Lots of potential clients use internet searches to find attorneys close to them—creating an account on Google’s Local Business Center ensures clients can the right information they need about your practice.

Head over to the Google Local Business Center to get the ball rolling. As the video will tell you, you can basically create your own profile for your business for free. At the very least, be sure to add the basics: address, phone, and website. Lots of businesses do not take the time to add a website—which is very annoying (and simple to fix).

You can add details about your practice as well—which can also help potential clients decide whether to call you or not. Maybe you want to even put “free consultations” if you offer those. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for potential clients to find you and contact you. Creating your businesses profile at Google Local Business Center will do just that.

Use Google Local Business Center to Attract Clients is a post from: Lawyerist

here is a lot of talk about optimizing web sites for search engines, but what about optimizing your web site for potential clients?

Search-engine optimization (SEO) is about making it easy for a search engine to index your page. The easier it is for Google to figure out that you are a family lawyer in Minnesota, the better your page will register. This is why content is so important; the more “Minnesota” and “family law” appear in your content, the more clear it is that someone searching for “Minnesota family law” is looking for a page like yours.

But what about PCO (potential-client optimization)?

Look at the main page of your web site again. How far do you have to read to determine what kind of law you practice? Now imagine you are a typical web browser with an attention-deficit predisposition. If you have to read further than the end of the first sentence, you are probably clicking away to find an attorney who does what you need.

Your first sentence should answer the question in every potential client’s mind when they look at a web site: “Can this lawyer help me?”

Some bad examples:

• “We are a small, general-practice law firm in Chicago, IL.”
• “At Our Law Firm, P.A., we have a combined 104 years of experience in civil litigation.”
• A picture of the lawyers and staff with a link menu.
• “Practice areas: Criminal law; Family law; Estate Planning; Business Transactions.”

What about the last one? Some firms really are that general. If so, fine, but a simple list of practice areas is unhelpful to potential clients and search engines. If you practice several different areas of law, consider creating several different websites, one for each practice area. If you are a true generalist, rely on other marketing.

Some good examples:

• “We handle divorces, child custody disputes, and draft wills, trusts, medical directives, and other estate planning documents.”
• “We sue abusive debt collectors.“
• “We represent people who have been charged with a DUI or other minor crimes such as petty theft, minor drug possession, and other misdemeanors.”

Optimizing your web site for potential clients is a post from: Lawyerist

Okay, so you are comfortable with online privacy issues, you have spent some time on Wikipedia and Google learning about the “geek stuff,” and now you want to get going and market your law firm online. Obviously, you want to start with square one: a website. And a website is the logical next step in online marketing, so let’s get to it.

When I say “static website,” I mean a normal website: a set of web pages with content that rarely changes, and could be described accurately as a sort of dynamic business card and resume rolled into one. Many people will throw in a brochure-y article or two, but the bottom line is that a static website rarely changes. (A “dynamic website,” by contrast, could be a blog, wiki, or other frequently-updated website.)

A static website is online marketing 101. Every firm should have one, almost without exception. Most Americans have internet access in one form or another. Many will get referrals to more than one lawyer, who they will try to find online. The ones they find will get phone calls. The others probably will not.

Hosting

First, you will need a hosting plan. A web host is a place where your website is kept (“hosted”), and internet users can view it. Once you have a host, you can get a domain name (lawyerist.com, for example) and set up your website.

There are probably thousands of web hosts out there. Find one you like. I use HyTekHosting. I love their service, and their reliability is top-notch. Two things: (1) if you are paying more than $15/month for your web hosting and you are just hosting a website, you are paying too much; and (2) don’t tolerate downtime. If your website goes down more than once a year, and for more than a couple of hours, get a new provider.

Look for a “shared hosting” plan, as opposed to a dedicated or virtual host. (If you know you want dedicated or virtual hosting and why, feel free to ignore this.) With a shared hosting plan, you lease a directory on a server with other users who are leasing other directories. This is the cheapest form of hosting, and will be more than adequate for most websites. It is what I use for this blog, my law firm website, my consumer law blog, Caveat Emptor, and my newest project, Minnlawpedia. All are hosted on the same shared hosting plan.

Once you have picked a hosting provider and signed up for a shared hosting plan, you will need to register your domain name, the “address” that people type into their browser to find you (lawyerist.com for this blog, for example). Many hosting plans will include a domain name when you sign up with them, but your domain name is something you can take with you from one hosting provider to the next. For this reason, many people recommend registering your domain name with a different company than your hosting provider. It can make switching hosting providers easier.

GoDaddy.com is probably the most popular domain name registrar, and their prices are hard to beat. Once you register your domain name, your hosting provider should be able to walk you through the process of pointing your domain name at your shared hosting directory. I won’t go into it in detail now, since it is something you only have to do once, and your domain name registrar and/or hosting provider should have pretty good directions.

Building a static website

In order to have a website, you must build one yourself or have someone else do it for you.

You can build a website yourself, if you are willing to learn the CSS and HTML necessary to do a proper job. Ten years ago, any website at all was a good start. But today, you need something a bit more polished. Increasingly, your website will be potential clients’ first impression. It is worth the price of a good designer to get a positive first impression. Do it right, whether you decide to do your own or hire someone.

(A word on hiring a daughter, nephew, etc. A website you have your nephew design will look like a website you had your nephew design. And unless your nephew works somewhere like Artropolis, that ain’t good. Hire a professional.)

One easy way to make your own website is to use the popular blogging software, WordPress.org. WordPress.org is what I used to create this site as well as my law firm website. Even though WordPress.org is blogging software, it serves really well for building a basic website. You can choose a pre-designed template and set your site to display a static page as the front page, and you can write other pages for the other content pages (bio, contact info, etc.). I intend to write a tutorial on doing this sometime in the future. For now, install WordPress.org at your hosted account and start playing around with it.

Or, if you just want a website with minimal fuss, hire someone. Like hosting providers, there are thousands of website designers out there. I used E.Webscapes for a recent redesign of my blog, Caveat Emptor. I spent $600 for the blog template, which did not include any of the content, of course.

As you look for different designers, look through their portfolios and make sure you like their style and think they will be able to adapt to your needs. The website they build for you will probably look similar to their other work, so find a portfolio you like.

You will hear a lot of designers talk about “search engine optimization.” If they act like this is a Big Deal and want to charge extra for it, head the other way. Basic optimization is important and should be a part of designing any website, but unless you pay for advertising, pretty much the only way people will find a static website is by searching for the name of your firm. There is no way around this, no matter what SEO tricks your designer claims to know. Without dynamic content or paying for position, you are unlikely to show up on the first page of Google when someone searches for “Minnesota attorney.” (I would bet Lawyers.com and Schwebel, Goetz & Sieben pay more than my gross yearly revenue for that privilege.)

You should expect to pay at least $1,000 for a good, basic website. If you want more, you pay more. Shop around and look for the best all-around deal to make sure you get what you want.

What to include in your website

Include some information about yourself, your areas of practice, the services you offer, and how potential clients can contact you. You might also include some substantive information. A basic primer on traffic stops is nice to see on a criminal defense lawyer’s website, for example, but there is no need to go overboard; most potential clients can find the same–or better–information on Wikipedia.

Take my website for The Glover Law Firm as an example. It may not suit everyone’s style, but it has all the elements of a good, basic law firm website, and a few extra things:

• Home page with firm news – the home page has the firm name and contact information–the basics of any business card, and the firm news “extra” gives visitors an update on what is going on at the firm and–hopefully–the impression that the firm is alive and well;
• Biography – this basic element tells visitors a bit about me, the attorney they may hire (complete with a half-decent picture);
• Resources – this “extra” element contains useful information for clients, potential clients, and consumers generally–a reason to visit my website besides just to hire me, in other words;
• Consultations – this basic element could have been folded into one of the other pages, but I felt it was worth setting on its own, and it also relates to the Resources page; and
• Contact information – this basic element has information on how to contact me and how to get to my office.

No matter who you work with, you will have to provide most of the content. So start writing. Get your resume or CV in shape, type up a description of your firm, a list of your practice areas, etc. Some web designers can help you fill up the gaps in your website, but you will always be the one doing the majority of the work. As you should, since this is your website.

Online advertising

Now that you have a shiny new website, you want people to find it! Most people will probably find your website by searching for you. As of this posting, 25-30% of my visitors reach my website by searching for “Sam Glover.” This should make it obvious why I sometimes refer to a static website as a calling card or a dynamic business card. Most people will find out who you are before they get there, kind of like when you are handing out business cards at a networking function.

A blog is a great way to raise your profile, resulting in more people looking for your website, and we will talk more about blogs in the next installment of this series. But a blog may not result in direct referrals of potential clients. If what you want is potential clients who are looking for an attorney, advertising may be your best bet.

If I tried to summarize all the ways you can advertise online, this post would turn into a novel, and it is long enough already. Further, I do not advertise, so I am not an expert beyond a general familiarity. That said, all advertising boils down to this: reaching potential clients at the point at which they are trying to find a lawyer.

Search engines like Google are a common way to reach potential clients. For example, someone who searches for “Minnesota divorce lawyer” on Google is probably looking to hire a divorce lawyer in Minnesota. (Click that link and see who is paying for that search term.) With Google AdWords, you can choose your keywords and bid for position. When browsers click your link, you pay for that click. Yahoo! and Microsoft Live offer similar options, but they work slightly differently.

You can also advertise with a lawyer referral service. The Minnesota State Bar Association has one, for example. So does FindLaw, Nolo, and nearly any other organization or legal website you can think of.

When you are deciding whether to advertise online, consider your ideal pool of prospective clients. Select an advertising portal that they are likely to use. If you are using a search engine, choose your keywords carefully. Some will be obvious, but there may be others that you can also use.

Whatever you do, track your marketing carefully and adjust it accordingly as you go.

Up next is part 3: blogs and social networks . . .

Online marketing 101: websites and advertising online (part 2 of 3) is a post from: Lawyerist

By now, most attorneys are at least thinking about marketing their practice online, if not doing it in some fashion already. But “online marketing” is a concept so vague it is completely unhelpful. Online marketing encompasses everything from websites to social networking sites to chat rooms. Much online marketing is similar to offline marketing, but some of it is very different.
LinkedIn
But whatever your comfort level–both with privacy and with technology–you can find a way to market your practice online. In this series of three posts, I will talk about privacy issues, the necessary technical know-how, and the major ways to market yourself and your practice online: websites, paid advertising, blogs, and social networks.

First, privacy and technical know-how.

Online privacy

There is a delicate tension between online privacy and online marketing. If you market yourself online, you are voluntarily putting a lot of information out on the web. But that does not have to mean that you will put personal information out on the web. In fact, one of the best ways to bury personal information that may be available already is to cover it up with the information you decide to put out there.

So safeguarding privacy boils down to this: don’t reveal anything you don’t want anyone to know. If you publish your home address, there is no getting it back. (Since most of us probably enter our home address only when shopping online, this should not be a big problem. Shopping sites are mostly well-secured, although it never hurts to check their credentials.)

Instead, publish–far and wide–the information you want potential clients to know: your office address, phone number, website(s), and e-mail address. While you can probably find my home address with a public records search, you can find my business contact information just about anywhere. Hopefully, that makes potential clients more likely to contact me.

You can hide behind an alias online, but if you do, you defeat the purpose of using the internet to market your practice.

Also, be sure to use a secure browser like Firefox, and keep spyware, adware, and viruses off your computer.

The geek stuff: technological know-how

Computers are no longer a geek’s domain. Thanks to the internet, they are now primarily entertainment and communication devices, not just overpowered word processors (although they still do that). The days of needing to know rudimentary programming skills just to get a computer working are long gone. Open it up and head into the Wild, Wild, Web.

That said, if you want to engage in online marketing, a basic level of comfort with your computer is necessary. For example, you will want to be able to turn on your computer, type, and browse the internet. Seriously, there is not much more to it than that. If you do not know how to turn on your computer, type, or browse the internet, look into beginning computer classes through a local community education program, or try nearby libraries. It does not take long to get up and running.

In order to move beyond a static website, however, you will need to get familiar with some other common features of the online landscape. But if you can handle getting and using an e-mail account like Hotmail or Gmail, you can start a blog or join a forum or social network. It is nearly the same process. Piece of cake. So start a “dummy” blog on Blogger or Wordpress just to get the feel for it. Do the same on MySpace or Facebook–or better yet, the MSBA’s mypractice–and make a profile on a social network. You can use Plaxo or LinkedIn, instead, if you want to try a more “highbrow” social network.

A level of familiarity with things like RSS feeds, blogs, internet forums, and some other things is very helpful. Those are the backbone of Web 2.0, the online world in which we now move. Know what they are, and start exploring a few.

Finally, as you interact on forums, blogs, and social networks, you may want to learn some basic HTML like making a hyperlink.

(Here’s how: <a href=”http://website.com“>text you want to link</a>

This sort of thing is a bit more advanced, and therefore optional, and you can get along just fine without it. But it will make your online interaction a bit more fluid if you do decide to learn just a bit. If you do start blogging (or commenting on blogs) regularly, you will probably just pick it up gradually as you go along.

The good news is that once you have this basic level of comfort and familiarity, you are ready to think about how you want to market online, and to do it!

Stay tuned for part 2: websites and advertising . . .

Online marketing 101: privacy and technical know-how (part 1 of 3) is a post from: Lawyerist

I use HyTekHosting for a web hosting provider. They host my e-mail, this blog, Caveat Emptor, and my home page.

On Christmas evening, I sat down to make some changes and, due to a series of stupid missteps, lost first Caveat Emptor, and then every web page on my home directory! (Seriously, I need to be more careful.) HyTekHosting had me back up and running with backups in just a few hours. They respond very quickly to problems and are very helpful, even with software they did not develop.

If you are looking for a hosting provider, give HyTekHosting a look. Their rates are great, their service is great, and I am a very happy customer.

HyTekHosting is a fantastic hosting provider is a post from: Lawyerist

Every lawyer should have a website by now. That is not news, just a fact. Lawyers who don’t have some kind of online calling card, whether a blog, Facebook or MySpace page, or website, are missing out on clients. Period.

There are two kinds of websites. First, there is what I call the “calling card” website. Basically a static page with information about the firm, including where to find the office and probably some biographical information about the firm and attorneys. This is absolutely required, even if the website is a one-page site with only the firm name and contact information.

Second is a more dynamic site, updated at least once a month, but preferably more. This site is not just a calling card, but a source of information for clients, peers, and the general public. One of the easiest ways to do this is by incorporating a blog or even some Drupal tools.

The “calling card” does not generate business, but it does provide an online location for potential clients to visit before they pick up the phone or compose an e-mail. The dynamic site draws potential clients through search engines and references from other websites, including (hopefully) media sites. The dynamic website does bring in new clients.

When you set out to create a web presence, decide what you want. A static, calling-card website is a one-shot deal. Put it up and leave it. Update only when the information is outdated, which will not be often. Pay for a well-designed site. Most cookie-cutter sites are as bad as having no website at all.

A dynamic site should be just that: dynamic. It should be updated frequently, or at least regularly, and provide information about the firm, practice areas, etc. This should have a well-designed framework and ideally, should be set up for employees to update easily and frequently.

Website basics is a post from: Lawyerist

Every lawyer I know either has a web site or want one. Many lawyers have a vague belief that a web site is a required marketing tool “in this day and age,” but few know why that is or how they expect a web site to benefit them.

Web sites

Most law firm web sites are static calling cards that rarely change over time. Without paid-for placement, they rarely show up on search engines unless the search is for the attorney’s or law firm’s name. I call these “calling cards.” They are important to have, especially if you list your firm with an online referral service. As more and more people use the web as their primary method of finding things (directions, phone numbers, address, etc.), a web site is a near-necessity. New clients will call an attorney they know something about before they call one they know nothing about. Unless you come recommended, new clients will often visit your web site before they pick up the phone or tap out an e-mail.

Just the same, calling card web sites do very little to drive potential clients to your firm’s inbox, phone number, or front door. They are a bare minimum for anyone doing business as a law firm any significant portion of whose clients have a computer in the home. In other words: just about everyone.

Blogs

Blogs, on the other hand, are terrific marketing tools if used effectively. A blog, by its very nature, is a repository of information and a pretty good way to store information for easy access. They naturally attract search engine hits because they are chock full of content and natural keywords, and should be updated fairly frequently. Add your picture and contact information, and your blog is also your calling card.

However, an unmaintained blog is worse than an out-of-date calling card web site. (Although a blog can easily be used as a static web site if a lawyer is looking for a very cheap web site design.) Lawyers unwilling to devote a few hours a week, at minimum, to finding material and posting should consider a static web site, instead.

. . .

And, of course, there are combinations, like my firm’s web site, which is fairly static, but uses an embedded blog to keep track of “firm news.” I also update the “legal info” section from time to time with articles and information useful to my client base.

If you are looking to create an online presence, consider careful the options, and if you are willing to put in the time, especially consider a blog rather than a static web page.

Law firm marketing: web sites and blogs is a post from: Lawyerist