You've created a marketing plan and have been following through with the points of the plan perfectly.  Just the same, you're not sure whether it's actually successful or not.  The results that you're seeing are questionable, open to interpretation.  What signs actually mean that a marketing plan is doomed?  In this guide, we'll look at several signs that can tell you that your marketing plan is in need of serious revision. 

#1: The Phone Isn't Ringing

One of the most obvious signs that the marketing plan you're using is failing to achieve results is when the phone is dead.  If there isn't new business coming in, eventually your firm is going to have trouble keeping the lights on—and that means that no matter how innovative or groundbreaking your marketing campaign seemed when you started it, whatever led to the silence in your office is something that needs to be changed.

If you're not getting new business, keep in mind that this isn't necessarily because of any one cause.  While this is definitely an indication that you need to change something about how your firm is handling its marketing, it's not much of an indication about what needs changed.  It's important to check every step in the process: are people clicking on your website?  Are people able to find your site, and is it usable?  Do they click away quickly, or stay and look at a few pages, then simply don't call?  Later in this guide, we'll cover some of the specific issues you may be having, with more specific solutions.

#2: You Can't Get People to Leave Good Reviews

Today, reviews mean a lot to people looking for an attorney.  In fact, the majority of internet users seeking legal services now check attorney review and rating websites before making a phone call to schedule their first consultation.  If you can't get people to leave good reviews for your law firm, it may be because your conception of marketing ends when the client walks in your door for the first time.

While marketing to get new clients is one of the things you should be doing, it's not the be-all, end-all of marketing.  Once clients come in, you need to stay focused on not only the law, but also your branding and keeping the client's image of you positive.

To make it more likely for people to leave you good reviews, you should also follow up with former clients, especially the ones who have had the best experiences with your law firm.  Follow-up is an important part of marketing, and if you use it correctly, your old clients will be your best advertisements to help you get new ones.

#3: People Aren't Clicking On Your Site

Sometimes, the reason that your phone isn't ringing is that people just aren't finding your website in the vast wilderness of the web.  If you suspect that people aren't able to find your website, you should be checking the traffic numbers.  First, check them over the long term: is it that your website has never really been generating much traffic, or has there been a precipitous drop?

If your web traffic seems to have dropped all of a sudden, check where the traffic was coming from and where it's no longer coming from now.  It may be that you have been de-listed on one or more search engines.  Typically, this happens when a search engine believes that your website is low quality or spam.  If you believe that you have been de-listed in error, search engines give you the opportunity to appeal, or to show that you have revised your website so that it is now in accordance with the webmaster guidelines set forth by the search engine.

If you have a relatively new website or one that has simply never had many visitors, you should consider search engine optimization.  This doesn't mean turning your website into spam—see the paragraph above for what happens to websites that try that technique.  Instead, search engine optimization today mostly works by making sure you have some, but not too many, keywords in your text and that you're getting backlinks from people with a good reputation.  Look for backlinks articles on lawfirms.laws.com for more information about how you can generate quality backlinks.

#4: People Are Clicking—Then Not Converting

If people are coming to your website but aren't filling out an online form or calling your office for a consultation, you have a problem: a low conversion rate.  Low conversion rates usually mean that some part of your website's content simply isn't working well.  In some cases, this is very literal: it could be a problem as simple as one browser having a difficult time rendering your website. 

If you've made sure that your website is viewable in all browsers—including browsers used on major smartphones—then the problem may be that you're not answering the questions that your visitors want answered as quickly as they hoped.  Your website design may also be unattractive to viewers.  You can check how people move through your website using a tool like Google Analytics, which will help you see the way people click through your site and where they leave.  By using this information with a bit of common sense, you'll be able to pinpoint where you're losing clients and fix the problems.

#5: You're Finding The Wrong Kind of Clients

Maybe clients are calling your office, but they aren't the right kind of clients.  They're not bringing you the kinds of cases you normally take, or they are almost always seeking pro bono representation when you really need paying clients—these situations can be frustrating for any attorney.

When these situations happen, you should consider that your marketing may be incorrectly targeted.  Consider making targeting the focus of your next marketing initiative, and if you're using pay per click ad words, make sure you're also using so-called “negative keywords” as well—in other words, search terms that, if a user uses them, make it so your ad will not appear to them.  For instance, you may want people to find your website when they search for “criminal defense attorney Denver,” but not “criminal defense attorney Denver pro bono.”

Every time you turn on your mobile phone, you're plugging into a massive GPS system that tracks where you are and even knows where you're likely to be headed.  This means that local mobile advertising has more ways to track and target possible clients than ever.  Whether your firm is still asking “what is mobile advertising?” or you've already started using some local targeting in your mobile ads, this guide will help you understand current best practices and get a great mobile campaign started.

What is Mobile Advertising Like Today?

While lawyers were largely ahead of the phone technology curve and adopted Blackberry technology long before the average consumer had even heard of smart phones, they still used clunky advertising methods.  Instead of making the most of the web's capacity to deliver images and videos, mobile ads were almost always exclusively text, often in the form of a direct SMS advertisement.

Today, that old image of what is mobile advertising has changed for good.  Local mobile advertising no longer means sending out a direct ad to everyone in your phone list.  Instead, you can use your mobile ads to target customers in your city, in your neighborhood, or even on your block.

Local mobile advertising can now take several different forms.  Increasingly, an answer to “what is mobile advertising” is the in-app banner ad.  If your law firm works with an advertising network, you can put local mobile advertising into the apps local customers are using most frequently.

If you're still waiting to see what mobile advertising is capable of, you may want to try using Facebook's targeted mobile ads.  This form of local mobile advertising lets you put “sponsored stories” into the news feeds of your target audience, giving you incredible visibility and great click through rates.

What is Mobile Advertising Useful For?

It may surprise you to learn that soon, people will be spending more time on average browsing the web from their phones than from their computers.  Local mobile advertising lets you get in on the ground floor of this new market.

One of the best answers to the question “what is mobile advertising good for?” is also one of the most obvious.  When someone sees your traditional web advertising, they're usually on a desktop computer.  Desktops make it easy to do a lot of research at once.  After the research is done, your potential client may or may not get up from their office chair, pick up the phone, and give your office a call.

When someone sees your local mobile advertising, though, everything is different.  Comparison shopping isn't as easy on a smart phone as it is on a desktop, so your clients aren't likely to see your ad, but then go elsewhere for the same services.  What is mobile advertising useful for?  Making it incredibly easy to contact your firm, specifically, after someone sees your ad.

Designing Great Local Mobile Advertising

If you're new to mobile markets, you may still be asking “what is mobile advertising supposed to look like?”  The answer is: less like your standard website than you may think.  Mobile consumers want something different from web browsing clients.  Instead of peddling a huge amount of information, you're better off using your local mobile advertising to target very niche market segments and direct them to your landing pages.

Some of the best local mobile advertising today is actually video based.  The vast majority of clients will want to hire a lawyer who is local, and you can show people using a mobile ad that you're part of the community they work and live in.  Having great mobile tie-in videos that expand on videos you've already been successful marketing on the web can be a great way to get conversions fast from mobile customers.

Defining “Local” and Changes to What is Mobile Advertising

A few years ago, local targeting meant search engine optimization based around local keywords.  That's no longer the way great law firms are keeping their ad viewers local.  Depending on what mobile ad platform you're using, you can target people in whatever local area works best for you. 

Some mobile ad networks give you the ability to target based on a cell phone's GPS data.  If you wanted to, you could limit what was considered “local” to such a tight circle that any of your ad targets could hear you shout out your office window.  Now, most law firms don't need that kind of incredibly tight local targeting, but it's good to know that you have options.

Be a little bit careful when using that demographic data, though.  If you are broadcasting the signal “I know all about you already” with your ads, viewers can be turned off or even think that you would use their data unethically.  When you're targeting just one very tiny demographic with a local mobile advertising campaign, you want to sound like a lawyer, not a stalker.

What is Mobile Advertising Going to Look Like in the Future?

Five years ago, if you had asked a marketing professional the question “what is mobile advertising?” you'd have probably gotten an answer about text messages being used a lot like direct mail flyers.  Five years from now, there will probably be new ways to target local mobile advertising that make today's methods look primitive by contrast.

Already, some mobile marketing companies are using data mining technology to target consumers who appear to be going through specific life events.  Imagine the possibilities if you're a divorce attorney or work with probate cases!  Instead of just talking to random consumers in a particular demographic, soon you'll be able to show your ads to the exact people who need them most.

As local mobile advertising keeps changing, you'll want to keep an eye on changes to your ethical responsibilities.  Bar associations have been trying to figure out how to balance lawyers' need for efficient marketing with the ethical and professional responsibilities that come with being an attorney, and your state bar may end up prohibiting some new forms of marketing.

When you're creating blogs for your law firm, you have a huge number of choices to make.  Since some of those choices are so huge, like deciding what topic to use for your law blog, it can be hard to remember some of the other decisions you'll have to make.  One of the biggest in the long term can be whether to brand your law blog with your law firm, or whether to have attorneys maintain their own blogs that are only indirectly tied to your website.  Both of these approaches have significant advantages and disadvantages, and which one your law firm should use depends largely on what kind of marketing campaigns you're planning to run.

What Does it Mean to Brand Your Blog?

A blog that is branded with a law firm's name may be hosted on the website for the law firm, or may simply include the firm's name on its title page.  If you're branding your law blog, it means that the opinions being expressed in that blog will be considered by readers to be the opinions of your firm as a whole.

It's also possible for your attorneys to have their own blogs, which would usually have a link back to your blog in the sidebar, but only just as a reference for where the attorney works.  Depending on their blog's content, the attorney might also occasionally link back to your firm.  This kind of blog can be promoted in social media by your firm in many of the same ways that a branded blog can be, but the opinions expressed on it will be those of a particular attorney, and may not always represent the opinions of the firm as a whole.

Why Would Branded Blogs Be Problematic?

In some cases, social media experts actually recommend against having branded blogs if you want to have high quality blog writing.  Why?  The sad truth is that many branded law firm blogs have historically contained too much garbled SEO content and too little actual quality writing.  If you are planning to have a well written blog, it can sometimes be an uphill battle to be taken seriously when your blog is also being used expressly as a marketing tool.

Attorney blogs, because they can be more personal and don't have the “corporate” vibe that some branded law blogs can give off, can sometimes be a better choice for authenticity.  If individual voices and authenticity are major components of your marketing strategy, you may want to consider this kind of blog instead of having a firm-wide branded blog.

Can You Still Create a Good Branded Blog?

Just because branded blogs can carry some stigma doesn't mean that you should automatically cross them off your list of possibilities.  As long as you're committed to providing quality content and you link your blog from social media sources, you can still get great play from your branded blog.

There are several things that branded blogs actually do substantially better than non-branded ones.  The biggest one is probably search engine optimization.  SEO for your law firm will be easier with a branded blog because your firm's name will appear more times in the page and will be more likely to draw the attention of major search engines like Google and Bing.  The key is quality content that has goals and direction.  Don't make your blog entries seem like glorified advertisements.  Keep your advertising separate from your blogging and make sure that every blog entry you create is informative to the kinds of clients that your firm hopes to attract.

Non-Branded Attorney Blogs: Still a Great Tool

You may think that because a non-branded attorney blog wouldn't help as much with search engine optimization, that it might not be very useful for your firm.  However, SEO strategies are only the beginning of online legal marketing techniques today.  A non-branded attorney blog, especially if it's about a specific practice area, can actually still be a fantastic way to market your firm.

How?  Simply put, no matter what, when an attorney works for your firm, they're connected to you.  If they're writing an excellent blog entry that goes viral, getting traffic from major legal blogs or even mainstream blogs, the linking blogs will often include a link to your firm as well.  This kind of reputation enhancement can serve your firm very well and set you apart from the competition, especially if your attorneys get a reputation online for being helpful and informative.

Make sure that you're keeping an eye on attorney blogs.  Your attorneys need to be showing the best side of your firm, and you don't want for an entry made hastily to reflect poorly on your firm's other lawyers.

Your attorneys should also pay attention to their comments sections and make sure they are well moderated.  Spam comments will reflect poorly on their writing and the blog's overall placement in search engine results.

Getting the Most For Your Firm From Blogs

If you want to make sure that your law firm blog is getting the most traffic that it possibly can, you'll want to interact with other parts of the blogosphere as well.  For example, you should consider commenting on other law blogs, as well as the social media profiles of other attorneys and law firms.  You should also ask about the possibility of writing a guest post on a blog written by someone you professionally admire.

The more ways that you cross-promote your blog entries, the more successful you'll be.  However, this means that you shouldn't overload your audience.  Don't have a new blog post up every day—you're actually much more likely to have your posts read if you post only two or three times per week.  This is a much more manageable amount of writing for your readers to look at, and won't cause anyone to unsubscribe from you because of the amount you're posting.

When you give your phone number out to someone today, do you give your home landline number, or a mobile number?  For an increasing number of Americans, cell phones are an important part of life—in fact, over a third of Americans report that they no longer even have a landline phone.  As mobile phones get smarter and more common, law firms should start thinking about mobile marketing.  Having a mobile-friendly version of your website was once just a novelty.  In today's mobile-based world, it's a necessity.  Here are eight reasons that the legal marketing landscape is changing in a way that is favorable to lawyers who get on the mobile bandwagon.

#1: Smartphones Are Getting Cheaper And More Widespread

When smartphones came out, in the form of the Blackberry and other similar devices, they were regarded as gadgets best suited for high-powered businesspeople and tech geeks.  Today, the situation on the ground has changed dramatically: Over half of Americans now own a smartphone.

Smartphones, in addition to allowing basic telephony features, also let people connect to the internet, watch videos, use maps and global positioning satellite systems, and even play games or use apps.  The huge market share of smartphones has come as the result of steep price drops, including many which are now free with plan purchases.  The ubiquity of smartphone technology means that attorneys can no longer simply assume that their target market doesn't use smartphones—while younger demographics are certainly more likely to have a new iPhone or Android device than older people, all demographics are buying smartphones at an unprecedented rate.

#2: Better 3G and 4G Coverage

The first smartphones had data connections that were extremely slow compared to the speeds available for desktop web browsing at the time.  Typically, the first generation of data connections for smartphones only allowed a connection speed that was about the same as a dial-up modem.

Today, that's all changed.  Third and fourth generation data systems (abbreviated to 3G and 4G) allow for faster transmission and exchange of data than ever before through smartphones.  Today, 4G coverage, which is as fast or faster than many home broadband connections, is rolling out or already exists in hundreds of cities in the United States, while 3G connections can be found even in smaller towns and along major United States highways.  This better data coverage means that people are able to use their smartphones to get online more often and with less frustration—a great thing for marketers.

#3: Less Expensive Data

While some carriers have discontinued unlimited data plans, other cell phone service providers have stepped up to the plate to provide unlimited, flat rate data services.  When the data rate (the amount of internet downloading/uploading you're doing) is lower, people are more willing to do web searches on their cell phones.

#4: Conversion Ready Customers

It's hard to think of a type of client that's better to get than someone who's looking at their cell phone when they see your website.  After all, if they like what they see, it couldn't be easier: all they need to do is simply press the phone number on your website and the smartphone will dial it automatically.  Smartphones and mobile internet make it easier than ever for potential clients to get in touch with you right away, without the kinds of hesitations and second guessing that can make it significantly more difficult to convert new clients.

#5: More Tablet PCs

Smartphones aren't the only game in town when it comes to mobile computing.  With its introduction of the iPad, Apple began the rise of the tablet PC.  While tablet computing had been tried before, the iPad was the first device to become truly commercially successful using a touchscreen tablet interface.

Much like smartphones, tablet PCs often use mobile internet, including 3G and 4G.  These devices are considered mobile platforms for the purposes of marketing, because tablet viewers will see your mobile website, not your main site, first.  Mobile marketing to tablet users looks identical to mobile marketing to smartphone users, because the two types of devices actually use many of the same apps and graphics features.

#6: Social/Mobile Marketing Combinations

Sometimes, two great marketing tastes go great together.  If social media is peanut butter, then mobile marketing is definitely chocolate.  When you get your social media into your mobile marketing, you'll start seeing definite signs of success.  Why?  Because people like to use their social media accounts when on their smartphones.

Smartphone users are more likely to be users of various social websites, like Facebook and Twitter.  This means that whenever you do social media marketing, you should make sure that all your links are viewable by anyone who is using a mobile device.  Try checking on several devices with different operating systems (iOS, Android) before confirming that a web page is necessarily mobile friendly.

#7: The Rise of the Planet of the Apps

One of the other ways people interact with their mobile phones is through the use of “apps.”  Apps are a great way for attorneys to interact with potential clients.  Keep in mind that not everyone uses an internet browser and search functions any more.  Consider having an app that relates to your practice area.  For example, criminal defense attorneys may want to create apps that will help people understand how to interact during a routine traffic stop or a request to search a vehicle.

#8: Decrease in Desktop PC Market Share

It's been about 35 years since desktop PCs for the home market began to see initial sales.  However, the sales of desktop PCs have slowed.  Many specifications for desktop PCs haven't changed appreciably in several years, while significantly more innovation has occurred in the mobile realm.

It's unlikely that we'll see the desktop PC going away any time soon.  However, the ease with which clients can contact you after seeing your firm's mobile website means that you can't just rely on your desktop site forever.

Branding isn't a word that gets most lawyers excited.  You may think of boring marketing meetings and What may surprise you is that building your brand, when you do it in an authentic way, can not only help your bottom line—it can help you find your identity as a firm.  In this guide, we'll explore seven different ways that you can build not just a brand, but a brand that is differentiated from your competition and that helps inspire pride in your organization.

#1: Don't Just Tell People Who You Are—Show Them

Online content is like any other written or visual content—it's better to show than to tell.  Instead of just telling people about your qualifications and the numbers of your practice, try telling stories instead.  Narratives can make a huge difference in how people perceive your firm.  The right narrative can make you look compassionate, interesting, and like a better deal than your competitors.

Consider having a brainstorming meeting with your staff to think about the best stories that come from your firm—the ones that seem to you to be the stories that best illustrate your biggest strengths.  Understanding your firm's stories and sharing them with the world can make it much easier for your entire organization to understand where your branding is coming from.  This in turn makes it more likely that your staff can perpetuate your brand image in both the online and offline worlds.

#2: Don't Bore Your Fans and Friends

People read what interests them.  Sometimes, that's a social media post—but if your social media posts look like they're all the same, if you have the same few things you post about all the time, you're going to get awfully boring, awfully quickly.  Vary up what you say on social media channels so that people don't get bored stiff within weeks of subscribing to your content.

You should also avoid posting too much, for this same reason.  Even if your posts are really phenomenal, odds are that people don't want you to monopolize their social content feeds.  You'll be more well regarded if you keep your posts regular but not too frequent.

#3: Different Audiences, Same Core Message

Even though LinkedIn and Facebook, for example, are very different places to post social media content, that doesn't mean your message shouldn't be similar.  Recognize that different audiences should hear the same basic brand behind your message, even if you're communicating that message differently to people with different levels of understanding of the legal issues involved with your practice.

Make sure that even if your content is fairly different, that at its core it projects the same values.  You don't want to pitch a new, zany law firm with your Facebook posts and try to seem staid and old-fashioned on LinkedIn.  That's not the kind of audience adaptability that gets you new clients—just the kind that dilutes your brand and makes your staff unsure of how to position themselves in relation to your brand.

#4: Explore Who People Think You Are

When trying to decide on your own branding initiatives online, consider asking former clients about their experiences and seeing what they have to say.  Understanding what other people say about you can be as important as knowing what you want to say about yourself.

Ideally, your brand vision should incorporate these things that you find out through your clients, as well as the things you think about yourselves.  Some of the stories you hear from clients may become great client testimonials, which you can use as content on social media websites or on your law firm website.

#5: Build Long Term Loyalty

The best clients are the ones who become yours for life.  You don't just want a little bit of short term brand loyalty when you're working for a law firm.  You need to work on the kind of excellent social media responsiveness that makes people talk and makes them remember—not just for a few weeks or months.

When you give truly exceptional customer service, you can generate not just viral buzz but also long-term relationships with individual clients.  Keep in mind that every time you respond on social media, you're potentially making an impression that could lead to a long term attorney/client relationship.  Long relationships are now one of the biggest buzzwords in social media, and cultivating loyalty is both one of the most difficult and also the most rewarding things you can do for your brand image.  A loyal client will not just come to your law firm, but will recommend other people do so as well.

#6: Stay Focused on Your Goals

Once you have your brand identity, remember to keep your vision.  While it's fine to incorporate great ideas from competitors, make sure that you don't give in to the temptation to do things just like a competitor who is doing well.  Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it's also a bad way to differentiate yourself.

Periodically, you should consider talking to a small team in your staff about whether your brand needs to be changed and whether your visionary is doing what it needs to.  However, don't second-guess yourself too often, and don't change your brand image so often that it feels like whiplash to your clients.

#7: Pay Attention to Client Concerns

It's absolutely critical to listen to what your clients are saying about your brand.  Even if your clients are saying negative things and the buzz about you isn't what you want—you still want to know what they're saying.  It doesn't help to put your head into the sand.  In fact, if you are responsive to what people say about their concerns, you can actually turn a negative into positive.  Too often, people are used to being ignored.  If you show that you honestly do care, you can sometimes create a loyal client.

If you're new to the social media world, or if you just think that your current social media strategy could use some sprucing up, you've come to the right place.  Over 90 percent of law firms today now use social media and report that they plan to continue using it in 2013.  However, not all social media marketing works equally well.  Too many law firms spend a lot of time posting to social media sites, without having a really clear vision of what they're doing with social media or how it can be leveraged most effectively.  Here, we'll look at seven different ways that you can make sure your social media efforts aren't wasted.

#1: Expect And Plan For Change

If you're expecting social media to stay still for long enough for you to get a handle on it, you need to give up on that goal right now.  Social media has been changing so rapidly that the truth is, there's still a lot of room to learn, and no one knows everything that's going on in the social world.

Instead of trying to just learn how to do things one way, the biggest buzzword for social media campaigns needs to be “flexibility.”  The more flexible you are about changing where you focus your social media and what kinds of content work best, the less often you'll be caught unable to adapt to the constantly changing social media scene.

#2: Keep Up With Recent Developments

One of the biggest ways to make sure that new developments don't throw you off guard is to spend time every single week looking at articles and other content about social media marketing.  By reading blogs and other websites that discuss how to use social media most effectively, you'll be able to see the best, up to the minute places to put your content.

You should also keep track of what other companies and law firms are doing for their social media.  Some blogs cover when companies do particularly well—or particularly poorly—with social media platforms.  You can often use these to get ideas for what to do—and sometimes get ideas about what NOT to do.

#3: Don't Hold On To Old Ideas

Because of the constantly changing face of social media, you need to be ready to discard ideas that don't work.  This includes ideas that used to work and no longer do.  For example, one of the biggest traditional ways to do law firm advertising is to use traditional search engine optimization with keywords.

However, while traditional SEO worked very well for some law firms for some time, today social media is much more important.  It's possible that in a few years, the internet will have changed enough that you need to start taking your time with some other kind of website rather than social sites.  Learning to let go, even of the things that work for some time, can give you the adaptability edge you need to be more competitive in the legal market.

#4: Use Social Media to Engage, Not Just Promote

People who are used to traditional forms of marketing often miss the point of social media.  Instead of using social sites to drive client and viewer engagement, many attorneys think that the best way to use social media is simply to talk about themselves and use the same kinds of advertising techniques that might have worked in television or radio.

But social media isn't radio or television—it's something very different with very different purposes.  When you put a commercial on TV, a conversation about your practice won't develop.  When you talk on Facebook, though, it's very possible that several people will start buzz about your post within just an hour or two.  This means that you want to not just talk, but to start two-way conversations.  If you only talk, you're missing more than half the potential that social media has to offer.

#5: Don't Expect Immediate Results

If you think that social media will immediately light up your phone lines, you are going to be disappointed.  There's simply no way for social media to give you the same kind of immediate results that some forms of advertising, like pay per click browser ads or television, can do.

However, when you use social media, you're building relationships.  That means that even if it takes longer to get results, the results you get will be better and longer lasting.  Once a commercial airs, it's just gone—a social media profile that has been built from conversations is something that stays, a place where people can see exactly why they should call you based on how you interact with people who have questions or concerns.

#6: Know Your Social Media Audiences

Make sure that you're not just copying the same exact lines from your posts on one website and posting them to another.  Every social media website is a little bit different, and by making sure that you're targeting the actual audiences that you can reach on each site, you'll be using your time more effectively.

Keep in mind that you will probably have some people who follow you on several different social media sites.  To avoid fatiguing these people or having them stop following you on one or more sites, make sure that you're posting unique content to each.

#7: Stay Aware of Comments and Posts

Don't just start thinking that it's too difficult to read all of your comments.  You may want to download a social media manager program that can help you read all of your comments that come in, so that you don't have to try to use piecemeal solutions requiring checking several different websites.

Keep in mind that both overmoderation and undermoderation are a problem.  If you moderate too much, you create a chilling effect and make it so that people feel like they can't really get a conversation started with others.  However, if you undermoderate, you risk people saying offensive things that could lead potential clients to be turned off.  Keep offensive or negative content deleted, and try to only pop in to comment when you're asked a question or really need to moderate a discussion.