Lead Generation as Your Focus

Back to basics today – I’m always challenging myself to refine the way I work, my goals, the definition of “success” and the like. Coming from a (relatively) tech background, my world usually revolves around ideas like rankings, impressions, clicks and content development. But these don’t mean much to the typical lawyer. Most attorneys are far more interested in “where the rubber hits the road”: leads generated… and they’re right. Changing my language about legal search engine marketing to be much more focused on lead generation and tracking is one of my resolutions for 2008. So how do you ensure your traffic will generate leads, not just traffic?

This is a huge topic, so I’ll hit the high spots:

• Ensure telephone and web-based tracking is in place. Of course your site should have visitor tracking like WebTrends, but you need to know how many contacts have come from your online efforts, not just visits. This is essential to tracking lead generation and online marketing ROI. It may take a tech person to help you set this up.
• Know your market. It’s very important to know what people are actually searching for online. My typical example is the lawyer focused on “matrimonial law” rather than “family law and divorce”. Rankings don’t mean much if they’re for words no one uses. With the Overture keyword tool offline, I recommend Google Trends, Keyword Discovery and the DigitalPoint tool for getting a feel for the “natural” search landscape. Those interested in paid advertising should review SpyFu.
• Don’t buy traffic without keyword targeting. Paid advertising can be effective as part of a total marketing strategy, but don’t buy traffic where it’s just X visitors for Y dollars. Make sure your traffic is targeted to your audience.
• Provide an incentive. Once a visitor is on your site, what’s in it for them? Make sure that your site’s common landing pages have a call to action or content that “speaks” to the keyword (and situation) at hand.
• (easy one) Make sure your contact information on your website is easy to read. Light gray text on a white background, small font sizes and missing mailing info are common mistakes.

So I hope the message is clear, a website and even rankings themselves are ultimately just a means to an end: lead generation. The information aspect is even secondary, in my opinion. Don’t you agree?

[tags]lead generation[/tags]

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