Quality lead generation is arguably the most important part of most businesses, especially law firms. In contrast to advertising or social media engagement efforts, attracting leads via genuine customer reviews is the best way to gain additional clients. While advertising says what your firm specializes in and speaks to your firm’s values, customer reviews vouch for your law firm and confirm your marketing efforts. If you’re ready to grow your legal website and capitalize on attractive leads, this post will help guide you to gain positive reviews. First, we’ll talk about valuable marketing efforts you can engage in to attract clients. Then, we’ll discuss how you can get Google reviews for your law firm that will increase your qualified leads.
Should Legal Firms Use Offline Marketing?
Although offline marketing, or traditional marketing, is still utilized and of value, it takes more time to put those marketing efforts into practice than it does digital marketing efforts. For example, a print advertisement requires marketing personnel to write an article, plus, time for review and revisions, as well as taking the ad to a publisher and selecting days for the ad to run.
An even more important factor to consider is the ability to track how successful your ads have been, or the lack thereof. Digital marketing offers valuable tracking data through various tools. Google Ads, for example, offers real-time metrics on clicks, cost per click, goal conversion tracking, and the total cost of the campaign. Offline marketing, on the other hand, is difficult to track and put an exact ROI dollar amount to. In short, offline marketing can be a risky endeavor.
How to Use Digital Marketing to Get New Legal Clients
The first step to getting reviews for your website is by engaging in digital marketing efforts. Digital marketing tactics are quick and effective means to attract your target audience. The turnaround time for social media posts, for example, can be just a couple of minutes especially if you are adding an update to your Google My Business profile or adding a Facebook post to increase brand awareness and engagement. Plus, digital marketing expenses can be minimal. All you need to do is invest time and resources to make them pop. However, if you want to take your digital marketing efforts to the next level with paid ads or outsourced SEO, hiring a reputable digital marketing agency can increase your quality leads even more. The following paragraphs delve into ways your law firm can engage in digital marketing and ultimately convert more leads.
Optimize Your Legal Website
The first component your should turn your attention to is your own website since all of your online marketing efforts will point back to your website, typically in the form of a link. Learn how to make your legal website stand out with these key features. In this article, you’ll notice the final tip is to highlight client reviews on your website. Not only will positive reviews add credibility to your legal firm, but encourages potential clients to envision themselves working with your firm. In addition to showcasing positive reviews, you’ll want to have a website that is optimized for SEO, has a clear and enticing call to action, and speaks to your legal firm’s differentiating factors.
Gain Backlinks
The first step to garnering client reviews is attaining new clients. In efforts to attract new clients, there are several digital marketing efforts that can decrease the waiting period, including backlinks. Backlinks can be simplified as hyperlinks on one website that mentions another website. For instance, say the digital marketing agency that designed your website writes a blog post on how they developed and launched your new website. In this blog post, the link to your legal firm’s website would be hyperlinked and point readers to your website. In turn, this will create more website traffic for your legal firm’s website.
Submit Directory Listing
Directory submissions are typically done by a marketing agency because they specialize in these efforts due to their professional experience. When a directory listing is submitted, your website is submitted to the web under a particular category, such as legal services. Directory submissions increase the number of links that point to your website which plays a large part in increasing your website’s ranking on search engines. This is important when a prospective client searches for legal services in your area because your website will be one of the first ones they see and click on.
Blog Posts
Blog posts are supporting content for your practice areas. For example, Irons & Irons is a successful law firm client with four locations throughout North Carolina. The content on their blog exists to help their practice area pages rank higher on search engines.
Irons & Irons P.A. online business reviews exhibit an automatic and established trust factor for individuals looking for a Greenville, NC divorce attorney.
Google My Business Updates
Much like blog posts, Google My Business updates allow legal firms to include target keywords and their geographic information in posts which helps acquire more leads in the desired services and location(s). The posts on Google My Business can include highlights from recent blogs with a link to the blog, or they can be geared toward a specific practice area you want to highlight, such as family law or divorce settlements. The most important elements of a Google My Business update are the keywords and geographic locations as well as the call to action. Now that you know how to get Google reviews for your law firm, let’s talk about the importance of those reviews as it relates to your business.
The Importance of Online Reviews for Law Firms
Once your website is optimized and visible to clients using the above features, you are ready to turn client experiences into reviews. Genuine client reviews vouch for your law firm and your attorneys which guides a prospective client to choose your firm over competitors. In short, positive reviews make a significant impact on how your business is perceived online. For instance, when you search for the phrase “Raleigh law firm,” the following results display:
Since there are numerous law firms in Raleigh, and many have positive reviews, you’re likely to read the reviews and see a) which law firm has more positive reviews and b) which law firm has the most client testimonials that provide evidence that their lawyers can get optimal results.
When you successfully accumulate the most amount of positive online reviews, your business will have the best digital marketing presence for your geographic target market and legal expertise.
How to Get Google Reviews for Your Law Firm
After you’ve put in the hard work of digital marketing efforts and advocating for your clients in the courtroom, it’s time to be rewarded. Acquiring positive reviews tends to decrease the persistent digital marketing efforts you have been making and allows you to acquire new clients rather easily.
While you will still want to maintain your online presence, you will have the opportunity to decrease your ad spend and focus less on acquiring new backlinks because the positive review will speak for themselves. Here are a few ways you can acquire positive reviews.
- Ask your clients to write a review for your law firm on Google. If you have recently won a divorce settlement for a client who expressed gratitude for your efforts, now is the perfect opportunity to request a positive review.
- Make it easy for clients to lend you a review by creating an email or newsletter that offers links to your review sites.
- Offer a, “Leave a Review,” form directly on your website.
- Request a review on your Google Business profile from your clients. Since the majority of users look at Google reviews first and foremost, it’s important to have positive reviews on your profile, especially if users are looking at that content first.
- Don’t forget about reviews on Yelp! Another popular website users turn to when looking at reviews is Yelp, so it’s important to have several positive reviews from clients who have experienced positive legal work from your firm.
- Another way to showcase your reviews is through findlaw.com. This website hosts a slew of law services and reviews of law firms across the country. You can add your law firm’s areas of expertise, location information, lawyer names, and website so that when users search for your city, they can easily find your law firm. Once a user finds your page, they can click on your website and request to work with you.
Turn to Avvo for Legal Website Reviews
Avvo is utilized by law firms because it attracts the most users (approximately 8 million per month)! Avvo’s marketing efforts encourage those with legal needs to browse their website which features a Q&A service from lawyers and a showcase of reviews. Prospective clients use Avvo to read reviews, ratings, and disciplinary records for lawyers in every state so they can make an informed decision based on those items. Learn more from Clio about how you can add your attorney’s profiles to Avvo as well as your law firm’s reviews, and highlight the practice areas you specialize in. You can utilize this service for free or upgrade to a premium version. The point of Avvo is to showcase your client reviews on a highly trafficked website and attract quality leads.
Get More Reviews and More Legal Leads for Your Firm Today
If you’re ready to take the next step in digital marketing efforts to garner positive client testimonials, contact TheeDigital today. Our SEO professionals and online reputation experts are ready to help you improve your digital marketing footprint. Contact us today at 919-341-8901 or fill out the contact form below.
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Tags: Digital Marketing • Legal Marketing • Online Reputation Management
