How would you react if your open heart surgery was scheduled in a chiropractor’s office? You would, no doubt, be more than just a little uncomfortable! Just as you would not want a chiropractor performing the job of a cardiologist, you should not want a Web vendor unfamiliar with the legal profession marketing your law firm.

In my years as a consultant in the legal marketing profession, I have seen many attorneys put catch-all marketing companies in charge of their Web presence. Often, these companies can provide aesthetically pleasing website designs, but their lack of knowledge of the legal profession can lead to ethics violations and less-robust marketing success. Additionally, most are unfamiliar with a law firm’s average clientele. That can have a detrimental effect to the conversion rate of the site due to a lack of empathy and not presenting the most relevant content front and center on the homepage.

Major Benefits

One major benefit to choosing a vendor that works exclusively with law firms is their familiarity with your work as an attorney. For example, when a search marketing trend comes about, your firm’s Web vendor should understand how those trends affect you – their attorney client – differently than other customers. Content strategies are a key component of your online marketing, but disaster can strike if your vendor is unfamiliar with state bar requirements.

A legal-focused Web vendor that understands the unique requirements of legal marketing will also understand the distinctive needs of a law firm’s clientele.

Strong content and compelling design are only effective if clients are choosing you to represent their case. A marketing company that understands how law firm websites work will know that the attorney bio page, for an instance, is the most visited on an attorney’s site and will utilize specific conversion strategies on that page.

Web vendors exclusively devoted to law firm marketing will also implement the best site structure to help potential clients navigate through what could be complicated practice area pages. To gain business, legal websites need to be structured to provide answers that will resonate with potential clients. Overall, a legal website design needs to be tailored to a law firm’s needs and personality. If your vendor specializes on the legal profession they are more likely to understand nuances others will not.

Sound Results

We asked our attorney-clients why they preferred a Web marketing vendor over more general vendors and received useful feedback.

In her role as Marketing Director of Millar & Mixon, Christin Calloway affirms:

“Choosing a Web vendor is very important to the success of your business and having a company that is specific to your area of industry is even more imperative. Knowing the ends and outs of the legal world is important in a business when accuracy is vital and ROI is key. Getting cases is your motive and having someone that knows what it takes to get the phone to ring, not just selling or promoting a product or otherwise, is very important in our competitive online legal market.”

Douglas Horn, a Kansas City injury lawyer, also recognizes that legal marketing is highly competitive. “Having a company that knows our business is essential for keyword searches and SEO,” he says. North Carolina family law attorney Charles Ullman adds that it is important that a vendor “know what lawyers really sound like and how we interact with clients.”

Taking Action

If you are concerned about your Web vendor relationship, there are a few questions you can ask to determine if they understand the nuances of legal marketing.

Ask your vendor how long they have provided marketing services for law firms.

Ask for a list of legal directories and other legal sources from which they will seek to obtain exposure and links for you.

Ask them how many employees run their Web campaigns. Do they have entire departments devoted to design, search marketing and programming or is their organization a solo operation?  Do they have licensed attorney employees to develop the content that is so critical to your success?

You should also ask how many attorney clients they currently serve and in what practice areas.

Ask them if they can provide a list of law firm clients you can call to discuss their support quality and the ROI the firms received?

Then, ask yourself some questions.

Evaluate whether or not you are seeing the results for which you paid.

Is the vendor proactive or reactive?  Do they readily communicate with you?

Can they give you an estimate of your ROI from their marketing efforts?

Depending on your answers to these questions, it could be that you need to consider switching vendors.