We’ll start the story of digital marketing for law firms with one important statistic – nearly one-third of those who need legal representation first look for one online. In essence, this means that one in three individuals will rather turn to the Internet for an attorney than ask for referrals.
It’s a fact that word of mouth is and always will be a very important way for legal companies to find new clients because the attorney-client relationship is something based on trust. However, the fact that so many people search for legal firms online shouldn’t be ignored. A strong online presence is very much needed, and you can rely on our professional digital marketing agency Made Online to help you establish it.
Is Digital Marketing for Law Firms Really a Necessity?
Here’s our claim – a strong online presence helps you hone your services to the target audience. But let’s think of an example to show you what we mean.
Say someone in Portland, Oregon, needs a family law lawyer. They probably will use Google to find relevant keywords and pick one from the top search results. If you use standard forms of advertising like radio ads, on the other hand, you can only reach people who are listening at certain times, which may not effectively reach people who are actively looking for legal help. This is why having a strong online presence and using targeted digital marketing tactics are so important for getting clients who are looking for legal help.
According to Statista, the United States was home to almost 450,000 legal companies in 2023. On average, the number of legal firms increased by about 0.7% annually from 2018 to 2023.
Consider The Growing Legal Market
Digital marketing for family law firms is becoming increasingly important for legal businesses that want to stay competitive in a market that’s becoming rapidly bigger. Here are some projections that will show the scope of competition:
- The market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.8% from 2024 to 2033.
- The legal market is projected to reach a valuation of $316,783.2 million in 2024.
- By 2033, this evaluation is anticipated to increase significantly, reaching $443,137.3 million.
When analyzing these projections, it becomes apparent that digital marketing can play an essential role in helping your business dive into this expanding market.
The Advantages of Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency for Law Firms
Managing digital marketing efforts by yourself can be pretty tricky and challenging, especially for businesses unfamiliar with these waters. While having an in-house marketing team might seem beneficial, digital marketing involves more than just setting up a Google Ads campaign. Hiring an SEO marketing agency such as Made Online is a much simpler and more effective solution, and here’s why:
- An experienced SEO digital marketing agency knows how to identify and target the right audience for your legal services.
- An organic SEO agency team can guide you through the many stages of client acquisition, from attracting the initial customer pool to converting website visitors into clients.
- A digital advertising agency provides many different elements for your strategy – high-quality visuals, well-crafted content, and user-friendly websites. These are all essential for leaving a lasting impression.
- On top of it all, an experienced team will analyze campaign performance and adjust strategies to continuously improve the results.
In essence, such a team of experienced marketers will help build the brand with consistent and impactful messaging that will turn potential leads into loyal clients.
The First Steps of a Digital Marketing Strategy for Law Firms
It can be hard to figure out where you should start with digital marketing efforts, as there are many pretty fruitful tactics available if only implemented properly and consistently. What we can tell you right away is that you will need to focus on several areas, but first things first – target the right audience and set the goals you want to reach.
Find the Audience
The first step is to identify where your target clients spend their time online and the type of content that appeals to them. Next, you will need to research industry trends, review client feedback, and analyze existing data to tailor everything to their preferences. For example, employment law firms should focus on LinkedIn, while family law involves empathetic messaging.
Set the Goals
Next, it’s time to establish clear, realistic goals for the marketing strategies. Whether you want to boost website traffic, increase positive reviews, schedule more consultations, or enhance social media engagement, defining the goals will help measure success. The goals should also align with the firm’s capacity and resources.
Determine the Channels Best for Marketing Efforts
Growing your brand online means practicing different strategies and getting noticed through raising brand awareness and a unified voice across different channels. As important as a good, optimized website is, there are other practices and approaches to establishing a business as one of the leading voices in the industry. Let’s take a look at what strategies count as extremely important paths of digital marketing for a law firm.
Google Business Profile
One of the often overlooked strategies is creating an online presence for a legal business through a Google Business Profile. It provides essential information such as your firm’s address, phone number, and hours of operation, so it’s easier for potential clients to find it and make contact. An optimized profile can help you showcase client reviews, and highlight the areas of expertise and services, and it even allows you to share updates and posts.
Don’t Overlook PPC
Another powerful strategy is Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which allows you to place your firm’s ads at the top of search results. It works by targeting specific keywords relevant to an area. It means that when potential clients search for legal services, they see your firm first. PPC campaigns offer control over your budget and targeting.
Create a Social Media Presence
Social media platforms are the best way to reach out to potential clients and engage directly with them. They can ask away and learn more about your services and business. On social media, customers can find out about a business’s hours, areas of expertise, and how to get in touch with them directly. New and old clients can even book a consultation through these platforms.
For broad practice areas like personal injury or family law, platforms like Facebook work great because they let companies connect with a lot of people and build trust. Twitter is useful for niche areas of law, like entertainment or sports law, because it lets lawyers share legal news and changes with other lawyers. LinkedIn is important for businesses that want to work with corporations because it lets them meet with other business professionals and demonstrate their industry knowledge.
Employ Email Marketing
Given that 86% of the time, lawyers don’t get an email address, while around 45% of the time, they don’t get a phone number on the first call, email marketing presents a vital opportunity for follow-up and client engagement. Creating a targeted email marketing campaign serves as an excellent way to nurture relationships with clients. You can use it to provide them with valuable information, updates, and reminders. This helps keep your firm top-of-mind, builds trust, and can turn initial inquiries into retained clients.
Design and Develop a Strong Online Presence
As for several other industries, business cards were the way how law firm contact information was spread around. They needed to be really outstanding and memorable to stand out in a pile of other cards clients received. In came the era of websites, but in essence – nothing changed. Websites also need to be memorable.
However, any website development agency could tell you one thing – the website shouldn’t just be pretty. It should be as smooth as silk. In optimization terms. According to research, 65% of law companies spend most of their money on advertising online. And some part of that budget should be targeted towards building a great website that loads fast, is optimized for different devices, and was built with user experience in mind.
Feature Quality Content
The website should also feature quality content, that covers a wide range of topics that establish your authority and build client trust. While case listings and service descriptions are important, focusing on a variety of informative blog posts can be even more impactful. Research shows that nearly 50% of clients read several pieces of content before reaching out. At our content marketing agency, our experienced writers excel in crafting well-researched, relevant content for the legal field.
Focus on SEO Efforts
Experienced marketers, such as our SEO services agency team, will tell you that SEO or Search engine optimization is central to most digital marketing strategies. It’s a process of making your website better in order for it to show higher in SERPs (search engine results pages) on search engines like Google.
Why Should SERP Be Important to Your Business?
But why is being in SERP so important? According to some studies, as many as 96% of people who look for legal help online use a search engine. To be more specific, about 90% of all online queries happen on Google so to find a law firm, potential clients no longer use the Yellow Pages. Instead, they look online, and most likely, they are using Google to look for legal help.
Also, studies show that only 2% to 3% of people actually look at the second page of Google. Very few people click (less than 1%) on a website listed on the second page of search results. There’s no doubt that the better you rank, the more people will visit your website. Up to 35% more people will click on a page that ranks first in organic search results than a page that comes tenth.
Therefore, if you want your law business website to get a lot of online attention and visitors, you need to be on the first page of search results.
Create a Local SEO Strategy
When potential clients look for legal services, they often look around in their area. This is where local SEO shines. It’s a specific type of optimization targeted to two things – for the search engine to find things related to a specific industry and, more specifically, a specific area. The better the site is optimized for local search, the easier it will be for people in that area to find it.
How Made Online Helped an Online Divorce Firm in Their Rise to Success
Our SEO agency takes pride in our custom-made approach to each and every client. We believe there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for success, and that’s why every client has our full commitment to finding the right strategy. When it comes to legal businesses, one of our most impactful success stories is our collaboration with an online divorce firm that was struggling to stand out in a competitive market.
When they approached us, they were facing several challenges:
- Despite offering valuable services, the firm’s website was buried in search results, so it generated low traffic and minimal inquiries.
- Their website was outdated, with a poor user experience that turned potential clients away.
- They needed to connect with clients in specific regions but lacked the tools to target local markets effectively.
- Their website and social media lacked compelling content that resonated with their audience.
Our Solution to Their Challenges
They were looking for the best SEO agency and stumbled upon our tailored SEO marketing services. What we did was dive into quick and thorough research of the online divorce landscape, determine their client pool, agree on the brand voice, and apply it throughout different channels.
We optimized their website with targeted SEO techniques and boosted their rankings for key terms. The results were palpable – a 75% increase in organic traffic, improved Google rankings for key terms, a significant rise in local inquiries, and a 100% boost in social media engagement. The website redesign contributed to a large increase in conversion rates, while the optimized PPC campaigns led to a 50% improvement in return on investment.
However, we didn’t stop there! We are still working together, as our goal is to adapt whether to a new Google E-E-A-T update or the newest trends in marketing, to keep the firm on top of it all.
Get Noticed With Our Joint Efforts
As practicing law isn’t hard enough, you just found out you need to focus on online marketing, too. Does this sound overwhelming? We believe it is, and perhaps you’ve even tried to handle it all by yourself with no valuable results.
Don’t worry, we’re not just another affordable seo agency – we understand how unique your needs are, and we’re here to deliver. Trust our online advertising agency to give it our all in order to get you ranked and establish a brand voice across different channels. Get noticed and get Made Online with our digital advertising agency. Contact us today.