The growing list of industries ,that are poised to embrace the “local” internet marketing profile, are led by legal services. Many would agree that this is a long overdue courtship. The legal community stands to reap huge rewards from the internet: presence, brand building and lead generation will all be expected by-products of a well structured online marketing strategy. Conventional media is slipping by the way side while internet and other emerging medias steal the spotlight. In an industry driven by big ego’s, and supported by even bigger payouts, the legal industry itself will feel a paradigm shift. The internet consumers demand a quality product at a discounted price. The premise of the internet is to level the playing field for all advertisers (no matter who you are). The end user (consumer) wants to do their do diligence, window shopping for price. The internet allows this type of price shopping, with minimum inconvenience to the consumer. This is where the shift will occur. High priced billable hours will diminish and be replaced by virtual/online interfaces with legal documents and drive thru style attorneys answering InstantMessage-like chat lines. We have sealed are own destiny so to say, a sluggish economy and growing jobless rates, mean less disposable income for legal fee’s. Will lawyers restructure their fee schedules to accommodate these economic changes? “Probably not”.

So, the course is set, “discount legal fees”, directly ahead. The firms that learn the online market will be the firms who prosper. The landscape of the online law firm marketing world will resemble that of Ebay, thousands of savvy esquires whoring themselves out to the highest bidder. There are Some websites who already use a “match-maker” style format to help connect lawyers with qualified clients, but this works more on the premise of practice area not financial disposition.

Positioning a law firm with the proper tools and knowledge, to prosper online is a monumental task. The website will be the biggest hurdle. As soon as development starts so does the ” I know whats best” client mentality. Hire a professional to design your website. Find a company who understands the importance of a site that functions and a site that’s pretty.

The next logical thought is ” if I build it they will come”. This is the biggest lie. YOU MUST MARKET YOUR WEBSITE TO BE SEEN ONLINE! There are 2 main forms of SEM (Search Engine Marketing), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO), many people confuse all internet marketing under the Search Engine Optimizer title. These are also 2 completely different fields with 2 separate mindsets of use. Paid or PPC is a sales oriented environment. You can buy the top position but there are rules and consequences o breaking those said rules. The middle of the SERP is natural/organic results driven by the consistency of content and code of your website (that’s a real short definition). When used in conjunction, both forums provide qualified leads and brand recognition to the law firms website.

A key part of the law firm online marketing process is understanding the connection between the website and the marketing. They must work together and compliment each other as well as support our law firms brand. The content within the site must be as “optimized” as possible. Whether you have podcast, audio, video, or resource material you can make that material work for you. This material has fields of information built in/hidden to the human eye, these are only recognized (and make sense) to a search engine (spider). From the file name of the header image to the id3 tag of a audio file, “keyword rich” is the name of the game. Choose names and descriptions that share a common denominator with the pages in which they are embedded. The key is to support what you are selling with content and media that talks about that product or service. Think logically, if I’m selling DUI law services use video and text to support the DUI theme.

Tags: Punch Lines //