Facebook Adds #hastags, Will #attorneys Take Notice?

Hashtags have been around since 2007 and unless you are an active twitter user / follower, you likely haven’t noticed their importance. Now is a good time to take notice since Facebook has now adopted them and in effect, tripled the total share of social media users that can now utilize them.

You may recognize hastags when you see a word that starts with a “#” in front of it. Examples for attorneys would look like: #attorney, #mesoattorney, #probate, #regulan, #wrongfuldeath, #policebrutality, etc. By placing the “#” sign in front of words, it creates a metadata signal to services like twitter and now facebook to help categorize the message based on the keyword with the hastag in front of it.

WHY DOES THIS MATTER TO ATTORNEYS AND FACEBOOK USERS?

Facebook has around 170 million users in the United States – nearly twice as many as twitter. This equates to around 50% of ALL Americans!  The average Facebook user spends 7.5 hours on Facebook each month compared to just 3.3 minutes on Google +.  As the old saying goes: “fish were the fish are”… and the fish (your clients) are on Facebook.

One of the greatest advantages to Twitter users was that information on topics could be grouped together (through the use of hashtags) and searched without having to be connected to a user beforehand. In short, hastags allowed unconnected users to share information with anybody  - something Facebook has lacked until now.

Facebook announced this week that hastags are now fully supported in their messages and can now be searched on in Facebook. You can now click on a keyword displayed with a hastag and/or search for messages containing the same. For example, here is a search for “#medicalmalpractice”: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/medicalmalpractice  - note that you can change the last portion of this address bar (in this case /medicalmalpractice) and replace it with any other words, just make sure to not include any spaces.

HOW ATTORNEYS CAN USE HASHTAGS TO THEIR ADVANTAGE

Most attorneys create an active content strategy to better stay in front of their current clients, referral partners and generate new clients and cases. Experts agree that you need to touch your clients 7-10 times a year for them to actively remember you when they need you. Why else would brands like Coke continue to spend millions reminding you about them?  The same applies to your brand and image. Gone are the days of effective attorney email lists and newsletters and instead attorneys are turning to more effective means of marketing through blogs and social media.

When attorneys create effective active content strategies, they will commonly author to blogs and disseminate that content throughout their social media properties such as Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc. The challenge at that point is to build audience (or reach) so that your pages are being followed and people will be able to find and see you regularly. This is where most law firms fail – they create great content but fail in creating reach…thereby hosting nothing more than an expensive billboard in a cornfield.

Beyond the means in which to build audience and reach through actively publishing and promoting your social media properties OUTSIDE of these vehicles, hashtags now allow you to create better reach within them. Here is an example: Risperdal is a drug that was involved a lawsuit involving the drug companies downplaying of complications. When I search for “Risperdal Lawsuit” in Google, I see 66,700 results – many of which are news sites, attorney websites and blogs. When I search by the hastag #risperdal in Facebook, I see ZERO results – except for my own. Wow! Really? 170 Million users and no mention (in a hastag) for Risperdal? No facebook pages to follow on the subject? No blogs to keep me updated? No attorneys that want my business if I or somebody I know could be a client for this case?

This of course is merely one example but illustrates a point – hastags now allow you to open your practice up to search within Facebook and 170 million potential clients. Want to build reach as an attorney and improve your #attorneymarketing, this is a great way to get started!

WHAT TO DO NEXT

If you have not already created an #activecontentstrategy for your law firm, get started now – it is the #1 driver of traffic to your website according to the most recent studies by SEOMoz. Once you have your strategy in place, make sure to incorporate hashtags within your content in the proper locations and with the proper density to have an impact. This includes in your subject lines, the beginning of your content, etc.

If you need more help on any of these subjects, contact a legal marketing consultant today to help you out…

Google SEO Ranking Factors Study

A VERY interesting study was completed recently by Business Bolts about how web pages rank and why in Google.  Although not a scientific study, it does provide a pretty solid analysis on what factors play a significant role in the rankings of top web pages on a website. Here are a few findings and our thoughts on each as they apply to attorney marketing online:

ONSITE SEO IS A COMBINATION OF BALANCE AND PRECISION  

Onsite SEO has evolved over the years and although much can be gained through good onsite SEO, you can also be penalized for bad SEO and overdoing it.  Here are a couple of key factors in reviewing their top performing web pages online:

• Top performing pages typically have a significant amount of text - on average of around 900 words per page. Since the average paragraph on a web page is around 100 words, this equates to roughly 9 paragraphs of content per page.

• Top pages also incorporate targeted keywords in both the title tags and page headings (H1 tags). These pages also typically have up to 6 sub-headings as well (H1-H6 tags).  With the best pages averaging 900 words, this would mean a page should be broken up into sections for better reading and indexing.

• Targeted keywords are also sparingly used in the content draft with an average of once per every 200 words (include sub-headings). In short, don’t keyword stuff your content.

• Images are present but not necessary on top performing pages. The same applies further to video. Since video is largely a conversion tool, this should not come as a surprise.

OFFSITE SEO IS STRONGEST ON WEB PAGES WITH HIGH AUTHORITY

Offsite SEO has historically been a process of strategic link building and still is today.  However, with recent changes involving Google Penguin (2012), Google Localization (2007 on) along with the strong emergence of social media, off-site SEO has become both complex and diversified.

• Top performing pages typically have 5X the amount of domain links. The reason why they count domain links instead of hyperlinks is to discount multiple links coming from the same domain. Subsequent same-domain links are often discounted due to bleeding link syndrome. These domain links were also links going DIRECTLY to the page of that site – not the home page. The only exceptions were pages that sometimes stemmed from a home page with high authority and links to it.

• Social media citations (or signals) are highest on top performing pages. These citations include Facebook shares and likes along with Twitter Tweets. Although there is no reporting from Google that these citations impact ranking, clearly the evidence of this study shows otherwise. We have also found from our own analysis that website that incorporate a strong active-content strategy involving social media typically see a 30% bump in overall website traffic.
  

• 88% of the top performing web pages were NOT home pages of a website. If you do not have targeted practice area pages and a campaign to build authority to them, you are missing out on 88% of the game.  Since many attorneys have pursued multi-site strategies over the years working on the notion that the home page of each site typically has the highest authority and number of links, this should give pause. Moreover, the increased emphasis on local optimization further complicates a multi-site strategy since Google Local will only designate one website per listing/company.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR ATTORNEYS

Top performing attorney websites must be structured both onsite and offsite for optimal performance. Every year an increasing number of attorneys are competing online and many are getting better at the game. In short, everything online is a function of competition and you need to always strive to stay ahead of the game

Online content creation, structure and management is critical to top performing pages. Much like a book, content is indexed and presented in the search engines based on what sells best in the search engines.  Keyword placement and density, content length and page structure are critical to attorneys who want to generate targeted cases and clients.

Webpage authority is not longer limited to simple link building alone. Diversity of link sources, social media citations and deep linking to practice area pages are now the best and most effective way to get top performance out of your onsite SEO work. Multi-site strategies can still work, especially from a conversion perspective but with localization and targeted page performance, a monolithic site strategy, when properly executed on, can still provide excellent results and a strong ROI.

90% of Consumer Buying Decisions Are Influenced By Online Reviews

A recent study was published today that sheds more light on the importance of consumer reviews when searching for and evaluating attorneys online. Here are a few of the key findings:

• 90% of respondents who recalled reading online reviews claimed that positive online reviews influenced buying decisions versus 86% who said negative reviews did the same
• Sites with the highest frequency of positive reviews were Facebook and company websites while those cited with the highest ratio of negative reviews were Yelp and Twitter
• Levels of trust in companies was cited highest for those who provided the highest level of customer service followed by price, branding and stability. 

As we had discussed this time last year, 70% of people indicate that they trust online consumer opinions. As a result, we provided 4 steps for attorneys to create an effective online review strategy. When it comes to consumer reviews, you must be both aware and proactive in how best to manage and promote reviews to help grow your practice.

Social Media for Attorneys CLE: Kansas City Bar Association, January 31st @12pm

Dustin Ruge will be conducting a CLE on Social Media for Attorneys at the Kansas City Bar Association on January 31st at 12noon.

CLE Credits: Missouri (1.2), Kansas (1.0), Kansas Law Practice Management (1.0)

Location: KCMBA HQ, Two Pershing Square, 2300 Main St., Ste. 100, Kansas City, MO

Registration:  11:30 a.m.        Seminar: 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

For More Information: http://kcmba.inreachce.com/Details/Information/103a8002-dcff-4ce7-8956-4318f1e69b0e?ref=featured

Bankruptcy Legal Demand Growth Takes A Hit In 2011

The Hildebrand Institute recently released their 2012 Client Advisory and there was some interesting growth trends (and lack thereof) that took place from 2010-2011:


As we can see from the chart:
The winners were: IP Litigation, Labor & Employment, Litigation and Real Estate.
The biggest losers: Bankruptcy, Tax, and M&A

What can we learn from this from a legal marketing perspective? It is always hard to tell by trying the steer a tanker by its wake but here is what I am seeing:

- The bankruptcy wave may have peaked sometime last year or the year before
- Litigation still remains strong
- Labor & Employment law is still going strong
- Has real estate started to turn the corner? Some states like Arizona have sold a good deal of their inventory over the past 24 months which could be a sign of things to come...

Top 5 Tips To Maximize Attorney Referrals Online

We recently worked with a very prominent attorney who for years said that he didn’t need a website and if anybody wanted to see anything about him, they could just Google his name and see all the results. This all changed when we finally received a call from the client saying that he now wanted a website. When we asked him why he changed his mind, he had indicated that the night before he was at a dinner party with a major celebrity who had not retained his services. When asked, the celebrity indicated that he did not choose our client because he did not have a website and he was impressed with the other attorney referrals that did.

The Opportunity Cost of Managing Your Legal Business

Most attorneys look at legal marketing expenses as what they gain by taking action. This includes building up referral networks of other attorneys and formal clients, advertising on TV, radio, in print publications, directories, etc. This also includes the visibility you can receive (or not receive) through the use of a legal website. In 2009, the ABA Journal found that 65% of people indicated that they now start their search for an attorney online. But what is important to note is that attorney searches also begin at the point of referral. Since most attorneys give out referrals in numbers (which most malpractice insurance coverage companies encourage), people are increasingly looking up and researching their referred attorneys online BEFORE they decide to contact them.

The Power of Controlled Content

Without a website that you can control, you as an attorney are at the mercy of the alternative websites and directories that will ultimately end of controlling your image online for you. If you don’t have a optimized website (or no website at all), try Googling your name and look at the results. These will likely include attorney directories, ratings agencies like AVVO, news, press releases, case summaries, etc. You may even see Google Places listings with customer feedback (positive & negative) about you. Even though you may not be aware of these things, your clients and referral clients are. In most cases, you have little or no control over these sources of information about you – especially if you don’t have a plan to manage them online.

What Your Referrals Want To Know About You

When people receive attorney referrals, they want to know information about you in order to determine if you are the right attorney for them. Traditional sales psychologists indicate that the average person will go through three stages during a sales process: Needs, Proof & Risk. Clearly in the case of the referral client, they seem to have a need which is what led them to you. At the point they receive information about you, they are considering questions dealing largely with Proof & Risk which includes questions dealing with:

• Does this attorney have the experience and expertise to handle my case?
• What results has this attorney received for other clients and does he/she have a solid track record?
• How much will this attorney end up costing me and what value do I get in return?

Because of these questions, it is little wonder why I typically see web pages dealing with results and/or testimonials at the top 5 most trafficked pages on a good attorney website.

Top 5 Tips To Maximize Your Legal Practice Online For Referrals:

1. Make sure your website is fully optimized for attorney searches. Go on Google and type in your name along with lawyer and/or attorney and your location and see what comes up in the search results. If your profile on your website is not ranked #1 for this search, you need to contact a legal SEO consultant to help change this for you. It important to point out that the #1 ranking in Google gets 36.4% of the clicks on the first page so your goal should always be to achieve that position. If you don’t have a website today, get one now – waiting will only make things worse for you.
2. Design your website to appear more professional than your competition. Studies have shown that most people will make a decision on the quality of a website within less than a second. In short, you have a very short window to impress your referral clients online BEFORE they decide to let your competition do the same. If you know who are commonly provided as other attorney referrals along with you, take a look at their websites and see how you stack up. If you are unclear of your competition, simply ask your referral clients on a regular basis and take note of who else is commonly mentioned to them.
3. Utilize social media with an active content strategy. Since most attorneys get business from client referrals, what are you doing to actively keep you in their minds? Marketing experts agree that you need to be in front of people 7-12 times a year for them to actively remember you WHEN THEY NEED YOU. One of the best ways to do this is to create an active content strategy so they will see you on a consistent basis when they are on Facebook, LinkedIn and/or Twitter.
4. Claim and optimize your Google Places Listing. If you have no idea what I just said, then once again you should rely on a legal marketing expert to help you at this point. This is critically important when people do searches for you by name and also include where you are located in the same search. Google will make this connection and in many cases, will propel their Google Places listings at or near the top on the results. Once claimed and optimized, these must then be monitored, controlled, and improved upon by encourage customer testimonials and removing or displacing any negative comments as well.
5. Monitor and edit third party sources involving your name. In addition to your website, you will still have other web pages displayed for searches involving your name. There are three things you can do to best manage these third party sources:

• Try to edit any third party attorney profiles that appear on the first page of Google. Some of these like AVVO will allow you to claim and edit for free while other sources such as Martindale may require a fee to claim and modify these listings and/or to make them more comprehensive and complete.
• Promote positive third party search results to higher positions on the first page of Google. Do any of the search results involve newspaper and/or TV articles about major case wins? How about positive press about an award you may have received or something else that positively reflects on you? Through the use of targeted inbound link building, you can actually help promote and improve these search results by creating targeted citations from other web properties.
• Remove and/or diminish any negative results or articles dealing with you. If somebody has said something negative about you in a blog, in a news article and/or other content sources, you may have little recourse to have it removed if any of that information may be factually correct. If you cannot have them removed, you next best option is to simply diminish their visibility by promoting other positive web sources to appear above them. In short, you can push down bad results by promoting positive results above them. Again, this involves targeted link building strategies which a good legal SEO consultant can help you with.

If you would like to learn more about how you can improve your marketing online to better promote attorney referrals and conversions, please contact the SEO Consultant Firm today to see how we can help you better grow and promote your practice online. www.SEOConsultantFirm.com. Free CLE New York