Let’s face it: The legal services industry isn’t exactly a hotbed of digital marketing trends. Nor should it be. But prospective clients’ increasing reliance on online sources to help them choose (or vet) a lawyer make leveraging the ever-changing digital landscape more important to your firm’s success than ever.
While pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns should be integral to virtually any brand’s lead-generation program regardless of industry, paid search shouldn’t be the only way prospective clients looking online can find out about you. Consider leveraging this year’s top organic trends:
- Content marketing: Now more than ever before, content marketing is all about quality rather than quantity. Start by creating a few solid pieces of “waterfall” content that resonate with your prospective client—and satisfy the search engines. You can then slice and dice that content and repurpose it in a variety of ways, from lead magnets and infographics to blogs and videos. Set manageable goals: Creating one white paper or similarly significant piece of content for each practice specialty.
- Semantic search: Simply put, this is Google’s attempt to understand natural language like any human would by taking into account a user’s intent and the relationship between words. What does this mean to you? It’s no longer enough to identify and use keywords in your online content; you need to “talk like a client, not like a lawyer” and use conversational words and phrases. Another option: Add more FAQs to your site (again, using “client speak”). Semantic search will become even more important as the use of Siri and the like continues to increase the use of voice search.
- Podcasts: Podcasts are extremely popular right now. While it’s great to create your own content (our client Farrell Fritz hosts a great one on business divorce), you don’t necessarily have to. Do a guest spot or interview on a podcast that’s relevant to your practice and listened-to by your client prospects or advertise within one with relevant content.
While these organic strategies may not give your firm the immediate “lift” in search rankings that a well-planned paid search campaign might, they can help position your practice as a thought leader, which can go a long way in helping you make a client’s short list of prospective law firms.
