Is your website facilitating legal leads? Real leads that convert to clients?
Acquiring leads is the biggest challenge for most lawyers and law firms. It’s getting harder and harder to generate leads using traditional marketing techniques like print ads and speaking engagements. With fewer quality leads and many marketing budgets left frozen, the cost per lead is increasing. Lawyers and law firms are increasingly turning to the online world for lead generation.
Yet using the web to generate leads is still something of a mystery to many law firms. How do law firms start navigating the complex world of online lead generation and digital marketing? Lots of buzzwords to learn (inbound marketing, outbound marketing, tweets, impressions, conversions, bounce rate, etc.) There are many acronyms to decipher (SEO, SEM, PPC, CTM, CTC, etc.).
Where do online leads come from?
It all starts with your website. Your website should be the hub for all your online marketing and online lead generation activities. Generating leads online can be very difficult if you don’t have a professional looking website set up to attract and convert leads.
With the right website in place, the next step is to employ a digital marketing strategy to drive quality traffic to your website. Once traffic is generated, it’s her website’s job to convert visitors into leads. This is called “conversion”. The website converts visitors into leads by asking them to provide their name and contact information via a form on her website or by having them provide this information over the phone.
How can I increase my website traffic?
Increase website traffic through digital marketing strategies. These tactics are:
- blog — Providing valuable information to prospects and clients and writing blog posts featuring your target keywords is a great way to attract visitors to your website and help you rank in search engines for those keywords am. These posts are also perfect for sharing on social media or emailing.
- search engine optimization (SEO) — The goal of SEO is simple. It’s all about driving traffic to her law firm’s website and improving your search rankings so prospects can find you. But effective his SEO takes time, attention and skill. Also, you should implement this process every time you publish new content on your website. (For more information on how to rank on search engines, watch this free webinar: SEO Basics in an Hour)
- social media marketing — This allows you to share content and engage in conversations with clients, prospects and influencers on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. By posting useful content on social media, you can bring those social media users back to your website and convert them into leads.
- email marketing — Sending helpful and informative emails to a competent mailing list can grab the attention of your target audience and drive people to your website to learn more. The trick here is sending the right content to the right people at the right time to make sure you’re getting leads.
- content marketing — Content is at the core of any successful digital marketing strategy. You can’t generate online leads without valuable, engaging content. Create helpful content (blog posts, videos, webinars, e-books, etc.) and share it with the world (via social media or email), and visitors will flock to your website and share that content with others. Share with users. One of the added benefits of good content is that other her websites may link to that content (as a reference you can receive traffic from that website or link).
- online advertising – Online advertising is the cheapest, most effective and fastest way to drive traffic to your website and generate leads. Unfortunately, most attorneys don’t understand how to properly optimize their online advertising and waste a lot of money without showing results. Google Adwords (also known as Pay-Per-Click) and social advertising on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn offer attorneys an incredible ability to target prospects and measure results.
- Measurement and analysis – Digital marketing is more science than art. But like any scientific endeavor, it requires a lot of testing and experimentation. Without data and methods to measure results, we cannot determine the return on investment or glean actionable insights that can be used to enhance our methods.
Convert visitors into leads
Getting more website visitors is the first step in lead generation, but another important part of lead generation is attracting enough website visitors to move them down the sales funnel. is what you can do. Typically, this can be achieved by offering different content for different stages of the buyer journey and offering gated content to qualified visitors to convert them into leads. Gated content is valuable content that is offered in exchange for an email address, so law firms can capture and warm up your contact information.
Here are some types of gated content you can offer for lead generation:
- E-book
- webinar on demand
- Infographic
- Checklist
- video series
- Provision of free services
How to optimize your website for lead generation
1. Add forms to high-traffic pages
If you notice that a page, such as a practice area page, is getting more traffic, add a specific lead generation form to that page. This will give you more contact information and insight into the needs of these prospects.
2.A/B test
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is when you change one variable in your marketing assets to test which variable works best for your audience. Consider testing items such as copy, CTA, button placement, and form attributes.
3. Include live chat
One of the easiest ways to move prospects down the sales funnel today is to speak directly to them. If you can answer a visitor’s questions instantly with live chat, they’re more likely to keep searching your site and move along with the buyer’s journey.
4. Include a clear CTA
Website visitors shouldn’t have to wonder what the next steps are if they want to stay engaged with your company. All blogs, practice area pages, videos, and webinars should have a clear CTA of her that gives visitors clear next steps. Taking action means going from being a mere visitor to being a prospect.
5. Solid user experience
Navigation on a law firm’s website should be easy to understand. This lets visitors know where to go no matter where they are in the buyer’s journey. Users do not have to waste time searching for blogs, case her studies, or practice area pages. Navigation should be easy and seamless, and user experience should be the top priority.
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Successfully implementing these tactics can improve the quality of traffic that visits your website. The key here is quality traffic. Not all traffic is created equal. A well-built website with quality traffic and rich, engaging content is the starting point. Digital marketing is the way to be successful.
This post has been edited and republished from April 27, 2018.