Marketing your legal practice on the web

3Sep/100

You probably already know that there are literally thousands of people on the lookout for your legal practice on the Internet - the challenge is how to get them to find you! This article can only offer a brief overview - but hopefully it will be a handy place to begin.

Building a site for your solicitors practice is the first job if you don't already have one. It can seem like a daunting job if you haven't built a site before. In fact it's not that hard - but the majority of people are too busy and have far better things to do (such as running their legal practice !). So why not find a couple of sites that you like, and make contact with the developers of those for a quote (the designers name is sometimes displayed at the foot of the page). On the other hand, you could outsource the work on a site like Elance - which will often cost less.

The next step is to deploy Google Analytics. It will tell you how many users your web site is getting, where they're originating from, and how long they're staying on your website. You could also use it to keep an eye on your ad campaigns, and understand what people are purchasing on your website. Very important!

One of the most important ways to advertise your site is to secure links from other web sites. General directories , like Yahoo and Dmoz are a nice place to obtain back-links. Many are free (like Dmoz), others (for example Yahoo) you have to pay out for. Yahoo is a touch on the pricey side at $299 each year, but there are various other paid directories like JoeAnt that offer better value.

Vertical market directories or web sites are among the most valuable places to advertise your website. Regrettably many markets don't have many sites like that - and the few that exist know their value and tend to charge accordingly. The good news is, there is http://www.ClickForSolicitors.co.uk/ which is a solicitors practice specialist so it's worth registering with them (particularly as appearing on that web site is currently totally free!). If you can locate other sites in your market, try to join up with them too.

If you have some cash available to bring customers to your new site, then look into Pay Per Click advertising. The most widely known system is Google Adwords, which will show your advertisements near to the Google listings - but there are also some other systems out there. You create your advert, choose which search results you'd like to appear next to, and how much money you're ready to pay for every visitor to your website. Your advert can be live within a few minutes and site visitors will frequently start arriving right away.

Now that you're getting visitors to your web site - make sure to request their email address, so you'll be able to send them information, news and promotions - or simply remind them to come back to your site and see what's changed. Services like IContact make it easy to capture email addresses and send out emails to your prospects.

There's lots of work involved in advertising your solicitors practice online - but the key is to get started, and chip away at it, one project at a time. Sooner than you think, you'll have a thriving website and plenty of new customers. All the info you need is accessible on the web - so get out there and start marketing on the Web - it may be one of the greatest choices you ever made.

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