16 Digital Marketing Strategies for Lawyers and Attorneys

How to Get Clients as a Lawyer or Attorney

The internet has revolutionized the world in ways that we could never have imagined. It has become the first destination for people looking for all sorts of things.

Phrases such as ‘lawyers near me’ and ‘attorneys near me’ get over a million Google searches every month from people who are in desperate need of legal help. There’s simply no better place to find clients.

This article will go over 16 of the most effective law firm digital marketing strategies. The goal will be to create a ubiquitous presence on the internet, such that you’re the first name people encounter when searching for lawyers or attorneys. But before we jump right in, take some time to refine your buyer persona, if you’ve not already done so.

A buyer persona is simply a precise description of your most ideal clients, down to the small detail. Ask yourself who they are, what they do, where they live, how much they earn, and any other detail that’s important to you.

When you have such a clear understanding of your prospective clients, then you’ll know exactly where and how to target them. The internet is extremely vast and it’s easy to get lost if you don’t have some form of direction. A buyer persona will help point you in the right direction.

Interesting Legal Marketing Statistics:

38% of people begin their search for lawyers and attorneys online. (Source)
96% of people looking for legal advice use search engines. (Source)
74% of people will go to a law firm’s website to take action. (Source)
Up to 40% of law firms don’t have their own website. (Source)
Law firms that use videos in their website see a 41% increase in traffic. (Source)
Testimonials are the most effective content marketing strategy. (Source)
85% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from friend and family. (Source)
25% of people who are researching legal topics will visit YouTube. (Source)
85% of people use online maps to find the location of a legal service. (Source)
Email marketing has an average ROI of 4400%. (Source)

16 Online Marketing Strategies for Lawyers, Attorneys and Law Firms

1. Get a professional website

A website is the foundation of your online presence. It’s where clients can easily access information about your law firm. It’s your office on the internet.

Search engines like Google and Bing work by scanning the web for information, and then presenting to users the most relevant results based on their search query. When you have a website, you become a source of information that search engines can also present to users.

For example, if you are an attorney who’s based in Dallas, whenever people search for the phrase ‘best attorneys in Dallas’, your site should be among the first results they see.

The most important thing to keep in mind when building your website is that the quality of the user experience will have a direct impact on the amount of traffic you get.

User experience, or UX, is simply how well designed the site is, how easy it is to navigate, how fast it loads, and how personalized it is. Websites that have a positive UX often get a higher ranking on Google. A great way to personalize your website is by using vanity phone numbers for lawyers.

Wix is an amazing tool you can use to build a professional website that automatically checks all the boxes of a positive UX. The platform is designed to help non-technical people build advanced websites quite easily using a drag and drop builder.

2. Set up PPC ads

PPC, or pay-per-click, is a popular advertising model where ads are served to people as they browse the internet, however advertisers only get charged for the clicks. It’s a fantastic way to start generating leads almost immediately.

PPC ads are generally more cost effective than other advertising models since you only pay for the clicks to your website. For example, if your ads get shown to 1,000 people, however only 100 click them, you’ll only pay for 100 clicks despite the fact that 900 other people saw your marketing messages.

There are several platforms where you can run PPC ads, including Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Google Ads.

Google would be the most ideal for running a legal campaign given the targeting options it gives advertisers. You can target users based on their demographics, location, income class, and even the terms they’re actively searching on Google.

For example, you can instruct Google to display your ads only to people located in your target city searching for the phrase ‘law firms near me’.

You can set up a trial Google Ads campaign with a limited budget and run it for a number of weeks. If the results and the conversion rates are positive, then you can increase your expenditure so your ads get shown to even more people.

3. Set up retargeting ads

A lot of people have a very short attention span due to the number of things that are constantly on their face.

They may have been browsing your site, however got distracted by a notification on their smartphone, or a video on YouTube, or a photo on Instagram, and their attention instantly shifted it. Once they leave your site, it’s unlikely that they will ever return.

Retargeting enables you to show ads get shown to people who previously visited your website but failed to take your call-to-action. You’ve probably seen it in action a lot; you visit a site once, and right after leaving, its ads seem to be everywhere.

Marketers often spend aggressively on retargeting because they understand that a person who visits their site is a potential lead. The most popular retargeting platforms are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the practice of increasing a website’s authority to help it rank higher on search engines like Google.

Whenever people search for information on the internet, there are usually thousands or even millions of relevant content published by different websites. SEO is what determines what pages Google shows as the top results.

Ideally your website should show up among the top results for legal queries. For instance, if somebody searches for the phrase ‘law firms in xxxx [insert your city]’, your site should come up. Make sure that you’re SEO strategy is specifically targeting local keywords associated with what you specialize in.

SEO has two main components. The first is on-page SEO, which entails optimizing the individual pages on your site to make them search engine friendly. Some ways to optimize a page are by increasing the loading speed, providing lots of useful content in an organized manner, and making it mobile responsive. A responsive page is simply a page that works as well on mobile devices as it does on computers.

If you build your law firm website using Wix then it will automatically be search engine friendly without much further work. All the pages will be optimized by default.

The second component is off-page SEO, which mainly entails link building. Link building is simply the process of increasing the number of links that point to your site. Every time another site links to your site, Google sees it as a referral, and that is a sign of authority.

Since link building can be really tedious and time consuming, I would recommend you outsource it to a company or a freelancer that specializes in SEO.

By investing in your SEO, you’ll eventually eliminate the need to spend on advertising since your site will be getting organic traffic from Google.

5. Start accumulating reviews

Reviews are so important because they are a sign of credibility. They help people make judgments on whether things are as good as they appear to be. A study conducted by Moz showed that around 67% of internet users are influenced by reviews.

You can easily get reviews by requesting them from past clients that you have a great relationship. The review doesn’t have to be paragraphs long. Even just a line will do.

Create a page on your website where you can display all your reviews like trophies. You can also enable ratings and reviews on your social media pages. The more positive reviews you have, the easier it will be to convert prospects into clients.

6. Publish blog posts

Most people who need legal services will first do some research on the very issues they looking to solve – whether their spouse handed them divorce papers, or they’ve been falsely accused of a crime.

When you publish articles covering the topics that you specialize in, then they are likely to come across them in their research. That automatically makes you an authority in their eyes. It raises your value and credibility tremendously.

Publishing blog posts is one of the best ways to completely dominate the internet and firmly establish yourself as an authority in your field. If you’re too busy to do the writing yourself, you can outsource it to a freelancer through platforms like Upwork or even use AI copywriting tools like Jasper AI.

The key to a successful blog is keyword research; that is the process of finding queries that are most searched for on Google. Once you know what they are, then you can write posts specifically addressing them.

If you discover that a lot of people are searching for the phrase ‘what to do when you’ve been falsely accused of a crime’, then you know it’s a topic you need to cover.

SEMrush is the most popular keyword research tool used by bloggers to find high-traffic keywords they can write about.

Once your blog starts getting traffic, you can even consider monetizing it by adding ads using Google Adsense. The earning potential with Adsense is incredible, many websites survive just on it.

7. Get a Google My Business page

Google My Business, or GMB, is a tool run by Google that lets businesses create and manage their online profiles.

GMB pages often get the highest ranking on the search results page and on Google Maps. They are incredibly important to have because they help you become more visible online. Make sure to create one for your law firm.

They can also help you collect reviews. Google automatically asks people who visited your establishment to submit a rating and review. As mentioned earlier, reviews are the lifeline of businesses that rely on traffic from the internet.

8. Email marketing

Email campaigns have one of the highest conversion rates out of all online marketing strategies. It is also a great way to stay in touch with your leads. Here are some reasons why email remains the preferred marketing channel for some of the most successful law firms:

Personal: People like receiving emails from companies, as it makes them feel special and valued. Always make sure to personalize your emails by using the recipient’s names.
Convenient: You can send emails whenever you like, without having to make an appointment. Emails are also more convenient than phone calls, as you can send them at any time without worrying about whether your customers are available to take the call. People view emails as a ‘push’ communication, and they open them when it suits them. You can also use automation to send certain types of email at specific times, for example when someone purchases a product or after they’ve visited the website.
Cost effective: According to research, it’s around five times cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one. Sending regular emails can keep your client relationships strong. It’s a one-off cost if you use an email marketing software or platform, and your messages are likely to reach the inbox rather than being filtered into a junk or spam folder.
Flexible: You can use email marketing for a range of different purposes and it fits around your business, rather than the other way round.

You can easily start collecting emails on your website by integrating a sign up form that pops up and asks users to enter their email to receive your monthly newsletters. Every time you publish a new blog post, you can send a blast to all your subscribers using a free email marketing tool like Mailchimp. Wix sites integrate seamlessly with Mailchimp.

9. Have a strong presence on social media

Majority of the world’s population is now on social media. There’s no greater place to find your potential clients in a casual and relaxed state, mindlessly browsing for hours upon hours every day. Social media marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies.

According to the American Bar Association, about 79% of lawyers are active on social media, and 35% have been able to get clients through it. If you want to stay competitive then you have to have to be active on social media. It should be a key part of your online marketing strategy.

You can create business pages on Facebook and LinkedIn, and then build a following by posting daily. You can also run a paid ads campaign to build your following.

Another advantage of having social media accounts is that they get priority ranking on Google, and that can help increase your online presence. Ideally, when people search for legal services, they should either see results from your website, GMB page, or social media pages. That’s how you dominate the internet.

Ensure that you use the same name on all your social pages as your website. Don’t leave any room for confusion. If you have more than one account, I would recommend you either hire a manager or a virtual assistant to take care of your social media marketing campaigns. They’ll be able to run it more effectively than you. Some of their responsibilities will include posting daily, growing your following and establishing new leads.

10. Publish listings on online directories

A lot of people still use directories to find services and business contacts. You can publish your legal services on such platforms to ensure that you have all your bases covered on the internet, and are visible to as many people as possible.

Some popular legal directories include:

Avvo
Justia
org
com
FindLaw
Martindale-Hubbell

Publishing on directories is also a great way to get backlinks for your site, which in turn helps increase your SEO score. As mentioned earlier, the more sites you have linking to your site, the higher the ranking you’re likely to get on Google.

11. Answer questions on Quora

Quora is an online Q&A platform where users can ask questions on almost any subject. You can search for the most recent legal questions in your specific field of practice, and simply provide in-depth answers. By doing that, you get to showcase your knowledge and expertise to people who need them most. You can also add a link to your law firm website at the end of your answer.

Quora questions often get thousands of views from other people who are facing similar issues. And if they find your answers helpful, then they’re likely to visit your website to learn about your services.

Whenever somebody takes the time to ask an elaborate legal question, they are probably in need of legal services.

12. Join Reddit

Reddit is another platform where internet users frequently take their questions to. You can join legal subreddits such as /r/legaladviceofftopic/, and be an active member by participating in discussions.

Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world, boasting hundreds of millions of users. Getting on top of its rankings can drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website. Every single day, there are more than 14 million searches on the platform for legal advice, so it is very likely that people are searching for a lawyer or legal help. On average, there are more than 8,000 new legal cases posted on Reddit every day.

13. Join social media groups

As discussed at the beginning of this article, having a buyer persona is so important because it helps you understand who your most ideal clients are. When you have a clear image of them, you’ll also know where and how to target them.

In this case, you can join groups on Facebook and LinkedIn dedicated to the industry that your buyer persona is in.

For instance, if he/she is a business owner based in the US, then you can join the popular Facebook group ‘Business Owners, Entrepreneurs and StartUps’.

If you’re a bankruptcy lawyer then you can join financial advice groups. The possibilities are endless. Both Facebook and LinkedIn have niche groups for almost every industry.

Make sure to participate in discussions and even ask your own questions just to familiarize the members with your name. Whenever a legal question comes up, then it will be your opportunity to pounce. You can even follow up by sending private messages.

14. Become a contributor on local publications

Most magazines, newspapers and even blogs would welcome the idea of having a lawyer or attorney as a guest contributor because it would help drive traffic to their platforms. Your column can be on any legal topics that are currently trending.

Although contributors usually don’t get paid for their work, what they get is an opportunity to market themselves to a new audience. They also get to add back links to their own websites and blogs, which helps drive referral traffic and increase their SEO score.

15. Write an e-book

Writing an e-book is not only a fantastic way to showcase your knowledge while subtly marketing yourself, but also to create an additional income stream.

You don’t even need to write the e-book yourself, you can outsource the work to a ghostwriter and only provide guidance on what to write about. So many professional writers do that.

Once the e-book is published on platforms like the Amazon Kindle Store, you can earn money from it perpetually without much work. It’s a great passive income idea for lawyers.

You can also sell it through your own website or use it as a lead magnet for collecting emails. Lead magnets are free items that are offered to website visitors in exchange for their contacts.

16. Host a free webinar

Hosting a webinar gives you the opportunity to bring together people with interest in legal matters and showcase your expertise to them. Your webinar can focus on any trendy and in-demand topics such as ‘10 ways to cut corporate taxes’.

Make sure to start promoting the event weeks in advance to give people enough time to plan to attend. You can also run a paid ads campaign on social media to drive awareness to it. The goal will be to get as many attendees as possible.

Once the webinar is done, break down the video and repurpose it as content for your website and social media pages. Whenever people come across videos of you in such a commanding position, you naturally become an authority in their eyes. Webinars are one of the most underrated digital marketing strategies.

Conclusion

There are many things you can do to market your law firm on the internet. We hope that our list of 16 marketing strategies has been helpful.

Get in touch with us if you want some free advice or need an expert opinion about which digital marketing channels might be the best fit for your law firm SEO goals. Our team is ready and waiting! Which one of these 16 effective digital marketing strategies have been most successful for your law practice?