I’ve outlined 11 effective steps for solicitors to generate more leads for their law firms.
These are all based on managing marketing and lead generation campaigns for law firms for over 8 years and the end goal is loads more leads and enquiries. An increase of as much as 1180% in some cases, if you can be patient enough!
Defining what a lead is, understanding your audience, optimising your website and using search engine marketing, including PPC and SEO are just some of the important steps to generating more leads for solicitors.
1. Be patient
Don't get me wrong, you want to find the fastest route to more leads, but patience is also important.
Wouldn’t it be great if we got 1000% more enquiries by tomorrow?
It's possible, but it's highly unlikely unless you have a very big budget and a can quickly build an audience.
Depending on the strategies that you use, you'll need to be patient.
For example using paid ads to get more leads for solicitors can generate results almost instantly but for that to happen you still need to be aware of the various factors such as as the quality of your ad targeting and the website landing page that you send people to.
So you need to think about the whole experience of all of your users and how each channel can work together to generate more leads.
To get a realistic idea of he average amount of time that each channel might take to start generating leads for your law firm, see how to promote your law firm online.
2. Define what a lead is
You don’t just want any old enquiry, you want the right kind of enquiry. One where somebody has the intent to become a paying client and where you are likely to make a profit.
The nature of the case also needs to be profitable.
Attracting the right type of leads is vital for your lead generation strategy.
For example you may find that will writing isn't profitable and you should actually focus your attention on the marketing of contesting wills and powers of attorney.
You may find that you have lots of people filling in a quote form for conveyancing but don't actually come back to you when they need the service.
You need to establish what the right type of lead looks like through your “onboarding process” and try to get as much information about a potential client up front, to save wasting tonnes of time following up with them.
3. Optimise your website
Your law firm website should be a lead generation machine.
But in order to feed the machine you'll need to make sure you do a few things to make to make it "conversion optimised".
Structure & internal linking
Structure your website in a way that visitors can find the information that they are looking for and that Google and other search engines can see a clear relationship between pages.
For example, you may have a section on family law with a parent page that then links off to various child pages:
- yourwebsite.com/family-law
- yourwebsite.com/family-law/divorce
- yourwebsite.com/family-law/child-access
- yourwebsite.com/family-law/fathers-rights
You’ll want to make your most popular content the most linked-to on your website to help visitors find it and also tell Google that it is important. Each link acts like a vote of confidence in the eyes of Google.
Create great landing pages
Great law firm landing pages help visitors solve problems quickly.
They let visitors know that they are in the right place, providing valuable content and encourage them to make an enquiry via optimised enquiry forms or clear contact details.
A good landing page should have
- An optimised heading
- A sentence that supports the heading
- Signposts showing that you can help the visitor with a legal problem
- Benefits as to why they should choose you
- Testimonials from clients that you've helped
- Clear contact details whether a click to call option on mobile or a form that is easy to fill in
- Supporting images or text
Content
Your legal website should have lots of useful content.
Useful content answers questions and solves problems. See our guide to law firm website content.
Successful law firm websites commonly have two types of content
- Service pages that demonstrate how you can help clients overcome a legal issue.
- Blog or news article sections that are entry points from search engines and commonly answer questions about the specific area of the law.
You should write content for your website that does the following
Mobile
Your website needs to look good on mobile. Chances are that over 60% of all of your website traffic comes from mobile devices so when you're looking at how users interact with it you need to look at the mobile version first.
This is still an afterthought for many web designers. Which is strange as the mobile version of your website is a vital part of digital marketing for law firms.
The mobile version of your website should be well laid out so that people can find information and not accidentally click on the wrong thing and easily make an enquiry.
Speed is also very important and has become a major Factor and how can go ranks websites.
You can see how Google views your mobile page speed here using the Google page speed tester
SEO
You should invest in SEO for solicitors as a long-term strategy for getting free traffic from search engines to your website.
Once your website is optimised for both conversion and mobile as above you should be able to turn visits should turn into enquiries. SEO takes care of the "getting more visits" part.
Three key components of SEO for law firms include:
- Create great content that answers the questions people are asking in search engines.
- Make it easy for Google to index and crawl your website, particularly on mobile.
- Build links from other authoritative relevant websites back to your website in order to build up its authority.
4. Google Ads
Google Ads are a great way of getting your law firm in front of potential clients, quickly.
Understand what your clients are looking for in search engines like Google and then create a relevant ad that shows them how you can help. You then need to make sure that your landing page is also relevant to the search query.
You pay every time somebody clicks (or views) on one of your ads and you can also show ads across the Google Search, display and even YouTube networks.
Find out more about PPC marketing for lawyers.
5. Social media
Social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram can all help potential clients to make a decision. It's important that you don't just blindly post on these networks without building an audience at the same time.
Understand where social media fits in your overall marketing strategy. Not just for promotion, channels like Facebook messenger can be great for recruitment and customer service.
It’s a great idea to build a network on Linkedin. Professionals need legal services too.
Find out more about how to market law firms on social media.
6. Social media ads
Advertising on social media allows you to pay every time somebody interacts or clicks on one of your ads as well as paying every time somebody sees it.
When you advertise on channels such as Facebook LinkedIn or Instagram you are relying on demographic data from the platforms.
There are some great ways of advertising your law firm in local areas based on on interest, for example if you're trying to get in front of high net worth individuals or you want to make yourself known to families in your local area.
7. Remarket
The great thing about social media ads and ads across Google, YouTube and the Google display network is that you can set up remarketing campaigns based on people who previously engaged with your website or social media channels.
For example if you know that somebody has visited your property conveyancing page, but not made an enquiry or got a quote you can then serve them ads that they see when they are on the Google display network or Facebook and Instagram.
This increases the chances that they'll enquire.
8. Get reviews
Reviews can be a vital part of your lead generation strategy and help other people make decisions about using your services.
Reviews can appear on your "Google my business" page or you could use third-party sites such as Trustpilot or Feefo.
There are also numerous web directories for law firms where you could get reviews from customers, such as yell.com.
You can then use reviews across your other marketing, for example demonstrate how many 5-star reviews you have and use quotes across your website.
9. Get your offer right
What can you offer potential clients that most of your competitors don't?
It could be a free consultation, reduced fees or even just your past record for winning cases and helping clients recover compensation.
You have to go beyond just telling people that you provide a legal service and actually give them a reason to make an enquiry with you.
10. Capture email addresses
Businesses use email marketing to successfully generate leads and law firms can too.
While this may not work for for certain legal sectors it can be very effective if you're working in Industries such as HR or commercial law.
We've seen this work really well for law firms with free guides and content to give away via building email lists and then following up with those who join the list.
When providing legal services to businesses you will need to build relationships and this can often be done through authoritative content via email lists. This will also help you stay front of mind when they need your services.
11. Measure what matters
You don't need to measure everything, but if you don't know what is working and what is not, then how will you know where to invest your time and money?
Using Google analytics, you can measure how many enquiries you get and where they came from. Then invest more time and money in the channels that work, to see a greater return.