Prospective clients are searching for you right now — do you know where your law firm ranks on Google? It’s one thing to appear somewhere on the first page, but your client’s eyes will immediately gravitate to the top few results. So how does a law firm work to get its name to the top of Google? We’re here to show you! 

In this recorded live stream (see below), Senior Marketing Manager Nina Lee, and Gyi Tsakalakis, legal digital marketing expert, discuss: 

• Building a marketing plan for your law firm

• The importance of local SEO

• Key metrics to use for tracking and optimizing marketing spend

How Much Money Should I Spend on Marketing?  (2:22)  

The short answer is that you should really be spending somewhere between 6-20 percent of your gross profit on marketing.  Of course, your budget varies based on your marketing objectives, where you are today vs where you want to go, and so on, but it’s important to know just how much setting a marketing budget will set you apart from your competitors. According to the ABA Tech Report, less than half of law firms of all sizes have a marketing budget, and only 32% of firms that have between 2 and 9 lawyers say their firms have a budget in place. 

Your marketing budget isn’t just about money though, it’s about your time. If you don’t have a lot of money to invest, then you need to carve out time. Don’t forget there is a cost to that too. Make sure you are thinking about the cost of the software you are using, the events you are attending, etc. 

It’s really important to keep a strict marketing budget that is realistic to support your goals and keeps you accountable. You can use reminders in PracticePanther to help you keep track of this budget and manage it each and every month.  

How People Search For Lawyers  (7:46)

The business of law is about relationships and reputation. It’s important to remember that about half of all legal services consumers are going to look for services through referrals. After you’ve provided exceptional service, it’s time to capitalize. Secure great client testimonials to strengthen your online profiles and build trust with potential clients.  

If you continue to get referrals from certain clusters of people, take note of this. Start jotting down the areas where folks have come to your firm in the past, and how you are uniquely qualified to help them. You can then build out client personas which will help you better streamline the process it takes to help client A in one situation and client B in another. It’s critical to be able to craft messaging which addresses unique clients in unique situations. 

You can have different messages in person, and online, depending on the type of cluster you are dealing with. In the digital age, Google reigns supreme for search, so how do law firms boost their profiles to be found more easily? 

Google My Business  (18:50)

This free tool commands a ton of real estate from searches on your firm’s name. It’s a great spot to reduce friction and provide up-front answers to the most important questions potential clients are asking. This is where interested parties can find your contact information, address, and hours of operation. With Google My Business, you can reduce the friction between search and contact, it even populates reviews and makes it easy for people to find the evidence that you are the person they need to hire! 

The “Local Pack” is the biggest bang-for-your-buck when it comes to google search because it’s completely free. Listen to the live stream to hear an in-depth description of how you can leverage the local pack to have your Google My Business page rank higher. 

Tracking Local Search Performance  (32:15)

One simple tip to track these local search results is to use a dedicated call tracking number as the primary phone number in your Google My Business profile. This way you can track your leads coming directly from these postings. 

Research has shown that many of these phone calls are happening directly from Google before they even get to your website! By including this special phone number, you’ll know precisely which listing they came from since you may have not been able to track them on your website itself. 

When dealing with web pages and not phone numbers, you can use UTM parameters on your website URL to track leads. You can find more info on how to set those up on google development tools.

Improving marketing conversions  (36:00)

Conversion rates are calculated by taking the number of conversions and dividing that by the number of total ad interactions that can be tracked to a conversion during a specific campaign. In short —  how do I make my google listing stand out from the competition and convert users. 

1. Reviews: Your reviews are going to be the main driver of clicking on your post for law firms. 

2. Category: Set your primary category as specific as possible ie. “Divorce Lawyer” and not “Lawyer”

3. Hours: The more you can extend your hours of operation the more eyes you can have on your ad. This makes a big difference. If someone else is open and you are not while a lead is searching, that could be an instant red flag to them. 

4. Enhancements: There are many new things you can do to enhance your listing such as including COVID safety precautions that show you are taking care of your clients.