One of the best ways to create unique, engaging content — and attract more local potential clients — is to focus on local marketing.
An effective local content strategy can help increase your law firm website’s visibility in search engine results and improve your ability to connect with and engage local clients.
By providing relevant information that answers local potential clients’ questions, almost any page on a law firm website can become a more effective local online marketing tool.
Attorneys shouldn’t think just about getting traffic to their website, but getting targeted traffic. Traffic alone does not necessarily translate into new business for your law firm. But when attorneys think about who they are writing for (potential clients), what those website visitors want to know, and develop highly detailed local pages that answer those questions, they’re more likely to convert the traffic that visits their website.
There are several easy ways to integrate local marketing into your law firm’s content plan. In this blog post, we’ll show you some easy local wins for your law firm’s online marketing.
What is local marketing for law firms, and why does it matter?
Local marketing is important for law firms because it allows you to focus your marketing efforts on attracting clients in the geographic area where you practice. Local marketing can help you attract more local potential clients to your law firm with less effort.
Potential clients have a habit of “thinking locally, not legally”. They often add local markers to the searches that they conduct about their case or matter, even if it’s not an accurate representation of how the law works.
Google’s goal is to return the best and most useful content to its users. That includes when someone searches with a local marker (for example, “What happens at a Dallas DUI hearing?” or “Who is at fault in a rear-end collision in Denver?”)
Creating content that closely matches a potential client’s query can make it more likely that, when you create your content well, Google will return that content for a related search.
How can attorneys use local marketing on their law firm websites?
You can create many of your law firm website pages with local elements to appeal to local clients. Practice area and detailed law pages, case results, among other types of pages are potentially good candidates for localization.
For example:
- Personal injury law firms could create content that addresses locally relevant topics such as intersections where accidents are frequent, hospitals, or places where people frequently get injured, such as parks and schools.
- Criminal defense law firms can create website pages that provide information about local criminal courts, police stations, jails or checkpoints.
- Business law firms might provide information about local governing bodies or boards, zoning districts and local taxing authorities.
There are several easy ways to integrate local marketing into your law firm’s website.
Consider adding local markers to your law firm website page titles and headers.
It’s a good idea to ensure that, at a glance, a potential client can tell if your content is relevant to them. That’s why it’s often a good idea to add local markers to your titles and headers. Your page title and headers are one of the first things that potential clients see when they find your content in search and look over a page. And, the more closely that text matches their search intent, the more likely they are to click on your page when it’s returned to them as an option in search results.
For example, instead of a page title that says something vague like “Breath Tests,” instead choose something more specific and local: “What You Need to Know About Challenging a Breathalyzer Test in [Atlanta/Fulton County/Georgia]. “
Headers are a good way to break up long blocks of text as well as provide your potential clients with some guidance. Much like your titles, it can be a good idea to add local information to your headers, too.
Using the example from earlier, a page on challenging a breathalyzer test may include subjects like “Factors that cause inaccurate results,” and “Why our firm challenges chemical testing.”
You can make your headers more relevant to potential clients by adding in local information in the headers: “Factors That Cause Inaccurate Breathalyzer Results [in Atlanta/Fulton County/Georgia],” and “Why Our [Atlanta/Fulton County/Georgia] Firm Challenges Chemical Testing in DUI Cases.”
Consider adding local information in your body text.
There are plenty of opportunities to add local information to the body text on your pages. What specific local knowledge is important for your potential clients to know? What do they need to know about local hospitals, local landmarks, local courthouses, local police stations, and more?
The more that you tailor the content on your site to reflect a potential client’s experience in your geographic area, the more opportunities you build to connect with that potential client and gain their trust.
Consider adding multimedia such as images and maps.
When you’re finished tailoring the text, title, and headers on a page, consider adding some multimedia flourishes to your page to increase engagement. Where it makes sense to do so, you may want to provide images and maps. For example, if you have pages that cover information that potential clients need to know about local courthouses, you may also want to provide a map of the location as well as pictures of the courthouse. These extras can go a long way toward making an impactful page.
How LawLytics makes it easy for you to do local marketing
LawLytics makes it easy for you to do effective local marketing on almost any page you create for your law firm’s website.
Aside from making it easy to add local information to your headers and body content, the LawLytics offices module makes it easy to create locally optimized pages for as many offices as you have. Simply type in your address and phone number, and the system does the rest. If you have more than one office, LawLytics automatically creates and updates an interactive page with all of your locations.
With LawLytics, you can insert maps in any page, blog post, or case result, as well as easily adding local images and information.
The result is pages with local data and a more relevant visual presentation.
Learn more about local marketing for law firms
To learn more about how to do local marketing the right way on your law firm’s website, see the following blog posts:
