We’ve helped law firms to go from a handful of new enquiries every month to hundreds of clients every month.
Like NH-law.co.uk. In September 2020 they got 15 enquiries via their website. In September 2021 they got 192. That’s an increase of 1180%.
Like the sound of that? Then read on.
1. Set yourself up for success
It’s important to have a strategy and that's exactly where we started. The strategy doesn't need to be War and Peace but it does need to outline your objectives and then the series of steps you need to take to get there.
You can set yourself up for success by taking this seriously. If you want to grow your law firm, and you aren't a marketer, then get help from someone with experience in helping law firms to grow. I wouldn't try and give myself legal representation (I'm not a solicitor).
So if you don't know what the most cost-effective ways to generate more enquiries for your law firm, then get help!
2. Your simple marketing strategy
To increase enquiries by 1180%, we took a look at the potential audience size online for the services that the law firm provides and were able to work backwards to determine which marketing channels would be most effective.
After assessing what users are looking for in search engines, on social media and online forums, it was obvious that there was enough potential traffic to lead with an SEO strategy for this law firm.
1000s of people are asking questions in Google that we can answer. So let’s answer them.
DIVORCE COST?
*1900 searches in Google every month in the UK / 3600 searches each month in the US
3. Time, money and resources
Previously, the law firm had invested lots of money in paying for social media content. After months of doing the same thing, this approach had not generating any new enquiries, so it became clear that a new approach was needed.
In this case, paying someone to create social media content for a small audience was not the best use of the marketing budget.
While the content looked great, the social media audience wasn't big enough.
Additional, we established it was better to attract people who were actively looking for legal answers in Google, rather than passively browsing on social media.
The people who are actively looking for your services are a great starting point.
You need to understand what is the best use of time, resources and most importantly, money.
Find out if digital marketing for law firms can be more cost effective for you.
4. Outsource or do it yourself?
If you need somebody to help you with your taxes you’re probably going to call an accountant. If you're not an experienced marketer and you need somebody to generate awareness and sales for your law firm, then you should probably outsource this to a proven marketer.
Your marketing team should let you know any potential costs upfront and set some targets in terms of what you can achieve together.
If you find that they're doing the same thing 6-months in without getting any results, then you know you're in trouble.
5. Get your law firm found
The first step to finding new potential clients is to make sure that your law firm can be found when people are looking for your services. Traditional marketing methods such as local radio, tv, newspaper advertising and leaflet drops are still all effective ways to get your law firm in front of the right audience.
The only tiny issue with traditional "offline marketing" is that it can often be tricky to measure the return on investment for these, as well as taking broader strokes with your targeting (how do you know which people listening to a radio ad are potential clients?).
The next few points relate to the ways you can get your law firm found online.
6. Search engine optimisation
SEO was and still is the cornerstone of the strategy for this client.
Firstly we need to make sure that the website was technically sound and Google could easily crawl the website and consequently index it in search results.
This means making sure that it is well structured and fast loading and that any issues that might prevent Google from crawling it had effectively been resolved.
Secondly, we needed to create a content strategy that revolved around making existing content better and then finding new content topics to write about.
The new content would be particularly important in this case, as it is this that drives the bulk of the traffic to the website.
By researching what questions people are asking in Google and other social channels such as Quora and Reddit, we were able to create a content strategy that revolves around answering these questions and consequently ensuring that our pages appeared (and continue to appear) highly in Google.
*The table above shows the number of times that the website appeared in search engine results for the top queries in a 30 day period.
Thirdly we were able to secure a number of links from high-quality websites that are relevant to the legal sector, not only for creating quality content, but also through spending time reaching out to other websites and seeing if we could provide guest blogging content as well as securing links in relevant directories.
7. Local SEO
Local SEO is also an important part of a law firm’s marketing strategy. People like to shop local and in recent years “near me” searches have increased by around 150%, for example “solicitors near me”.
From optimising your website for local searches to creating a winning Google my business profile. You can find out more about local SEO for solicitors.
8. Google search ads
Google search ads are a great way of getting instant visibility for your website when somebody searches for one of your services.
For example if somebody searches for "conveyancing solicitors" in Google.
It's pretty clear what they are looking for and that's where you can serve an ad in Google Search results that is compelling and directs them to your website or gets them to make an enquiry directly from the ad itself.
9. Google display ads
Google display ads for law firms can appear across various websites on the Google display network. This is a great way of generating awareness for your law firm by getting an ad in front of passive potential clients.
For example, if a potential client is browsing a property website, you can assume they may need a conveyancing solicitor at some time in the not too distant future.
Hence it may be worth showing one of your ads to these people. On the display network you can pay per impressions of the number time somebody sees one of your ads.
10. YouTube ads
YouTube ads are a great way of re-engaging people who have already visited your website.
You can create remarketing lists and then next time somebody is on YouTube they might see your ad and come back to your website.
YouTube ads can be videos of various lengths and these are also effective for various reasons including the fact that YouTube is the world's second largest search engine!
11. Social media ads
Social media ads are another great way of getting visibility amongst your target market.
On Facebook and Instagram you can target people based on their interests and demographics. For commercial solicitors, Linkedin is a great place to advertise as you can target people based on their job or level of seniority.
*Example of a Facebook ad for solicitors
12. Make sure your potential clients engage
Once you've got in front of your potential clients, you'll need to find a way to make sure that they engage with you. This is the next stage before they enquire.
You need to understand what it is that will make people engage with you. Whether it is in a search engine, social media ad, Google ad or any other type of marketing touch point.
Why would they pick up the phone, email or fill in a form on your website?
13. Value proposition and reasons to click
In each case you should be aware of how you compare to competitors. In any Google search result there is going to be a number of competitors above or below you who are all vying for your potential clients' attention.
What are you saying in your ads or in the search results page that make you stand out?
What is your value proposition?
In the case of Natasha Hall Law a key factor was the fact that you get to speak directly with the Principal Solicitor.
We were able to make a personality of her showcasing her on both the website and visual ads as well as referencing her in text ads i.e. "talk to Natasha".
This suddenly stands out ahead of competition who are advertising themselves as being a company, where as we allowed people to talk directly to Natasha.
14. Create useful content
As part of the SEO content strategy, we researched questions that we could create content around. But this wasn't just a case of picking questions and answering them... the content had to be better that was already there. This includes;
- More engaging copy
- The right length
- The right related keywords
- Correct structure (what is everyone else talking about?)
- Internal links
- External links
- The right images
The content also demonstrate expertise, authority and trust. These are all important factors for getting content to rank in Google. People couldn't just click on a search result come to a page and leave. They either need to carry on reading, engage with the content or go on and make an enquiry.
15. Make sure your potential clients convert
Not only did we measure website activity, to demonstrate how affected the marketing campaigns we work on are. We also started to measure enquiries and where they came from. Wants a visitor has been on your website, engaged with your content or seen one of your ads, you need to make sure they convert by making an enquiry.
Enquiries can take a few different forms;
16. Calls directly from ads
In any advert that you create, display your telephone number or create a separate telephone number that can be tracked and reported on (you can do this in Google ads).
In Google, you may have a mobile search ad with a "call now" button that means people don't need to leave the search engine results page to visit the website in order to make a call.
17. Contact forms and details on the website
When users visit your website content, you need to make it clear how they can can contact you and give them an incentive for doing so.
For example, a free consultation or even a free enquiry. By making website forms really simple to use and really obvious in terms of what you want users to do, you can increase the number of enquiries for people from website landing pages.
For example for this client, year on year we had 60% more visitors to the page go on to make an enquiry than in the previous year. This is largely through strategic placement of contact forms on popular content.
18. Web pages optimised for conversion
The website should be optimised for conversion. This means you have to have a clear understanding of the relationship between pages. For example if the entry point of the website is via a blog to answer a question, you can link in a clear way to one of your service pages were people can find out more information and make an enquiry.