Digital Marketing Plan for Lawyers Part Two: Maximizing Your Law Firm's Website: Conversion, SEO, and Client Attraction Strategies

Ever wondered how a few strategic changes to your law firm's website could dramatically increase your client intake and revenue? Strap in as we reveal how optimizing your digital presence could be the key to unlocking a surge in conversions. Throughout this episode, we dissect the elements of conversion design that can transform your law firm's website into a client-magnet powerhouse. We'll guide you through the ins and outs of connecting with your target clientele, the use of authentic visuals to convey your firm's unique story, and the compelling draw of online reviews to bolster credibility and engagement. It's not just about driving traffic—it's about making that traffic count.

Our exploration doesn't stop there; we merge the worlds of website conversion and SEO to bring you a strategic checklist tailored for law firms ready to climb the ranks. Imagine your firm dominating Google search results, capturing clicks without spending a fortune on ads—if that's the vision, this episode is your blueprint. We share insider tips on achieving a mobile-friendly platform that loads at lightning speed and how these factors, combined with a smart SEO strategy, can put you a step ahead of your competition. 
No guests this time, just pure, actionable advice to help your firm rise to the top.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi and welcome back to the Marketing Lawcast. I'm your host, jennifer Goddard. I recently did a 90-minute masterclass on how to develop your law firm's Internet marketing plan. For today's episode, I've distilled about 30 minutes of that class. Laser focused on converting more website visitors into solid leads and the keys to mastering search engine optimization to easily triple your revenue.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Before we dive into today's episode, a special shout out to our sponsor, QuidProQuo. Are you a law firm looking to scale or sell your practice? Qpq's expert team can help you unlock your firm's full potential. Stay tuned for valuable insights brought to you by QPQ.

Speaker 1: 0:49

Your website is that hub of all of your marketing. We are sending prospects directly to the website from lots of sources from social media, from blogs, from emails, from search, from advertising. Perhaps we need to be sure that when they land there, we have a good chance of them knowing exactly what to do to become a new client. It's important as well that the website links out to these other sources, because that's your supporting, that's part of your supporting content. When people land on your website, they want to look at your Facebook profile, they want to look at your YouTube, where all your videos reside. So you want to be sure that you've got this all in synchronicity, one of the things that I'm seeing a lot with attorneys today. They understand that they need to be on many different platforms and unfortunately, they get sold by somebody who says well, I will manage your social media, I will manage your pay per click, I will manage your SEO, I will manage your website. So you have four different agencies and you're spending all this money and they're not working together. They become territorial and you know what? If I've got a hammer, every problem is a nail. So if my agency focuses only on Facebook ads, when you come to talk to me about your marketing. What am I going to tell you you need? I'm going to say you need Facebook ads because that's what I sell. You really want to have all of these things working together under a strategy by somebody like an agency, like we do, which is we want you to succeed. What is going to be the tools that we need to use to do that? And it's not that, oh, you need Facebook ads because that's what I sell. So every aspect of your marketing needs to be working together with that website as the hub.

Speaker 1: 2:54

So why is conversion so important, this conversion design? Well, just look at the difference. Okay, take the first scenario. This is a website that's getting about 1500 visitors per month and about 1% of the visitors to that website convert, become new leads. That means it's generating about 15 calls a month. If that law firm has a 30% conversion rate, which would be a very nice, healthy conversion rate, they're getting four to five new clients from that website every month. At a $2,500 average fee, that would be $11,250 that that website is generating. A lot of people would be very, very happy with that scenario.

Speaker 1: 3:42

But what if? If you're there, that's kind of what your website is doing? What if we make it more effective and all we do is work on the conversion rate of the website and we have? Everything else stays the same same number of visitors? We haven't boosted your search engine optimization. We've just redesigned the website so it converts better and we go from 1% to 3%. Now I'll tell you that a 1% conversion rate is very common. A 3% conversion rate is also fairly common. It is high performing but it's not, you know, like shoot the moon. A 3% conversion rate is very doable. Now the same website is generated with the same number of visitors is generating 13 new clients At an average speed. We didn't change the fee $33,750 a month now coming from that website Just because we designed it. We improved the conversion ratio so we can literally triple the leads and the revenue if we can improve that conversion ratio for the website. That doesn't take into account all the other things that we might be doing to drive more benefit people to the website, to boost the closing ratio, to boost the fee. That's just from that website improvement of the conversion. So how do we optimize for that conversion? I want to go back up. Here we go.

Speaker 1: 5:18

So these are the critical elements when you're looking at your website. I want you to look at these things. This is what we look at with our clients. Does it speak to your target client, to your ideal client, not to you, not to your wife or your husband or your college age child who's studying marketing? Does it speak to your target client when you think about that person coming to your website? Do they see themselves? Can they relate to it? Does it speak to their problems, to their needs?

Speaker 1: 5:55

The second thing is being very real on your website. Try to avoid using stock images. Use authentic images of yourself and of your team throughout the website, and the number three is just very similar to that. Use video and multimedia elements. Again, you want to be very real. So you want a welcome video on your website that is you, that's you talking, or your team, so that people see oh, I like these people, I would like to work with them. Have a video for each of your services and make sure that these videos are all optimized so that they boost your search engine optimization. Have a video explaining why someone would contact you versus, perhaps, the competition.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Now you have to stay within your ethical bounds of what you can and can't say. You can't go in there and say I'm the best attorney in town, but there are things that you can say that will differentiate you from the competition. Are you leveraging social proof? Are you getting reviews online and then are you prominently displaying those on your homepage so that people don't feel like they have to go back to Google and check your reviews? They can go right to your website. They can see these are syndicated directly from Google, they're real reviews and that gives people a reassurance and that will boost your conversion rate. Again, the phone number in the upper right hand corner. Is there a form on your website that prospects can fill out? Are you using some credibility symbols credibility and authority symbols of just a badge that you might get from your bar association, if you've been ranked by super lawyers, if you have a badge from wealth council, even people are using those badges. There are lots of authority symbols that you can put on your website that will help boost people's feeling of trust in you.

Speaker 1: 7:57

Ensure that you have very clear calls to action on every page and that you speak to your target or avatar, your target client, and you tell them exactly what to do next. And that is not that they should go do more research Is that they should book a call. Right, very clear call to action. We find that websites convert much better when we let prospects book an initial call with a book of call button and an online calendar. That call does not always have to be with you it could be with your staff person, but it allows people to take an action. When they are ready to take that action, they're on your website, they're in the mood, they're in the mindset, let them take an action and make sure that they're able to book that call within ideal 24 hours. So you have to have calendar availability. If they go to try to book a call and it's three weeks from now, their chances of them showing up for that call are much lower.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Make sure that your site loads fast. Site speed matters here for conversion, because people will just click away if it's taking too long for your site to load. And then be sure that you're using marketing automation so that when people do take action on your website, they're getting an immediate follow up, whether that's a text message, an email, something from a chat widget that might be on your website. But you have to be using automation because you're not going to be able to respond immediately to every person that comes onto your website, unless you do use automation, and then you'll see, your conversion rate will go through the roof. So I wanted to give you another example. This is from one of our clients in Lynchburg, virginia. This is what I'm talking about those authority badges and then a very real picture of them, not a stock photo, it's actually them. This is a very well performing website and they're just following some of these things that I've been talking about. Another one of our clients doing very well using video on their website and a very well built out YouTube channel as well. When you look at this website and you click on one of these videos, you get a feel for this client, for this attorney, I'm sorry and whether he might be someone that you would like to work with. So be sure that you're leveraging video and multimedia.

Speaker 1: 10:33

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Speaker 1: 11:35

Again, showcasing the social proof what we like to do is syndicate your reviews directly from Google back to your website so that they're the exact same Review and that people can click a button to read more, to read more reviews, to read more testimonials or to leave a Google review. So making sure that you are being authentic, that you're leveraging video and multimedia and that you're showing this social proof Will be some of the keys to convert to website conversion. So just want to be sure that we have the fundamentals right on that website. That is designed from the beginning Not only for search engine optimization, but also with that conversion in mind that once we do get people to the website, we're going to have a higher conversion rate. That's going to be one of the keys to scaling the law firm. So here's a quick checklist for you guys Is your website designed to convert? Just go through each one of these. We've kind of gone through them.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Now, one thing we didn't touch on was making sure it's mobile friendly, that it looks good both on desktop and on the cell phone and that it loads fast on on both platforms. Okay, more and more people are visiting these websites from their cell phone, even your target market. For a long time, we saw that in a state playing in all the law, the vast majority of people were accessing the website from desktop. Over the last year or two years were Starting to see people using their cell phones more often. So when we see what's the device that people are accessing your website from, the cell phone is much higher in Percentage than the desktop, especially over the past couple of years. I think that could have to do with the cell phones getting bigger and it's easier to see. But that's very important. How you, how your website performs on the cell phones very important.

Speaker 1: 13:39

Now, how about search engine optimization? Does your website come up In a keyword search when people go to Google to look for you? Are you showing up on Google's page one? I just want to give you a couple of examples. I did a quick search a state planning attorneys in Overland Park, kansas. When I did that search, it told me there were 2.3 million results. Now there are not 2.3 million attorneys Practicing estate planning in Overland Park, but that's the amount of information that would come up for people on that search.

Speaker 1: 14:18

The interesting thing is Kyle Krull, who's my partner and also the president of IMS. He shows up on page one twice and he, without doing any paid advertising, he's showing up in the map pack and In the organic results. So we know there's a limited number of people on page one and we know that very few Searchers go beyond page one. This is very important that Kyle is able to take two Of those slots on page one. Just how important is it? Well, 84% of all the clicks on a Google search are going to go to this shaded area, to the first map pack and the first two organic listings. 84% of all the clicks will go somewhere to someone in that shaded area. The best thing for Kyle is he's in that shaded area twice. So how many of the clicks do you think he's going to get? No, most of them because he's dominating that specific area. Now, how important is that?

Speaker 1: 15:30

We talked about conversion rate. What if we were able to drive more visitors to that website? So if we redesign the website to convert better? So we're looking at scenario two with 1,500 visitors per month and a 3% conversion rate. What if we drove 2,500 visitors per month to that website and kept the conversion rate at 3%? Now you're looking at a website that generates $56,250 per month in new business Guys. This is how you scale. This is how you scale without working yourself to death. You go from having this scenario one which most people would say is a pretty darn good website, so delivering more than $10,000 a month, but that's not going to get you to seven figures.

Speaker 1: 16:25

By designing it, redesigning it for high conversion and then mastering your SEO and driving more visitors through organic traffic, which we know. Those visitors are high intent because they went online and searched for you and you're not paying per lead for them. You go from a ho-hum website to one that's really making a huge impact in your law firm. So a lot of times, I find that people want to focus on their paid advertising. They want to focus on all these other things. Then we're going to talk about all of them, all these tools that we have, but until you get these basics done, you're really stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

Speaker 1: 17:10

Don't do that. Get your foundation in place, and if you haven't, then that would be your number one strategy for at least the first quarter of this year to get this foundation in place. Now you wonder, what should I be optimizing for? Well, we've done some research for you and we have in your bonus materials the top 100 keywords for estate planning and elder law Just right there in the bonus materials. You don't have to do your keyword research. You can just drop, download that worksheet and it'll give you the keywords that you need to be optimizing in your content of your website. We also have an on-site SEO checklist. So there's certain things that have to be done on the website and we've given you a checklist to go through to make sure that your website is meeting these standards for SEO. Now a lot of search engine optimization happens off the website. Particularly over the past year or so, we've had a lot of improvements and changes and updates to the Google algorithm. So while it is necessary for you to have all of your technical onsite SEO done correctly, it is no longer sufficient. All of these things that are happening off the website are also now very key.

Speaker 1: 18:34

So you want to be sure that you claim and optimize your Google business profile. You claim and update other citations, other directory citations across the web. Now I hear a lot of pushback from attorneys about doing this. By citations, I mean your directory listings in all the legal directories to begin with, and then also some of these other search directories. The pushback I get is my clients don't find me through those directories. My clients don't use those directories, and that may be true, but Google uses those directories. Google uses those directories to authenticate your listing, to make sure that you are the real deal, that you're not a scammer. So you want to make sure that you are listed everywhere, that you need to be listed and that you're listed correctly and that those listings stay updated, because one of the things that will get you pushed down in Google's authority would be inconsistency across your directory listings or you don't have enough of them.

Speaker 1: 19:45

Get Google reviews. Those Google reviews are so important to conversion as well as to search engine optimization, and you want to leverage an automated system to get them. What we find is when law firms rely on attorneys to request reviews or even staff people to request reviews, you'll see a little surge. People will really get behind that effort for a week or two weeks and then everybody falls back into just doing the work. So you want to use an automated system to request reviews and to request multiple times, so that you actually get the reviews and you don't just get a lot of effort with no reviews actually being posted. You want to be sure you're syndicating those reviews back to your website and you can use applications like BirdEye or BrightLocal to syndicate those back and show them off on your website.

Speaker 1: 20:42

And then you really want to use a strategy to syndicate your own content across tons of platforms. When you create content, you want to be sure that it is distributed across multiple social platforms so that you are then creating more links, more places where people can find you. But you also can use digital media through digital press releases to drive more traffic and also more authority if it's an authoritative digital site. So you really want to have a content syndication strategy, if you will, to get the most out of the efforts that you're putting in to creating content. And those people that really master this off-page SEO game are the ones that you're going to see consistently on page one and in the map pack.

Speaker 1: 21:38

So one thing that you guys have probably all heard about the importance of links to your website In local SEO. The most important links to your website are going to be twofold the ones that establish authority with Google, and so all of these legal directories. You want to be sure that you're listed and that you've got. If they have a profile, you have your website linked in there so that you can link to your website from these authoritative legal directories. That's telling Google that you're legitimate, that's your authority signals. The other one, the second one, that is important to local SEO, are your local directories. So your local Chamber of Commerce directory, any community sites or community pages if you have a local chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, you have a local chapter of the various community sites and associations that really you work with, you interact with. You want to be sure that you're getting backlinks from them. That's what's important for local SEO. You don't need and I wouldn't advise to go out and buy a backlinking program from somebody. A lot of these backlinking programs can really actually backfire on you and tank your website's SEO, because these backlinks are not authoritative and some of them are even toxic and can really take you down.

Speaker 1: 23:12

You also want to do this linking in an organic manner. In other words, you want to build your links over time. You don't want to have some outside firm doing a backlinking for you and all of a sudden, your website goes from having four or five backlinks to having four or five hundred. That's a big flag, big red flag to Google. I've seen it happen. When people get very impatient with the backlinking and they get sold by somebody who calls them up and tells them how important it is, they do get all these backlinks and here's what it looks like when we see this happening they will jump up to page one in a day or two and then in a week or two they are gone. They're nowhere, they're not anywhere in a Google search. They're not like on page two or three. They're just completely out of the directory. So be very careful and strategic and, if you will, organic about the way that you build your backlink strategy. So some of the highlights for SEO. Remember, seo is what's gonna drive traffic, organic traffic for you, without you having to pay per lead.

Speaker 1: 24:29

You want a page for each of your practice areas in each of the main cities that you practice in. You wanna optimize all of the titles, h1 headers, images, et cetera, and you want this is very important, guys unique content on every page. Sometimes, when people build out their different city pages, they will put the exact same content on every one of their city pages. Like, for, overland Park has a certain set of content. We put the same thing on Olathe, we put the same thing on Kansas City, we put the same thing on Lenexa. Those are all in that market. But you need unique content on each of those pages.

Speaker 1: 25:14

Be sure that you claim and optimize your Google business profile, that you have your citations, your directory listings set up properly. You have a system in place to drive online, to get more online reviews and to be adding those citations or those backlinks on an ongoing, more organic basis. You wanna be pushing new blog posts out and then distributing those, or clips from those, or highlights from those, across social media. So you wanna be sure that you are sending the right signals, both to Google so that Google you fit in with Google search algorithms and also to people. And it's kind of a balancing act, because you want your prospects, your clients, your potential referral sources to see your authority and your trustworthiness on your website and you want it written in such a way that it makes sense from a human standpoint. But you also need to be doing some of these more technical things so that Google sees and recognizes that information as well. So it's a constant balancing act.

Speaker 1: 26:29

It takes a lot of attention and strategy, but I wanted to tell you that there is no quick fix. Please, please, do not go out and hire an agency to do your SEO. You can talk to people about what's my, what would be the strategy, understand it, make sure it's not going to tank your SEO, because there's a lot of people out there that do some of these things and it just doesn't work well because it's not coordinated and it's not strategic and it gives a big red flag to Google. I hope you enjoyed this 30 minute slice of my masterclass on how to design your law firm's internet marketing plan. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any of the other episodes in this series.

Speaker 2: 27:24

That's a wrap for today's episode and a big thank you to our sponsor, quid Pro Quo. Qpq is your partner in law firm success, offering expert guidance on scaling, selling and optimizing your practice. With a team of experienced professionals, they bring real world insights to the table. Are you ready to take your law practice to new heights? Visit their website at wwwquidproquolawcom to learn more and start your journey toward a thriving and sellable law firm.