Why a Legal Directory Might Not be the Best Choice for Your Firm
Is a Legal Directory the Best Place for Your Firm to Advertise?
For a variety of reasons, including costs, overwhelming choice, and a variety of alternatives, Legal Directories may no longer be the most cost effective way to advertise your firm online.
Costs
Legal Directories can be extremely expensive, especially if you desire a listing that stands out. Furthermore, it may not be possible to get listed appropriately if your practice area is in a small niche. If you are a general practice firm, your listing will face too much competition. Most listings are in addition to having a website. Designing and maintaining a website can be a large cost in and of itself. Optimizing the site to do well in search engine results (SEO) is also expensive but necessary. You must decide whether a listing with a directory adds anything to your marketing strategy.
Benefits
Legal Directories have some good features that should be pointed out. Often, they fit well into a small firm’s advertising budget. They allow for filtering by location and specialization. They allow you to put your name right next to the names of your competitors with very little effort. They are easier to set up and maintain then websites and no SEO is necessary.
Legal Directories Present Potential Clients with Too Much Choice
Most legal directories present consumers with a vast array of choices. A single page on Findlaw will display 20 law firms. HG can display more than 60 choices on one page and Justia.com displays a staggering 100 attorneys PER PAGE. Choice can be good, and it is important that potential clients are presented with choices, but 100 per page is simply too much. As Barry Schwartz explains in his TED talk “The Paradox of Choice,” when people are presented with too many choices, they often avoid choosing at all. A more obvious consequence of advertising in a list of hundreds of lawyers is that each lawyer on that list is less likely to stand out. It becomes hard to justify paying so much to be listed in a directory when you could end up on the bottom of the third page of listings in just one of the many directories available.
Alternatives
There are many alternatives to directories. Companies sell everything from turn-key websites to advertising space on websites full of legal information. Social media, blogs and newsletters may all be viable options for advertising your firm. Placing a greater emphasis on word of mouth referrals can also boost business.
Tell us what is working for you
We are curious to know what is working for your firm. Have you used directory listings? Are they working? How easily can you find your own directory listing? Do you keep track of where your clients come from to do a cost-benefit analysis later?
Featured image courtesy of Tulane Public Relations licensed under creative commons.
Read More.CO Domain Names – Good Enough for Google – Good Enough for You
The internet used to be a simpler place. Nearly every web address ended in .com, .net, .org, .edu, .mil, or .gov. Now we are used to seeing a variety of international and new top-level domains. With new domains such as .xxx and .tv constantly being released, it can be a struggle to determine which websites are trustworthy. While savvy internet users may understand the differences, the general public probably does not.
How, then, can we determine which domains the public will trust? The average person is most likely to trust things he or she is used to, including domain endings that are seen every day. Years ago, .tv struggled to gain clout because people weren’t used to seeing it and most major players on the internet were not using it. Names like .xxx have unwholesome connotations. One top-level domain that has avoided these problems is .co.
.CO is different. The suffix .co used to mean that a website was located in Colombia. Today, any commercial enterprise can buy a .co site. Here is a list of advantages of using .co domain names:
- .CO sites are more plentiful than .com sites. They haven’t been around as long, so there are more left to choose from. There are still plenty of exact match domains left.
- .CO sites are often cheaper than other domains because they are not in as much demand.
- .CO is not penalized in Google search results. For SEO purposes, there is almost no difference between .CO and .com.
- .CO looks like .com. An uninformed user may not even notice the difference. It is not as obvious as .xxx or .tv.
But perhaps the most interesting thing about .co domains is that they are quickly gaining recognition because they are being used by major companies. Twitter has purchased t.co to use as a link shortener. Google has purchased g.co for the same purpose. As the average internet user gets more and more used to seeing these domains, they become more trustworthy and more valuable. This makes .co sites a great investment.
At DotCO Law Marketing, we have chosen to get into the .CO game early. Every one of the websites we build for lawyers to advertise on ends in .CO. Our homepage is a .CO site. We trust this domain so much that we even named our company after it.
A Good Web Site is Not Enough
The Disconnect Between How We Use the Internet and How We Advertise on it
Nearly every law firm needs a good website. This has been true for years and will remain true for the foreseeable future. Whether your firm is a large, international, legal powerhouse, or something you run in your spare time out of your house, a good website is essential. A modern and well maintained website projects an air of professionalism. Many of today’s clients will judge you by how your site looks and behaves. However, no matter how much work you put into a site, no matter who builds it, and no matter how much it cost you, it is useless if potential clients do not see it.
It is useful to think of a website like an office lobby. Once inside, it should be modern and convenient while projecting your law firm’s personality. The most important part of the lobby, however, is getting clients to walk in the door. A website works in the same way.
How Lawyers Advertise
Lawyers have traditionally just built a website and hoped for the best. Some lawyers also optimized their sites to increase search engine results. The internet is unfathomably large. Building a website and just leaving it there is not enough. Traffic needs to be driven to your site. You also need to interact with potential clients and others in the legal community outside the confines of your own website.
How Clients Use the Internet
Clients are rarely looking for your specific website. Think about your own use of the internet. You are generally looking for an answer, a product, or a service. You often want a quick and easy solution. Clients are the same way. They are not trying to look though pages of search results or legal directories. Clients will generally click on one of the first things they see that seems to answer their question. On the internet, Ricky Bobby’s mantra stands true. “If you’re not first, you’re last.” Being on the third page of Google search results is almost useless. When is the last time you skipped the first 25 links that seemed to answer your question?
There are many traditional tactics for getting potential clients to visit a website:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Building your site in such a way that it shows up well in search engine results. The hardest, and most productive, thing you can do for your website is to have it show up in the first page of Google search results. Competition can be extreme, but the results are often worth the effort.
- Legal Directories – By joining legal directories and paying high fees, you can have your name and a link to your website show up on a legal directory. In this case, your site may get increased traffic, but it is directly competing against many other sites.
- Paid Ad Placement – Search engines like Google allow you to pay to have your firm’s site show up in search results. This can be a great tactic, but can get expensive quickly. It also requires you to figure out what your clients will be searching for.
- Traditional Advertising – Anything from billboards to radio commercials can drive internet traffic your way. Unfortunately, this type of advertising is unlikely to reach a focused group of potential clients.
- Smartphone apps – Creating an app for your firm could be useful if you run a large firm. It could help you provide information to clients and even attract new clients. However, it can be very costly to create a functional and clean looking app. The market is segmented. How do you decide whether to make an app for Android, iOS, or Blackberry? All three are important. Perhaps the largest problem is that it potential clients are unlikely to find and download your app. Legal ethics rules also can be a challenge in this arena.
- Relying on a Facebook page as if it were a website – A Facebook page is a useful communication tool, but it is most likely to be seen by people you already know. It is a great way to stay in contact, but should not be used as a primary method of finding clients. Relying solely on Facebook for a web presence is also a mistake because you don’t own the property you are investing in, Facebook does and they can change the rules of the game at any time.
- Social Networking – Having an active account on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn puts your name in more places. It gives you more opportunities to drive traffic to your site. Social networking also allows you to have informal discussions with both peers and potential clients.
- Blogging – By hosting your own blog or by guest-posting on more established blogs, you can drive traffic to your site. Writing about interesting topics means that more people are likely to see your name and visit your website.
- Advertising with a localized service – Companies like DotCO Law Marketing place advertisements on content rich sites with localized legal and geographic information. When you advertise with such a company, often at an extremely low cost, you can expand your web presence, boost your Google search results, and drive traffic to your website.
Facebook Safety – Watch out for Landmines
It happens thousands of times each day. An unsuspecting victim clicks on an interesting link from a close friend on Facebook. Suddenly, the victim finds that their account has been compromised by hackers and is being used to spam others. The last thing you want your clients to see is that you have unwittingly posted inappropriate spam links on their wall. Facebook can be thought of as a minefield, but one that is worth crossing.
It seems that some people always fall prey to these scams and virus links. Others instinctively know what to avoid. How can you know what is safe to click? Here is a quick primer in Facebook safety:
Avoiding Facebook Scams and Viruses
- Often, risque pictures or unbelievable seeming headlines are bait for you to click. If something seems inappropriate for Facebook, or otherwise too good to be true, it probably is.
- Anyone can have their account compromised. Even the most trustworthy friend could be unwittingly spreading spam or a virus.
- Search engines can be your best friend. When you see a truly outrageous link on Facebook, something like “Britney Spears Eats 4 Foot Long Spider,” try searching for the headline in a search engine. You will almost immediately be able to tell if there is a real article out there or not. If the link is a scam or a virus, you are likely to see results that say so. Facebook spam is spread by clicking links within Facebook. Your anti-virus software can protect you when you browse on search engines, but it cannot protect the integrity of your Facebook account.
- Be careful when granting permissions to applications within Facebook. As we all learned from Farmville and its many clones, you might actually be agreeing to fill your clients’ newsfeeds with spam. It is better to avoid any Facebook games on an account you use for professional purposes. (PROTIP: It is really easy to get other people’s game achievements to stop showing up on your newsfeed. Click the drop-down icon in the top right of any post. At the bottom of the menu, there will be an option to hide all updates from that application. Click it and Farmville/Bananaville/OtherGame is gone.)
- If you think you have clicked something that you should not have, your first step should be to change your Facebook password. Many of the hacks and exploits on Facebook stop working if you change your password.
- If you suspect you may be spamming others, quickly follow up to apologize.
With all the spam that can be found on Facebook, it sometimes seems like the site is more risk than reward. However, an educated and safe approach to social networking allows you to access invaluable tools for reaching new clients.
Image courtesy of codemastersnake licensed via Creative Commons.
Avoid Legalese: Write for Clients, Not Law Partners
Law school forces you to change the way you write, the way you speak, and even the way you think. Lawyers are expected to be able to speak precisely and understand complicated legal nuances. Clients, on the other hand, are known to tell wandering stories instead of relating a coherent set of facts. The slightest difficulty in understanding legal terminology or concepts can cause them to shy away. It is for this reason that you must always beware of the tone and complexity of anything you direct towards clients.
Often, a client’s first interaction with you might come from reading your website or a blog post. A client is looking for someone who understands them and their problems. It is important that you come across as human, and not a scholar sitting in an ivory tower. At the same time, care must be taken to avoid insulting your readers’ intelligence. These principals are true for all forms of writing directed at clients, whether it is a letter or a Facebook post.
In Torts class during my first year of law school, I came across the most needlessly complicated sentence I had ever seen. It came from an old British case about animals falling off of a boat, Gorris v. Scott. This may be the most convoluted thing a judge has ever written:
This sentence does not sound like it was written by or for a person who has ever been outside. This passage, re-written for human consumption, could simply read: “In order to use a statute against a defendant in a negligence per se case, that statute must be intended to protect the type of victim actually hurt from the type of harm actually incurred.” When writing for public consumption, I recommend reading this absurd passage from time to time to remember what to avoid. If your client is ever forced to parse the meaning of “it is otherwise; that if, therefore, by reason of,” they will quickly find another lawyer.
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