Feature

Ten Tips to Supercharge Your On-Line Presence

By Jim Calloway, Nerino Petro, and Reid Trautz

TRead these quick tips for maximizing your cyberspace real estate, and open yourself to a world of easy-to-use (and inexpensive) marketing channels.

Like it or not, the world of legal marketing is changing quickly. Just a few years ago, a printed law firm brochure often remained a viable marketing piece for several years or more. Now, rapid changes led by evolving web technology require lawyers to address and adapt to their marketing efforts more frequently. Where should a firm be on the continuum of legal marketing? What should a firm be doing to remain visible to potential clients but not waste time and money on “smoke and mirror “marketing? Here are ten tips that you can implement to help you stay in the “sweet-spot” of marketing efforts.

You need your own internet domain name.

Register it and get at least an email account that uses it. While some people don’t mind sending email to an AOL, GMAIL or HotMail account, it lacks a sense of professionalism and indicates to the world that you don’t take modern communication practices seriously. If you can afford it, register a number of domain names that are descriptive of your practice such as www.rockfordrealestatelawyer.com and www.rockfordrealestatelaw.com.

Rejuvenate Your Website

Do a website makeover, then build traffic to it and referrals from it. Like a brick and mortar store, your on-line presence needs to be remodeled and updated.

• Make it education-based, client focused, and easy to find

• Provide something of value for free in return for their contact information; then follow-up with more information

• Develop a companion blog and link to other informative sites

• Have multiple domain names that point to your site; you can be YourWisconsinLawyer.com, UnderstandingWisconsinDivorce.com, and SmithJonesLaw.com at that same time.

Your picture is worth a thousand words.

Use only professional-quality photos on your website and on your other marketing materials, but use tem sparingly – a little goes a long way. And it doesn’t belong on everything – if you’re advertising for personal injury cases, show pictures of injured folks and medical personal, not just you. You also want it to be a “friendly” photo where someone looking at makes good eye contact with you. Smile and don’t make it look like a mug shot.

It’s All About Me

Do you have a website or a blog with an “About Me” page? How effective is your profile on that page? If it is just a few boring lines and a picture, why not take time to make it really work for you? Make it pop! Add links to your digital life and digital “ink”. Let viewers of your page connect to you via links to your social networking pages, as well as links to articles, case decisions, interviews, awards, pro bono work, and other information about you on-line.

Give visitors something to “take away” from your blog.

Create a booklet, handbook, report or CD such as on “Know Your Rights as an Accident Victim”, “The Top 10 Things Every Home Seller Needs to Know” or “The Pet Owner’s Guide to Estate Planning for Pets” or create podcasts on different topics that affect residential tenants.

Build a (Free) Google Profile

This is really a no-brainer. If you already have a Gmail account or other Google service, you are set to do this. If not, register with Google now! You can listen to so-called experts hawk Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But if you build a free Google Profile with a link to your primary website and your other online content, you can be almost certain this link will appear at the bottom of the first page of results when people search for your name in Google.

Make Sure You Advertise on Google Local

Google offers a free ad for every local business, which will rotate with similar ads and appear on potentially thousands of computer screens in your area. Go to www.google.com/local/add

Be LinkedIn

Opinions may vary about the benefit of participating in social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, but there’s no good reason to avoid signing up for LinkedIn and allowing most anyone who requests to be a contact to be one. Turning on the public viewing option means that the search engines will index this profile and anyone can view a limited version of it, even if they do not have a LinkedIn account.

Use Social Networks To Gather Business Intelligence

Savvy lawyers are using social networking, such as LinkedIn and Facebook to do more than just post a profile and connect with a few colleagues; they are using their account and connections to find business owners, C-level employees, and other decision-makers who buy legal services. Trolling the profiles of these people can help you develop new business.

Be the Evening News

YouTube and video technology will have the same effect on television news as the Internet has had on newspapers. No longer will visual content be in the hands of a few producers and purveyors. Law firms can create positive messages to influence debate, inform clients of important regulatory and legal developments, and extend firm marketing activities beyond the written word and static page. Current amateur efforts on YouTube will soon be replaced by inexpensive, but quality high-definition productions. Start with the Flip Mino HD pocketcam and go from there! And don’t just post to YouTube. Distribute via TubeMogul.com or similar sites.

About the Authors

The authors—besides being friends—are nationally recognized authors, presenters, and bloggers on practice management and legal technology. They will serve on the faculty for ABA TECHSHOW 2011 in April. This article was excerpted from their joint presentation “60+ Best Marketing Practices for Lawyers in 60 Minutes” delivered at the Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference.