Lawyers.com Editor in Chief : Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog : Law firm marketing, legal marketing, attorney marketing, business development, sales training, practice development, training, marketing consultant, legal consultant, individual lawyer coaching, business development, client team, practice development, business development, law firm coach

Thanks to Ryan Nelson of LegalWebExperts  for this guest post:

The ABA Law Firm Marketing Strategies Conference coming up on November 8^th and 9^th, 2011, will explore the ever growing importance of attorney website design in promoting three core elements of business success: reputation, referral and ranking. The conference has been named R³ after these three elements.

The conference is presented by the Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) and will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. This is the third legal marketing conference hosted by the ABA as they continue to help law firms of all sizes grow their marketing for the future.

The event offers the opportunity to learn from the ABA’s faculty of attorneys and expert keynote speakers from the industry. Networking with other fellow attendees is a major part of the event as opportunities are provided before, after, and during the conference.

Over the course of the two day conference the keynote speakers and other presenters will delve into how law firm web presence and legal website design can grow your business, how the internet is changing everything, and how the secret to success can be reduced to reputation, referral and ranking. 

Reputation

The key to your success is having the world know about you. Keynote speaker Dan Hill, President of Sensory Logic, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN begins the conference addressing how law firm internet marketing can improve or hinder your reputation in his speech “Lie to Mie! ‘Emotion Management’ of Your Marketing Will Invite Trust, Not Contempt.” Dan Hill is an internationally recognized authority on the use of facial coding, the method of reading facial expressions to know what someone is really thinking. Hill is a prominent figure in the national media on facial coding analysis on a wide variety of topics such as presidential elections. 

Also dealing with reputation in the talk “Social Media: Does Your Firm Marketing Plan Need A Face Lift?”, Steve Silverberg, the moderator and partner at Silverberg Zalantis LLP, White Plains, NY, will discuss how to use Social Media in a way that you are comfortable with to help the overall reputation and awareness of your firm. 

Referrals

A large part of maintaining business is referrals. The second keynote speaker, Peter Shankman, Founder of Help A Reporter Out and Founder of The Geek Factory, Inc. New York City, New York discusses the impact of the internet on law firm marketing and how it has changed everything. Shankman, known for “redefining the art of networking” will explain how social media, legal website design, internet marketing and public relations are transforming client referrals and retention.

The process of internet rankings and ratings - not search engine rankings; rather, the various companies and resources that rank lawyers - is growing more complex as it gets more attention. The conference luncheon “Effects of Rankings & Ratings on the Legal Profession” will address many topics surrounding this issue such as how to sort through the thousands of companies (Chambers USA, Martindale-Hubbell and American Lawyer Media) that do rankings and ratings. Other topics include the pros and cons of participating in rankings, how to deal with ethical quandaries, and how to incorporate rankings into your attorney website design and even marketing campaign. The roundtable discussion will include perspectives from law firm management consultants, in-house counsel, traditional print and online entities, and other media.

You can still register for this even. Visit www.lawpractice.org/marketingconference for registration and conference updates. 

LexisNexis has rolled out Site Essentials, Site Edge and Site Exclusives, a suite of updated website development products and services — complete with blogging features and mobile device optimization — designed to help law firms establish an effective online presence and attract more clients.

“LexisNexis has updated its website development services to provide law firms with solutions that help them establish an effective web presence, generate robust site traffic and accelerate and track their web-based lead generation efforts,” said David Palmieri, vice president and managing director of Marketing and Consumer Solutions at LexisNexis. “When law firms engage with us, we can deliver higher return on investment with a wider variety of products and services that meet firms’ marketing goals.”

The new LexisNexis® Site Essentials product offers firms:

• An effective, professional website, designed and hosted by LexisNexis, that can be implemented in as little as two weeks
• A creative consultation
• Home page content with suggested content for practice area descriptions
• A website performance dashboard to track key site statistics including phone and email inquiries
• A content management system enabling users to make copy adjustments and site updates
• Basic search engine optimization
• A mobile-optimized version of the site
• Ongoing technical assistance from LexisNexis website experts.

Additionally, LexisNexis® Site Edge includes copywriting assistance as well as the addition of five articles each from three practice areas which update every two weeks, giving visitors a reason to come back to the site. Site Edge customers can also add a professionally produced video to their site.

Also available is LexisNexis® Site Exclusives, a custom, end-to-end web development product. In addition to providing all the features of the other two services, Site Exclusives gives customers significantly more copywriting and ongoing technical assistance, while also providing a fully customized site design and architecture and hosting services for up to five videos on the firm’s website.

While websites from all three services are optimized to render on mobile devices, LexisNexis® Mobile Website Personalization service gives firms the option to create versions of their site optimized for specific devices or to target specific clientele. According to a 2010 report from Gartner, Inc., mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide by 2013, making it more important for firms to communicate their expertise and capabilities effectively on the mobile web.

For firms looking to increase online engagement via their website, LexisNexis® Blog Basics is an easy-to-use integrated blogging tool. LexisNexis Blog Basics provides customers with another effective way of promoting authoritative firm content and maximizing lead generation. According to a 2010 study released by HubSpot, companies that blog have 55 percent more website visitors and generate 88 percent more leads.

To learn more visit the Law Firm Marketing Center at http://lexisnexis.com/law-firm-marketing.

Did you know that 68% of marketers did a website redesign in the last 12 months and they spent a median of $10,000 doing so, according to Hubspot's Science of Website Redesign. This belies the myth that a major law firm has to spend north of $50,000 to revamp their website.

What's more, only about half of website redesign projects finish and launch on time, according to the data, and 1/3 of marketers were not happy with their last website redesign. The data came from surveys of 100+ consumers, 100+ marketers and 100+ agencies.

"Most people think you should redesign your website every one to two years," according to Mike Volpe CMO of Hubspot. "Your website should be a living, breathing, chaning being. Edit and improve it constantly."

55% of the time the marketing team initiates the idea for a website redesign, although the CEO starts it 30% of the time. As to who actually undertakes the redesign:

• 44% of website owners hired an outside company for the majority of the project.
• 53% did the maority of the project internally.
• Satisfaction with the results was the same whether the work was outsources or handled in-house.

It generally takes 4 to 5 months to redesign a website. Lightning speed is one month but it can take up to two years, as many law firm marketeres know.

Good and Bad Metrics

How can you tell if the redesign was successful. Here are some better metrics:

• Visitors
• Leads
• Sales
• Conversion %
• All of the above, but by source

Worse Metrics

• Bounce rate
• Time on site
• Page views
• Pages / visit
• "Hits"
• Google Pagerank

The key takeaway is that what visitors want most is a website that is easy to use -- not Flash, fancy design or artwork. Find out more about website redesigns that get marketing results.

Join us as we check in with the $50,000 marketing makeover contest winner, Case, Rajnoha and Boudreau in St. Louis to examine their new site and learn about developing an effective online legal marketing presence.

LexisNexis will host the free “ultimate law firm marketing makeover” webinar Tuesday June 23rd from 12:00pm – 1:00pm EST, featuring a discussion of best practices for online legal marketing and mid-year progress report on the firm. The three-lawyer firm won the contest in January and work has proceeded behind the scenes since then.

I was one of the judges who picked the winner and will give you my online marketing perspective during the webinar.

Topics to be discussed include:

• Online marketing versus print
• Could you use an online marketing makeover?
• What does a good online marketing plan look like?
• How did LexisNexis incorporate best practices into Case, Rajnoha, and Boudreau LLP’s marketing makeover?
• Challenges and successes in online marketing

If you are interested in attending this free webinar, please register here.. .

Web experts working with Case, Rajnoha and Boudreau, LLP will review progress made to the new site as they implement a customized online marketing program for the contest winner. Margaret Boudreau, a partner from the winning law firm, will also offer perspective on her firm’s marketing progress since winning the makeover.

The $50,000 makeover grand prize delivered a suite of services ranging from web design, video production, search engine optimization (SEO), development of a robust profile on Lawyers.com, martindale.com and more.

From Hubspot: We all know our website is a key part of our marketing and lead generation strategy. But when prospects visit your site, what are they looking for? What do they want to see, and what do they consider most important? To find out, RainToday surveyed more than 200 buyers of B2B services -- in companies of all sizes -- to rate the importance of various elements of a service provider's website.

The top 4 elements should come as no surprise:

•  Service descriptions (87%)
•  Description of industries served (78%)
•  Success stories / case studies (73%)
•  Professional website design and presentation (69%)

These elements are the core of most firms' websites. If something is amiss here, it will raise major questions with buyers from the get-go. Getting these elements in place is just the price of entering the game.

However, if you want to win clients, don't overlook the remaining six elements. Even podcasts and audio content, at the bottom of the list, were rated by 40% of decision makers as being "extremely" or "very important" when deciding to make initial contact with a service provider. 

Whatever marketing you are doing, the first stop for most buyers is a visit to your website. It can either draw them in further with online resources and content, podcasts, videos, and news, or it can say the same thing as your competitors' sites, providing a laundry list of services and a nice look, but neither helping nor hurting your chances to start or enhance a relationship.

Web Elements Working Together - An Example

Say you are going to run a webinar. You may send an invitation by email (a top way to generate attendance at webinars), directing buyers to register for the event on your website. During the registration process, you can ask them to sign up for your newsletter, allowing you to add them to ongoing marketing communications. And, on the confirmation page, you can direct them to blog posts, case studies, or podcasts on related topics to the event, further engaging them with your brand and thought-leading content.

Pull People to You

You can go a step further and share information about the webinar and the related content items via social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Doing this allows you to reach your followers and fans, some of whom may not be on your email list, as well as enhancing your Web presence. As more people use the Web to find services, you want to make sure you have compelling content that is findable in search engines and draws people to you.

Buyers may not indicate elements such as blog posts, podcasts, and video as being the most important features of a website, but leveraging content can really help your product or service stand out in a crowded market space.

What type of content do you have available on your website?