Your Website: Getting the Attention of the Search Engines

You finally got your law firm Web site online and waited for the new clients to come rolling in. But for some reason it just didn't happen that way. Well, all of our marketing efforts are long term projects, with the possible exception of TV, radio and newspaper ads. Your marketing efforts will hopefully still pay off for years in the future. But the Internet is all about immediate gratification, right? So this week, I'll have a bit of an online symposium on getting noticed by the search engines.

The first article is The ABCs of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by two of my favorite people Sharon D. Nelson and John Simek of Sensei Enterprises, Inc. SEO is one of those terms that intimidates a lot of people. Sharon and John do a great job of explaining the basics in understandable language. Everyone should read this article even if you don't have time to start your SEO project this week. And, remember that you don't have to try all of these techniques. Trying just a few simple ones will no doubt boast your search engine ranking. You may want to print or save this article for later reference as it is hosted at the Canadian Bar's PracticeLink and may slip into the "password required" area soon.

The Technology eReport from the American Bar Association General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Division this month featured two articles on online marketing.

Internet Marketing 101 for Attorneys: How to Reach Prospective Clients Through Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing by lawyer-turned-Internet-entrepreneur Jeff Lantz covers many topics such a PPC (pay per click), the importance of anchor text and questions to ask a SEO company before agreeing to pay for their services. Since Jeff heads a company that does SEO, among other Internet marketing services, I appreciate his sharing of knowledge. This is a quite good in-depth piece. I know how anchor text works to optimize your site's ranking by search engines. People link to my blog by its name. Do a Google search for "law practice tips" with or without the quotes and see the results.

Marketing Your General Practice Firm Online is an article by Jennifer Black. "Although legal–related businesses are one of the top five topics consumers search for on the Internet every single day, the trick to connecting with these potential customers, involves a successful online marketing strategy that helps improve the ways these local firms can be found online," she states in this feature. I found this interesting. In the early days of law firm websites, the lawyers noticed that they initially got a lot of out-of-state clients who used the Internet because they didn't have access to local resources like phone directories. But now people use Web searches for local resources because they find the results more easily and quickly than with a phone directory. Want to start the betting pool on the eventual death of the Yellow Pages in print?

These three articles can expand your understanding of how the Internet can bring your clients--if you have a Website. But let's not forget the basics either. Have a unique and understandable domain name for your law firm website. Then make sure it is included on your stationery, firm brochures and the e-mail signature blocks of everyone in the firm. You might even have a sign in your waiting area "Visit us on the Web at xxx." Update your content regularly and if the domain name is short enough, include it in your Yellow Pages ad, as long as you still have one.

Marketing a Start-Up Solo Practice

Findlaw just published a nice little first person piece on Marketing a Start-Up Solo Practice by Burman E. Berger.

Client Development: Keep 'Em Coming Back for More with Technology

Law Practice Today posted the materials on "Client Development: Keep 'Em Coming Back for More with Technology" that Nancy Roberts Linder and I did for our ABA TECHSHOW 2007 presentation. Nancy and I have done marketing presentations together previously. My section focuses a little more on client satisfaction and development, while she focuses on content of materials and websites. I will immodestly suggest that it is worth your time.

The ABA TECHSHOW website reminds us that today, January 31, 2008, is the last day to register for ABA TECHSHOW 2008 and receive and early bird discount. (I heard a rumor that the early bird deadline might be extended, but it's time to register anyway if you are planning to attend.)

50 Ways to Market Your Practice

The ABA Journal has published 50 Ways to Market Your Practice in the October 2007 issue. The article features marketing ideas collected by Maryland lawyer Terry Berger (also the proprietor of http://www.registeredagentinfo.com/ )  from various sources, including in large part, the online community Solosez.

FYI: Starting a Website

Having a law firm Website is a business necessity these days. The American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center has just released a new Web feature, FYI: Starting a Website. Their five step outline is relatively brief and easy-to-follow. it contains links to lots of other online material.

Our New Podcast, The Digital Edge: Lawyers and Technology, opens with "Electronic Marketing: Harnessing the Web's Whizbang"

My friend, Sharon Nelson, and I are now podcasters. It is a part of the ABA Law Practice Management Section's webzine, Law Technology Today. Sharon was ABA TECHSHOW chair in 2006, the year after me. The podcast name is The Digital Edge: Lawyers and Technology. Right now the plan is to make it a monthly podcast and to list it on iTunes.

Issue number one is Electronic Marketing: Harnessing the Web's Whizbang. We have also included a set of links to various lawyer marketing resources and articles online. The link is here: http://www.abanet.org/lpm/ltt/articles/vol1/is4/digitaledge/index.shtml 

You do not need an iPod or MP3 player. You can click on the link and listen to it over your computer speakers. It is a bit long for a podcast at just over 30 minutes, but we hope you will find some valuable information and tips in it.

What's on the back of your business card?

I'm at the Indiana Bar Solo and Small Firm Conference and just finished giving the opening keynote presentation on Increasing Client Satisfaction. The great thing about these conferences is that you always learn something, no matter how many different conferences you have attended (and I have been to quite a few of these conferences in different states.)

Mark McNeely, a trial lawyer from Shelbyville, IN, handed me one of his business cards to show off. It is thin and plastic and has the 2007 calendar on the back. We've all seen and referred to the business card-sized calendars you can easily carry in a wallet. It seems like a great way to make certain someone actually keeps your card with them. The interesting thing is that Mark reports that clients and former clients now show up at his office around the end/beginning of the year to "get a new calendar." What a great idea.

This reminds me of years ago when a Tulsa lawyer told me a printing a page of clear plastic labels with his home phone number, cell phone and personal e-mail address. He attached the clear labels to the back of a few business cards and gave them to a few special (likely higher-paying) clients as a sort of all-access pass. The plastic label makes it look like the card was printed with the home contact info on the back. That's a nice way to make a few clients feel special.

Mark McNeely says the greatest moments with his calendar-backed business cards occur when the judges uses them to set the date for the next hearing. The lawyers are standing at the bench when the judge holds card up and peers at it for the date. Even if your opposing counsel knows you just gave the judge the card, there's just something special about the judge waving your business card in the other lawyer's face. (And if you get really lucky, someone even blogs about your business card.)

So, what's on the back of the cards in your wallet?

Blawg: Marketing Your Practice with a Weblog

The August issue of Law Practice Today has just been published online. Among its many features is "Blawg: Marketing Your Practice with a Weblog" by myself and Tom Mighell. I'd encourage all of you to check this out even if you have no plans whatsoever to ever start a blog. This is a "Best of ABA TECHSHOW" feature and is a reprint of most of the materials Tom and I submitted for our TECHSHOW presentation on this topic. It contains lots of information, statistics and links. I'm proud that Law Practice Today selected it for a feature. There was a lot of effort put into this (mostly by Tom) and I'm glad it will have a greater audience than the TECHSHOW materials on CD.

Tom Mighell also writes The Strongest Links column for LPT and his Strongest Links for Road Warriors this month is worth a read. Also of note this month are a piece by former ABA Law Practice Management Section Chair Carl Roberts on the 2006 Discovery Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (impacting E-discovery) and Ellen Freedman's Preparing to Say Goodbye to the Baby Boomers.

I don't always mention every new Law Practice Today issue here. I assume that most of my readers have subscribed to it by now. A subscription means you get one e-mail per month telling you when the new issue is posted with links to the issue. Go here to subscribe if you haven't already done so.

Tom Kane's Top Ten Marketing Tips

Tom Kane has posted his Top Ten Marketing Tips with links to some explanation and elaboration. There is great advice you can absorb in a couple of minutes. I regularly follow Tom's blog.

I noted with interest a comment posted by someone noting that many of these ideas do not apply in a criminal defense practice. For example, it is probably a poor career plan for the lawyer to visit the client at his place of business. (Grin) Like so many aspects of marketing, the primary challenge is setting aside the time to think, formulating a plan of action and then taking action. Criminal defense work may be an area where Yellow Pages ads make sense. You want to make yourself known to those who come into contact with those charged with crimes: bondsmen, counselors, towing services, etc. (You cannot offer fees, but you can convince others you are capable and believe in good client service.) You want to make it known to other local lawyers who do not practice defense law that you will take their referrals without stealing their client's future business. You may decide to take a high profile case for less-than-adequate compensation and then work like your client paid you millions. You may teach CLE's on search and seizure, forfeiture or expungement for your state or local bar, knowing that many in your audience will decide just to refer you the work when the situation presents itself. You may have an extremely informative web page. In other words, there's not that much different about marketing this type of practice than others. Think, plan and execute the plan.

New York's Proposed Lawyer Advertising Rules are Controversial, to Say the Least.

Let me start by saying that I generally hate lawyer ads on television. I've seen many of them and they are generally tacky and detrimental to the public's perception of the legal system and the legal profession. Of course it could be said that they reflect the state of modern television. But having said that, I recognize several "truths" that some in New York do not seem to appreciate:

1. The First Amendment has proven to be a very good idea and society should enact restrictions on what others can write and say with extreme caution.
2. In any human endeavor, more information is preferable to less information.
3. Since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized lawyer advertising in Bates v State Bar of Arizona, there have many results (among them sleazy TV ads.) But competition and lowering of prices on some routine consumer legal services has been a result, too. Many injured people would have never learned of a potential claim or how to bring it were it not for lawyer advertising.
4. Limiting information about the availability of legal services favors the powerful and established at the expense of the small firm, the beginner and the upstart. Many lawyers have been able to successfully establish careers since Bates when they would have been unable to do so under the old rules. The composition of any committee seeking to restrict advertising is therefore always a concern.

So the news that New York is considering radical new restrictions on lawyer advertising should give all of us concern.

If you'd like to be informed about the drawbacks to this proposal, I urge you to read Peter Boyd's point by point criticism of the proposed rules. It is extremely well-written and should make you think twice even if you personally would like to ban lawyer advertising. You can read the proposed rules here. I just have to note that the idea it should be unethical to display a picture portraying a lawyer in a courtroom is just plain silly.

Dennis Kennedy calls the new rules "draconian" and "micro-managing." Dennis asks "Are we seeing the last gasp of an attempt to apply 19th century concepts to a 21st century world, or will lawyers be the only group able to roll back the changes the Internet has brought to the rest of the world? "

Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle, always a champion of the solo and small firm lawyer, has a thoughtful post with links to many other online criticisms of the rules, including this comment discussing the 30 day solicitation rule on the Legal Ethics Forum.

Let me note that the above comments are mine alone and not the opinion of my employer. My personal opinion is that we lawyers would probably be better off if all advertising was banned. Look at all of the money spent on the Yellow Pages ads that would remain in law firm bank accounts. I just don't see how one can or should do that in a free society in the Information Age.

Kentucky Contemplates the Fate of Their Lawyer Bloggers

Earlier this year I welcomed Ben Cowgill's Legal Ethics blog to the blogosphere. Now there has been a troubling development in Ben's home state of Kentucky. It seems that the Kentucky Attorneys' Advertising Commission wants to classify his blog as advertising, requiring him to do a filing and pay a $50 fee every time he does a post. As Ben notes, there's been a whirlwind of commentary on the web about this and even BusinessWeek has covered it. Let's hope things work out where Kentucky isn't the only state to effectively ban lawyer blogging.

In other states, just in June alone, Rhode Island's Annual Meeting had a program which featured a live blog posting, lawyers attending Missouri's excellent Solo and Small Firm Conference heard from a couple of bloggers about blogs (and other things) and Oklahoma's Solo and Small Firm Conference will feature a program "Blogs - Using Them and Building Them" from me and Tulsa County Special District Judge Charles Hogshead on June 24.

The Lawyer's Business Card

Lawyers give out lots of business cards. How long has it been since you last thought about redesigning or changing your business card? My essay The Lawyer's Business Card was written some time ago, but is still relevant today. Are traditional or innovative business cards best? Depends on the type of clients you seek, I'd say. And how can you use clear labels to "power up" your cards for special situations?