In this article, we look at internet marketing for family lawyers in detail. We discuss the best strategies you must implement for marketing for family lawyers.
Are you marketing your law firm on the Internet? Or, more precisely, have you adopted professional family lawyers’ marketing strategies? We qualify our question because many law firms believe having a website and social media handles would help them attract new clients in the tech-savvy world. We’re afraid that’s not right, as most law firms have websites and social media handles. Hence, you must pursue active digital marketing for family lawyers to stay ahead of the competition.
Let’s start with some facts – there are more than 57,000 family law attorneys in the United States. While the number of litigations has gone up, we are witnessing a decline in the number of attorneys and law firms. The Covid crisis has triggered a massive change in how law firms and clients interact. The post-pandemic clients expect to find your law firm online and be able to communicate digitally. Law firms that haven’t accepted this change are finding it hard to survive. Without investing in family lawyers’ marketing, your firm could become a relic of the past in a few years.
Why do Law Firms Need Internet Marketing?
As a professional, the importance of an active digital presence isn’t oblivious to you. However, since you are in the profession of reasoning and arguments, there is no better way to explain the importance of digital marketing than using statistics. Here are some stats you must know to understand the importance of internet marketing for family lawyers –
- More than 33% of clients being their search for a lawyer online
- 57% of clients search for lawyers online and don’t seek references
- 37% of clients prefer videoconferencing over meeting their lawyer in person
- 81% of law firms have a presence on the social media
- 87% of law firms have their websites
Have these stats opened your eyes to the need for digital marketing? It isn’t a secret that you have to go aggressive with internet marketing to grow your law firm business. Digital is the new word-of-mouth marketing channel as your clients express their views on social media and other internet platforms. These marketing practices add to the value and reach by bringing new business.
How To Approach Internet Marketing for Family Lawyers
We have already established the importance of digital marketing for family lawyers, and we are sure you are convinced about the need to market your services online. It brings us to some critical questions – how to approach internet marketing for family lawyers? How do you stay ahead of the competition when others invest in digital marketing?
There is no short answer or a secret recipe for success with internet marketing. You must meticulously plan your campaign and execute it methodically. It is vital to market your services on different channels to improve reach. A professional agency by your side would take your message to the target audience. Here are a few vital things you must work on as part of internet marketing for family lawyers –
Create Memorable UX On Your Website
Imagine your website as the storefront. If it is appealing, it will attract new customers, but if it is an eyesore, it will turn away interested clients. Your website is the first point of contact between you and your clients. People searching for a family lawyer are passing through the most challenging times in their lives. It is essential to reassure them of your expertise with an engaging website. All your marketing efforts would go in vain till you set the foundation right with a website.
Your website sits at the center of your marketing campaign, and it is necessary to create a strong impression on the minds of your clients. The site should accurately represent your values and professionalism. From your email marketing campaign to social media marketing efforts, all of them would direct clients to your website. Once they are on the landing page, you must reassure them of their choice.
Your website must be informative, but you shouldn’t trade the ease of browsing experience for information. Offer information your clients are likely to look for answers to basic questions on family law, child custody, maintenance, etc. Avoid intimidating clients with too much information and legal jargon, as these can turn them away. Focus on creating a reassuring experience for your potential clients as they are under stress in their personal lives.
Revisit Your SEO Strategy
Google and Bing constantly update their algorithms to improve the search experience for their users. SEO strategies that worked for you in the past may have started showing diminishing returns. If you find yourself in a similar position, it would be a good time to revisit it. A thorough SEO audit of the site would be a good start. It helps you determine the flaws in your current strategy and work on them. Focus on the right set of keywords that attract relevant traffic to your website. Pay attention to on-page and off-page optimization strategies and use analytics to track traffic growth.
Another thing to work on is local SEO. Local search engine optimization is one of the critical elements to success for law firms. In Local SEO strategy, your focus is on improving the visibility of your website for local search results. For example, if you are a Chicago-based family law firm, you’d want to be found when people search for a “family law firm in Chicago” or geo-location-based searches such as “family law attorney near me.” More than 50% of people finding lawyers in local searches are likely to call or visit them within 24 hours; hence, this is most important for attracting new clients.
Market Services with Informative Content
When you take up an internet marketing campaign, ask yourself a simple question – does my website answer questions? Are my blogs informative? Do clients find solutions to the problem they are looking for on your website? “Content is the king” in digital marketing; you should turn it into your most powerful marketing tool. Content marketing is one of the best strategies for any law firm, and you should make the most out of this opportunity. Good content is an important ranking factor on Google and sits at the heart of your internet marketing strategy.
Publish high-quality and evergreen content on your website that attracts traffic. Your content should cover the most critical areas of family law, such as divorce and child custody issues which most people faced with a situation would search on the Internet. Apart from this, it would help if you also published guest blogs on high-traffic websites, as it would let you establish your authority in the competitive market. Include an FAQ section on your website and have the same when writing long and informative blog posts. FAQs answer the basic questions people have about family law and attract traffic for voice searches that tend to be conversational.
Focus on PPC and PPL Advertising
Paid advertising is one of the most rewarding family lawyers’ marketing strategies. Paid advertising complements SEO and improves your website’s visibility on search engines. As mentioned, internet marketing for family lawyers is highly competitive, with dozens of law firms targeting the same audience. While you may be dedicating time and resources to web design and SEO, they aren’t likely to fetch results without paid search marketing.
Pay Per Click and Pay Per Lead advertising helps drive highly qualified leads to your website and improves your conversion rate. You must target keywords your potential clients will likely search for while looking for a family lawyer. Keyword research tools help Google Ads and Microsoft Ads let you target the most relevant keywords to attract potential clients.
Contrary to popular perception, PPC and PPL are cost-effective marketing strategies as you have complete control over your budget and the appearance of the ads based on geography, time, and demography. PPC and PPL ads ensure higher ROI than most other digital marketing strategies for family lawyers and reduce client acquisition time.
Ideally, your paid ads campaign should have a mix of both as they complement each other. May law firms choose PPL over PPC as these ads are easier to manage and don’t require the same marketing skills as PPC ads. However, PPC ads offer more visibility on search engines. A professional PPC marketing team can provide you with the highest return on investment.
Nudge Prospects with Emails
Don’t overlook Email Marketing as many in the legal community do. As experts in internet marketing for family lawyers, we can stick our neck out and stress the many incentives this digital marketing strategy offers. It is one of the best ways to engage actively with your prospects. Forms on your website or social media handles let you easily collect the email ids of your prospective clients. Once you have these ids, you can nudge them with a well-crafted email campaign.
You must have a strategic goal – convert a prospect into a client. Build trust by assuring them of professional services and share your experience and track record with similar cases. You must write personalized emails based on the information you have about your clients. Your prospect would explore all the options, so your email campaign must stand out.
It will help if you automate your email campaign. Email automation tools let you automate your campaign and send personalized responses based on the nature of engagement and queries from your prospects. These tools ensure leads are engaged in quick time and offer you the option of writing manual emails when clients have specific questions regarding their cases. Overall, it is one of the best engagement strategies in the world of digital marketing.
Optimize Google Business Profile
Your internet marketing strategy is incomplete if you don’t have a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). You should create one immediately using the easy-to-use online tool. A GBP helps establish your online presence across Google’s online platforms, including Search and Maps. Update your complete address and phone number, allowing clients to reach you. The Map feature is helpful as it offers driving directions to your clients. Google Business Profile is also one of the best online review platforms, and positive reviews on this platform are known to attract new business for law firms.
Stress On Voice Search Compatible Content
According to Google, 27% of Internet users are using voice search, which will increase in the coming years. Apple Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Microsoft Cortana have become part of everyone’s lives. Your website should be discoverable to clients using voice commands such as “Who is the best family lawyer in Chicago” or specific questions about family law. You need to publish voice search-compatible content on the website as voice searches are natural conversations, unlike searches on the browser, which are keyword based. It is an untapped market and offers immense growth opportunities.
Build An Active Social Media Strategy
When looking at family lawyers’ internet marketing, an active social media strategy is necessary. It is a good starting point if you have already been posting on social media, but it isn’t enough when your competitors dominate the landscape. You must use social media presence creatively to build brand awareness, attract new clients, and engage actively with your target audience. However, to achieve this, you must work on a social media marketing strategy that actively attracts new prospects and engages with them.
Social media offers you a wide reach and is one of the best platforms for creating brand awareness. It is essential to be active on your social media handles. Avoid stretching your resources thin and trying to be active on all platforms if you aren’t responding to people on time. A digital marketing company can help you leverage the power of social media marketing by putting together a solid strategy based on your exact needs.
To boost engagement, you must share informative content and facts on your social media handles, which helps build trust among prospective clients. Answering clients’ queries on social media is vital, and you should be prompt with your replies. Not responding to their questions and comments is akin not to answering calls from your prospective clients.
Don’t Ignore Video Marketing
Has YouTube become your second preferred destination for information after Google? It is the second most widely used search engine in the world and one that needs your urgent attention. If you aren’t marketing using videos, you are saying no to one of the best digital marketing avenues. There are several options you can explore with video marketing. You can create explainer videos informing your clients about family law basics. These are evergreen content and will continue attracting traffic for a long time.
It would also be wise to release videos on the cases you have handled (with the consent of your clients) where you give a brief of the case and the outcome you achieved. These videos establish your authority. Remember, videos are one of the best ways to unclutter complex topics. They can explain subjects that several paragraphs of text can’t and is easier for your target audience. Videos also give clients a peek into the personality of their attorneys and build confidence in their minds.
Market With Positive Reviews
Lastly, market your service using reviews. High-quality and positive reviews are an important ranking signal in Google’s latest algorithms. However, they are one of the most underrated strategies in internet marketing. Positive reviews from past clients can help establish your reputation on search engines and push your website high on the ranking page. Most clients look at your track record before trusting their case in your hands.
Encourage your clients to write reviews about your services. You must request them to write one and not leave it to the clients to do the needful. Positive reviews build trust in potential clients as they catch a glimpse of your expertise and track record. Use positive reviews across all your marketing channels as they establish your reputation.
Final Take
In a tech-savvy world, digital marketing for family lawyers isn’t optional. You can’t expect to grow your clientele if you don’t work towards improving your online visibility. The family lawyers’ marketing strategies we mentioned above help you improve your reach, discoverability, and engagement with target clients. Along with a killer website, you must thrive on social media and create conversational content to connect with your audience.
If these marketing strategies sound overwhelming, you need to hire a team with expertise in internet marketing for family lawyers. At Cyrusson Inc, we can help. We are a full-stack marketing agency and count several family law firms among our clientele. Our team manages ROI-driven campaigns to improve your online footprint and establish your authority. Contact us today for a no-obligation consultation, and we shall discuss the digital marketing strategies for your growth.