Essential Legal Marketing Mistakes That Hurt Your Online Visibility
Mar 18, 2019
10 min read
With online businesses becoming more and more popular, it is more important than ever to have a plan when bringing your law firm into the online sector of the market. Most people usually think that the hardest part of creating an online business is the site-building and hosting process, but the real work starts long before you even get your website online for viewers to see. There are a variety of legal marketing strategies to keep in mind, as well as a faux pas to avoid as early as the planning stages for your website. Here are five of the most common and most detrimental mistakes people make when transitioning their business to the web.
A Lack of Research
The biggest mistake beginners tend to make when building a website is that they don't do proper research on both the focus of their site, as well as on the competition. When making an online business in general, finding a niche topic that has a potential interest is key. While this mostly relates to subscription or ad-based sites that draw in revenue per click or subscription, many of the basic principles can apply to your law firm's website.
Finding a niche approach or direction for your site can help increase your odds of being discovered organically online. On the flip side, you also don't want something that's completely over-saturated to the point where you're doomed from the start. Finding a creative spin on how you advertise your firm and landing in that sweet spot between totally obscure and overly saturated is key.
Poor Quality Content
This is a big issue for almost any site, regardless of model or purpose. Many sites just use SEO services to find keywords and then just cram their content full of them with little regard for the actual content quality. This results in a barely readable mess that, while it might get the initial click, won't retain customers, and actually drive them away pretty quickly. If you were just looking for clicks, this technique might have been fine in the past.
Unfortunately, Google and other search engines have started picking up on these shady digital marketing practices. Google's Panda update has completely revised portions of their search engine to target such pages and drop them back down to the bottom of the search results list, promoting quality content that people actually would want to read. With that in mind, plan out your content, and put as many keywords in as you can get naturally in the article. Once the keywords start getting in the way of readability, you've overdone it.
Improper Marketing
While overstuffing your pages and creating duplicate pages just for more keywords is definitely a bad thing, that's not to say you should ignore page optimization altogether. The key is to find a happy medium between keywords and readability. Using keyword search and SEO service tools, find the keywords that best fit your content, and use only the ones you can fit naturally into said content. For example, if you specialize in criminal law, don't try to stuff the words criminal and law into every available opening on your main page.
It will make the content clunky to read, and at the same time come off as obvious keyword stuffing. Just mention criminal law in key places where it makes sense to empha it, such as when introducing your firm and your services. Doing this will ensure you have quality content while still maintaining enough keywords to keep your listing high on the search engines.
Using more keywords that are geared towards your target audience is also a great way to get traffic from people who are looking for specific content. Getting viewers like these is more likely to result in repeat visitors, as they already have an interest in your content, and if the content you provide is of high quality, they are more likely to have a positive experience and either look at other articles on your site or bookmark it to explore later.
While SEO and keywords can take some time to build traction in terms of increasing hits, and it can take a lot of effort to cater your site to Google's new standards, but the payoff is cost-effective marketing and visibility through achieving pole positions on Google SERP.
Start a Law Blog
While having a website is a great way to let people know about your firm and the services you offer, setting up a law category blog is a great way to demonstrate your expertise. While you'll want to avoid blogging about specific cases you are working on so as not to break confidentiality and client privilege, commenting on major cases in current events, as well as general law topics such as things to keep in mind or checklists for what to do in certain legal situations (such as steps to take in a divorce, how to best respond to a civil lawsuit, auto insurance law, etc.) is perfectly fine.
The rewards of setting up a law blog are multifaceted. First, as stated before, it lets you demonstrate your expertise in your field, proving that your firm is a solid investment for customers looking for legal aid. Second, blogs allow for open discussion, allowing you to answer questions directly and give general legal advice where possible to readers of your blog. The final benefit, though not as beneficial to the firm and customer growth, is that you can garner an income based on ads run on the blog itself.
When it comes to topics, stick to what you know best, as well as what you find most interesting. For example, if you are an injury and liability attorney who primarily handles auto accident cases and the like, consider writing an article that breaks down liability law into layman's terms. This will provide your potential clients as well as anyone with a general interest in liability law the groundwork they need to assess whether or not they even have a valid case before coming in for a consultation.
This also means less time spent with clients who refuse to believe they have no case for one reason or another. You'll still get a few who can't be reasoned with, but having an article that clearly explains the nuances of liability laws in your state will cut down on those cases considerably. The same kind of article can be written for most disciplines of law, breaking down the basic foundations of building a case and when the best time to get a lawyer involved would be.
Lazy Visual Design
The last piece of the puzzle is how your site actually looks, and the first impressions users get from using your website. One big mistake people make starting out is thinking that being original means shattering the mold when it comes to conventional design standards and concepts. While it's okay to experiment a little bit, adding a slightly unique twist to make your website engaging, you should try to stick within the fundamental rules of web design.
Have a logo in the header of each page that links back to your homepage, put the navigation bar along the left side column or along the bottom of the page header, and keep your design simple and streamlined. The last thing you want is your page to be so flooded with images and clip art that it ends up looking like those old Geocities pages from back in the mid-90s. On the topic of images, it's also good to have a solid legal marketing strategy when it comes to assets and site design.
Just because it pops up in a Google image search doesn't mean it's free to use. If you use a lot of visual elements such as product photos or stock imagery, consider either contracting a photographer for product photos or purchasing an account for a stock image website where you can purchase images for use. The last thing you want is to be hit with a copyright lawsuit for using images you didn't know weren't royalty-free. This mistake is especially embarrassing considering you're likely advertising your law firm, so you'll likely take a bit of a blow to your reputation on top of all those fines and legal fees from the DMCA and copyright suits.
While these tips give a general idea of what pitfalls to avoid when bringing your business to the online sector, they only scratch the tip of the iceberg. If you're just starting out, do some research on SEO services and optimization, Google's Panda updates, along with some basic web design principles before you even start working on your site digitally. Work out a basic theme on paper, including a brief content map with the different content ideas you are interested in, and a rough layout of a page draft and web map going over the core pages that will make up the framework of your website. Once that's done, start your research, and after you have a marketing strategy and focus points for your content, begin site-building.
Drive Exceptional Growth without an In-House Marketing Team
We drive business growth by optimizing every inbound channel to attract and convert high-quality clients for you
Share with Friends
Marketing Solutions for Modern Law Firms
Drive more traffic, build trust, and increase conversions for your law practice.
Talk to Experts
Is Targeted Marketing Creeping Out Your Customers
The failure to safeguard and properly handle user data has made consumers skeptical of how corporations obtain and exploit their personal information for digital advertising. People are aware of its consequences even though they don't understand exactly how it works. Despite efforts to educate consumers, using consumer data for advertising can be an issue for the customer. Third-party cookies are currently being used in some advertising techniques that might lead to "creepy" experiences for customers. Econsultancy's and Cheetah Digital's December 2020 consumer study found that "respondents rated “cool" or "scary" interactions with brands in the US, UK, Australia, Spain, France, and Japan. Most people (around 67%) find advertising that tracks them across devices unsettling. Moreover, half of Americans (54%) thought it was scary. Adversaries take a chance that customers may have a bad impression of some ad experiences even if they realize the benefits of their data for better-targeted advertising campaigns. Source: Pexels What is target marketing? It is possible to target certain groups of people interested in your goods through marketing. Identifying a segment of customers based on their specific demands is the primary goal of this segmentation. Market your company's goods and services to the right people with a well-defined target audience. What Is the Importance of Targeting in Marketing? Marketing's use of targeting is critical since it is an integral aspect of an overall plan. Advertising, branding, and business operations are all affected by it. You can perform the following if your organization focuses on market segmentation: Source: Pexels Direct your message to a specific group of people. Customers respond better when they identify themselves with a marketing message's target demographic. Creating marketing initiatives relevant to a broad range of clients is a challenge for many brands. There are few tales or phrases that resonate with everyone since their audience is diverse. You can alleviate this difficulty and may create communications tailored to a specific audience through targeted marketing. Build a pipeline of high-quality leads. You are more likely to attract the right folks if you communicate directly with them. Your marketing will more successfully reach the folks who are most likely to do business with you. Your chances of gaining high-quality leads and consumers increase when you connect with the proper individuals. Make your brand stand out from the crowd. Focusing your marketing efforts on a smaller group of customers allows you to differentiate yourself from the competition. Customers will select you over a competitor who doesn't speak or target them specifically if they can readily identify with your brand and unique selling propositions. Your brand's placement in marketing may help it become more well-known and stand out from the competition. Increase client satisfaction. Standing out from the competition by relating to clients on a more human level helps build stronger, more enduring business connections. To maintain a long-term relationship with your consumers, you need to make them feel that you're on their side and there for them when they have questions or concerns. Develop better goods and services. As you get to know your consumers better, you might see your products and services differently. Understanding your target audience allows you to put yourself in your customers' shoes and discover where you can make improvements. You'll be able to discover what features your business needs to improve its client service. Don't lose concentration. When you use targeting in marketing, your brand and team will also profit from it. Target marketing helps you get more particular about your marketing tactics, efforts, and brand direction. Clarifying your vision and bringing everyone together is a big benefit. When developing future marketing and commercial strategies, you now have more clarity. When you have a clear goal in mind, you can better utilize your time, money, and resources. How to use target marketing Consider the advantages of marketing to smaller groups of individuals if you want to increase sales for your firm. It might lead to more revenue. Here are a few strategies for utilizing targeted advertising: Direct your message to a specific group of people. Customers respond better when they identify themselves with a marketing message's target demographic. Creating marketing initiatives relevant to a broad range of clients is a challenge for many brands. There are few tales or phrases that resonate with everyone since their audience is diverse. You can alleviate this difficulty and may create communications tailored to a specific audience through targeted marketing. Build a pipeline of high-quality leads. You are more likely to attract the right folks if you communicate directly with them. Your marketing will more successfully reach the folks who are most likely to do business with you. Your chances of gaining high-quality leads and consumers increase when you connect with the proper individuals. Make your brand stand out from the crowd. Focusing your marketing efforts on a smaller group of customers allows you to differentiate yourself from the competition. Customers will select you over a competitor who doesn't speak or target them specifically if they can readily identify with your brand and unique selling propositions. Your brand's placement in marketing may help it become more well-known and stand out from the competition. Increase client satisfaction. Standing out from the competition by relating to clients on a more human level helps build stronger, more enduring business connections. To maintain a long-term relationship with your consumers, you need to make them feel that you're on their side and there for them when they have questions or concerns. Develop better goods and services. As you get to know your consumers better, you might see your products and services differently. Understanding your target audience allows you to put yourself in your customers' shoes and discover where you can make improvements. You'll be able to discover what features your business needs to improve its client service. Don't lose concentration. When you use targeting in marketing, your brand and team will also profit from it. Target marketing helps you get more particular about your marketing tactics, efforts, and brand direction. Clarifying your vision and bringing everyone together is a big benefit. When developing future marketing and commercial strategies, you now have more clarity. When you have a clear goal in mind, you can better utilize your time, money, and resources. How to use target marketing Consider the advantages of marketing to smaller groups of individuals if you want to increase sales for your firm. It might lead to more revenue. Here are a few strategies for utilizing targeted advertising: Source: Pexels Enhance the flow of information between people. Use language that is understandable to your readers. You'll be able to relate to your consumers better if you take the time to get to know them. Enhancing your clients' pleasure will also help you get new ones. Improve the quality of the material you're producing You may produce more quality content that meets your client's needs using a focused marketing strategy. It is possible to develop high-quality content that targets your target audience's needs and wants by focusing your efforts on them rather than on creating generic infographics and e-books. By focusing on a certain demographic, you can boost the number of potential customers to whom you can sell your products or services. Enhance the SEO Optimize your SEO to increase your chances of being found by your target audience. You may use targeted marketing to find the right keywords to rank on search engines like Google. You may increase the number of people that visit your website by using keywords strategically in your content. For businesses who use their website to sell their items, enhance SEO to attract more people who will buy from your brand. Attract more visitors By focusing on the correct audience, you may increase the number of visitors to your business's website. Concentrate on figuring out your ideal customers and what they're looking for. If you're looking to get more people interested in your products and services, you may use a sponsored search campaign. Create successful email marketing campaigns Sending emails to the right people at the right time with the correct content is possible with targeted marketing. Use your knowledge of your clients to help them on their way to purchasing from your firm. You may enhance sales by increasing traffic to your website or business by sending targeted emails to specific groups. Make eye-catching advertising Place display advertising on sites relevant to your target audience based on your research. Track the data generated by your ad by placing it on websites that are likely to be frequented by your target consumer. Viewers of sponsored advertisements have the opportunity to learn more about your goods and services and perhaps make purchases as a result. Networking is a vital part of today's society. Use your audience data to uncover guest posting possibilities that can help your company stand out from the competition. By generating high-quality material for other websites, you may drive traffic to your site. With the support of other influencers and new consumers, you may build a long-term connection. Make use of social media to your benefit. Using social media channels to promote your products and services may help them become more widely known. You may target ads to particular groups on most social media networks. Facebook is a popular social media platform for connecting with potential customers who could be interested in your goods. You can reach a certain demographic using Facebook advertisements. Those clients may also spread the word about your business and bring in new customers. Is it necessary to know who you're trying to reach? There may not be enough evidence to back up your early assumptions about who your target customer is for a startup. You may, of course, go old school and mass-market, which means aiming for everyone. However, in today's digital marketing age, this may be a costly procedure, and with time and money at a premium, it is not recommended. It will provide your marketing team with something to work with and assist keep those necessary expenses down if you haven't given any attention to your potential target market. For more details, feel free to reach out to our experts. ...
read more
What Are The Benefits of CRM? How Is CRM Different From Marketing Automation?
CRM or Customer Relation Management is the automated process that efficiently manages the business relationship between you and your customers- present and prospective leads. With a clear-cut objective of enhancing how the business meets its customers, the concept of CRM enables you to understand your consumer base to streamline the product purchase process and promote customer loyalty and brand credibility aspects. The primary role of administering CRM policies into your business operations is to achieve better customer satisfaction statistics because customer loyalty plays an imperative role in upscaling or reducing the revenue numbers of your firm. Source: Pexels A survey from 2018 said that 16% of the organizations in the USA had considered delivery of real-time consumer interactions across touchpoints as effective. It shows that organizations were keen to use CRM technology. With the accelerating growth in the business industry, the need to anticipate customer behavior and interact with them is of utmost significance now. CRM technology majorly includes policies, practice rules, and guidelines that frame governing standards on communicating with identities- customers, employees, departmental suppliers, and everyone linked with the business. Luckily, CRM technology is not department-specific, which means every division of your business can establish and avail the benefits of CRM to boost the firm's overall revenues. Many global companies say that technologies like CRM help them to ensure a good customer experience. They consider it to be a key driver behind their digital transformation. An interesting fact about CRM is that its global market has had an estimated USD 43.7 billion in the last year. Researchers say the value shall increase exceedingly in the coming years. While CRM provides an easy way to store the data regarding your current customers and potential leads, lead-transformation opportunities, campaign details, and sales figures, the best thing to know about it is its easy to access by your company. With direct access to more information about customer conversions and sales stats, your management can make better growth decisions and lead with productivity amongst the rivals. Advantages Of CRM In today's time, your business should aim to make the most of customer relationship management technology to improve what you have with your existing customers and acquire new prospects with the proper means. The following are some of the prime advantages of implementing CRM technology in your business 1. Eases The Discovery Of New And Right Customer The primary advantage of a CRM application is that it allows your business to target and acquire new customers. One can accomplish it by following a customer persona or tapping the existing customer's profile description to anticipate your target customer. CRM technology uses lead-identification tools to realize the appropriate target and further nurture them till they're ready for sales, thus increasing the conversion rate, The identification of new customers, CRM also aids the nurturing of the existing customers that are a vital part of business growth. Your business needs to maintain the same relationship with the current customers, ensuring trust-building and flourishing with time. In addition, when your business gets the correct information about customer background via CRM, it becomes easy for your sales department to focus on conversions and client building. Source: Pexels 2. Making Sales and Marketing Services Simple Another significant benefit of using customer relationship management technology in your business is how simpler it makes the sales and marketing functions, resulting in effective customer communication. Moreover, the tech system facilitates efficiency on the different communication channels to ensure that customers do not wait for your response. For instance, marketing automation that uses autoresponders to communicate with the users can benefit the CRM system. 3. Personalized Approach With Technology CRM allows you to take charge and store the consumer data, sales figures, and mostly every information about each business component so the management can make personalized outreach possible. As you get routine insights about your customer's interests, it becomes efficient for your business to tap on one-on-one communication and design campaigns with marketing automation tools. For instance, if your prospective customer searches for your product/service, it is a great time to facilitate drip marketing campaigns that include user-specific informative emails rather than generic ones. By triggering these actions, your business earns a spot at being relevant and providing what the customers want. Critical Differences Between CRM and Marketing Automation Tools While many people consider CRM and Marketing Automation as one concept, it is highly recommended to blend both in your managerial decisions. Nevertheless, CRM and marketing automation do serve different purposes in a business. Let's have a closer look at it: Who Uses It? While customer relationship management technology is used by your business' sales department to feasibly operate and generate consumer leads, the other technology, i.e., marketing automation, is majorly handled by the marketing department. They streamline repetitive communication tasks with existing customers and new prospects. It is essential to identify the areas where your business can deploy both the concepts, such as CRM and Marketing Automation, both help acquire customer-related information and insights. Source: Pexels Why It Is Used? The prime difference between CRM and Marketing Automation is what functions they perform. The former technology helps provide insightful information to your sales team to connect with the right customer with the right content. On the other hand, Marketing Automation allows your business to eliminate human-made errors by deploying software to perform marketing tasks. It is put into use by your marketing team to run effective campaigns for generating quality leads and publicity. Business Goal Here, Marketing Automation and CRM somehow depend upon each other and work in harmony. The former's objective is to bring in quality leads and provide them to the latter, the sales team. Obtaining quality leads might be the first step that your business does with the help of Marketing Automation; however, the next step is to transform and nurture those sales-ready leads into business customers via CRM. Having that said, if your business wants to integrate sales and marketing functions with the help of the latest tech tools like CRM and Marketing Automation, then you've reached the right page. Saffron Tech provides exceptional services that incorporate components of CRM and MA to support your business functions. Our firm grip on our clients' expectations helps us analyze, predict, and design scalable campaigns. Are you interested? Visit our website and schedule an appointment with just a click! ...
read more
4 Quick Tips on How to Align your Digital Marketing with Television
Even though we have reached an age where internet-based applications are involving the massive audience by and large, television yet remains the most powerful marketing forum across the world. Capturing more than 40% of overall advertising investments, TV has a major stake in taking your marketing endeavor to the targeted audience. However, the modern trends in media management and strategy formulation have been at a loss in ignoring the role of television in marketing campaigns.A study comparing the influence of various channels of advertisement on buyer's purchasing decision found that television and search engine sites have an almost similar effect. The results are not surprising since an average American spends around 8.5 hours watching television, and that is an important figure from the marketer's viewpoint. What is interesting is that in the digital age, consumers have varied interests and consequently prefer to watch television while engaging with smart phones and tablets. By intelligently designing your online marketing campaigns, you can delight your audience by presenting them more accurate and valuable results. Television or The Internet? Television enjoys a greater trust among the viewers while the internet is spontaneous and easily accessible. Which channel should you use to place your marketing campaigns? Television And Internet Advertising It is high time the marketers knew how to conjunct these two powerful media of mass communication to create a super-strategy. Below are the four quick tips on how to align your marketing strategy across both channels. Targeting Audience: Search For The Most Suitable Audience Group Analytics and tracking campaigns will enable you to find interesting demographic patterns of your audience. Also, analyzing the search query and site traffic data can help you discover the audience that responds to your TV message. Use the minutes of such analysis such as age, education, interests, to personalize your web content and hence optimize your site for best user experience. Mobile Power: Engage Your Audience With Mobile Your ultimate goal always remains to satisfy the consumers by providing them the most relevant and interesting content that helps them make the affirmative purchasing-decision. Now that the internet usage over mobile devices has exceeded that on desktops, you stand a good chance of connecting with your audience almost 24x7. You can consider analyzing the various factors such as the time of the day, location, special events, etc. to curate your online message that you intend to send to your targeted audience. Not only will that make your brand seem more responsive, but it will also increase the relevance of your brand on mobile devices. As we already know, television ads trigger mobile searches, using contextual signs to deliver a personalized message can connect your audience with your brand instantaneously, thereby boosting your returns on investment. Maximum Returns: Merging The TV And Digital Data You can gain both time and communication if you manage to connect the tv ad airing data with digital information such as search queries, analytics report, site traffic, etc. Now you no longer need to wait for a year or so to find your Marketing Mix Modeling report, nor would you have to waste months searching for survey data: TV attribution can provide you more relevant information and insights almost immediately. Using these available valuable information, you can streamline your in-flight TV campaigns, thereby plunging into wider pools of opportunity at a lower cost. To Attract a Consumer, Learn to Think Like a Consumer A very obvious statement yet few marketing campaigns reflect this kind of commitment to the cause. To delight your consumers, it is essential that you remain informed about what factors guide his/her purchasing decision. Understanding the context that consumers face is easier when you look at digital signals like search queries and other analytics results. This not only saves your time and money but also makes your brand work more accurately. Without relying on misproportioned survey findings and untrustworthy media reports, you can make your analysis of the market to deliver quality contents. It is also important to keep introspecting on your methods to have a strong check on whether your campaigns can retain the targeted audience or not.A poor brand impression can repel your audience, and it is always improbable to have those consumers back once they opt you out. So, you will need to promote a better understanding of your brand to sustain in this highly competitive business environment. Aggregating your efforts on television and internet-based devices can ensure that your advertisements and in general, content stay relevant and purposeful to your target audience. Because the new age customers have a shorter attention span and have multiple options to resolve their queries, it is important for you as a brand to have a strong presence everywhere your audience is. The bottom-line is: the return on investment is highly amplified when you can connect your digital strategies with television advertising. ...
read more
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get fresh stories, case studies, and
advice
from successful creators and industry experts.
Subscribe now
Marketing Solutions for Modern Law Firms
Drive more traffic, build trust, and increase conversions for your law practice.
Talk to Experts