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March 25th, 2010
July 13th, 2009
Launch Date: June, 2009
Overview: Teplen & Associates (http://www.teplenlaw.com) is a premier immigration law firm in New York City.
The firm specializes in the following areas of immigration law: Employment Immigration, Family Immigration, Citizenship & Naturalization, Corporate Immigration Audit & Compliance, Non-Immigrant Visas, Immigrant Visas, International Medical Graduates and Scientists, Student Visas & Internships, Asylum, Detention, Deportation & Removal, Immigration Appeals, Consular Processing, H-1B Visas, L-1 Visas, J-1 Visas, F-1 Student Visas, and much more.
June 18th, 2009
Goldberg & Allen
Launch Date: May, 2009
Overview: Goldberg & Allen (www.goldbergandallen.com) was founded by two of the leading criminal and DUI/DWI defense attorneys in New York City.
The firm specializes in the following areas of criminal law: DUI/DWI, Drug Crimes, Violent Crimes, Weapons & Firearms Offenses, Rape & Sex Abuse, Domestic Violence, Driving Crimes, False Arrest, Police Brutality, and much more.
Couple of key points from video:
- 600+% Return On Investment (ROI)
- 3 Targeted websites: Criminal Law, Family Law, and Personal Injury
- 500% Growth in criminal law practice
- 300% Growth in family law practice
- Recently increased fees - even during a recession
Law Frim Name: Shaffer & Engle
Law Firm Marketing and Search Engine Optimization
June 17th, 2009
Before the internet, public relations came down to who you knew in the mainstream media and how much you were willing to spend to build visibility and awareness. Back then, marketing promoted your legal services to consumers while public relations was far less controlled by you and relied heavily on media filters and contacts. With the advent of the web, that has all changed.
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Courts’ ruling on Bates vs. State Bar of Arizona in 1977, attorneys have been (with certain limitations) been able to move beyond the shingle and advertise their services to the public. Prior to the proliferation of the web, public relations primarily dealt with press releases and media outlets such as television, periodicals and the like. These were the most common vehicles of the time in which your prospective clients could be conveniently interrupted with announcements of your services. Over the past decade or so, customer behavior started to change and instead of being interrupted by TV’s, billboards and the like, they started to turn to the web as part of their daily lives. With the help of search engines, an amazing transformation started taking place – people starting looking for attorneys on their time without interruptions. If they have an issue, they now look online for legal advice and attorneys who can handle them, on their own time.
All of these changes have now clouded the once separate functions of lawyer marketing and public relations since technology now allows them to cross some very important paths – chiefly having to do with press releases. In the past, press releases were sent from the attorney to the “press” for the “press” to release through their own channels. This in effect served as a filter to the consumers to which many attorneys had little control. But three important technological changes happened to dramatically change all of this. First, press releases can now be published to the web by anybody at anytime at very little costs. Second, press releases are now indexed in the search engines just like websites and blogs for people to search for and find. Finally, many traditional media outlets are increasing relying on web content for their news and research - or they are simply dying off like dinosaurs with other print media.
So how can your law firm take advantage of these changes? Here are the top 10 things you should know:
1.) Define your goals and objectives. What are the goals and objectives for your law firm and how will press releases help you get there? This is a fundamental question you need to ask before you start a press release campaign. Remember: you cannot manage what you cannot measure. If you want to measure the success of your PR efforts, make sure you have clearly defined your objectives. These will commonly include: increased awareness and name recognition, communication of major events or cases, client retention, new client generation, building a case (such as new plaintiffs for a class action case), generating new referrals, etc.
2.) Use your press releases to support your website and blogs. Every press release should help support the visibility and client generation effort of your firm. If you send out a press release, ALWAYS make sure it provides and easy path for users to find and contact you – a place where a call to action can occur. Links to your websites and blogs not only direct traffic, but also provide inbound link value to your website thereby helping to increase your ranking in the search engines as well.
3.) Every press release should include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Keywords: When it comes to the web, content is king. The more targeted content you have, the better your chances of showing up in the search engines for those types of searches. Do some research on the words and phrases that people commonly use for such related practice areas and incorporate them into the title and content of your releases. We have provided tools to assist in your keyword discovery process at: http://www.seoconsultantfirm.com/SEO-res
4.) Every press release should include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Inbound Links: It is also important to include inbound textual links from your press releases into your website – which will act as a vote for your website in the search engines and help increase your visibility and rankings online. Although some press release services will limit the type and amount of these links, it is important to take full advantage of as many of textual and inbound links to your website you can. We have provided an overview to assist in your inbound linking process at: http://www.seoconsultantfirm.com/seo-opt
5.) Make the press aware of your press releases. This might strike some as a bit odd since this process can help bypass the press all together but that is not the point. If you have something important to say and want to become a thought leader in your practice area, you should make the relevant press contacts and outlets aware of your press releases. Remember, if your goal is increased awareness, visibility and client generation, than leveraging your current PR efforts to bigger outlets should always be welcome. Do some research into the major press contacts who have written about your area of expertise and gather their contact information. When you have a press release you think may be of interest to them, send them a personalized email to their attention about your work and do so on a frequent basis for each release. At the same time, make sure to invite them to your blogs if you have one as well. You never know – they may just have an interest in what you are writing about and one day and all of the sudden you can become a star.
6.) Write your releases with your target market in mind. If your press release has to do with trucking accidents and is intended to help generate trucking accident clients, they stay away from the legal jargon such a “litigation”, “plaintiff”, etc. – words that mean nothing to somebody who just may have been crushed in their car and need legal help for the first time. Find the words that your customers use and use them in your press releases.
7.) Timing can be critical for your press releases. This may come as a surprise to some but a good steady stream of press releases can be just as important as an event drive release as well. In the past, PR was all about timing – news today, ancient history tomorrow. Unlike traditional media with shelf-life measured in the hours, the web now indexes, stores and provides press release content for months, years and even decades later. So a good steady stream of press releases is always a good way to flood the world with information for whenever they may need it – when they need it.
8.) Include compelling offers to potential clients in your press releases. If you law firm offers free initial consultations, make sure to include that prominently in your press releases. Look back at your goals you have set for your press releases and always make sure that you try to support those goals with an incentive and/or call to action within the press release itself.
9.) Place press releases on your website and blog. Many press releases provided to the online news services have a limited shelf-life – in many cases two years or less. Since you want the search engines to index these press releases to your benefit, why run the chance of losing that content and links into your website if they expire? To help avoid this, publish your press releases on your website and blog – it will add to your visibility and create more inbound likes to your website as well.
10.) Publish your press release online through distribution services. Once you have your press release ready to go, you now need to distribute it through a press release distribution service (or news wire) so others can read and index it. These services number in the hundreds and range from free to hundreds of dollars per release. The benefit of using the good paid ones are that then can often reach hundreds and thousands of websites in a single release. The free ones are good to – just understand that with most forms of business, you get what you pay for. Below are some of the more popular paid and free news distribution services online today:
Paid:
http://www.prweb.com/
http://www.marketwire.com/
http://www.prnewswire.com/
http://www.prleap.com/
Free (Or almost free):
http://www.prlog.org/
http://www.free-press-release.com/
http://www.clickpress.com/
http://www.pr.com/
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/
http://www.ecommwire.com/
Copyright 2009 SEO Consultant Firm, http://www.seoconsultantfirm.com. A New York City (NYC) SEO consultant firm providing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to such communities as: New York City (NY), Omaha (NE), Denver (CO), New York (NY), Lincoln (NE), Westchester County (NY), Long Island (NY), Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Bronx, Phoenix (AZ), Boulder (CO), Atlanta (GA), Dallas (TX), Tucson (AZ), Las Vegas (NV), Reno (NV), Salt Lake City (UT), Austin (TX), San Antonio (TX), Columbus (OH), Charlotte (NC), Raleigh (NC), Nashville (TN), Chicago (IL), Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Washington DC, Kentucky.
June 4th, 2009
By: Dustin Ruge
May, 2009
Source: http://www.seoconsultantfirm.com/Law-Fir
So what exactly is a blog anyway? You would be surprised how many times lawyers ask this question. The simple answer is that a blog is special kind of website that allows you to easily and efficiently publish ideas to the web and receive feedback with practically no website design experience needed. In short, it is a very simple website that practically anybody can create in a matter of minutes.
So how popular are blogs these days? A new blog is created around every second of every day. There are around 70 million blogs in existence today with over 30% of Americans actively reading them. Over 25% of AMLaw 200 firms now have one or more blogs and growing and some of the more popular blogs online today have larger readerships than many of the major new papers in circulation! People find value in blogging and so can you.
So here are the top 15 things you should know about lawyer blogging:
1.) Blogs only work if you are passionate about your practice. Blogs require that you actively and consistently write about your practice area for others to see and even provide feedback on. If you do not like your area of practice, then you will not likely be motivated enough to want to blog about it with others.
2.) Every Blog should have a goal. Far too many lawyers have websites and blogs with no real goal in mind. If you are like most lawyers, your blog is there to help grow your practice so make sure that your blog strategy helps to support that.
3.) Blogs are not for every lawyer. Blogs should be used to support the goals of your practice. In assessing your goals, you need to determine if you want to actively write about your practice in a blog and work at getting the word out. Not everybody likes to write and not everybody has the discipline to do it day in and day out. If you don’t, then blogging is not for you. As a general rule of thumb, you should be actively participating in your blog at least once a week.
4.) Good Blogs were not built in a day. Actually, creating a new blog can literally take minutes but building an active blog with good traffic and participants can take time. Creating an effective blog is a long-term process and can take months and even years to grow - much like a potted plant, you need to water it consistently and watch it grow over time.
5.) Don’t confuse having a blog with having a blogging strategy. Far too many lawyers will start a blog, post a few comments and never come back. The blog then gets old and since the comments include a date, nobody will want to add to that blog if nobody is home. In some cases, having an inactive blog can do more damage than having no blog at all. Blogs are a lot like a news page on a website. People will look at them and if there has been no activity for an extended period of time, people will begin to wonder what might be wrong with your practice – not exactly the message you want to be sending prospective clients now is it?
6.) Every blog should be optimized. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) also applies to blogs. You will want to start by incorporating keywords into the name of your blog and get it right the first time – once your blog is active, changing your URL name will be out of the question. You will also want to title your blog with your primary practice area keywords and make sure to include your targeted geography as well. Finally, use words that your customers use, not legal jargon. Words like “litigation” and “personal injury” commonly mean next to nothing to somebody who has never been to law school and just got ran over by an eighteen wheeler. Finally, make sure to create links in the content of your blogs to pages on your website. Not only can this help support your blogs and convert customers, but it can also provide link value to your website thereby increasing its ranking in the search engines. Just make sure that your blog allows these links to be followed and counted in the search engines.
7.) Set guidelines for blogging. If your firm allows multiple attorneys to blog, make sure that your corporate communication policies also apply to your blog. If they don’t, simply amend them to include it. In most cases, a separate policy just for blogging is not necessary. Some firms also include disclaimers that their opinions expressed in the blog are personal and do not reflect those of the organization and do not constitute legal advice. Sounds familiar?
8.) Lawyer Blogs should be targeted. Unlike many other advertising mediums, the web tends to reward those who master a niche and stay highly focused. The more practice areas you discuss on a single blog, the more likely you are to dilute the message to the readers and the focus to the search engines. Much like websites, the best performing blogs typically are those that stick to one specific practice area. If you have many practice areas, simply create a separate blog for each.
9.) You don’t need a blog to blog. Did you know that Blogs have their own search engines? Go to http://www.technorati.com, type in your practice area and see what comes up. You can also find a good list of lawyer blogs at: at the ABA Jounal (http://www.abajournal.com/blawgs/). Chances are there could be thousands of blogs in your practice areas alone – many of which could be talking about your area of expertise. So what can you learn from them? Is this information that could also help your own practice? And if the blog has a large following, what else can you contribute to that blog that will help create awareness to you and your blog/website? Once you have a blog, make sure to include your blog address in your signature lines when you are on other blogs, writing emails, and on your website to help drive people to your blog. You need to create awareness for your blog and where better to start than with other blogs.
10.) RSS feeds the world. RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is nothing more than a standard delivery format of content from a blog/website to another destination. If you have a blog, make sure it supports RSS so other people can “subscribe to your blog” keep tabs on your blog without having to visit it on a regular basis. For example, a participant (or journalist) may want to monitor a number of blogs (including yours) and by having RSS feeds from each of them; he/she can now easily do this from one place. The good news is that most major blogging system providers now support RSS.
11.) Blogs work with websites. Most blogs are not a substitute for website marketing but rather a compliment to it. The reality is that most lawyers can’t write in HTML and therefore many quick changes to a website can be both time consuming and difficult. Blogs allow you to help solve this problem by providing added content to the web and thereby creating a larger net to fish with. Since your net may involve direct traffic to your website, you will want to make sure that both are actively linked together for better conversions yet both reside at separate website addresses (URL’s).
12.) Blogs are part of an overall PR strategy. If you publish press releases, blogs are another great place to publish them as well. Unlike online press releases that may expire in a year or two, the press releases on your blog can remain there forever. Blogs also tend to be personalized and can become a great place for you to not only gain credibility, but to have other experts and even reporters find you. Remember, with the advent of the web, public relations now allow you to go directly to your customers without media filters and large PR spends. Moreover, since 75% of reporters now use blogs to find experts and do research for their own work, your blog can now potentially provide media visibility that never existed before!
13.) Blogs can bring you new cases. A properly managed blog and blogging strategy can help you grow your practice. Just ask Grant D. Griffiths who practices family & divorce law in Kansas. Grant started his blog ( http://gdgrifflaw.typepad.com ) in 2005 and now estimates that he gets two to three cases a week from his blog and stopped all of his yellow pages advertising as a result.
14.) Search Engines love blogs. If they didn’t, Google wouldn’t have bought Bloogger.com – which is one of the world’s largest blog providers. When search engines send out spiders to crawl and index the content on the web, they tend to love blogs because the content is fresh.
15.) Creating a new Blog is easy! There are literally hundreds of blogging systems in existence today to choose from. Some can be hosted on your website while others are hosting by the blogging system providers. The most popular blogging systems in use today include: Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, and LiveJournal. Other blogging tools may be available by other providers depending on your needs as well. The main point to remember is that many popular blogging tools are free, easy-to-use, and can be setup and ready to go by the average internet user in a matter of minutes. Once your blog is active, make sure to "ping" the blog search engines to let them know you are there at: http://pingomatic.com/ and submit the blog at: http://www.abajournal.com/blawgs/submit
