Find a process server »
Certified servers »10 Ways to Turn your Attorney Services Website into a Marketing Machine
Posted April 6, 2012 in Marketing, Technology
Guest author: Trent Carlyle is the CTO and co-founder of Lawgical, the parent company of ServeNow. Trent works with the technology and marketing teams at Lawgical to create products that help grow revenue and increase operational efficiencies in the process serving and investigation industries.
Recently, Jeremiah Jones (CALSPro Technology Committee Chair) asked if we could help the association members by providing tips to improve online visibility and making a website more useful to your clients.
While best online marketing practices are constantly in flux, here are some simple ways you can start turning your website into a marketing machine.
1. Contact Info on Every Page
We’ll start with an oldie but a goodie. If you walk away from this article and do nothing else, make sure your phone number and a link to your contact form is prominently located on every single page of your site. The ultimate goal of your web site is to get clients to pick up the phone.
The easiest way to pull this off is to build this into a common header / navigation that is part of every page.
2. Have a “Conversion” Goal for Every Page
A “conversion” is getting a visitor to do what you want on a particular page. Every single page should have a specific conversion goal. Conversions are usually achieved by including a call-to-action (CTA). CTA’s tell your visitor exactly what you want them to do on a page. “Learn more!” or “Call now!” are examples. When a visitor takes that action, you have a conversion.
3. Collect User Data with Great Content
Chances are you know a lot more about serving papers and the rules associated with service of process in your area than most of your clients. Turning this knowledge into educational content such as a “White Paper” or a guide can serve two purposes.
First, by requiring users to fill out a contact form to access certain content, you are capturing their data and generating a lead for your business. Secondly, the content itself or even the presence of the content can validate your expertise in the field, hopefully resulting in a visitor choosing to hire you.
At the very least, you are now building a database of potential clients for follow-up calls, emails or marketing campaigns.
4. Simplify Your Web Forms
Let’s say you have a “Request a Quote” form on your web site. Which form are you most likely to fill out?
ENOUGH SAID!!!
The purpose of your external web forms should be to collect the minimum amount of data on a lead to be able to follow up with them. Each unnecessary field increases the likelihood a client will abandon your form. Studies show that reducing your forms fields by 50% can increase conversions by 5% or more.
5. Install Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to track how many visitors your site gets, how they are finding you and much more. If you haven’t used a web analytics program in the past, it’s a lot to absorb, but I can promise you’ll get value from it, even if it’s just from a high level.
For example, Google Analytics can reveal:
- If your pages are “converting”
- Your most effective marketing channels
- Your most visited content
- How much time visitors spend on your site
- Where your visitors are geographically located
- The percentage of visitors coming to your site from a mobile device
Already got analytics set-up? Introduce yourself to Google’s webmaster tools for a whole new level of insights.
6. Connect your Social Media
There’s evidence that website rankings are affected by social signals – such as Facebook “Likes” and “Tweets” on Twitter. Growing quickly in importance are Google’s +1’s.
As business owners, most of you don’t have extra time to spend on social media, so at the very least make it easy for clients to connect with you on Twitter and Facebook by including these links on your site as well as your signature block of your emails.
7. Offer Online Tracking
Ninety percent of what your site offers should target new customers as current clients are unlikely to need to return to your site after they’ve got your phone number and email address. That said, one thing you can do for current clients is to offer online status updates that are available with most popular process serving applications. Not all clients will use it, but it shows you are on the forefront of technology in a changing industry.
8. Answer Common Questions
Another way to keep your clients coming back to your site is by answering the most common questions they (and potential clients) have regarding SOP and your company. These can be questions on effectuating proper service or “How quickly can papers be served?”.
Content like this can be posted to a page titled “FAQs” or “News” or “Blog” but these terms are so common that visitors are typically “blind” to them. Try to implement it in a way that’s going to stand out. Title the section something like “Process Service Help Center” or “20 things you should know about Process Serving” – something unique that will catch their eye.
Content like this keeps clients coming back, convinces new clients to contact you and will make the search engines love your site. It’s also great stuff for social media.
9. Point Clients to Online Reviews
At ServeNow, we talk about the importance of “Local” quite a bit. When we use the term local, we are mostly talking about the map listings with the lettered balloons next to them when you do a Google search. These are called Google Places listings.
Assuming you have your places listing claimed and optimized, you’ll want to find ways to get clients to review your company. Studies show that business with five or more reviews in Google places tend to rank higher. Make it easy for clients to review you on Google Places (or other review sites like Yelp) by linking to one or both off of your web site.
If you can find a way to incorporate an ongoing review strategy in your processes, it’ll go a long way.
10. Get Relevant Listings
Yes, even if you build a great client-friendly, optimized website you still need to go out and advertise it. Without getting into the details here, listings on relevant sites can improve both your Local (Google Places) rankings as well as your organic rankings.
Relevant sites include, but are not limited to:
- Process serving-related sites and Directories
- State and National Associations
- Associations for Clients (e.g. paralegal, attorney, etc)
- The Better Business Bureau
- Chamber’s of Commerce
- General Legal Directories
Improving your online presence can and should be an ongoing process. It can be overwhelming, so don’t try to take on too much at once. There are a lot of elements to consider and there’s no one silver bullet to online success.
Similar to traditional marketing, you need to have a “mix” for your online strategy. These concepts might seem siloed but they all feed one another. Each of the above tips will have individual gains, but combining them will yield exponential value.
What successes have you had with your website or online marketing? Join the conversation on
the CALSPro Facebook page.
A mere two decades ago, landlines and paper were the dominant forms of communication. Business tasks required human involvement at every stage. As keyboards replaced typewriters, the pace of the business world accelerated. Pagers and mobile phones became familiar sights, enabling contact between the office and field. Over the years, toaster-sized batteries shrank into iPhone and Androids. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, nearly half of American adults are Smartphone owners. Computers are in our pockets, homes, and vehicles, and the attorney service industry has access to new capabilities that did not exist a few years ago.
e-filing. Just hearing the word is enough to make some court runners and attorney services get nervous; especially those attorney services earning a significant portion of their revenue from physical court filing. That being said, the demand for e-filing with the superior courts is on the rise.
