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MAY 2020 | AROUND THE ABA

3 musts to rev up your online business

With seemingly the world working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re no doubt thinking about ways to boost your online revenue.

To ensure that your digital front is in order, two tech gurus from the legal website Justia lay out the essentials in “How to Get Business Online in 2020” for the March issue of Law Practice Today.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Stanley and Senior Editor Chris Skelton identify the top places that drive online traffic to law firms — Google Search, business/law firm directories, social media, YouTube videos, among them — and share some key ways in each of those areas to gain attention and turn potential clients to actual ones.

Among many of their important tips, here are three to get you started:

  1. Create a Google My Business profile (GMB) for each of your staffed offices. Stanley and Skelton say that Google’s business directory is the most important one for law firms, followed by Facebook and Yelp.

    Develop a robust profile and don’t forget to select your default practice area so folks can find you.

    To best optimize traffic, do not create an individual lawyer profile, which would end up splitting your reviews between the two sites and otherwise mess with search results.

    Another warning: Google checks whether the name, address and phone number in your GMB listing are consistent with other business directories and online sources, the duo says. DO NOT use tracking phone numbers on online business directories, since this will lead to inconsistencies that will harm you with GMB.
  2. Among all social media, get on LinkedIn. Stanley and Skelton say it’s the most important one for two reasons: possible referrals and job offers from other law firms. Focus on information and your branding, advise the authors, offering up Fenwick & West law firm’s LinkedIn profile as an example to follow.
  3. Make 1- to 3-minute informative videos, along with blog posts and other ways to convey your personality and establish your reputation and expertise. As you do, you build trust and help turn potential clients into real ones.

    Choose YouTube, Stanley and Skelton say. The site offers a wealth of resources on production. Also, YouTube is fully optimized for video playback and easily embeds on your website or blog. And it encourages good traffic from searches on Google and YouTube.  

Of course, none of these tips matter if you don’t have cogent branding and a solid website to begin with – and Stanley and Skelton also provide words of wisdom in those areas. Read “How to Get Business Online in 2020” for more details.

Justia specializes in legal information retrieval, providing free case law, codes, regulations and legal information for lawyers, business, students and consumers worldwide.

Law Practice Today is published as a member benefit of the ABA Law Practice Division. Membership to the LPD is free for all ABA members.

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