Local Search Marketing Strategies For Driving Clients To Your Web Site

Local law firms typically want local clients. And local clients search for lawyers on the Internet. If you're a bigger firm, or have a specialty that expands the size of your market, local search and SEM are a great way to be found online by potential clients ready to pay for your services.

Pairing Web marketing with local search engines can help deliver the results you need and the clients you are looking to reach because prospects are already on the Internet looking for law firms in their area. Your job is to find the right combination of keywords, search terms and phrases that a potential customer uses while conducting a search. For example, a client might type in 'lawyers+immigration+Southern California' to get a listing of law firms who handle that sort of case.

And with legal-related businesses and services among the top five topics consumers search for online daily, the key to connecting with these potential customers is an online marketing strategy that steers Web consumers to your door. But having a Web site isn't enough. It's up to you to improve ways your firm can be found online.

The Basics

Most law firms service a geographic area, city or locale, or have a specialty practice. Most of their clients are from that region or seeking that specialty.

While advertising in print publications or in the local yellow pages is a fine piece of an overall marketing effort, a growing number of consumers that are using the Internet to find products and services to buy in their area rely on 'local search,' which has opened up new marketing opportunities for local law firms to market their services online to an audience ready to buy. In fact, research reveals that consumers in the U.S. spend around 80% of their incomes within about 50 miles of their homes. In addition, according to a recent report from Borrell Associates, local online advertising will increase by 48% in 2008, bringing the total spending estimate to $12.6 billion.

Getting Started

The first step in any online marketing strategy is partnering with a local search company to get the most relevant search results so your prospective clients can find you quickly and easily. New 'local' search engines target their message for the customer that is conducting a search by providing these businesses with the ability to place their business listings at the top of the search results in their geographic area in their category. The local search engines can also help provide businesses with the right keywords and search phrases to pull these customers to their Web sites. Also, with local search, it's also about relevancy ' delivering highly relevant search results to the customer. This means that users are able to find the products and services they are looking for in a particular region or locale. Additionally, local search companies provide low cost and highly relevant advertising dynamics, as well as an audit trail to effectively measure the results of your marketing campaign.

For the search provider, facilitating local search for any business involves providing efficient search algorithms and solid local Web indexing technologies that can help 'connect' the searching customer to the company.

To make this all come together, here are a few Search Engine Optimization ('SEO') tips you can use to drive traffic to your Web site:

1. Determine the keywords potential clients use when trying to find a firm. You should then fill your Web site with these keywords and make these words part of your core marketing blueprint. Some popular keywords used by general practice law firms include: Family Law, Bankruptcy, General Practice, Accident and Personal Injury Law, Business Law, Estate Planning, Insurance Law, Litigation, Real Estate, Criminal Law, Immigration and Tax Law. Use these words frequently and on multiple pages on your Web site.
2. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tell spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say 'click here' do nothing for your search engine visibility.
3. Make SEO-friendly URLs. By using keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html you can make your site more SEO friendly. Be careful, though: A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look like spam and users may be hesitant to click on it. You can also use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a 'space,' while underscores are not.
4. Make sure your Web page titles tags are unique. For example, if you practice Family Law in Miami, your homepage title tag might be: be: 'Family Law Services in Miami, Florida ' Your Company' (no quotes). Every page on your site should have a title tag that reflects the content specific to that page.
5. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. Because the page title is the most important on-page SEO factor, be sure to it is not only promotes, but provides information about your practice and Web site. If you want to rank high for a primary term (two or three words), that term will need to be part of the page title. And, although the meta description tag won't help you rank, it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing. As a result, it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written in a way that encourages searchers to click on your listing. You can ignore the keywords meta altogether if you'd like; it's close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don't appear on the page.
6. Create unique, user relevant content to get inbound links. This is important for any business with a Web site. Develop your own unique description of services, based on the keyword research you did to make sure you target actual words searchers use. If you have good content, you will get the inbound links you want. In addition to the basic services you offer, consider adding blogs or educational forums for current clients. This will also open the lines of communication with potential clients who may be reviewing your site and considering your services. Blogs are an ideal way to keep your content fresh and current. It gives new and existing customers more reasons to keep coming back to your site.
7. Add other links to your site. By adding useful links to your Web site, your current and prospective clients can retrieve additional information about your services. For example, if you belong to an association or have a partnership with a related law firm, or if you can refer people to sources of additional information, add these links to your site. If you like, you can either work these links into your regular pages or create an additional page for resource links.
8. Put a site map page on your Web site. Spiders can't index pages that can't be crawled. To help spiders find all the important pages on your site, use a site map. This will help the spider understand your site's hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, however, be sure to develop several site map pages. Also, keep each one to less than 100 links.

As a result, law firms, which may have limited marketing dollars, but are seeking effective ways to get noticed, should consider implementing an online local search marketing strategy. There are a variety of opportunities that can help local law firms pull clients to their Web site and through their front door.

But even with all that effort, the new clients you'd hope to lure just aren't getting your message. They're not banging down your door, calling your offices or visiting your Web site. There's a 'disconnect' and you're not sure where to begin or what marketing strategy to deploy.

It's time to start thinking like a future client.

Most people don't seek a lawyer until they need one. If they are buying real estate, suing someone, or have been arrested, then they need a lawyer fast. And when these prospects need a client fast, they turn to the Internet to find one. To get your share of these motivated prospects and turn them into clients, you will need to develop a comprehensive Search-Engine Marketing ('SEM') strategy. An effective SEM campaign ' combined with local search engines ' can reach new clients you're seeking and help you further develop new content for your site that keeps them coming back.

Local law firms typically want local clients. And local clients search for lawyers on the Internet. If you're a bigger firm, or have a specialty that expands the size of your market, local search and SEM are a great way to be found online by potential clients ready to pay for your services.

Pairing Web marketing with local search engines can help deliver the results you need and the clients you are looking to reach because prospects are already on the Internet looking for law firms in their area. Your job is to find the right combination of keywords, search terms and phrases that a potential customer uses while conducting a search. For example, a client might type in 'lawyers+immigration+Southern California' to get a listing of law firms who handle that sort of case.

And with legal-related businesses and services among the top five topics consumers search for online daily, the key to connecting with these potential customers is an online marketing strategy that steers Web consumers to your door. But having a Web site isn't enough. It's up to you to improve ways your firm can be found online.

The Basics

Most law firms service a geographic area, city or locale, or have a specialty practice. Most of their clients are from that region or seeking that specialty.

While advertising in print publications or in the local yellow pages is a fine piece of an overall marketing effort, a growing number of consumers that are using the Internet to find products and services to buy in their area rely on 'local search,' which has opened up new marketing opportunities for local law firms to market their services online to an audience ready to buy. In fact, research reveals that consumers in the U.S. spend around 80% of their incomes within about 50 miles of their homes. In addition, according to a recent report from Borrell Associates, local online advertising will increase by 48% in 2008, bringing the total spending estimate to $12.6 billion.

Getting Started

The first step in any online marketing strategy is partnering with a local search company to get the most relevant search results so your prospective clients can find you quickly and easily. New 'local' search engines target their message for the customer that is conducting a search by providing these businesses with the ability to place their business listings at the top of the search results in their geographic area in their category. The local search engines can also help provide businesses with the right keywords and search phrases to pull these customers to their Web sites. Also, with local search, it's also about relevancy ' delivering highly relevant search results to the customer. This means that users are able to find the products and services they are looking for in a particular region or locale. Additionally, local search companies provide low cost and highly relevant advertising dynamics, as well as an audit trail to effectively measure the results of your marketing campaign.

For the search provider, facilitating local search for any business involves providing efficient search algorithms and solid local Web indexing technologies that can help 'connect' the searching customer to the company.

To make this all come together, here are a few Search Engine Optimization ('SEO') tips you can use to drive traffic to your Web site:

1. Determine the keywords potential clients use when trying to find a firm. You should then fill your Web site with these keywords and make these words part of your core marketing blueprint. Some popular keywords used by general practice law firms include: Family Law, Bankruptcy, General Practice, Accident and Personal Injury Law, Business Law, Estate Planning, Insurance Law, Litigation, Real Estate, Criminal Law, Immigration and Tax Law. Use these words frequently and on multiple pages on your Web site.
2. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tell spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say 'click here' do nothing for your search engine visibility.
3. Make SEO-friendly URLs. By using keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html you can make your site more SEO friendly. Be careful, though: A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look like spam and users may be hesitant to click on it. You can also use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a 'space,' while underscores are not.
4. Make sure your Web page titles tags are unique. For example, if you practice Family Law in Miami, your homepage title tag might be: be: 'Family Law Services in Miami, Florida ' Your Company' (no quotes). Every page on your site should have a title tag that reflects the content specific to that page.
5. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. Because the page title is the most important on-page SEO factor, be sure to it is not only promotes, but provides information about your practice and Web site. If you want to rank high for a primary term (two or three words), that term will need to be part of the page title. And, although the meta description tag won't help you rank, it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing. As a result, it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written in a way that encourages searchers to click on your listing. You can ignore the keywords meta altogether if you'd like; it's close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don't appear on the page.
6. Create unique, user relevant content to get inbound links. This is important for any business with a Web site. Develop your own unique description of services, based on the keyword research you did to make sure you target actual words searchers use. If you have good content, you will get the inbound links you want. In addition to the basic services you offer, consider adding blogs or educational forums for current clients. This will also open the lines of communication with potential clients who may be reviewing your site and considering your services. Blogs are an ideal way to keep your content fresh and current. It gives new and existing customers more reasons to keep coming back to your site.
7. Add other links to your site. By adding useful links to your Web site, your current and prospective clients can retrieve additional information about your services. For example, if you belong to an association or have a partnership with a related law firm, or if you can refer people to sources of additional information, add these links to your site. If you like, you can either work these links into your regular pages or create an additional page for resource links.
8. Put a site map page on your Web site. Spiders can't index pages that can't be crawled. To help spiders find all the important pages on your site, use a site map. This will help the spider understand your site's hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, however, be sure to develop several site map pages. Also, keep each one to less than 100 links.

As a result, law firms, which may have limited marketing dollars, but are seeking effective ways to get noticed, should consider implementing an online local search marketing strategy. There are a variety of opportunities that can help local law firms pull clients to their Web site and through their front door.