Are You Making the Most of Your FirmSite?

Your FirmSite can be a Powerful tool for your firm and for your clients.
Make your Web address visible at every opportunity!

Your Web site can serve as an effective vehicle to keep clients and prospects informed.
Make the most of your FirmSite by routinely including your Web address every time your firm name,
mailing address and phone number appears in print.

Utilize Your Attorney Biography Page as a Marketing Strategy

By Jim Froehlich, FindLaw Copywriter Team Lead

The attorney biography page can be a valuable element of your law firm marketing campaign. FindLaw Copywriter Team Lead Jim Froehlich offers tips on creating your biography page in Utilize Your Attorney Biography Page as a Marketing Strategy.

The attorney biography page of your FindLaw Web site is a valuable but often underutilized element of a comprehensive marketing campaign. Most people today do not interact with attorneys on a regular basis. Those needing legal services are often intimidated by the process of locating an attorney and tend to make snap decisions based on information immediately available on a Web site or other marketing vehicle.

Attract New Clients with a FindLaw Lawyer Directory Profile

A profile on the newly enhanced FindLaw Lawyer Directory may be your best investment and a perfect complement to your Web site. A FindLaw Lawyer Directory profile gives you something you won't get anywhere else-enhanced presence on the world's busiest legal portal. With nearly 4 million unique visitors per month, people are using FindLaw more than any other site to locate legal information and lawyers.

However, exposure to this impressive audience is only half of the equation. To encourage these prospective clients to reach out to you for assistance, it's essential that your profile address the common questions they have and highlight the unique qualities and experience you possess.

Brand Essence

By Tig Tillinghast for www.marketingprofs.com

Brand essence is the abstraction that audiences take away after experiencing the sum of brand impressions--from both the marketing and from personal experience with the product, transaction process and service.

Brand essence is the lasting impression--usually summed up with one simple (sometimes brutally honest) assessment--that defines the personality qualities of the product or company. Apple Computer's brand essence may be seen as "artful technology that's mostly useful." MarketingProfs.com's essence might be "earnestly trying to make academic marketing theories practicable."

Brand With Design & Navigation

Designing for the web is a skill that can take years to master and is not something that comes free with a copy of Photoshop. And a great knowledge of HTML has nothing to do with design, as the painful results of many 'techie' websites will testify! A tawdry, badly designed front page may deter users from even entering, as might a design that looks completely inappropriate for the site's theme, not to mention undermining your brand.

Branding Tactics: Two Birds With One Stone

Brand awareness tactics for the Web are much like branding in the traditional world, except that you only have one medium at your disposal. The same format and cost exists, but the parameter of time has been reduced. In some instances, you literally have just seconds to get noticed.

As with any campaign you develop, the first Web site marketing question you must face is, "what is my Web site's objective?" Chances are that your emphasis is on attracting new clients.

Custom Photography for a Law Firm Web Site

by Kent Neff, FindLaw Web Designer

Overview
Custom photographs can add a personal touch and look of sophistication to any law firm Web site. The addition of custom photographs marks an important point of distinction between your law firm and all your competitors in town. If done poorly, however, photographs can be a liability instead of an asset . Here are some simple pointers to help you easily take professional-looking photographs.

Custom photography is defined as any photo taken by you, your FindLaw sales representative or a commercial photographer. It is imperative that you, the client law firm, obtain ownership rights of all photos used on your Web site. Copyright infringement is a frequently misunderstood and overlooked issue on the Internet, and if not taken into consideration, can expose your firm to potential liability.

Customer Service Through Content

Who says that customer service is a thing of the past? With help from West, the litigation specialists at Ricci Leopold put the customer front-and-center with pleasing graphics, a consistent layout, and most importantly, lots of information to help potential clients make sense of the law.

Since the six attorneys of this West Palm Beach, Florida firm represent only plaintiffs, people not used to being parties to legal actions, their FirmSite (www.riccilaw.com) relies heavy on education to help prospective clients decide on whether or not to pursue a case.

Information about the four major practice areas of the firm--automotive crashworthiness, personal injury and wrongful death, managed care abuse, and insurance bad faith-make up the core of this site. Tabbed icons on most pages provide an easy jump from one topic to another.

Define a New Niche to Seize a Big Competitive Advantage

By Trey Ryder, Trey Ryder LLC

In marketing, generalities fail and specifics persuade. The same is true when you decide which services you wish to market.

When you practice in various areas of the law, your prospects and referral sources see you as a generalist. Often, they don't remember you for any particular area of practice. In their minds, your image is blurred.

FindLaw.com Traffic-Why it Matters to You

FindLaw.com has long been the most-visited legal information Web site on the Internet. In fact it's one of the busiest sites on the Internet-period. "Fine," you might say. "But as a FindLaw customer, how does that affect me?" Fair question. And the answer is simple. As a FindLaw customer, you are linked to the FindLaw.com Web site and stand to benefit from the high volume of traffic it receives.

Our primary goal at FindLaw is driving high-quality Web traffic to our customers. While FindLaw.com provides in-depth legal information for consumers, business professionals and attorneys, underlying it all is the goal of providing more clients-more business-to you.

How to turn website visitors into client phone calls

by Kathy Litt, FindLaw Account Manager

FindLaw customers will often ask their Account Manager for ways to improve their website and attract new clients. There are several dimensions of the site that can improve the visitor's experience. In the tips below, I have focused on the website alone, briefly describing five key enhancements to send a positive message to potential clients. These tips are suggestions which can help turn website visitors into phone calls, and encourage clients to call your office.

Natural SEO vs. PPC advertising

According to the results of the iProspect Outsourced SEO Metrics & ROI Study , 35% of the surveyed organizations that promote their web sites with natural search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising recognize a higher return from SEO.

This compares to just 11% of marketers who report that PPC ads produce higher ROI. That means that three times as many webmasters who can measure the ROI of each method recognize a higher ROI from natural SEO than from PPC advertising.

Should you use PPC or SEO to market your web site?

The study confirms that you shouldn't focus on paid search engine advertising. While pay per click can be a good addition to your normal web site promotion activities, you'll receive a better return on investment (ROI) with natural search engine optimization.

Presentation & Content Are Inseparable

By Diana Digges
First Impressions

There's a paradox in the Web universe: What's written is key, but visitors aren't coming to read - not initially, at least. They drop in, take a quick look around, and if they don't like what they see, they split.

It's visual reconnaissance, and it's ruthless.

"Lawyers focus on words. The first thing you should focus on is what your website looks like and what images you're using. The majority of people - lawyers being the exception - think graphically rather than textually," said Pruner.

So first impressions - font, white space, links, images, to name a few - count for a lot.

Tracking the Number of New Clients from Your Legal Web Site

By Kevin Mullikin

Due diligence is part of being an attorney. So how can you go about doing your due diligence when it comes to tracking where your new clients are coming from?

This can be a delicate situation. You don't want to grill your potential new clients when they contact you, but on the other hand, it's important to know which marketing dollars are paying off. I always make sure my clients and their staff ask the question "Have your visited our Web site?" This question should be asked on the paper intake form and in the face-to-face consultation. Ask this question twice, because, more often than not, new clients will leave the question unanswered when filling out the paper intake form. If possible, show them your Web site while you are meeting with them. This will help jog their memory and give them a means of learning more about you and your practice, and they may tell their friends and family to check out your Web site as well.

What Can You Say in 128 Characters?

Mark Twain once wrote a letter to a friend and apologized for its length, saying, "I'm sorry to write you such a long letter, but I didn't have time to write a short one."

Short is better. And pithy, concise writing does take a little more work. Yet, while there are few Mark Twains among us, almost anyone, with some care and a modest amount of effort, can deliver a clear, effective message in a very limited space, such as a law firm's Internet banner ad.