An action a day brings clients your way.

*The ABA suggests spending 600 hours per year for marketing your practice.  Sept 2009 Issue of ABA

Purpose

The purpose of this plan is to help you gain visibility on the web. There are online strategies and offline strategies that you can use to gain internet traffic.

Online Strategies

There are a couple of factors that influence the visibility (search engine optimization) of your website. First, a website can be structured with built in keywords, titles, and descriptions. Assuming that this has already been done, the second factor influencing visibility is the quantity and the quality of websites that link to your website. Google favors quality “backlinks” over quantity. In other words, if you have a link from your state bar association (which has a high page rank of its own and is related to your industry) it will carry more weight than a link from your colleague's website. Getting backlinks improves the chance that your website will be found when someone runs a search query.

Offline strategies

Whereas online strategies are used to gain favor with Google, and other search engines, offline strategies are used to promote your website directly to people. Offline strategies include promoting your web address through email, business cards, and other printed materials. Then a potential client or referral source can type your website address directly into the address bar of their web browser.

How to Use this Plan

The steps in this action plan can be completed in any order, and at any time. Some of the actions are free and some have an associated cost. The more actions you complete, the more successful your marketing campaign will be. Read through all of the items, and decide which ones are priorities.

Free items:

• Get your website listed in the Google Places directory.
  www.google.com/local/add
• Create a business account on LinkedIn, and network with other members.
  http://www.linkedin.com/
• Set up a profile in Cornell University Law School's LII Lawyer Directory.  Any lawyer in the US can get a free profile, and it gives great visibility. 
• Advertise to qualified leads through Legal River, a place where businesses post projects and you can bid for the projects.
• Set up a personal Google profile.
  http://www.google.com/profiles
• Create a personal account on Facebook and network with friends. Then, through your personal account create a business account, and ask friends to become fans of your business.
  http://www.facebook.com
• Add your website address to all local and state bar associations at which you are a member. Note: This might have an associated cost.
• Get listed in the Avvo directory. http://www.avvo.com/profile/create
• Join LawLink (an attorney network). http://www.lawlink.com/index.aspx
• Join Martindale-Hubbell Connected. To join, enter your email address, and choose “I am a new user.” Then choose the Sign In button to complete the application. http://www.martindale.com/Join.aspx Once your application has been accepted you will be given a chance to update your profile with your website address and other information.
• Get listed in the Open Directory Project. http://www.dmoz.org/add.html Follow the directions to add your website to the directory.
• Include your web address in your email signature.
• Check out your backlinks at www.linkpopularity.com If you don't have very many backlinks, and you would like to increase your search engine optimization, check out your competitor's backlinks. Just enter their URL on the link popularity site, and see who is linking to them. Target some of those websites, and ask them to link to you. Note: Some backlinks will not be evident through linkpopularity.com. They still exist, even though they are not returned.
• You can also check out your backlinks and get a website "grade" from http://websitegrader.com/
• Write an article. Post it on your website. Then submit it to Ezine Articles. Be sure to include a link to your website at the bottom of the article. http://ezinearticles.com/ Note: Continually adding new articles to your website gives your website visitors more information and your website gets promoted by the search engines, such as Google.
• Post a video on YouTube, and have it imbedded in your website. *This will really increase your visibility.
• Jamie Mulholland (2009 Law Practice Today) suggests that you "Contact your local news and report these newsworthy events."
  • New attorneys, or appointments to management or department chair positions
  • Attorney involvement with a board/committee/event for a school, nonprofit, bank/utility, professional organization, or government task force/authority
  • Speaking engagements
  • Involvement on the editorial board of a publication
  • Participation/sponsorship of seminars/events
• Create a client satisfaction survey. Surveymonkey.com allows for you to create a survey for free. In the survey include an open ended question about your website such as, "What questions would you like for us to address on our website?" After the survey, follow up with your client's recommendations.
• Reconnect with existing clients through email or traditional mail, and refer them to a new article on your website. Inform them of any new services that you offer.
• Set up a Google alert for your firm's name. http://www.google.com/alerts This allows for you to monitor what is being said about you online, and to react if necessary.

Additional cost (paid to other vendors):

• Have your website address printed on business cards and other promotional materials.
• Pay to be listed in CitySearch.com.  The benefit is local search optimization.  Clients in your geographic area will find you, if you are listed.  It costs $19.95 per month for a basic listing plus cost-per-connection.
• Write a press release announcing your online availability, and submit it to PRweb. It costs $80/press release, or $200/press release if you want to get a backlink to your website. http://www.prweb.com/
• Pay $299/year to have your website listed in the Yahoo! Directory. https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/
• Pay $195/year to have your website listed in the HG.org worldwide legal directory. It gives multiple back links to your website. http://www.hg.org/addlf.html
• Pay $38/month (single attorney) to be listed in the FindLaw directory. http://www.lawyermarketing.com/CM/Products/Products29.asp
• Pay to be listed in the Better Business Bureau Directory (if you have been in business for at least 1 year).
• Pay for ads on Google through Google AdWords. www.Adwords.google.com Price varies depending on selected keywords and geographic locations. You set the cap. Or if you want help with Google ads, enlist our Online Ad Management Services.
• Get an email marketing service through a vendor, such as Constant Contact. You can build your own email list from people who “opt-in” through your website. You can email newsletters or educational pages to convert prospects into clients. Be sure to include a link to your website in the email. Constant Contact charges $15/month for unlimited emails, and up to 500 email addresses. http://search.constantcontact.com/index.jsp
• Use the service mentioned above to email existing clients. Make them aware of all your services. It is easier to sell your services to existing clients than to prospects because they already trust you.
• Pay to be listed in the online directory freeadvice.com. It works in coordination with attorneypages.com and has been online since 1997. https://secure.attorneypages.com/offers/index.htm
• Join JDSUPRA for $37.50/month. Submit educational articles. Be sure to include a link to your website at the bottom of each article. http://www.jdsupra.com/register/signup.aspx
• Advertise a free seminar (or a free article) in a local electronic newsletter, and direct readers to your website to find out more. Or pay for a classified ad in local newspaper or magazine, and direct readers to your website.

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