You’ve all heard that on the Internet, content is king. For most people, text is the first thing that comes to mind when they think of content. But it also includes images — specifically, the kind of images that are more than just decorative elements.

Thoughtfully chosen images can communicate at a glance the content of a particular page and work in tandem with the text. High quality images can enhance the overall level of professionalism apparent on your site. They provide visual interest that draws visitors in, as well as resting places for the eye. They can even invoke emotions that prompt the visitor to action (such as making contact with your law firm).

On the other hand, poorly chosen images are space wasters that clutter the screen without adding any value to your visitors. They can confuse or irritate by being unrelated to the content of the page. They can bore them by being too obvious, lazy or generic. They can be hard to see because they’re too small, the contrast is too low, or the image is too complicated. And of course, they can just plain be ugly or unappealing.

So, what works? What should you (or your designer) look for and what should you avoid when selecting stock photos for your law firm website?

Well, if there’s one piece of advice that we can give you, it’s to avoid law firm cliches as much as possible — images of gavels, scales of justice, law books, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, courtrooms, the Statue of Liberty, eagles, etc. Unfortunately, these are exactly the kinds of images that show up when you search for “lawyer” or “attorney” on all of the stock photo sites (often the starting point for naive web designers looking for pictures for a law firm website).

By avoiding cliched images, you will be on the right path to selecting compelling images that actually support the text on your website. Look for high quality photos that are sharp, are reasonably high contrast, and where the subject matter is distinct and easy to understand.

If your law practice is commercial litigation or management side employment law or some other type of law where your ideal client is another business, then you already know that your best referral source is other attorneys.

This is because most people would rather get a personal referral to an attorney from a friend, relative or colleague, rather than search blindly for representation online. When the person who needs an attorney is a business owner, chances are that he or she is already connected in some way to the legal community and has someone to ask for a personal referral.

Consequently, networking with opinion leaders and other lawyers in your community will always be critically important for the B2B law practitioner.

However, there are affordable online marketing opportunities that can be effective in getting your message in front of prospective clients.

LinkedIn

The business networking site, LinkedIn recently started allowing people to advertise to other LinkedIn members on a pay-per-click model. Like Google advertising, you write ads that you would like to be displayed on LinkedIn pages and you pay LinkedIn a small amount of money when someone clicks on one of your ads.

Your ads are linked to specific pages on your website that can be, and should be, custom tailored to the type of person you are targeting on LinkedIn.

Unlike Google advertising, your ads are not associated to search phrases, triggered when someone types something into a search box. Instead, you place your ads according to certain criteria about the person you want to reach, for example, geographic, industry type and job title. Click here to read more about LinkedIn advertising.

Managed Placements in Google

Google’s “Content Network” refers to the thousands of websites Worldwide that Google partners with to deliver ads that pertain to the content of the websites’ pages. For example, if you scroll to the bottom of the homepage of the New York Times, you will see a gray box with the words “Ads by Google.” Google places the ads there with the permission of the website owner and shares the click revenue with the website owner.

Normally, Google decides where an advertiser’s ads will display based on the content of the pages across the Content Network, but a variation of the Content Network, known as “Managed Placements” allows you to pick the sites where your ads are displayed.

This can be very useful for the B2B law practitioner who wants to reach a specific demographic. Placing ads on websites like the NY Times or financial or business news websites frequented by business owners is a chance to raise awareness in the local business community about your firm’s services.

Microsoft AdCenter Content Advertising

Microsoft AdCenter offers a product similar to Google’s Content Network known as “Content Advertising” which can get your ads inexpensively on business news websites like the Wall Street Journal and financial news websites like Barron’s.

Over the last several months, Twitter has become the most talked about and fastest growing social media site in the United States. A free, web-based service, Twitter allows anyone to join and start “Tweeting” micro-blogs posts of 140 characters or less.

Many of our clients have asked us recently if Twitter is a good idea for attorneys, and if so, how they might go about participating.

Our answer is always, it depends.

There is no inherent harm in and of itself in participating on Twitter. It can be a great place to network with colleagues (and therefore generate referrals back and forth) or to be seen as a thought leader in your legal niche.

As a direct source of clients? Maybe. But there are several caveats to keep in mind.

First, if you are responding to a direct question, there is always a danger that your answer could be perceived as legal advice. Since your feed can be seen by all of your followers, it is possible that you

could expose yourself to a malpractice claim if someone relies on your Tweets to their detriment.

It has been suggested by others that it would be worthwhile to periodically post to your feed a disclaimer that you are only providing legal information, not giving advice, and that a lawyer should be consulted if someone has a legal issue.

Second, when inviting followers to make contact with your law office, you want to be sure that you don’t run afoul of ethics guidelines pertaining to solicitation of legal business. Since every communication with prospects in your feed will be written, public and discoverable, the State Bar may have transcripts to use against you should they decide that you’ve crossed a line.

Finally, although Twitter is at heart a very casual way of communicating with large groups of people, you want to ensure that the tone and subject matter of your Tweets won’t cause any harm to how potential clients or colleagues might perceive you. Tweets that are spammy-sounding, unprofessional or boring are all big turn offs. You should also be willing to participate in the give and take of the Twittersphere by following others and commenting on their Tweets. With all that said, if Twitter sounds like something you would enjoy doing and might benefit from without taking away from other activities that are more effective in generating new business, then yes, it might be a good idea for you.

On the other hand, don’t feel obliged to jumped on the Twitter bandwagon — a tremendous number of people don’t participate on Twitter and have no intention of ever doing so.

If you have a Web site for your law firm, it is very important that you have analytics software installed and that you pay attention to what it is telling you. With the right reports, you can make informed changes to your site, ensuring the best user experience for visitors to your site, and maximizing the chance that someone who needs your help will opt to make contact with you. Here are a few items that you should pay attention to when going through your Web site reports.

Time Per Page

How much time are people spending on your pages? Are there some pages where people linger for minutes and other pages where they spend an average of just a few seconds before they click away? Learn from the pages people are taking the time to read and see if there is anything about your less popular pages that you can change to make them like your “stickier” pages.

Top Exit Pages

The “exit page” is the last page someone views on your Web site before clicking out of it. If you have a page on your Web site that is a top exit page, what is it about the page that causes people to leave your site? If it’s the “thank you” page following your contact form, great. If your homepage is your top exit page, you may have problems.

Link Usage

Links people use on your site, and the links they don’t use, may be telling you something about the usefulness, popularity and visibility of certain content on your site. If there is a link on your homepage that has not been clicked on in a year, think about removing it. If the content is important, then consider moving the link to some other place on the page where people will see it and use it.

404 Not Founds

A “404 Not Found” is an error that people get when they attempt to view a page on your Web site that doesn’t exist. This can be from a typing error by the visitor or a broken link on somebody else’s Web site. If you’re getting a lot of 404 errors, you should have a special 404 page on your Web site to help people get to your homepage, and get other Web sites to fix those broken links into your site if you can.

Bounce Rate

“Bounce Rate” refers to how many visitors immediately exit your site without viewing more than one page. There is no definite measure about what is a reasonable bounce rate, but if your data shows a 100% bounce rate, that is very bad. Pay close attention to the percentage of people who leave your site immediately and, over time, you’ll get good data about whether changes you make to your site have had a positive or negative impact.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is free analytics software available to anyone with a Web site. If you do not have analytics software installed on your Web site, it is recommended that you consider this full-featured Google utility.

The year 2008 has been a year of frequent and significant changes in Google advertising. Not every change introduced this year was a success and we saw Google phase out a few things that we liked, but several innovations directly and positively effect attorneys who are advertising in Google. Everyone currently advertising in Google, and in particular, Google’s Content Network (the network of thousands of Web sites with which Google partners to display ads), can take advantage of these new offerings. Here are the highlights:

Demographic Targeting

In a study by the Columbus Bar Association it was found that while lawyers were often hired by men, the initial decision to hire a lawyer was most often made by women. Consequently, when the Columbus Bar advertises its lawyer referral program on television, it runs its ads on channels known to draw a large female audience. Likewise, in Google’s Content Network, you can now target your online advertising to certain demographic groups and exclude your ads from being viewed by others. For now the targeting is just by age and gender, but this presents the advertiser with interesting opportunities.

For example, attorneys can now keep their ads off trendy Web sites frequented by young people who are unlikely or unable to hire attorneys. Or if you practice estate planning or elder law, you can specifically target older demographic groups, as well as the middle-aged offspring who may need your help for an aging parent.

Advanced Placement Options

Google now allows advertisers to specifically state which Web sites in the Content Network, or which pages on these Web sites, can display the advertiser’s ads. When you select this option, Ad Groups without placements won’t run on the content network until you add Web sites or pages. Conversely, using Google’s Site and Category Exclusion tool, you can tell Google where you do not want your ads to appear.

Keyword Tool

Introduced this summer, you can now research traffic patterns and click prices for any of your search phrases, and get ideas for more search phrases. The data shows search traffic by Google users for the previous calendar month and is a great tool for attorneys with under-developed campaigns. By taking advantage of these new Google features, you can fine tune that account and improve your return on investment.

In our last post, we presented reasons one through five of why search engine advertising is a great, cost-effective way to get more clients.

Now it’s time for part two: Reasons six through ten.

1. You pay only when someone clicks on your ad. It doesn’t matter how many “impressions” there are (that is, how many times your ad is viewed). The search engines only charge you for actual clicks - which means you’re paying to reach visitors who are actually interested in your services.
2. Highly targeted. Bid only on keywords that are relevant to your practice. You can have 10 or 10,000 keywords - as noted above, you pay only when someone clicks your ad!
3. You can test different messages in your ads. Research what messages are most effective in driving visitors to your Web site to make contact with you, and use that information in your future marketing materials.
4. Highly flexible medium. Depending on your practice needs and goals, you can advertise only in the search engines and only when someone searches for your keywords, or you can extend your reach to appear on mobile phones, Google Maps, online and print newspapers, television, and anywhere else that the search engines allow you to advertise.
5. Yellow Pages are dying. Search engine advertising is rapidly replacing Yellow Pages directories as a significant source of new clients. In conclusion, there’s no time like now to divert some of your marketing dollars from other channels to search engine advertising in an effort to reach the rapidly growing pool of prospects looking for legal services on the Internet.

Five tips on the benefits of search engine advertising

Are you thinking about marketing your law practice in a search engine like Google, but aren’t sure you should take the plunge?

Here’s part one of a two-part series about why search engine advertising is a great way to get more clients:

1. React immediately to events in the news, changes in the law, or even your own personal whims. Unlike more traditional forms of marketing like the Yellow Pages, you don’t have to worry about planning your ad copy months in advance.
2. Reach people outside of your geographic area - people in other cities, the entire state of California , or even other countries. This is especially helpful if you practice an esoteric area of law, or you are looking for plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit. If you’re a personal injury lawyer, you may find that injured tourists often return home before beginning their search for a San Francisco attorney.
3. Pay as much or as little as you want (and start & stop advertising at any time). No matter what your budget is, you have an unlimited amount of flexibility. Having cash flow issues or going on vacation? Pause your advertising until you’re ready to resume. Not enough work? Spend more this week to get a few extra inquiries.
4. Get real feedback about how well your Web site converts visitors into clients. Google allows you to track conversions and other important data about your Web site visitors. If your data is telling you that a page on your site is a top exit page (i.e., they often leave your site from that page), you can experiment with different looks for that page, creating more conspicuous calls to action, or trying different copy.
5. Easiest and most effective way to ensure that your web site is visible in the search engines. Even if your site ranks well for certain phrases, you cannot rank well for the thousands of words and phrases that are relevant to your practice areas. Also, for new or poorly optimized sites, search engine marketing may be the only way to ensure that people can find you on the internet.

Next post: Reasons 6 through 10 of why search engine advertising is a great, cost-effective way to get more clients.

Turning a consultation into a client

There’s a lot of discussion in legal blogs and forums about “tire kickers” - a term used to connote prospective clients who go to a consultation with an attorney but fail to hire the attorney for any legal services. It’s frustrating to meet with prospective clients, not get paid for your time, and then have them never come back after the initial meeting.

It must be remembered that even tire kickers will eventually buy a car

In the Information Age, there are more opportunities for people to compare and shop around, so it is to your benefit, as a service provider in a crowded market, to stand above the rest through your qualifications and your superior customer service.

Customer Service Counts

Good customer service from the very first contact is vital. Listen to what the prospect wants, and respond quickly and thoughtfully. A good response from you will make it easier for them to decide to consult with you.

If you cannot help them, refer them to your local Lawyer Referral and Information Service (LRIS) and they will remember your considerate manner should they or a loved one need legal help in the future.

Get them into your office and close the deal

Through great customer service, you can get them into your office. Now it’s up to you to close the deal. Emphasize your unique selling points. Why are you a better value than the next lawyer? Even though prospects may appear cost-conscious, they will hire you if you can persuade them that you will handle their matter in an effective and efficient manner.

Even if you can’t close the deal and they don’t hire you right away, they may remember how you treated them, and when they finally make the decision to hire an attorney, or to refer a friend or family member to an attorney, they’ll remember your name.

As an attorney, you know that referrals from other attorneys or satisfied clients are one of the best sources of new clients for your law practice, not the least because the referring party has already said good things about you and the work you do. Most of your clients probably come to your practice in this manner. However, as effective as word-of-mouth marketing may be, it is often not enough to sustain or grow a successful law practice. You must seek out new prospects from other sources as well.

If you have a website, hopefully prospects will find you online through a search engine or directory and visit your site to learn more about you. Since you don’t know which page of the Web site the prospect will enter from, it is critical that every page be constructed in such a way as to encourage as many of these visitors as possible to make contact with you.

You don’t have much time to convince them either. Many believe that you have as little as 10 seconds to grab a Web site visitor’s interest before they back out and visit a different site. As a service professional, you don’t have a tangible product to sell, so how do you convince prospective clients to take the step of making contact with you?

Add Client Testimonials

Along with other elements of a successful site, you should consider adding client testimonials. If a satisfied client says something positive about you in a letter or email, or over the telephone, ask them directly if you can ascribe their feedback to a Web site testimonial. It will increase visitors’ comfort level with you if they see that other people, like them, hired you and were glad that they did.

Add Case Results

If you’re not comfortable with client testimonials (or you don’t have any), have a short case result on the page. For example, if the page is about your personal injury practice, boast about a particularly successful case result like “Case: Dog attack causing facial scarring. Result: $150,000 to plaintiff.” Then provide a “View More Results” link to a results page listing all of your good results.Providing such information helps prospective clients be confident that you can provide the legal services that will help them solve whatever problem they are facing.

Say It Loudly

When including the testimonial or case result on the Web page, make sure that you include it in such a way as the visitor cannot help but see it. Change the background of the client quote or case result somewhat so that the visitors’ eyes are drawn to it. Keep the call-out above the scroll bar so that it is in front of their eyes the moment the page loads into their browser.

Remember that you have only a few seconds to grab visitors, so make those seconds count.

If you practice two or more widely divergent areas of law, such as a law practice consisting of criminal law and estate planning, you may want to think about the benefits of marketing the two or more distinct practice areas in separate, stand alone Web sites. This article discusses the pros and cons of doing this.

Advantages

One of the greatest advantages of separate Web sites is it gives law firms an opportunity to present themselves as focusing on a particular area of law. Potential clients have more confidence in, and are more likely to hire specialists over generalists. And if one of your practice areas is highly competitive, for example personal injury law, positioning yourself in a separate Web site as a law firm that focuses on product liability will help with client conversions.

This approach will help focus your message and be less confusing to visitors who are searching for a very particular type of lawyer. Aesthetically, it also affords law firms an opportunity to choose a design appropriate for the practice area.

Finally, if a Web site is focused on only a certain practice area, search engines like Google are more likely to perceive that Web site as more relevant for important search phrases than a less focused site.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage is that two or more Web sites are harder and more expensive to maintain than one. The initial cost will be more, and thought must be given to whether the expense will be worth the long-term benefits.

When both of your Web sites have been indexed by the search engines, people looking for you by name may end up on the wrong site. This problem can be minimized with careful planning, in particular, making sure that your Web sites’ pages are clearly and distinctively titled.