Search Engine Marketing

Everything About Search Engine Marketing

A few decades ago, most people found their lawyers with phone books or by asking friends, colleagues, and relatives for recommendations. Today, it's much more likely that your clients will try to find your law firm with a web search. In order to get new clients through the internet, it's important to use search engine optimization marketing for your business. SEO search engine marketing allows you to generate more clicks for your website and get more clients every day.

Types of Search Engine Marketing: Pay Per Click

One of the primary types of search engine marketing that is available for law firms is called “pay per click,” or PPC, advertising. In this form of advertising, your ad will be displayed when clients search for a particular search term. You'll only be charged an advertising fee by your search engine marketing company when people click on your ad.

While pay per click marketing can sometimes generate “conversions” (clicks that become paying clients), clients today are becoming increasingly internet savvy. This type of search engine marketing is generally displayed in a “sponsored results” section of a search, which some clients may ignore in favor of looking at the first search results that are displayed in the non-sponsored results area.

Pay per click advertising has become much more expensive in recent years due to an explosive growth in the number of attorneys using PPC for a wide range of legal search terms. If you want to use PPC instead of search engine optimization marketing, you may want to make sure that your terms are very specific and oriented toward a niche market. “Prestige” terms, like “asbestos attorney” or “Boston personal injury lawyer” can be extremely costly, but “lawyer for construction accident in Boston” may be much less so.

Types of Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Optimization Marketing

Instead of using PPC marketing, an increasing number of law firms are using SEO search engine marketing. Search engine optimization marketing involves using key terms and phrases that place your website in the first several pages of results for a particular search term.

SEO search engine marketing has several advantages over pay per click search engine marketing methods. Search engine optimization marketing doesn't require you to pay anything when a potential client clicks on your website. Many clients are more likely to click a website that involves SEO search engine marketing, because these sites don't appear as “advertising” in the same way that a website marketed with PPC does.

Search engine optimization marketing isn't always easy, though. In order to maintain a good web presence using SEO search engine marketing, you'll need to have well-written content—and usually a great deal of it. You'll also want to make sure that your search engine optimization marketing is tailored to the phrases that actually bring in clients. You may want to use several search engine marketing strategies at once to ensure that you're bringing in clients from as many places as possible.

Building a Friendlier Website

Search engine optimization marketing means more than just generating clicks for your website. In order to have successful SEO search engine marketing, you'll need to convert those clicks into real clients. The best way to do this is to make sure that your search engine marketing leads to a legal website that is designed to attract customers.

You should make sure that your website contains the information that your clients really want to know, if you want to have the best chance converting clients from your search engine optimization marketing. You may want to use search engine marketing tools to find out which keywords are bringing clients to your website and which are generating leads. This can make it easier to know what parts of your website content could be fleshed out more for the best SEO search engine marketing results.

Keep in mind that no amount of search engine marketing will help your business if your website is poorly designed or lacks informative content. Search engine optimization marketing depends on your site maintaining accurate and relevant information. You'll need to make sure that you are adding new content regularly in order to make sure that your SEO search engine marketing strategy succeeds.

Blogging For Better Business

One great way to increase your website's SEO search engine marketing presence is to start a blog about legal topics relating to your practice. As an attorney, you already spend time thinking about what clients ought to know about some types of cases, or about what the current state of the law is in one of your practice areas. Instead of just thinking about these issues or discussing them with other attorneys, help your search engine optimization marketing by blogging about them.

The best blog entries don't just look like search engine marketing spam. You'll want to have more than search engine optimization marketing terms in your blog entries: make them informative, exciting, and even a little bit fun, and you'll have the best chance of attracting clients with your blog entries. Remember that when clients click on your blog, your SEO search engine marketing will only work if they think you're an attorney they can trust with their case.

Using Social Media

Today, more people than ever are using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media services. You can make your web presence on these sites part of your SEO search engine marketing strategy. Maintaining a Facebook presence, including allowing people to “like” blog posts and updating about big wins for your firm, can mean that potential clients see your best side when they begin to do web research.

SEO search engine marketing with social media also shows your clients that you are willing to engage with them in an internet community setting. Facebook posts are a relatively easy way to connect with potential clients and existing ones, and you can use these posts to link to relevant pages on your website. With a social media presence, even more search engine marketing possibilities can open up for your law firm's website.