Blog Posts

Frequently when I speak with potential marketing clients for the first time they are eager to tell me about all the ‘technology’ and digital tools they use in their marketing campaigns.  It is rare for them to express any concern about the actual message they are delivering in their marketing.  There are so many ways

Google My Business (GMB) is an excellent tool for promoting your law firm locally. When someone searches on Google for local businesses, your business name is the primary ranking factor used.  As tempting as it may be to add keywords to your actual business name, this practice is against Google’s guidelines.  Violating Google’s guidelines can

When you consider that at its most fundamental level, marketing is about building relationships, some of the statistics below are surprising.  What’s not surprising when reviewing this data, is why so many law firms struggle with developing a successful marketing strategy. Websites are one of the best marketing tools for any business, especially legal, medical

I love Google’s Ad platform for local businesses. It makes writing ads, testing them and tracking their results uncomplicated.  As with any ad, content matters and there is a lot of competition among law firms. Google Ads has some rules that you will need to follow. There are also a few rules to follow to

Sometimes Google provides updates that can force companies to make big changes to their digital marketing content and strategy.  It looks like 2021 is one of the years that Google is making some big changes to how it ranks your digital content.   The biggest change from Google is how is the addition of 3 new

Most law firms will need to hire or replace a marketing agency to grow their practice. It’s important to understand that just like all law firms are not the same, neither are marketing agencies.  With so many options and marketing channels available today, many marketing agencies specialize in types of marketing channels and areas of

It’s pretty common as a digital marketer to see law firms that duplicate their online content for social media and social media ads.  It simplifies their online strategy and many firms think it’s an effective way to market on social media platforms.  This is simply not true!  While it’s understandable to lump social media and

There are several factors involved in creating a successful marketing strategy that delivers strong results.  Not surprisingly, there are also multiple pitfalls that contribute to failing campaigns. Many of these pitfalls lie in the execution of your strategy.  However, a common cause for failure is more basic than execution, it’s imitation.   Frequently I will have

Many technology trends were accelerated by the pandemic shut downs.  A few of those trends are now enthusiastically embraced, including working from home and virtual consultations. It turns out that potential clients love virtual consultations! That’s a good thing because they can be an effective way for legal teams to engage early in the marketing

I have to be honest, sometimes I like working with brand new law firms better than established firms.  Established firms usually have marketing ghosts that I need to compete with to earn their business.  Sometimes these ghosts are friendly and sometimes they are not. Either way, these ghosts haunt my clients with past experiences leading

Whether you’re planning to retire and sell your firm or you just want to attract quality talent, marketing helps, a lot. Developing and continuing a marketing strategy translates to market awareness, validation and consistency. These are business qualities that make your firm attractive to potential buyers and future employees or partners. An added benefit is

When non-marketers think of branding, they usually consider self promotion and branding as interchangeable terms. This is especially true in hyper competitive businesses like law firms.  Everyone wants to tell their audience how great they are and why viewers should hire them.  This is not the way to brand yourself on social media.  In fact,

When we think of QR codes many people think of consumer products, but in reality QR (Quick Response) codes are really useful for SEO and for tracking marketing campaigns.  What is a QR code? A QR code is a type of matrix bar scan that can be read by your mobile phone. The QR code

In our digital world there are dozens of places to market and spend money.  If you’re a large law firm with multiple offices and a large budget, being everywhere is a strategy that seems common.  If you’re a smaller firm, this strategy can wreak havoc on your marketing budget while producing poor results. The sheer

Lawyers in the U.S. are frequently regarded as overeducated and condescending by the average American.  In part, this attitude comes from the way attorneys communicate. Attorneys need to be technically specific and highly literate to effectively represent clients and work within the U.S. legal system.  However, when attorneys provide their own content for SEO they

Many studies have tried to identify how consumers choose attorneys. The end result of several studies is that the exact way consumers choose their attorneys remains somewhat tricky and can change based on local market preferences and bias.  However, some broad generalizations can be made from the research that has been done. The three main

  Your online ads, social media posts and SEO tools all need to be designed to drive your audience to your website. Getting your potential new clients to go to your website is only part of the equation, once they are on your website you need to meet their expectations.   Keep in mind that many

Marketing and Sales are frequently confused and often considered interchangeable. In reality they are two very different things. Marketing and Sales do compliment each other, however their roles in generating new business are distinct. Marketing is used to create an interest in your firm’s services, sales is the process of converting a prospect into a

For law firms, especially smaller ones, it is difficult to compete with the big boys online.  Using common keywords is highly competitive and expensive.  One way smaller firms can compete online is by using long-tail keywords.  Long-tail keywords are more specific than general keywords.  They drive less traffic but tend to generate a higher quality

The demand for virtual presentations soared during the pandemic in 2020.  Studies suggest that this trend has become a fundamental part of marketing strategies and is here to stay.  While marketing channels like video and podcasting are constantly changing, the good news is that the fundamentals of a good presentation never change. The key components

Most firms are aware that keywords drive SEO but understanding the difference between keyword stuffing and keyword clusters will greatly influence your SEO results. In a nutshell, keyword stuffing is the practice of using high search keywords that are not relevant to your content.  Keyword clusters are a way to capture slightly different search intent.  

Usually when law firms think of marketing, they consider all the various marketing channels, platforms, formats and technical aspects of creating and distributing their story to a wide audience. Rarely does a law firm consider their staff as one of their marketing channels.  That’s unfortunate, because the most successful law firms understand that their office

It seems that everyone has their own podcast these days. So the question many lawyers ask themselves is when they should start a podcast but maybe they should be asking whether they should start a podcast at all. Podcasts can be hugely successful for increasing SEO but not everyone should use this marketing channel for

We all know reviews are an important component of improving SEO and attracting new clients.  But, do you know how important reviews are? According to a 2020 Survey by BrightLocal, “87% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2020 – up from 81% in 2019.” Furthermore, “73% of consumers only pay attention to

It’s often said that the bridge from failure to success is persistence.  In the world of SEO I would revise that slightly and say the bridge from failure to success is consistency.  So many law firms trying to improve SEO start strong and either quit completely, don’t stay consistent with content or they jump from

Google announced yesterday that it will phase out the practice of allowing businesses to track individuals on the internet through cookies by next year.  It also promised to deliver an alternative practice which will focus on groups with similar interests rather than individuals. This is Google’s attempt to create a program that is less privacy

If you have noticed that your SEO results quickly went up when you hired your marketing team/ agency and now your SEO ranking is declining, your marketing team/ agency may be to blame.  Many marketing agencies promote themselves as SEO “experts” and promise quick results to law firms.  Who doesn’t want quick results?  Seems like

Generating leads through your marketing campaigns is only one part of getting new clients. To turn your marketing calls into clients you need to utilize value propositions. These propositions are designed to continue engaging the prospect at every step and move them closer to hiring your firm.  Charles Revlon, the founder of Revlon, was known

There are few things more frustrating for a law firm than seeing their phones ringing but not seeing any increases in revenue.  I’ll let you in on a secret, it’s even more frustrating as a marketing professional to see one of my clients experiencing this situation.  Why? Well if the phones are ringing I know