If you are starting a law firm, or are wondering how to start a law firm, there is no question that you have come across the issue of marketing your business idea. In this day and age, the main marketing tool for startup lawyers is the internet. Without an internet presence, your law firm is doomed to failure. So how do you get started on building up your law firm internet marketing?
1) Have a website.
The first weapon in your internet arsenal is the website. There really is not excuse not to have a website, especially with all the options out there in terms of cost, content, and simplicity. In other words, if you are an attorney starting a law firm, whether a Maryland criminal defense firm or a Virginia family law firm, you must have a website. It is the one place where people can always turn for information on you and your firm.
Your website should contain a lot of information, not just about you. It should also contain information about your practice areas and resources for your potential clients to review. However, your website should also be easy to navigate through, meaning visitors should be able to quickly find whatever they want very quickly.
The key to your website, though, is your call to action. The theory here is that, if you don't tell people what you want them to do, then they won't know to do it. Presumably you want visitors to your website to contact you in some fashion. So you need to give them a way, and preferably several ways, to do that. Include your email, phone number, address, and any other way to contact you, on every page. Also tell them that they need to contact you. Use command words. Contact us today!
2) Utilize a blog.
The second piece to your internet marketing plan should be a blog. Go out there and start one today. It's simple, especially with these user-friendly sites such as Wordpress and Blogger. It's as simple as having an idea and signing up for a free account with your email address. At this point, it doesn't really matter what you write, just start writing.
Customization is the key to your blog. You want to make it relevant to your practice areas (for example, if you practice Virginia traffic ticket defense, then you can write your blog all about the different kinds of traffic violations), but you also want to make it general enough that you can continually post without running out of ideas. You can also have more than one blog for different practice areas or different jurisdictions or for whatever else you want.
Blogs are trendy you say? Sphhh. Blogs are here to stay. Why? Because they provide an easy way to get information across the internet. Not only that, but you can link to your website from your blog, or to other blog entries. You can even optimize your blog for your main keywords or practice areas, so that eventually through posting you will move up the search engine rankings.
3) Publish some articles.
Finally, you should be writing articles regularly. There are many article directory sites out there where you can sign up and post your articles. Some of them have more stringent rules for posting than others, and do a more thorough review of the content before allowing the article. But a more elite article directly means greater authority on the subject you are writing about.
Of course, you need to have something to write about. That's the easy part. Just think about your practice areas, or how to start a law firm, or anything else that you have come across in your legal career, and start writing about it. Eventually, you writing the articles will become almost second nature and you will be able to spit one out in only a few minutes. But for now, just start writing.
You don't necessarily need to do these things in order. But if you are starting a law firm, you must have an internet marketing strategy and the patience to stick with it. There is no overnight solution, but you must put some elbow grease into your website, blog(s), and article(s). If you keep at it on a regular basis, you will eventually see the fruits of your resolve.
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