The most important factor to consider when developing a strategy for marketing your legal services, is to evaluate your legal services from the perspective of a potential client. Most law firms fail to really consider that their target audience is unlikely to have a background in law and so they make the mistake of using terminology that is familiar to a solicitor but alien to the intended audience.
The general public will rarely use such legal words as ‘litigation’ or ‘arbitration’ and so such words can be uncomfortable for many that have no experience with such processes. This is not to say that such words can never be used but there should be an introduction to such concepts so that your potential clients are gently educated with the knowledge they need to enable them to fully understand the legal processes involved.
Now that you have begun to consider how the legal services will be perceived by your potential clients, you have the necessary foundation to be able to begin with the creation of your new website content for your legal services. Before you start though, we need to consider the things that people will be searching for in search engines such as Google. This is important as this also needs to be considered when creating new content for your website.
What are your potential clients searching for?
Whilst many people will search in Google for a specific type of solicitor when they need a legal service such as a ‘family law solicitor‘ or a ‘business lawyer‘, many people will not search in this way. They will instead search in relation to the issues they need help with. For example, they might search for ‘divorce‘ or ‘commercial disputes‘. People will also often search with much more specific details in relation to their current issues and so this presents an opportunity that can really leverage the marketing of your legal services if you learn how to approach marketing from this perspective.
The above is an important point because if you start to create website content that matches the wide variety of things that your potential clients are searching for, then you can reach these people before your competitors do.
It is very important though that these pages are genuine pages that contain informative content that is likely to be of value to your potential clients. These pages will also need to have a reasonable amount of words as it is obvious to any search engine that a page with very few words is unlikely to have any highly valuable content.
Creating lots of informative pages for your firm’s legal services is a great way to begin your marketing. Remember that these pages should be highly specific to the myriad of circumstances that people are likely to require your services for. To help generate ideas for these pages you might find it useful to consider some of your previous clients and the circumstances that they were in when they reached out to your law firm. Consider the things they might have searched for at this time and then create content that matches these circumstances.
Good content for your legal services is important but it is not enough
Whilst creating the above content for your legal services is an important part of the process for marketing your legal services, it is usually not enough to make much of a difference.
It is common for a law firm to publish lots of new web pages and see almost no improvements in the number of legal enquires. This is because content on its own will not do well. You now need to market the website so as to improve your website’s domain authority and begin the process of achieving better Google positions for your law firm.
How to improve your website’s domain authority
The authority of a website is often based on a metric known in the SEO industry as ‘domain authority’. This metric is extremely important if you wish to see higher positions in search engines for your law firm. Whilst the exact formula for achieving a stronger domain authority is not disclosed by Google, they have confirmed that the authority of a website is important for its position in their search results. They have also offered some guidance as to how businesses can improve the authority of their website. We will now look at some of the ways you could potentially improve the domain authority of your law firm’s website so as to achieve better Google positions for your legal services.
How legal directories can improve your website’s domain authority
Legal directories are a great place to start for your law firm if you wish to improve the domain authority of your website. There are a number of reasons why legal directories can improve your website’s domain authority but one of the main reason is due to something called business ‘citations‘. A citation is a reference to your law firm’s address and contact information. Search engines such as Google are able to check these citations (or business details) across multiple websites and if the information is consistent across multiple sites then this can be interpreted as a business being genuine and the contact details being correct. For example, Google could check the address and contact information it has about your law firm and if these details are consistent across multiple sites then this can help to inform Google that your firm’s address and contact information is accurate and genuine. This can then lead to a greater trust in your firm’s website which then leads to better positions for your law firm in Google searches.
Legal directories will also naturally link to your firm’s website which also acts like a vote for your website which can also help to improve your website’s domain authority further. These links are known as backlinks which is quite a complex topic but we do have another article here if you wish to learn more about these: “Why your law firm needs backlinks and how to get them“.
You might also be interested in a LawFirms.co.uk membership as this includes 11 legal directories. You also only need to enter your law firm’s details on one website and these details are then automatically synced across the 11 legal directories so it takes only a few minutes of your time to be listed on all 11 legal directories.
Other ways to improve your law firm’s domain authority
There are other ways that you can improve your law firm’s domain authority which include media sites. Websites such as legal blogs and newspapers can provide great opportunities but they will be much harder than using legal directories.
To improve your law firm’s domain authority via media sites you will need to obtain a natural backlink to your firm’s website. Newspapers and bloggers will often link to a firm’s website if a firm has contributed something such as a resource that could be used on their blog or a local newspaper might cover something your law firm has contributed to the local community.
Building backlinks for your law firm needs to be done naturally and these backlinks should come from relevant sources. Please read this article if you would like to learn more about backlinks.
Marketing your legal services using legal directories
As mentioned above legal directories are a great start for building your website’s domain authority and enhancing your law firm’s SEO strategy but they also work to market your legal services directly. This is because people can search legal directories when they need a solicitor and they can filter the solicitors by the services they provide and by their location. So you can list your law firm and include the legal services your firm provides which will then help your firm to be found when people search through these legal directories.
This means that legal directories not only help to improve your firm’s positions in search engines but they also generate enquires for your law firm due to the nature of a legal directory providing search functions that allow people to search for specific legal services in their area.
If your firm is not listed in a legal directory then there is no way that it can be found when people search that directory so getting listed in legal directories can really help you to market your legal services and reach a wider audience.
Conclusion of how to market your legal services
Above we have explored the essentials for marketing your legal services effectively. These marketing elements include:
- Creating content that your potential clients can easily understand
- Considering the specific circumstances of your potential clients and creating content that matches these circumstances
- Improving your website’s domain authority so as to achieve better positions in search engines for your legal services
- Getting listings for your law firm on legal directories so as to improve the citations for your law firm and to also reach the people that are searching for legal services on these directories
In this article we have focused specifically on marketing your legal services but if you would like to learn even more about other ways that you can market your law firm we have also created another marketing resource: “How to generate more legal enquires for your law firm“, which expands to other areas of marketing that you could also use to generate even more enquires.