Online marketing is a powerful way to engage with potential clients and build trust. However, it can be a double-edged sword: if not managed carefully, the same resources that help your potential clients find you can also turn them away from your firm.
In this blog post, we discuss how to get a handle on your firm’s current online reputation and how to build it moving forward.
Examine the current reputation of your law firm.
In a recent blog post, we discussed the value of understanding your potential clients’ online search behavior. By understanding how potential clients find and choose attorneys, you’ll be able to build your reputation effectively.
Start where many of your potential clients begin: Google searches. Try searching for things such as:
- Law firms in your practice area and geographic location.
- Your law firm’s name.
- The names of the attorneys at your firm (including yourself).
- Search terms and queries related to your firm and your practice area.
See what comes up. If the results are positive, you’ll want to build on that success. If they’re negative, you’ll want to develop a strategy to mitigate the damage. Keep in mind that finding nothing about your firm can be as damaging as having a negative review – potential clients often look for social proof of positive experiences with your firm.
Build a collection of positive reviews.
If you haven’t started building a collection of positive reviews from happy clients, now is the time to do so. More and more potential clients look to law firm reviews and testimonials to make a decision about whether to hire a particular lawyer.
Ideally, it’s worth capturing a positive review soon after the conclusion of a case or matter. It’s worth building this habit into the closing of your files: You can set up an automated email to ask for a review, or use technology that makes this task simple.
(LawLytics comes with a built-in reviews manager to quickly and easily publish reviews to your website and organize your best reviews where clients will see them. You can quickly and easily request reviews from clients right from the LawLytics dashboard.)
Make it easy to leave a review: Guide your clients to where you’d like them to post their testimonials. Will it be on Google? Will it be on your website? Wherever you choose to have them leave a review, make sure it’s quick and intuitive for them to do so.
Develop the assets that you own and control,
Part of reputation management for attorneys is controlling the online narrative about your firm.
One of the best ways to do this is by using the assets that you own and control to bolster your reputation and develop trust within your community. Use assets like your website to develop high-quality, educational content directed toward your potential clients, post positive reviews, and help web visitors learn about your firm and its successes.
Creating strong, story-based case results, authentic, approachable attorney bios, and other user-friendly resources can help populate positive results about your firm in search engines while building relationships with potential clients who are busy researching their legal issues.
Build your law firm’s online presence with LawLytics.
The LawLytics platform makes it easy to develop and support your firm’s online reputation by providing you with tools to collect and display positive reviews, develop engaging attorney bios and case results, and more.
When you join LawLytics, you’ll get access to our software, support, and strategy. We’ll show you how to use our software, how to create high-quality content on your website, and how to develop your online presence. The result is a law firm website that drives more — and better aligned — potential clients to your law firm.
To learn more about using LawLytics for your law firm, schedule a free, interactive demo.
