AVALANCHE: The Lawyer Marketing Group

Good Design Feeds Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) hasn't changed the definition good web design. No. It has reinforced the definition of good web design. A site that is designed well enables optimization.

SEO has gained importance over the last few years. But the goal of websites is the same as back in the dotcom days: we still want sites that communicate business goals to users - be they perspective clients, potential referrers, or jurors.

The new angle, with the addition of SEO, is to allow people to find our sites (and thus our information) quickly, using search engines.

My background is in web usability and information architecture, where the objective is designing from the user perspective. This dictates that the site design must enable people to access the information they want.

The goal of SEO is the same: people use search engines to find websites that will give them information they need to make a decision. In our case, that means finding an attorney to help them. By giving people useful information on your website, you begin to establish a relationship, earning their trust, and getting them to call you for help in evaluating their case.

Good web design and SEO can be broken down into four parts. Effective use of these parts will drive clients to your site, and subsequently to your services. The parts are as follows:
* Relevant, useful content, targeted to optimal users
* UI and graphic design (intuitive navigation, readability, sitemaps & breadcrumbs to reinforce place)
* Clean code
* Information architecture (site & directory structure on the server, category organization)

The content of your site needs to be relevant to people who need to hire an attorney.
* Provide information about how you can help.
* Briefly write about your qualifications and your experience, to show people who you are.
* Show that you know how to help people by sharing some of your specialized knowledge -the process of filing a claim, or how settling differs from going to trial.
* Use keywords to steer people to the answers they want.
* It's great to give away resources for research people can do on their own - empowering people builds a trusting relationship.

It's important to keep your copy succinct. No one wants to read your entire biography online. Link to your blog if you want to philosophize and theorize. (BTW, blogs are a great web marketing tool, but we'll address that in another entry.)

People want quick points to see who you are and what you do. Can they trust you? Can they have a relationship with you? If you ramble on and on in your web copy, you are communicating that you are a better talker than listener. And right now, coming to you without a referral, your potential clients need to know you will listen to them.

So all this keeps users on your site, and entices people to hire you, but how is it helpful for SEO?

Succinct, relevant web copy works threefold to assist in high search engine rankings. First, the keywords you were focusing on to steer users to answers they were seeking weigh in high on search engine results. Second, providing useful information may get people to link to your site. Link popularity is a factor in search engine results. Third, short copy is easy for the search engines' spiders to go through when searching for keyword phrases. All the content requirements for good web design match those for SEO.

The design of your site is there to allow users to get to relevant information.

Graphic design reinforces your general message - professionalism, experience, authority, and compassion are often what people look for in an attorney. These are shown with fonts and images that convey these messages.

The user interface (UI) has to be designed so that people intuit where to go for specific information. Where are resources for injured people? Where have you described how you work with your clients? Your experience? Your phone number? How people navigate around your site and knowing their location in a site's structure are big usability issues.

Using old standbys like intuitive navigation naming conventions, breadcrumbs, and access to text navigation and sitemaps makes search engines happy, too. Spiders can quickly crawl through the links on your site unobstructed, which means quick indexing, which means you're optimizing.

On the technical side of things, clean code is a best practice for any website.

From the user perspective, clean code means a quicker download time. This might not be apparent on a high-speed connection, but it may still make a difference on dial-up. And spiders, built to sort through code, like that code to be clean.

I hate to sound like a preachy geek, but the fact is that WYSIWYG web editors (those applications where you see what the web page will look like while you type in your copy) still don't generate the cleanest code.

Same holds true for sites with cookie-cutter designs that a hosting service might provide you - creating a site that a non-technical person can update with a simple interface requires lots of code that spiders have a hard time crawling through to get to your keywords.

Going deeper into the background is setting up an information architecture that is usable - again for both people and search engines.

The information architecture sets the blueprint for how all your content is organized, how your files are named, and the structure on the server.

Usually we group similar information into categories. A common category is "About Us" on a website; this category usually contains info such as attorneys' bios, case results, and firm philosophy.

People find information more easily when it is categorized into smaller groups. Info presented in one big lump is overwhelming. Likewise, a web crawler for a search engine likes a good structural organization. A spider can systematically go through pages faster when it encounters a logical organization system. As file-naming goes, some search engines weigh the words in the URL of a given page, so a good structure helps you here, as well.

So there you have it. Get good web design and optimize your site for search engines in one fell swoop. My advice? Choose web designers who have SEO know-how and capability; choose marketers who have web savvy. The combination of skills make your website successful.

A Rose by any Other Name?

Names are important. Names can make or break advertisers. Do you know what an MRI is? Did you know that, in the early days of this medical science, we had NMRIs? What is the difference between the old NMRI and the new MRI?

Nothing. The name was changed from NMRI to MRI because people were afraid of being tested by a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Indicator. (“Nuclear” refers not to atomic energy but to the nucleus of the cell, which is charged magnetically to get a picture of what is going on.)

Did you know there is no chocolate in “white chocolate.” White chocolate, which is a combination of butter (or oil) and sugar, was commonly called “almond bark.” Almond bark was not very popular until the confections industry renamed it “white chocolate.” Now, it seems white chocolate is everywhere.

Have you noticed that the GOP no longer uses the term “global warming?” Instead, they use the term “global climate change.” The public does not seem to be very alarmed about global climate change; it’s weather.

Simple word changes can make huge differences in perception and, down the road, in attitudes and action.

That is why many lawyers choose to be called attorneys. The public often perceives lawyers as the “bad guys” and attorneys as professionals.

What does the public think about “personal injury lawyers?” It is not pretty. How about a name change that better communicates what PI lawyers do?

Personally, I like the term “negligence attorneys.” A lot of people don’t like to sue — that is until they have a good reason to. Negligence may be a better reason to sue than personal injury.

People get hurt; it is not always somebody else’s fault. However, when we sue for negligence, it is clear who the “bad guy” is.

I say let’s become “negligence attorneys.” The term clearly defines who the good and bad the guys are.

What terms do you use in your marketing that might serve you better if you change a word or two?

Seventeen Failsafe Marketing Rules

#1 Lead Your Marketing with the Highest ROI Vehicle

• Of the hundreds of marketing vehicles which one offers the possibility for the highest return on your investment? Invest in the highest-ROI vehicle first. Only after you have saturated your highest-ROI vehicle should you move forward to your second-highest-ROI vehicle.
• Monitor and modify frequently. Any time your ROI slips, adjust your message or the delivery mechanism. After adjusting, if you don't see a return to high ROI, withdraw your funding and invest in the next highest ROI vehicle. Review frequently.

#2 Understand the Difference Between What you Offer and What People Buy

• You offer services; people buy solutions to their problems. (Proctor and Gamble sells shampoo to people who want clean hair.)
• Go deeper. (People want clean hair because...)
• People buy perception, not reality.
• Express your services in terms of what people buy (security, confidence, experience, loss protection, value, likelihood of success, understanding, etc.).

#3 Understand Who Buys Your Stuff

• Understand who buys your stuff. Business people? Other lawyers? Consumers?
• Define your audience from every possible perspective: socio-economic, geographic, image-sensitivity, age, risk-sensitivity, etc.
• If your firm provides services to more than one group, design unique marketing strategies (messages and delivery vehicles) for each group.

#4 Define and Target Your Audience

• Before you design any marketing communication, know who wants or needs your services-know your potential customers intimately.
• Design your communications to meet the needs and desires of your potential customers.
• Speak to only one customer at a time.
• Buy media that reaches your target audience, not media that reaches the largest number of people.

#5 Design Your Marketing Around Problems and Solutions

• People hire lawyers to solve problems, or to prevent a problem from occurring. Design your marketing so that it is clear—you solve problems.
• In print advertising, use the headline to present a problem. In the subhead, provide the solution.

#6 Define Your Unique Market Position

• Why should somebody hire you rather than your competition? Be realistic.
• Brand your unique market position (e.g., "the insider," "always here," "the lawyers’ lawyer”).
• Find ways to communicate your unique market position in an irresistible fashion.

#7 Be Faithful to Your Unique Voice

• Once you have created your unique place in the market, stick with it: actively and intentionally grow your brand. Remember, people buy things (including services) because of their uniqueness, not because they are like other things.
• When you stand apart, you get noticed. (Don’t follow others.)

#8 Make Yourself Easily Accessible

• Create an image of warmth and availability. (Too many law firms create images that focus on prestige and tradition. Granite walls may create the image that you’ve “made it,” but if those walls get between you and your potential clients, your marketing will have to work a lot harder to generate new clients.)
• Create marketing-only telephone lines for your office. Publish a unique number in all of your advertising so when that line rings, everybody knows it’s a prospective client calling.
• Create a welcoming, we-are-here-to-please-you message both within your office and in all of your external marketing.

#9 Know Your Resources

• How much money do you have to invest in marketing? How much time do you have? Allocate your resources to achieve the maximum return on investment for your marketing programs.
• If you have more money than time, hire a consultant with a track record of success and give her a budget. Step out of the way and monitor results.
• If you have more time than money, pursue marketing programs that are time-heavy and money-light. (Direct contact, seminars and workshops, networking, volunteering, public relations, practice brochures, publishing, trade services, etc.)

#10 Know Your Competition

• Your firm is not the only firm actively pursuing new customers. To win the lion's share of the pie, you must know what your competition is doing. You must be more aggressive. You must be smarter. To edge out the competition, you must know what they are doing, and you must play the marketing game better than they play the marketing game. When it comes to generating new clients, the second choice never gets the telephone call.

#11 Keep Egos and Marketing Separate from Each Other

• Your marketing is not about you; it is about what you can do for potential clients better than anybody else.
• If you create a marketing message that makes you look good, throw it away. Even Charlie knows people don't want tuna with good tastes.

#12 Don’t Design Marketing Communications to which You Think You Might Respond

• You are not your potential client. Your potential clients don’t think like you think. They don’t even like the same food you like! Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking that if you like a marketing message, potential clients will like it too.
• Don’t design an ad layout or direct mail piece so you will like it. Too many truly great marketing pieces have been left on graphic artists’ tables in favor of less powerful pieces because the client liked the lesser piece, and did not see or understand the value of the powerful piece.
• Don’t look at your marketing messages through your eyes. Take your marketing messages out to others for their opinions. (If you take your marketing messages to your staff or to your spouse for “more objective” opinions, you will get more, and varied, opinions, none of which will be much more valuable than your own. The only person whose opinion counts is the potential clients’. Think of it this way: Don’t ask your wife and staff what flavor of ice cream the kid standing on the street corner likes the most. You may love your wife and your staff, but they don't know what flavor of ice cream that kid likes any more than you know. Ask the kid.)

#13 Don't Buy Statistics

• Most people who sell advertising have compelling statistics that demonstrate buying their advertising vehicle is a prudent choice. Ignore these statistics; they mislead. If you need to rely on statistics, get them from an unbiased source.
• Statistics are not clients. (Nobody has 1.9 children.)

#14 Tell the Truth

• Always.

#15 Adopt a Winning Attitude

• The return you get on your marketing investment is influenced by your attitude. Create and maintain a great outlook every time you participate in building content, designing marketing material, or buying media. If you discover you have a bad outlook on a day you have scheduled yourself to work on your marketing, reschedule.
• Go all out, as though you are designing your future. You are.
• Plan to win. Big.

#16 Never Advertise From Fear of Loss

• Advertising decisions that are motivated by fear (“some other firm will get these clients if I don’t advertise here”) will almost definitely result in poor returns.
• Advertising decisions that are motivated by possible gain tend to produce? gain.

#17 Sell Only the Best

• If you decided to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door, wouldn’t you research to find the best-value, best-performing vacuum cleaner on the market, and then get a job with that firm? Your advertising will always reflect your beliefs about your firm. If you don’t believe you can offer the best value and performance, your advertising will reflect that.
• If you can't offer value and performance, change.

If you abide by these seventeen time-tested marketing principles, your marketing cannot stray too far from success.