SEO in 30 Days, Day 1: Develop a Plan, Part 1
DoriE | June 30th, 2010 - 3:52 amOur first discussion in the SEO in 30 Days series will be about the importance of starting your optimization efforts at the beginning: with a strong marketing plan.
When developing an online marketing strategy, there are a couple law firm marketing tips that should be followed.
Tip 1: The first step in developing a marketing plan for a legal practice is to understand your audience. Start by asking yourself questions that will help you reach this understanding:
1. What sort of clients are you hoping to attract? What is their demographic? Income level? Education level? What words do they use to describe what they need? No doubt it is not “legalese.”
2. What needs do your potential clients have that you can meet? What is their “pain point”?
3. What unique services do you offer to meet these needs? How is your personal injury firm different from other personal injury firms in your geographic area?
Answering these questions will help you determine not only what type of content to have on your website, but also the tone the writing should have to convey the most trust.
Consider the important practice areas of your firm, as well as the locations that your firm serves. Is your firm in several states, cities or towns? Are there any specific attorneys or partners who have local name recognition?
Along with helping you with your website’s content and tone, these questions will help you determine the keywords that should be used in your online marketing campaign. We go into keyword research in detail in future articles in the series.
Tip 2: Our second law firm marketing tip builds off of our first one. Once you’ve considered your audience and the vernacular they are using, you need to choose which online marketing platforms you’re going to use for your law firm’s marketing plan. When choosing a platform, each law firm should consider the opportunity, cost of execution, and their implementation capabilities.
Many small to mid-sized law firms stick with traditional pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to get the word out about their practice. This is a relatively inexpensive way to increase awareness while maximizing your advertising budget. We will provide a basic overview of PPC in the last Day of the series.
Not all online marketing platforms require a cash outlay. In future articles in the SEO in 30 Days series we’ll cover online directories, social bookmarking, and other means of increasing the online visibility of your website and firm for free. For now, make a note of your budget (after the expense of the website), and any thoughts you have on ways to market your firm online. You will be referring to this in Day 2 of the series.
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