field of web analytics has changed so much in just a few short years (very few analytics companies even existed a decade ago), consider analytics to be another area that will require continuing education if your firm is to continue to prosper in a web-centric era.