1. GETTING YOUR FIRM
WORKING ONLINE
www.growyourfirm.com.au

2. Table of Contents
Web Design
How's Your Website's Naviga3on?
Is Every Page on your Website Conver3ng?
Is Your Law Firm User Tes3ng?
Is Your Law Firm's Website Mobile?
What's Your Movement?
Law Firm Web Design and Content Management Systems
Every Page is a Winner
Is your Law Firm Upda3ng its Website?
Search Engine Op8miza8on
How's Your Meta‐Tags, Keywords and Content?
Is Your Law Firm Marke3ng Strategy Relying on Duplicate Content?
GeNng Your Law Firm Marke3ng Strategy Linked
Content, Content and Content
Law Firm Marke3ng Daily Dose
Is Your Firm Genera3ng Video?
How to Perform for the Ringmaster
SEO and Your Accoun3ng or Law Firm
Has Your Law Firm Got a Good Idea?
Is Your Firm Speaking Another Language?
Lawyer Marke3ng Plan
Content Spinning & Duplica3on
Marke3ng Law Firms with AdWords
Has Google Found Your New Website?
Does your Law Firm Use Keywords?
Your Law Firm and the Tectonic ShiT
Law Firm SEO and Images
Your Law Firm's Content Strategy
Domain Purchasing for Your Law Firm
Be Careful Who You Link to
Your Law Firm and its Mobile Applica3on
Should Our Law Firm YouTube?
Will Google Instant End Your Reign
Place Your Firm Now
Why Small Firms Can Win

3. Is your Law Firm Tracking Calls?
Content is King, But Design is Queen
Does your Law Firm use PDF's?
Your Law Firm's Link Building Strategy
Law Firm Marke3ng King Hit: Get Content Get Clients
Email Campaign
Email Marke3ng: the Neglected Tool
Law Firm Marke3ng Strategy and Client Conversion
Marke3ng to Exis3ng Clients
Is Your Email List Segmented?
Social Media
Is Your Law Firm Facebooked?
The Promise of Social Media or Not?
Can't Work Out Why Your Law Firm Marke3ng Strategy is GeNng Crushed?
Will Facebook Work in Your Law Firm?
How Does Your Law Firm Count Conversions?
Is Your Law Firm's Website Mobile?
Law Firms and Mobile Phone Applica3ons
Why Your Law Firm Needs to Blog
Should My Law Firm Facebook?
Google Analy8cs
How to Get BeYer Ranked by Google
Is Your Law Firm Website Conver3ng?
Google +1 Launch
Measure Everything Twice
Marke3ng Your Law Firm on Google
See Your Website without Opening It
Your Law Firm's Bounce Rate
Beef Up Your About Page Now

4. Welcome
This guide is proudly brought to you by Australia’s leading professional services marke3ng
company, Grow your Firm.
Grow your Firm is unlike any other professional services marke3ng agency in Australia. We
co‐create individualised marke3ng solu3ons for both accoun3ng and law firms that we
rapidly change to keep in sync with not only technology trends, but the constant flux of the
algorithms used by leading search engines like Google. We also use a diverse range of
media tools to broadcast your firm to numerous online channels, as well as syndicate your
firm’s content across a number of high traffic legal sites across Australia of which we own.
Grow your Firm does web design, development, SEO, social media, content genera3on and
syndica3on and email campaign management.
In addi3on, we design and develop mobile applica3ons and soTware. Most recently we
developed a completely automated online will service for one of Australia’s leading law
firms and are presently devising a web‐based applica3on for personal injury law firms.
Contact Us
www.growyourfirm.com.au
sales@growyourfirm.com.au
1300 886 322

5. Website Design

6. <<Back to Table of Contents>>
How's Your Website's Navigation?
There are some great tools out there that can considerably assist your law firm get its head around
its website's naviga3on.
Site naviga3on is one of those things that are so oTen neglected. Many law firms just subscribe to
the view that their site naviga3on should just be the stock standard. You know what I mean,
"About, Services, Resources" ect. A great place to start is through the use of card sor3ng. So, best
prac3ce would be to do a content strategy, iden3fy every piece of content to go up and correspond
a card with that content. So, in the case of a family law prac3ce, you may have some content on
"binding financial agreements," and you would simply 3tle the card accordingly. Best prac3ce
would also dictate that in sor3ng the cards to map out your site's naviga3on, you would involve a
client cluster group.
There's something potent about crea3ng site naviga3on pathways via this visual method that is
also engaged with client or user involvement. But spend some 3me in the prepara3on of the cards
before involving the user group, this seems to work best.
The other alterna3ve is to use the online version at Websort
We can help facilitate all this. Contact us at Law Firm Marke3ng
Is Every Page on your Website Converting?
Nearly every law firm marke3ng strategy when it comes to web content, spend too much aYen3on
on the homepage, wrongly assuming that the others count considerably less. Every page, post or
piece of content your law firm generates is a window of opportunity.
Yes, your homepage will bear the grunt of most traffic (if you’re doing things right) but there are
mul3ple loca3ons or landing pages of your site that a prospec3ve client might find themselves
depending upon their search enquiry.
If your law firm has a content strategy, derived from the keywords you’re chasing in the market
and then check out your Analy3cs and you’ll be surprised at how people find you and in par3cular,
what page of your site was the entry point. Once there, the ancillary informa3on for a firm can be
gold. For example, you will be able to define the average 3me spent on the page, the bounce rate
(bouncing off your page and going elsewhere) and of course, the amount of traffic coming in via
this window.

7. Why is this so important?
Increasingly with the sheer amount of content on the web, people are far more confident in their
searches. In other words, when they once may have typed in “divorce,” they may now type in “how
to oppose a divorce applica3on” or “can I get a divorce in Australia if I was married overseas.”
These more descrip3ve searches are called “long tail” and are so oTen ignored in the marke3ng
strategy of law firms.
In responding to long tail searches, you need to ensure that the page holding the informa3on is
capable of conversion. Conversion may not necessarily mean that the searcher becomes a client
today, but it may mean that content on this long tail page encourages the searcher that if they
want more informa3on, they can download your “Divorce Guide” in return for their email address.
Now, you’ve got this poten3al client engaged and plugged in which is far beYer than landing on
your page and exi3ng.
We are helping law firms define their online marke3ng strategy.
Is Your Law Firm User Testing?
A couple of years ago, a guy called Steve Krug wrote a killer of a book called, "Don't Make Me
Think." It was probably the first of its kind in really accentua3ng the fact that a web site isn't a
trophy piece, but rather a significant marke3ng tool that has to work for your business, or in other
words has to give you a return on investment (ROI).
More specifically, Krug talked about user‐focused design and there is this whole movement these
days called UX design which largely emanates from some of the tenets of what Krug tackled in his
work. He has since wriYen another excellent book called, "Rocket Surgery Made Easy."
Let me cut to the chase. Let's for a second agree that your law firm's website is about the user. So,
your firm's website has to be about crea3ng an experience for the user that speaks their language.
We're up to our knees at present in building out a site for leading Australian criminal law firm Ryan
& Bosscher If you look at the site, you will overtly see that it is posi3oned towards the poten3al
client. Prior to launching the site, we undertook user tes3ng. In other words, we tested the site
with 8 people and we tracked their response. As a result, we re‐tweaked and site went live about 6
weeks ago and there have been two reitera3ons of it since. Why? Because at the back end of this
site we have extensive analy3cal data recording. We track the hot spots and cold spots all over this
site, or in other words, where people are gravita3ng towards on the site, how long they are there
and where they go next. We keep on adjus3ng to ensure it is in sync and we keep on user tes3ng.
We do this to ensure that we have the user always at the front of our minds, instead of what we
think works. There is so oTen a great disparity between the two. We've also just integrated a
Facebook presence that we're building out as well that we are similarly watching. There are also a
number of other features we will integrate into the site as well.

8. Steve Krug in his work talks about never assuming you know what the consumer or user wants.
Instead, you user test and keep on user tes3ng.
In the context of your law firm, that doesn't need to be a costly exercise. You can do it yourself, or
if you've got a marke3ng person in the firm, let them loose.
Steve Krug's got an excellent free guide here that I strongly encourage you to download and
implement into your law firm web marke3ng strategy. Get it here
Is Your Law Firm's Website Mobile?
In this law firm marke3ng 3p we encourage firms to look at their mobile strategy.
Law firms have to embrace Mobile Technology if they want to be relevant over the next five years.
In April 2010, the respected Morgan Stanley Analyst Mary Meeker in a preYy robust report stated,
"It's the era of the mobile internet. Within the next five years more users will connect to the
internet over mobile devices than desktop PC's."
We men3oned in a previous post some of the challenges for law firms in wrestling with mobile
technology, but here are a few 3ps on making a start today to ensure your current website is
readable on a mobile device. That said, obviously firms need to be looking seriously at a mobile
adapta3on of their website and offering it separately to mobile device users.
1. Don't use FLASH. Flash is a technology that despite its heavy use on most big brand sites, is
largely unsupported by mobile technology
2. Minimize naviga3on on your website, as panning across mobile devices is s3ll fairly clunky.
3. Use images sparingly. Mobile devices can have serious issues in their resize, slowing down site
loading 3mes.
4. Common objects like Ac3veX are generally unsupported
5. Don't go overboard with text.
6. Ensure your website's contact forms are opera3onal and effec3ve to the user experience
Be that as it may, if your law firm is serious about being seen well on mobile devices, we'd
recommend cuNng to the chase and geNng a mobile version up. If you have a current web design
ousit that your happy with, talk with them first and see if they have the exper3se to carry out the
job. That way you can ensure synergy between your current site and its mobile counterpart.

9. What's Your Movement?
In this law firm marke3ng 3p we show you how some firms are aYaching themselves to causes as
way of expressing their brand essence.
Law Firms that see their brand as one dimensional are significantly compromising other
opportuni3es for growth.
Historically, it's always been the case that smart firms align themselves with industry groups, union
movements or clusters of cause‐based ini3a3ves in order to poten3ally derive clients. But while a
firm may share a physical rela3onship with a par3cular group, there has been somewhat of a
lackluster response of firms in Australia to see the poten3al value in ins3ga3ng digital rela3onships
with such groups, or beYer s3ll ins3gate your own groundswell around a par3cular issue.
This isn't difficult from an online perspec3ve when you have such phenomenal tools, oTen free, at
your disposal. The recent floods in Queensland, in par3cular the huge numbers of people
wrestling with insurance companies has prompted numerous law firms to jump into the space. For
example, Maurice Blackburn Cashman had a page dedicated to the issue in no 3me.
The real trick of course, if firms are serious about making a real dent in the issue, is to not just
dedicate a page on your website, but rather take out a fully fledged domain name, throw some
great content at it that is innova3vely packaged and harness social media to create a community.
In the case of emerging issues such as the floods, most firms will dilly dally way too long and the
opportunity to build a community around the issue will be lost. It's counter‐intui3ve to most
lawyers, but the approach in the digital space is most certainly, ready, fire, aim.
Law Firm Web Design and Content
Management Systems
Professional Services Web Design is oTen wrongly predicated upon aesthe3cs as opposed to
func3onality.
Aesthe3cs are hugely important, but the grunt of website that will work for your firm day aTer day
is about func3onality. Func3onality emanates from firstly and foremostly having a marke3ng
strategy that signifies the role your website will play in user engagement and conversion. In other
words, how will your firm generate content, what will the content be, will it be syndicated across
different plasorms, par3cularly social media, the frequency of that content, who will coordinate it
and of course, who and how will the content be uploaded. These ques3ons emanate from the
concession that to perform well online, your firm simply has to produce great content, regularly.
Secondary to this batch of ques3ons is "What plasorm will best enable your law firm to do
whatever it takes, day aTer day to keep innova3ng, genera3ng and syndica3ng content?"

10. We highly recommend and principally use WordPress for all our own plasorms and those we build
for our clients. Why? Because of the open‐source nature of Wordpress, the goodwill of developers
within the community and the absolute sheer elas3city of the plasorm. For example, we're
working with a client at present who wants his firm to be renowned for innova3ve, engaging legal
service. In response to his specific ques3ons, WordPress has always answered.
But before you get there, think long and hard about the content, its genera3on, coordina3on and
syndica3on.
Learn more about content spinning and duplica<on, here.
Every Page is a Winner
Marke3ng Law Firms effec3vely online isn't one dimensional.
Most law firms and in fact lots of web designers neglect the fact that while your homepage will
bear the grunt of significant traffic (if you're doing things right) there are mul3ple loca3ons or
landing pages of your site that a prospec3ve client might end up.
So, if your law firm has a content strategy, derived from the keywords your chasing in the market,
then check out your Analy3cs and you'll be surprised at how people find you and in par3cular,
what page of your site was the entry point.
Once there, the ancillary informa3on for a firm can be gold. For example, you will be able to define
the average 3me spent on the page, the bounce rate (bouncing off your page and going elsewhere)
and of course, the amount of traffic coming in via this window.
Why is this important in the scheme of things?
Well, increasingly with the sheer amount of content on the web, people are far more confident in
their searches. In other words, when they once may have typed in "divorce," they may now type in
"opposing a divorce applica<on" or "can I get a divorce in Australia if married overseas”. These
more descrip3ve searches are called "long tail" and are so oTen ignored in the marke3ng strategy
of law firms.
So, in responding to long tail searches, you need to ensure that the page holding the informa3on is
capable of conversion. Conversion may not necessarily mean that the searcher becomes a client
today, but it may mean that content on this long tail page encourages the searcher that if they
want more informa3on, they can download your "Divorce Guide" in return for their email address.
Now, you've got this poten3al client engaged and plugged in which is far beYer than landing on
your page and exi3ng.

11. The other obvious feature of tracking your pages is that you may invariably find one page
performing extraordinarily well. If that's the case, it may be worth following the trend and
throwing more content up like it.
Think about every page, every post and every piece of your law firm's content that's out there in
the ether. Is it working?
Our soon to be released Law Publisher program designs and generates your content into guides,
e‐books ect Law Publisher is inclusive in most of the Grow your Firm Monthly Packages
Is your Law Firm Updating its Website?
Your law firm must have a website, full stop.
If you are considering a website or upda3ng your current, the thing you must realize is that both
design and search engine op3miza3on (SEO) are intrinsically linked. But don't expect your web
developer or designer to be across both of these. We are amazed out how many law firm sites
come online, yet are ignorant of the basis SEO principles. To put it bluntly, if your site looks great
but hasn't got a core of great SEO func3onality, your firm just won't be found online.
One of the most common reasons we have found for sites not being well op3mized or designed for
that maYer, has been the law firm's confusion that IT = Web Design, Development & SEO. It isn't.
Grow your Firm provide design, development and SEO services, but if you want to contract your
own, ensure that the bases of good design, effec3ve func3onality and SEO are in the mix and
preferably that each of the par3es are conversing together. Not to men3on, if your firm is
considering a social media bent, it similarly needs to be contemplated during the design mark‐up.
You cannot design without a good understanding of contemporary Law Firm SEO prac3ces.

12. Search Engine Optimization

13. How's Your Meta‐Tags, Keywords and
Content?
Yep, it's a huge, huge issue for law firms and can grind their law firm marke3ng strategy to a halt.
This is what happens OK. They invariably ring up a web designer who comes out with his bag of
tricks and says, "what do you want the site to look like?" In response, all and sundry provide him
with a list, he goes away confused and does up something that is middle‐ground. He returns to
show the product, fully expec3ng varia3ons and then goes away and aYends to them. The site is
built, the client is sort of OK with how it looks, the web design company gets paid and they never,
ever see each other again.
OK, we think design is very, very important but it plays less of a role to geNng found by Google.
Years ago, all these great sites that went whizz, bang, pop were never found by Google. They
played beau3fully for the ar3s3c heart of the designer, but were wretched in driving traffic.
Content is King!
Last week we went to work with a client, looked under the bonnet of the website and by Crikey, it
was horrendous. Not one piece of useful content thread that Google or any other search engine
was going to find. A 73 page website, with so much effort from the team of lawyers and no wonder
for the last two years they've been wondering what's wrong with them. What's was wrong with
them was they went off to a web design company that cared liYle for their firm and less about
asser3ng the importance of content and search engine op3miza3on. My team at Grow your Firm:
The Law Firm Marke3ng Company deal with it excep3onally well at our Tips sec3on on our site.
But, in the meanAme, if you're a law firm contemplaAng a re‐design, don't whatever you do fall
into the trap of thinking a website is all about aestheAcs. Instead, contact us and from our
collecAve experience of working with a great bunch of law firms who are kicking goals online,
we'll put you on the right track, guaranteed. Ring me now on 0421 950 355 or at the office on
1300 886 322
Is Your Law Firm Marketing Strategy Relying
on Duplicate Content?
You see this so oTen. Law firms wan3ng to rank well who fall for the old trick of duplica3ng
content, or worse, supply their content to third party sources for a fee, some3mes at the

14. recommenda3on of law firm marke3ng consultants, and have their content re‐spun on other sites,
as well as their own.
It's a big mistake and can see your firm's website relegated to the back of the field. That said, there
may be some legi3mate reasons as to why you need to duplicate content. If your firm is duplica3ng
large blocks of content, then you should be across canonicaliza3on, which essen3ally is advising
Google which content you want them to consider as the most important. Accordingly, any links
that may derive from the page that you have the duplicate content on, will be directed to the
original page. It's a bit tricky, but if there is someone in your firm with a head for it, they should
read this from Google.
The take home message is really this. If you have someone in or outside your firm looking aTer
content, than insist that they are not duplica3ng content, and in circumstances where they are,
have got redirects ac3ve between the content pages. You can also do a snoop by using the tools
we pointed out in this law firm marke3ng post.
In fact, prior to hiring a consultant or SEO company, plug them in to the link tool that is discussed
in that post and see what it reveals. If they're running duplicate content all over the place on their
own site, chances are they'll do it to you too.
Getting Your Law Firm Marketing Strategy
Linked
A link building strategy just has to be an integral part of your law firm marke3ng strategy, yet from
our experience in working with firms in Australia and most recently, NYC, it is oTen ignored.
A link is essen3ally a link from a website to your website. Now, there are a couple of differen3a3ng
features when it comes to links. A link may be appearing on a referring website just like this Smith
Lawyers, linking the phrase "Smith Lawyers" to their website. Alterna3vely, and this is where there
is some real potency, a link which features the keywords for which your law firm is wan3ng to be
found for. So, for example, it might be the case that a great link on a well ranked site for your firm
would be "personal injury lawyer" with this phrase hyperlinked back to your website. This adds a
liYle more Google juice because of the fact that the linking text contains keywords for which your
law firm wants to dominate for.
GeNng a sense of what links your compe3tors have is obviously a great place to start. In this case,
go here and type in your compe3tor's address and it may well be likely that you can acquire some
links from the very sites that are linking to them. Of course, the best links will be those that derive
from a site with a good page rank. You can find out Google page rank here . Your firm should be
trying to acquire links from those sites that have a Page Rank of 3 or higher.

15. Undoubtedly you may turn up links that your compe3tor has from obscure sites that bear no
connec3on whatsoever to the firm's prac3ce. I'd recommend staying clear of these. These are
typically referred to as link farm sites and Google has been unrelen3ng of late in penalizing sites
that are associated with them.
Content, Content and Content
It's no longer a maYer of choice. Intrinsic to your law firm marke3ng strategy has to be your firm's
commitment to generate user‐centric content. Full stop.
Everyday, via a desktop, laptop, a mobile phone, an iPad, Android and even a television people are
consuming informa3on at a phenomenal rate. The internet has become the quintessen3al
informa3on tool, as evidenced by the growing trend of people conduc3ng long tail searches. A
long tail search being one that is specifically targe3ng the informa3on you are trying to locate, as
opposed to the use of general terms.
But despite people now wan3ng good quality informa3on, when it comes to a law firm's response
to the provision of such informa3on, for most firms it s3ll remains incredibly bland. That's to say,
instead of being user‐focused in its produc3on and facilita3on; it normally is long pieces of text,
full of legal terminology. While deconstruc3ng legal rhetoric is easier said than done, it has to
become entrenched in your content strategy.
When speaking about content strategy generally, Kris3na Halvorson is a terrific resource. According
to Kris3na, your web content is useless unless it does one or both of the following:
(a) Supports a key business objec3ve;
(b) Supports a user (or client) in comple3ng a task.
When you're taking stock of your current web‐presence, ask yourself is every piece of content,
every page and every form achieving these objec3ves. Is the site easy to navigate? Are people
finding what they're looking for?
Integral to your law firm marke3ng strategy has to be the ability to understand the Analy3cs on
your site and of course, the ability to locate any user impediments. For example, we were recently
working with a client who understandably thought that the low bounce rate (percen3le measure
of how long someone is on pages or posts of your site) on their site was a great thing. However,
the exit rates were incredibly high, indica3ng that users more than likely may have become lost
and not sure what to do, so they lingered longer, but ul3mately exited at alarming rates. Your
Analy3cs is a great place to start, not only in the iden3fica3on of issues, but of course
opportuni3es as well. What are best performing pages or posts on your website? Is there a
possibility of genera3ng more of that content, or wri3ng other unrelated content in a similar way?
If you're convinced that your firm is genera3ng client‐focused content but the uptake is low, is

16. there a naviga3on issue, or does the informa3on need to be broadcasted using a different
medium. Is a video warranted instead, or an audio clip, a webinar or screencast?
Content strategy is undoubtedly a complicated undertaking, but when done well pays excep3onal
dividends. Ideally, a content strategy is the primary deriva3ve of which your web plasorms
emanate. So, if you're considering re‐design, than most certainly incorporate a content strategy.
Conversely, if you don't want to go down that track of re‐design, a content audit may work for your
firm.
We can help, but if you want to help yourself, read Content Strategy by KrisAna. A good primer is
here for free
Is Your Firm Generating Video?
We use video as a key law firm marke3ng strategy with all of our clients. Why? Because it works. To
give you a heads‐up, a dead in the water web presence of one such client went from minimal
traffic to over 1,100 in just four weeks. Sure, we did a heap of other stuff too, but by and large
when we crawled through the analy3cs (which we do everything in response to) the traffic was
going ballis3c over the video and conver3ng. I had a great chat with Law Firm Marke3ng Legend
Larry Bodine last week and he said, "video, video and more video." We couldn't agree more.
But here is your firm's problem. You haven't got the capacity to do it. Conserva3vely, it will cost
you in the vicinity of $5,000 ‐ $8,000 for 25 ‐ 30 videos produced, edited, syndicated on your own
site and across mul3ple channels. The laYer is so important! sure, there are plenty of punters
around saying its simple, just go out, by a camera and do it all yourself. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In
the very least, you're going to need a great set of lights, microphones, booms, post‐edi3ng
soTware and you will have to jig your website to accommodate it, as well as syndicate the video.
It's not simple!
Instead, come and see Grow your Firm and we'll take care of everything, including web design (on‐
going), development, SEO, social media, video produc3on, edi3ng and syndica3on, content
genera3on and syndica3on, email campaign management and a whole lot more.
Not persuaded. Contact us on 1300 886 322 and we'll give you the contact details of our clients.
You can ask them.

17. How to Perform for the Ringmaster
It might sound like a stupid ques3on, but “what is your Law or Accoun3ng Firm’s website being
found for.”
To put it another way, “What keywords or phrases would a poten3al client have to type into
Google Search to find your law or accoun3ng firm?”
If you don’t have a clue, that’s by no means unusual and in fact is the most synonymous response
to the ques3on. But it invariably is the case for those firms who are oblivious to what they’re being
found for who usually rank so poorly, or not at all in Google lis3ngs.
There are of course excep3ons to the rule, par3cularly in the case where through sheer luck the
firm registered a domain name that had some preYy potent keywords contained in it, or when the
internet was a pup, jumped on quickly, got a site up and have been adding content it ever since.
For example, we’re working with a firm at present that has got excep3onal posi3oning in Google
through no real concerted effort on their part other than being around for a very, very long 3me
online.
When it comes to online search, Google is the ringmaster. Sure, there are other search engines and
plasorms, but by and large Google is who your law or accoun3ng firm has to perform for. She is a
tough ringmaster, but fair, even though at 3mes she is prone to changing the rules without broad
consulta3on.
Her organizing methodology has two main func3ons:
1. Indexing (iden3fying the type of informa3on it finds and analyses it)
2. Authen3ca3ng (assessing the usefulness of the informa3on and its quality)
In the iden3fica3on of the informa3on, her spiders or bots crawl through all the pages and posts of
your website, grabbing at key messages embedded into the code of each entry. More specifically,
the spiders primarily pull keywords denoted in the 3tles and descrip3ons that you have purposely
placed there. These 3tles and descrip3ons referred to in geek speak as meta‐descrip3ons and
meta‐3tles appear in the Google Search lis3ngs.
Now, the search term you wish your informa3on to be found for should be placed first in the meta‐
3tle and the meta‐descrip3on, in a commercial sense should be somewhat of an elevator pitch. It’s
this descrip3on that has the job of primarily persuading the searcher to open up the site.
In conjunc3on with these key elements, the spiders and bots examine the content on the page or
post and in the absence of a 3tle and descrip3on they will grab at anything they think defines what
the informa3on is about, and then of course broadcast their interpreta3on of it to the World.
The meta‐3tle and meta‐descrip3on can be added easily via the content management system on
your website. If you haven’t one, you most definitely need one or a developer close by who can
add them. Remember, this isn’t just the home page, but every page or post on your site requires

18. these key characteris3cs. Don’t wrongly assume that all traffic will enter via your homepage. Every
page or post on your site has a job to do.
It follows that those firms who are aYen3ve to the keywords they wish to be found for and place
them both in the meta‐3tles and meta‐descrip3ons and in the text content itself, all things being
equal, they will get found for those keywords or phrases. BeYer s3ll, if the firm has conducted
some keyword research and as a result consider they can rank well for those words, and then they
may find excellent ranking opportuni3es for them.
Let me explain a liYle more. If you’re a criminal law firm and intend to write content in rela3on to
drink driving, then instead of just wri3ng it up and pos3ng it on your website, head across to
Google Adwords here:
Google Adwords Keyword Tool provides a useful gauge as to how popular par3cular search terms
are. If your law firm is already involved in a pay per click campaign, then the keywords in your
adver3sement should derive from this tool or equivalents.
Enter the keyword or keywords and ensure the search loca3on is Australia. Let's say it was "drink
driving."
Following the first return of results, go to the leT hand side of this page, uncheck “broad” and
check “exact.” You will now be provided with an exact local monthly search of people entering
“drink driving.”
According to the Keyword tool, 3,600 people every month are entering this exact phrase into
Google each month. But it may well be likely that the term is s3ll too broad to really acquire good
conversion given that you’re a Brisbane law firm.
Accordingly, you may now wish to be more specific and search “drink driving Brisbane.” This is
what commonly is referred to as a “long tail” search. It returns approximately 58 monthly searches.
Now that is the return for people typing that exact phrase and there will be of course significant
varia3ons that people will enter which will translate into a higher volume of people poten3ally
hiNng on your page or post if you had 3tles, descrip3ons and content rela3ng to this keyword
term.
The Google Keyword Tool also provides an informa3on bar rela3ng to compe33veness. We have
found it to be not that accurate and can dissuade firms from genera3ng content because they
wrongly perceive that they would not be capable of penetra3ng the market for content rela3ng to
the precise keywords. We have worked with some firms who because of the weight they hold in
Google can literally dominate search results for whatever keyword term they choose some3mes
overnight.
Be that as it may, returning to the case of the law firm wan3ng to dominate the market for “drink
driving,” the proposed page or post meta‐3tle should be “Drink Driving Brisbane | John Smith
Lawyer.” The meta‐descrip3on should also pick up the keywords as well and may be something
like, “Have you been charged with drink driving in Brisbane? Are you concerned about losing your
license? John Smith…”

19. The meta‐3tle should be no longer than 12 words and the meta‐descrip3on, 25 words.
In the first paragraph of the content, you would again use those keywords, but be careful not to go
overboard. Google can spank sites fairly severely for keyword stuffing. The best rule of thumb is to
ensure that it reads well and isn’t too repe33ve.
In our experience, most law and accoun3ng firms do not ever consider keyword research when
marking up any content for their website. Hence, the firms that have an online marke3ng strategy
with a focus on content, in par3cular well‐craTed content that derives from good keyword
research are domina3ng the market and from all reports, will do so in the future.
If you need more help, contact us
SEO and Your Accounting or Law Firm
Dion Algeri opened a can of worms in his post on SEO for Law Firms on a Linkedin Group recently.
It's well worth a look. He advocates a philosophy that is aligned with Google and that is, generate
great content consistently, abide by a few of the basic SEO techniques and Google will reward you.
If your firm is doing everything itself, then read the post and its comments, then watch the video.
You will be beYer informed.
Watch video at www.youtube.com/embed/tQQmq9X5lQw
Has Your Law Firm Got a Good Idea?
With the sheer online tectonic shiT, smart law firms are increasingly considering how they can
automate some of their services to both reduce costs to the legal consumer and the firm.
At present, we're building out a couple of automated solu3ons for law firms, in par3cular a
completely automated online will kit and a web plasorm that engages personal injury clients on a
number of levels in rela3on to their maYer and of course, take some client related stress off the
lawyer or aYorney.
If your firm has a head for innova3on, but are lacking the capacity to implement, then contact us.
Perhaps we can co‐create?

20. Is Your Firm Speaking Another Language?
Ge]ng started in trying to generate content that speaks the language of a potenAal client and is
capable of being found by the search engines isn't for the fainthearted.
If we can offer any advice from our experience in working with a host of leading professional
service firms in Australia, it is to start thinking from the client perspec3ve.
In this landscape that is undergoing a tectonic shiT, your firm has to concede that content is
fundamentally important and is intrinsically linked to search engine op3miza3on (SEO), Google
Page Rank and ul3mately online dominance. In other words, your firm can do very well online but
it must come from a paradigm shiT within your firm that sees the produc3on and prolifera3on of
excellent, useful, and well‐thought out content as a key element of your marke3ng strategy. It has
to become part of your firm’s DNA.
But when it comes to the genera3on of that content, you need to do your homework. Simply
genera3ng content without thought to the persona of the poten3al person who will read it,
whether they're interested and how will they find it, are the integral ques3ons in the produc3on of
any good content intended to be effec3ve for your firm. As lawyers, or accountants we can tend to
revert to legal speak and before we know it, the communica3on thread becomes lost.
One of the great ways to always have the client perspec3ve in mind is to develop a persona for
them, or if you have a diverse prac3ce, a series of personas.
A persona is your firm's very own in‐house client that you run every marke3ng message past. In
working with a firm recently, we created Robert Wells, a 38 year old father of three, who works at
the local meatworks, enjoys a few beers with his mates every Friday night at the local Hockey Club.
He was schooled un3l Grade 9 at the State High School and married his childhood sweetheart,
Mary‐Anne. Their marriage now is on the rocks.
Robert represents a reasonable slice of the firm's family law prac3ce. In craTing marke3ng
messages and content generally, we now never lose the opportunity of considering what Robert
would think of it. Is it in his own language? Is it too verbose? Will it work for him? Will it add value
to him? How can we influence him?
Of course firms with a commercial law bent shouldn't be reluctant in adop3ng similar methods
either. Who is the firm's "perfect" client? Is it John Emery, the Property Developer? How can your
firm craT messages that will cut through to him? What is the best medium to u3lize in reaching
John and those like him?
Crea3ng personas is an incredibly useful tool. Segment the prac3ce areas of your firm and create
personas for each, or even a few different personas for each area and never, ever generate content
without running it by them. Inevitably, this content shiT will dictate to all the marke3ng touch‐
points in your law firm. Alignment for the beYer don't you think?
Our Team are trained and accredited in Belbin Team Role Theory and the Enneagram. We bring
another dimension to markeAng your law firm. Contact us.

21. Lawyer Marketing Plan
What's your accountant or lawyer marke<ng plan?
It may sound like a ridiculous ques3on, but in a recent chat with Larry Bodine, possibly the World's
most renowned law firm marke3ng expert; he reiterated the importance of lawyers in every firm
being ac3ve par3cipants as opposed to bystanders in marke3ng the firm generally.
Larry, in a forthcoming podcast feature, iden3fied 4 strategic parts to a lawyer's individual
marke3ng plan. He suggests each lawyer in the prac3ce taking 4 pieces of paper.
On Page one, is the sales plan which should mark up a list of your law firm's top 10 clients. Larry
suggests seNng a date when you can visit the client and really engage with them.
On Page two of the plans iden3fy the top 10 referral sources of your law firm. Again, you meet
with these referral sources both to engage and of course iden3fy the poten3al reciprocal referrals
your firm may be able to offer.
The other 2 pages or aspects of the plan are absolutely essen3al to any robust and effec3ve law
firm marke3ng strategy.
It equally applies to accountants.
The Law Firm MarkeAng Podcast Feature with Larry Bodine and other Law Firm MarkeAng
Experts is available here: www.lawfirmmarkeAngpodcast.com
Content Spinning & Duplication
There are some scurrilous prac3ces out there being adopted by internet marke3ng services on
behalf of law firms, one of which is content spinning.
Content Spinning is essen3ally where you supply a blog ar3cle on an area of prac3ce, submit to a
person or unknown company that literally seed the blog post on numerous other unrelated blogs.
For example, we recently noted one marke3ng specialist who had a blog entry spun on mul3ple
blogs including those with dubious 3tles like Brisbane Car Rental Blogs, Australian HandBags and
Op3mum Dry Cleaning. Now, the purpose of doing this is essen3ally to escalate your posi3on up a
few notches in Google as a result of the links from these blogs back to your site. It's sought of like a
sugar fix and can give your site a liYle rush that more 3mes than not will not sustain.
However, the risks of geNng caught up with marke3ng services that adopt this type of
methodology to their work are fraught with risk. Not only is Google well aware of this prac3ce and
spanking those websites involved in it, but it can significantly denigrate your service if your content
is aYached to completely unrelated and dubious sites. In fact, we recently no3ced on one occasion
that the legi3mate business website was ranking #1 for a par3cular search term, only to be
followed by a blog entry generated by the firm, but placed on a blog with a very discriminate 3tle.

22. The take home message here is treat your firm's content with respect and don't risk it with a third
party link building spin service, no maYer how good the promise.
Learn more about Law Firm MarkeAng Strategy.
Marketing Law Firms with AdWords
Is your law firm marke3ng strategy contempla3ng Google AdWords?
It goes without saying, but effec3ve search engine marke3ng (SEM) is dependent upon a really
good understanding of not only what poten3al clients are looking for, but also a response that is
likely to convert the searcher into a client.
If your law firm marke3ng strategy already consists of a Google AdWords campaign, then it’s likely
you've been disappointed with it. Like any web plasorm, be it your website or use of social media,
an AdWords campaign at best will only convert a person who is at the end of the "buying" process.
Now that's not to say that you cannot engage with a person who isn't there yet. In this regard,
when it comes to professional service firms, a client conversion does not have to necessarily mean
a paying client, but rather should also include people who your firm through its campaign is now
engaged with by providing them with an eBook, newsleYer or some other subscrip3on to
something of value. Another way of saying this, is to ensure your law firm marke3ng strategy is
clear about what ROI looks like and how it will be measured.
Once your firm is clear about this, keyword research is obviously fundamental to having a
successful AdWords campaign. In addi3on, ensure you create clear, compelling messages to drive
up your clickthrough rates (CTR) and do some usability tes3ng on them by crea3ng three or four
different ads and determine which is the best performing via your Google Analy3cs. Poorly draTed
message content can be expensive and will inevitably drive your campaign to a halt.
Last, but by no means least, having a landing page specifically created for the campaign is a must.
So, instead of driving your AdWords traffic to your website and risk losing the poten3al client in an
array of different messages, a landing page with one purpose and one clear message can
significantly increase your success. A landing page doesn't necessarily have to be a sta3c webpage
though. We're working with a client at present and are using the firm's Facebook page as the
landing page. Why? Well, in working with this firm, our ini3al conversion goal is to build a strong
Facebook following.
Keep watch, we plan on doing a case study on it.

23. Has Google Found Your New Website?
Plenty of new law firms who launch their site can literally wait months for Google to find it. You
can speed Google up by supplying a XML Sitemap.
Simply put, when it comes to your law firm's web design, an XML sitemap is integral. An XML
sitemap is a text document that sets out where all the pages on your site are, and how users are to
navigate to them. It literally reveals to Google all of the separate pages, how they’re linked, and
helps search engines to index your law firm's website.
Now, some content management systems like WordPress have plug‐in that easily generate
sitemaps, but you can do it or make sure your developer does it right here
Now you will need a Google Webmaster Account. Once you have one visit Google here
Get a Website Analysis, visit us here
Does your Law Firm Use Keywords?
Does your Law Firm Website incorporate keyword op<miza<on?
Remember a keyword is a word or phrase that you’ve done some research on and you think your
law firm website can dominate the market with it. If you’re not sure how to do keyword research
than Google keywords is a preYy good place to start and if you look in our 3ps, I give you some
guidance there.
But here are 4 3ps that I highly recommend if you want an edge with your law firm website.
The first rule is to focus on one keyword phrase for each post or page. In other words, if you’re
wri3ng content on making a will, than you should use that term regularly in your copy and of
course it should also be in your meta‐3tle.
Second rule is that the more content on that page the beYer. Fortune Cookie’s David Deutsch
recommends a minimum of 400 words, but 800 is good. Now be careful you don’t go berserk with
jamming those keywords into your copy. Keyword density is a tricky thing. The right density will
give you a liT, but too much and you’ll find your firm’s site is penalized by Google. The best rule of
thumb is that if someone read it and didn’t observe the repe33ous use of the term, than its likely
you’ll be OK.
Rule 3, again with keyword density in mind, the keyword phrase needs to be used oTen.
Rule 4, dedicate the page to the keyword phrase and leave other topic to pages craTed specifically
for the keywords that relate to those topics.
Let me be honest, there’s fair bit to both keyword research and implementa3on on your law firm
website, but it’s not insurmountable. Let us know if we can help.
If you want more informaAon, be sure to sign up for free to our Free MarkeAng Guide.

24. Your Law Firm and the Tectonic Shift
There are some very, very bad law firm websites out there.
The team and I have been looking at the vast terrain requiring cul3va3on and it's endless. In any
one market, there are at best one or two stand‐outs and the rest are straggling way behind.
MaY Barrie, the BRW Entrepreneur of the Year and CEO of Freelancer says this:‐
"There are 6.8 billion people in the world. There are 2 billion people on the internet. Five billion
people are not but they're coming. This is the next tectonic shiQ."
Mediocrity is a perilous prac3ce for those firms asleep at the wheel with their online presence.
Want to get beaer prepared? Read our Free Law Firm MarkeAng guide
Law Firm SEO and Images
When it comes to uploading or generally using any images on your law firm's website or any other
plasorm for that maYer, the credo has always been not only use them sparingly, but if you do use
them, ensure that they are properly search engine op3mized (SEO'd).
It goes without saying, but images add another layer or dimension to your website, but you have
to make sure that a couple of things are right. The first of course is to ensure you're not uploading
heavy images onto your site that will slow down the loading speed of it. A good rule of thumb is to
try and aim to keep all your images under 50KB. The second thing is to make sure your image is
named appropriately and that the image has alterna3ve text and tags in the code, or in other
words, has a string of meaningful words which let Google know what the image relates to.
For example, if your firm Pulse Lawyers uploads some images of your staff, instead of naming them
"staffphoto1," it is far beYer to consider "Pulse Lawyers | Rachel Smith" or throw in relevant
keywords that you want your law firm to dominate online. It may be, "Moonee Ponds Lawyers |
Rachel Smith."
Now you also want to aYach some alterna3ve text. Remember, Google or any other search engine
cannot penetrate and see your image, so they rely upon its name and alterna3ve text. Again, use
text that relates to your keywords.
If this is all a bit geeky, then in the very least open up a page on your website, go to your browser
op3ons on top of the window and choose "View." Follow the menu down un3l "Source" or "View
Source." Open it and you will see what essen3ally Google is seeing. Track down to some of the
images in this source code and see what they say. It's a preYy good chance they won't say anything
of meaning.

25. While good web designers, conversant with SEO always aYend to this, they notoriously use words
that they consider relevant. Of course, where it goes all a liYle pear‐shaped is when what they
consider relevant is at odds with the keywords your firm is chasing not only on the site as a whole,
but specific pages or posts as well.
Need help! Give us a yell. In the meanAme, read our FREE Law Firm MarkeAng Guide.
Your Law Firm's Content Strategy
If we can offer any advice from our experience in law firm marke3ng, it is to start with a content
strategy.
Your firm has to concede that in the current landscape content is fundamentally important and
now is intrinsically linked to SEO and Google Page Rank. In other words, as we've said repeatedly,
your firm can win online but it must emanate from a paradigm shiT that sees the prolifera3on of
excellent, useful, well‐thought out content. It has to become part of your firm's DNA. So
passionate about this, we simply won't work with a firm that is not commiYed to genera3ng
content. It is just way too difficult to give good ROI without it.
If you want to go it alone, which we obviously don't endorse, then a good place to start is to read
Kris3na Halvorson's, ar3cle "The Discipline of Content Strategy" In essence she defines a good
strategy as one that considers: key themes and messages, recommended topics content purpose
(i.e., how content will bridge the space between audience needs and business
requirements) content gap analysis metadata frameworks and related content aYributes search
engine op3miza3on (SEO), and implica3ons of strategic recommenda3ons on content crea3on,
publica3on, and governance.
To expand, these considera3ons need to be explored within your firm prior to design work being
done and of course, you need to have well thought out who will be responsible for the content
genera3on in each prac3ce area and a frequency scale, that is when such content that fulfills
Harlvorson's blue‐print, can be expected.
If you need help with your firm's content strategy, read our Law Firm MarkeAng Guide
Domain Purchasing for Your Law Firm
If you're a new law firm and you're thinking about purchasing a domain name and web hos3ng, or
even if you're an exis3ng firm looking to build a micro‐site, consider a few things first.
Great domain names are somewhat difficult to source, par3cularly names that are keyword rich.
For example, if you're law firm is based in Townsville, you may no3ce that there may be a fair
amount of traffic for the keywords, "Townsville Lawyer" and consequently you may want to own
and populate the domain name www.townsvillelawyers.com.au. Now just to back track, you can

26. get a preYy good idea of how popular your choice of keywords are by doing some research via
Google Keywords Tool.
So, if the domain name was available, you would obviously purchase it. However if it wasn't don't
always assume that it is going to be used for the purposes you intended to use it for. Lots of
domains are bought by people who literally sit on them for years. Why you should never give up on
keyword rich domain names is that they're like a good boYle of red wine, they're aged. Aged
domains are liked by Google and by paying a few dollars for the domain name, it will provide an
ini3al search thrust that would be lost to you if you bought a fresh domain name.
Now you can find out who owns a domain name right here. You can check domain age while you're
there.
We recently purchased a keyword rich domain name for a law firm client with an age of 6 years for
$800. In our view, a damn good investment in geNng a good head start on driving quality traffic.
More on ge]ng great domains can be found in our Free Law Firm MarkeAng Guide
Be Careful Who You Link to
Is your law firm being asked for reciprocal links?
Recently there has been a surge of email correspondence from link farms wan3ng law firms to link
to par3cular sites and in return they'll link to you. Here's an excerpt from an email that one of our
clients received this week.
"My name is Sandy Keiths, Web Marke<ng Consultant. I've greatly enjoyed looking through your
site ........................ and I was wondering if you'd be interested in exchanging links with my website,
which has a related subject. I can offer you two home page links back from any of my related
websites all in Google cache and backlinks which are:
alaskasciencewriter(dot) com PR 4
arsdonand(dot) .com PR 5
If you are interested, please send me the following details of your site:
TITLE:
URL:
I'll add your link as soon as possible, in the next 24 hours. As soon as it's ready, I'll send you a
confirma3on email along with the informa3on (TITLE and URL) regarding my site to be placed at
yours.
I hope you have a nice day and thank you for your 3me."

27. Google is becoming increasingly aware of SEO prac3ces like this, par3cularly from agents who offer
links in a completely unrelated field. If your law firm was to respond to such request, it is more
probable than not that Google will declare the link as irrelevant and your firm won't acquire any
benefit from it. In some circumstances, it has been reported, that Google may actually penalize
you as a result.
The best links your law firm can acquire are those of course that are organic. In other words, links
from websites that are of significant relevance to your prac3ce and belong to reputable
organiza3ons. How does Google know that? Simply by the quality and page rank of the
organiza3ons that link to them.
Want to know more about link‐building? Get our Free Law Firm MarkeAng Guide
Your Law Firm and its Mobile Application
Is your law firm considering building a mobile phone applica3on?
Up un3l now a reasonable deterrent for firms who want to do it properly has been the lack of
accessibility to data via iTunes (Apple's distributor of Apple Mobile Applica3ons) rela3ng to
purchaser informa3on. In other words, if you're serious about engaging with clients and in this
instance, people who have purchased your mobile applica3on then it was impossible to draw such
data from iTunes, other than the volume of sales.
Well, thanks to Mail Chimp, in par3cular their Chimp Kit which has just been released allows the
developer to drop into the firm's mobile applica3on some code that not only tracks purchases but
allows the firm to dialogue with the owner of the app via newsleYer. Chimp Kit is free up to around
2000 newsleYers, so if you're a firm contempla3ng a mobile app via iTunes, you should definitely
consider it.
Learn more about Law Firm Website Meta DescripAon.
Should Our Law Firm YouTube?
As you might be aware, a couple of years ago Google bought YouTube. Hence, when you search for
anything online via Google, YouTube videos appear in the search results. There’s good reason why
your law firm should be thinking video, because by and large searchers have a preferen3al op3on
to view videos first as opposed to opening other text pages. But the trick is, to ensure your videos
have keywords in them that searchers are looking for.
To do this, head across to Google Keywords and key in some words and see what the results
generate. When you do this, ensure that you have checked your loca3on and you can do this via
the advanced op3on. The results that turn up are essen3ally split into global and local. If your firm

28. has a local presence, then obviously those results will be relevant. To get somewhat of an exact
analysis of the keywords, following your first search, go to the leT column and uncheck “broad”
and check “exact.” The result that now follow will indicate an accurate depic3on of search enquiry
for the keywords you have chosen.
The next step is to ensure that you have these 3tles in your YouTube video 3tle. BeYer s3ll, also
when you save your video, save it as this 3tle too. Then aYend to the descrip3on of the video and
while tags are becoming irrelevant in Google search generally, YouTube tag words are reportedly
s3ll used by Google in defining your content.
Last but not least, great video produc3on is all about ligh3ng and sound, and to a lesser extent the
camera. Sure, a HD camera, be it a FLIP HD or a Kodak ZI8 we see are essen3al items for any law
firm wan3ng to use this space well, we’ve seen really good content generated by older cameras,
but under good lights and good sound input.
Learn more about Law Firm Web Design.
Will Google Instant End Your Reign
In this law firm marke3ng 3p, you might have no3ced that each 3me you now type into Google, it's
second guessing what you're about to type in.
Google Instant is the latest innova3on which Google call ‘Search at the speed of thought’. While
the mo3va3on for Google is that it can save you 2‐5 seconds every 3me you search, if your law
firm is chasing the long tail keywords than it may well be likely a searcher will not get to you.
Watch hap://www.youtube.com/v/ElubRNRIUg4
In other words, if you were wan3ng to type in "Sydney Family Lawyers prac3cing in Blacktown,"
Google Instant as soon as you type "Sydney Family Law" will offer you "Sydney Family Lawyers."
While it’s probably too early to tell what the impact may well be, ini3al research is showing Google
Instant results as being a quicker preferred op3on. The problem for the firm in Blacktown is that
their poten3al client will now be immersed in the squillions of Sydney Lawyer results.
We don't think it’s 3me yet to redefine your long tail keyword strategy, but instead maybe look for
the keywords that Google is offering up in its Google Instant results and do some keyword research
on them. For a client recently, we were able to purchase domain names which were a snug fit for
the Google Instant keyword returns. We'll now build a site and content around them accordingly. It
might work!
Learn more about Law Firm MarkeAng Strategy.

29. Place Your Firm Now
In this law firm marke3ng 3p find out why you need to be thinking about Place pages. If your law
firm hasn't got a Google Place Page, you beYer jump on it quickly.
In the last month Google re‐tweaked their search algorithm which is giving Google Place Pages
preferen3al treatment over other search results. In other words, it may well be the case that your
place page will be posi3oned higher than your own web site.
AYending to a Google Place Page is dead easy. Go to Google Places, ad your details and make sure
you spend the 3me dropping great content there and don't forget to draw people to your website
and social media plasorms.
Do it now!
Why Small Firms Can Win
In this law firm marke3ng 3p, find out why the smalls firms will win in the new online landscape.
When it comes to beYer posi3oning your law firm online, don't be in3midated by the big firms
with big pockets.
Big law firms oTen suffer from layers of bureaucracy which slows them down considerably in
playing well in the new landscape. Agility and the capacity to create and syndicate content quickly
is the new yards3ck. Law Firm's that are caught in the rhetorical spin of "aim, aim, aim" cannot
compete with the innova3ve firms who have adopted a strategy of "ready, fire aim."
Recently we caught up with a midsized firm with a real propensity of crea3ng content. It
manufactured content like widgets in a factory and within one month would probably quadruple
the content disseminated by a larger firm in one year. When a firm has a culture of content
crea3on they're half way there, but where they need to be careful is ensuring that such content is
predicated by innova3ve design, packaging and a syndica3on method. Content has to be focused
on the end user while covertly following a content strategy that is mindful of the keywords the firm
is wan3ng to dominate.
Smart thinking around content, along with a commitment to crea3ng it is the defini3ve difference
between the firms that will and won't make it in the future. Read more about content strategy.

30. Is your Law Firm Tracking Calls?
In this law firm marke3ng 3p, find out why you need to be tracking calls emana3ng from your
online presence.
While working with a great liYle law firm over the last week who were absolutely diligent in
watching their Google Analy3cs, they couldn't understand why they were geNng loads of traffic,
but minimal enquiry via their contact forms, or in other words not much conversion despite the
numbers.
Well, the truth of it all was that a quarter of all traffic were soaking up the content then heading
straight to the Contact page to pull the phone number and make the phone call. While the firm
were tracking where their clients were coming from at the ini3al interview with their solicitor, that
data wasn't being captured in a useful way. Also, never forget that it is oTen the case that a client
will come to you via numerous ways. For example, a friend may recommend your firm and then to
validate, they check out your website. Now the site may well have been strongly responsible for
the conversion, but despite that at the first consulta3on they may tell you a friend was the referral
point, thus not an accurate representa3on of what really occurred.
The only way to get an accurate depic3on of how successful your web presence is, is to measure
everything. Despite how great contact forms are designed and where they are posi3oned, people
love the immediacy of picking up the phone. The best way to measure phone contact via your
website is not by having recep3on ask the ques3on of where the poten3al client has come from.
What you need is a completely unique and different number on your website. You can do this
easily by purchasing a Toll Free number and forwarding that number to recep3on, but capturing all
incoming on forwarded calls. The other alterna3ve is purchasing an online number via Skype,
which at the 3me of wri3ng is approximately $30 for three months. You simply choose the number
and via account administra3on, key in the number you want it forwarded to. All on forwarded
calls, including the 3me of the call, are recorded in your account. However, if you're forwarding the
online number to your firm's recep3on, expect there to be a fairly significant delay while the call is
ported through 2 numbers before it is picked up.
The old adage 'you can't manage what you can't measure' is true when it comes to seeing how
successful your web presence is. Don't whatever you do, leave phone contact out of the equa3on
in measuring your analy3cs.

31. Content is King, But Design is Queen
In this law firm marke3ng 3p, find out why you cannot ignore design aesthe3cs.
We've been playing around with Crazy Egg for awhile. Crazy Egg is an analy3cs tool that applies a
heat map on your website which can show you where people are clicking on your website. Why is
this important?
Well, it visually tells you the hot spots on your website and those that get liYle aYen3on. For
example, we done a liYle consul3ng work for a firm recently who were geNng loads of traffic on
their site, but very liYle aYen3on to their "subscribe to our newsleYer" func3on. The firm
generates a mass of great content, and the NewsleYer of course provides it all and more on a
monthly basis. It's free and yet the subscriber uptake was poor.
So, we integrated Crazy Egg just to take a peek and lo and behold, it was true, no‐one was heading
to the mid‐sec3on of the page where the func3on was located. We moved it to the top and
watched the subscribers grow nearly overnight.
The lesson here is great content is number one, but don't ever lose sight of the design aesthe3cs.
Crazy Egg is a great tool to have at the back end of your Analy3cs Toolbox.
Does your Law Firm use PDF's?
In this law firm marke3ng 3p, why you need to be thinking seriously about using PDF's online.
The greatest tragedy is when you see law firms insistent on crea3ng great user content who then
package it all into a PDF and have it hosted somewhere on their site.
PDF's are great when you want to create a guide or e‐book that users leave their email address in
return for, and then you shoot the PDF across to them. But, if you are using PDF as a way of
dis3lling some good content on a par3cular issue, then nothing you have men3oned in your PDF
will be read by Google. In other words, if you've got a great liYle piece on "consent orders," rich in
useful keywords that people may be searching for informa3on on, and you've wrapped it up in a
PDF, Google can't read it except for the 3tle.
Google sees PDF's as images, so it will grab the PDF 3tle, providing you've got one that means
something and that's it. The alterna3ve and the solu3on is that you ensure that all that content
about "consent orders" is on a HTML page (a page on your website).
The trick is to only use PDF's as something you give to a user in return for their email address. Go
berserk with your guides, e‐books, but don't whatever you do, waste great content by locking into
an impenetrable file such as a PDF.
Learn more about Law Firm Marke<ng.

32. Your Law Firm's Link Building Strategy
In this law firm marke3ng 3p, we ask what your law firm’s link building strategy is.
Rarely does a Law Firm Marke3ng Strategy have within it any reference to link‐building.
We recently had the pleasure of doing some work with a large Australian law firm who are
similarly compe3ng with some other large firms. At the outset we did a liYle compe3tor analysis
and staring at us in the face was the very evidence as to why this firm stands so poorly in Google
page rankings. (Page Rank is where your law firm appears in Google for a search term)
This firm's compe33on had a zealous commitment to building links and they simply didn't and
were paying considerably for it. Now, a link is an inbound link from another website to yours and
you preferably want links from those organiza3ons who Google loves (those who have a high page
rank).
Links are fundamentally important because as Google becomes increasingly human‐like in wan3ng
to offer to searchers the best quality law firms at the top of their page, they consider that if such a
firm has lots of other organiza3ons linking to it, then they must be a credible ousit.
GeNng great links to your website is a lot easier than you think. Law firms that are
philanthropically inclined should be reques3ng in the very least a link on the respec3ve
organiza3on’s website. But just don't leave it there. Think of all the business to business
rela3onships your firm has, write them down and get someone to determine the relevant web
addresses and shoot an email across asking them if they could place a link to your site on theirs. In
return you'll do the same. If you haven't got a links page, get your web designer to do one up. It
should cost you peanuts.
So, if your firm has a marke3ng strategy, ensure that link‐building is an integral part of it. If you're
firm doesn't have such a strategy, you need one and when you get it, think link‐building and you
might be amazed out the results.

33. Law Firm Marketing King Hit: Get Content
Get Clients
If your Law Firm Marke3ng Strategy is all about pay per click, skinny content and preYy pictures of
the firm's partners, give up now.
It can't be said any straighter than that. The Law Firms that will do extraordinarily well in the future
will be those who simply have a steadfast commitment to online user engagement. To put it
another way, those firms who can think "client" as opposed to thinking "our firm" are winning and
will con3nue to win in the new landscape.
While there are some fundamental reasons law firms should be genera3ng user‐focused online
informa3on and resources, it has to be packaged in a way that will translate best to your poten3al
client. We all know that we comprehend informa3on differently and firms need to be thinking
about their mul3‐dimensional communica3on strategy when pos3ng anything online. Can this
informa3on be broadcast across mul3ple channels? This is the primary ques3on that firms should
be asking. These types of ques3ons of course do not emanate from your IT department, they
should come from your passionate lawyers who are prepared to communicate across channels and
just require a liYle impetus. Grow your Firm provides it if you haven't got people within the
prac3ce to think innova3vely about informa3on transfer.
The take home here is that to play in the new landscape well, get great content, package it
innova3vely, broadcast it broadly and just keep on engaging.
Learn more about Law Firm Marke<ng.

34. Email Campaigns