Google released its 2015 Webspam Report this week, which details actions the company took over the last year to try to clean up the internet, reduce spam and increase page quality. When Google chooses to release actual data, webmasters and website owners (and yes, lawyers) should take note. The reports often provide insight into the types of practices Google punishes and rewards, which you can use to help prevent mistakes and build better pages. This report is...
Read MoreApr 8
Marketing and the Brain — Part 3 of 3
In part 3 of Marketing and the Brain, we’ll cover why your marketing strategy should cater to a person’s tendency to follow their gut feeling, make impulse decisions and protect their free will. These psychology concepts help inform marketers and salespeople how to effectively appeal to prospects, and can be used by you to convert more leads and grow your firm.
Emotional decisions
We often convince ourselves that we follow a strictly logical code for our decision-making process. We tell ourselves...
Read MoreMar 11
Dump these five overused legal marketing phrases
Lawyers must communicate with a diverse array of people in order to run a successful practice. Each audience, from judges to colleagues to prospective clients, has a different perspective, and attorneys must tailor their language accordingly when speaking to these different groups.
Marketing language is often more casual and conversational than other types of speech attorneys may use. Marketing language should build trust and create connections, a task that is difficult to manage through jargon and formality.
In addition to...
Read MoreMar 4
Six things the highest converting attorney websites have in common
Creating a website with a solid conversion rate is a balance between listening to what visitors say they want and gently nudging them toward what you want them to do. Your website should be designed with an understanding of your target audience and the expectations of your various client personas. And your site should answer the questions visitors are most likely to ask, while giving them reasons to contact you.
Websites that convert well share some characteristics in terms...
Read MoreMar 2
Marketing and the Brain – Part 2 of 3
Copywriting
After setting the stage with your logo, color scheme and visual display, as discussed in part 1 of this blog series, play close attention to your website’s copy. Copywriting is all about persuasion and an appeal to human memory through the written word, which may seem like a difficult task for some. Consider the psychological implications of copywriting, however, and you’ll find that creating more effective, conversion-oriented copy is simpler than it may appear.
Repetition
When a statement is repeated,...
Read MoreFeb 17
Marketing and the Brain – Part 1 of 3
Visual input
How does your brain perceive a logo? How does copywriting play to the brain’s impulses? What role do emotions play in our decision-making?
Understanding the role of the brain’s cognitive biases and tendencies in the marketing process is essential to converting more leads. The way our brains are wired to respond to marketing features is simpler than you may think. In fact, while each mind is unique, we often respond in predictable ways.
In this three-part blog series, we’ll cover...
Read MoreJan 23
Ten things search engines are looking for in a law firm webpage
Looking forward into 2016, one prediction is certain: Google will continue to update its algorithm, sometimes to the pleasure and sometimes to the dismay of website owners. And, when major shifts occur, as always, search marketing strategies will have to adapt.
Today, however, your firm is competing for elusive, difficult to obtain and extremely valuable placement in the first page of search results. According to an Advanced Web Ranking study, the average click through rate for page one...
Read MoreApr 10
How to use geotargeting to get your message to the right people
Nationwide marketing campaigns are neither attainable nor necessary for most firms. The cost is high, and the ads will reach relatively few people who can actually take advantage of the firm's services. Instead, only people in specific areas and jurisdictions need to be exposed to marketing messages. With geotargeting, it is possible to reach very precise groups of people based on location.
Geotargeting is the practice of using information about an individual's location to deliver relevant content,...
Read MoreApr 24
Your Firm May Lose Reviews Following Yahoo Yelp Partnership
When Yahoo and Yelp got together, no one expected that they would lose years of positive reviews from their Yahoo local listings. Although, the agreement did specifically state that Yelp reviews would be used on Yahoo local listings. However, the agreement went forward and virtually overnight, some local businesses lost their complete history of local reviews.
Now, when someone comments or reviews a restaurant, dry cleaner, flooring store or a law...
Read MoreOct 18
Think beyond text on a webpage for your content marketing
Content marketing will continue to get a lot of attention as websites adjust to Google's new Hummingbird algorithm, which was quietly rolled out in August and formally announced at the end of September. This release is the first entirely new rewrite of the company's algorithm since 2001, and it changes the way Google looks at keywords. Hummingbird is a move toward a more contextual, semantic search; that is, rather...