09/26/2011 // West Palm Beach, FL, USA // Rene Perras…… Le Buzz // Rene Perras-lawyer website marketing expert
I recently read an interesting article in the National Law Journal about the future of attorney websites. I do agree with Mr. Algeri’s point of view but thought that I would add a couple of points of my own to the discussion.
The premise of the article is that the Great Recession which has caused many law firm marketers and other business people to re-evaluate how they do business, now and in the future, is about to cause a seismic shift in the relative importance of law firm websites as a tool for lawyer marketing. According to the article, attorney websites will become more valuable, perhaps even more so than face-to-face meetings, will become larger and contain more and more fresh content and finally will focus more on the brands of the members of the firm, rather than on the firm as a whole.
The greatest change he believes will occur is that the attorney website will become central to the entire lawyer marketing efforts for the firm and not just an ancillary part of it, i.e. an online brochure. Attorney websites will become content rich and will clearly demonstrate expertise in a broad range of specialized practice areas through content marketing. As in many other areas of business, consumers don’t always hire attorneys that are in close proximity to where they live; the markets and practices have expanded broadly.
While I certainly agree with his analysis, it is my experience that the attorney website has already evolved to become the single most important element of any lawyer marketing program. Integration between blogs and social medial platforms has taken foot and to take it a step further, the sharing of content through syndication of articles, press releases and commentary is already ongoing. The ability to optimize videos, images and other relevant content also helps support web marketing efforts by providing other means to be found in search results.
The article also discusses attorney micro sites as a way to market lawyers as separate brands within a firm and that these will in effect replace attorney bios on an umbrella site. I also believe that creating brands for individual attorneys creates a sum that is often greater than the parts.
About our lawyer marketing approach that sets us apart from other firms.
Our approach is to create a news platform that works as your BLOG as well as a corporate newsroom. This is essential so both communications mediums are handled through one product eliminating the requirement to invest in expensive press release costs that lawyers constantly incur.
Creating newsrooms that incorporate the elements of a blog along with the functionality to have the additional personalized pages, post articles, images and videos gives the ability to syndicate the content across the Internet. Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably already know that both the quality and quantity of backlinks, are what counts when it comes to web rankings and achieving Google Page 1 placement for lawyer Internet marketing.
Our platform creates backlinks and saves you the cost of hiring an SEO company to do search engine optimization. Since, our dual module software is integrated into a law firm websites it creates both off page and on page SEO effortlessly.
Furthermore, solo attorneys to large law firms of any size can write, publish and syndicate articles at the push of a button. Each article adds fresh content to the website and creates links which help support SEO efforts for attorney Internet marketing.
SEO for law firms is also one of the keys to the future. It is of little value to have a terrific micro site to market individual attorneys as a brand only to be lost in the vast number of competing pages. A robust and ongoing lawyer marketing program must also include search engine optimization for law firms to ensure that the law firm website or attorney micro sites are on page one of Google for the appropriate search terms.
With or without challenging economic times, the shift towards the web and away from more traditional attorney marketing such as the yellow pages has been ongoing. The advances have been in some cases slow to be adopted, but attorney websites and SEO for lawyers has grown by leaps and bounds for the more intuitive firms. It is never too late to get on board, but the sooner that the new marketing tools are adopted the better the chance to effectively grow your practice. By keeping pace with potential clients through powerful and informative web platforms, by helping them to find you through search engine optimization and finally by adding a social media component so that clients and potential clients can share the information, your lawyer marketing program can soar.
For more information on how Cepac lawyer marketing can help you with attorney websites, schedule a smart news technology demo or SEO for law firms, contact lawyer website marketing expert Rene Perras or visit Cepac.com – One Stop Lawyer Internet Marketing!
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