As the legal industry continues to evolve, law firms must stay ahead of the curve and develop digital marketing strategies that will help them remain competitive in 2023 and beyond. With the right digital marketing strategies and execution, law firms can increase their visibility, attract new clients, and improve their overall efficiency. As you’re planning for the new year, here are some of the best (and creative) law firm digital marketing strategies to use in 2023:
Invest in a Local SEO Strategy
We’ve harped on this in 2021, in 2022, and now again in 2023. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important digital marketing strategies for any business, including law firms. It’s important for two reasons:
- A local SEO strategy often has the greatest opportunity over any other law firm digital marketing strategy. The opportunity is there because it’s either an area of improvement for your law firm’s website or an opportunity in the competitive landscape. Reason being – most law firm’s aren’t prioritizing their local SEO. And even if they are, there’s many opportunities in content and keywords that often get overlooked. From Google Business profile to local searches and common legal questions, search engines have a lot of real estate and opportunities to rank your law firm on the first page. And within that real estate, plenty of opportunity to take advantage of.
- A good local SEO strategy often has the greatest ROI. Ideally, you shouldn’t be just investing in one avenue. PPC, social media, SEO/content marketing, etc. all have their place in a digital marketing strategy. But as far as return, SEO offers much longer-lasting results. Content on your site in blogs for example, live on your site forever. And often, you’ll see continuous traffic in those that rank for years. While it takes longer to build a strategy and see a return over other digital marketing strategies, it can offer much greater ROI. Don’t believe us? We have a really great case study here on a law firm who is seeing some crazy results from SEO and content marketing.
SEO isn’t a one and done thing. Technical SEO, your website’s speed, link building, Google Business, and probably the most important, the content on your site, all play roles in your website ranking. Optimizing these pieces, and continually posting relevant and valuable content on your site is how you can grow your law firm’s SEO law firm.
So where do you begin to build a law firm SEO strategy?
We have many resources on building an law firm SEO digital marketing strategy:
- For DIYers – Check out our Free Law Firm SEO Guidebook. We also have many blog articles with some great tips on strategy
- For Those looking for services (and a great partner) – here’s a breakdown of our killer SEO and content marketing services.
Invest In Legal Content Marketing. And Get Creative!
As noted above, quality content marketing plays an important role in your law firm’s SEO strategy. You might be asking yourself, if you already mentioned it, why are you mentioning it again? Well, because it’s just that important. But there are also some opportunities and creative ways you can go about in building a unique law firm content strategy.
Be The Thought Leader In Your Local Legal Community With Blogs
The largest SEO opportunity in the legal competitive landscape is with keywords and search queries. Most local law firms don’t build their site or marketing to answer questions. They build it to promote their services, and hope something sticks that allows them rank on search engines. This is where the opportunity comes into play with a law firm blog strategy.
Recurring law firm blog posts serve a couple of purposes:
One of the biggest is continuous and high quality content on your site is extremely important in Google’s eyes. If you’re continuing to post high quality content, it often helps increase blog ranking and overall site ranking. Higher rankings on Google = more website traffic.
And lastly, and the most important is blog posts can provide very valuable information to potential clients – to learn about your firm, the services you offer, and more importantly, it develops trust. Good blog content answering questions, highlighting helpful tips, and even current local legal insights are ways to stand out from the crowd, and establish your firm as a thought leader in your community. And more importantly, a well-crafted strategy will make it easier for people to find you online, connect with you, and establish trust (so they will hire you!)
If you’re looking for insights on content ideas and strategy with blog posts, check out our legal blog article here.
Continue to Be A Thought Leader With Video Content
In our 2022 law firm digital marketing strategy article, we talked about law firm video marketing as a priority, and now in 2023, it still remains. Why? Video is a crucial piece of how consumers consume content. Watching videos on YouTube, TikTok and other social media platforms is part of our daily lives. It’s what grabs our attention and easily digestible content. In the legal space, it’s a unique and creative strategy that still is very underutilized as part of an ongoing law firm digital marketing strategy.
Just like blog posts, video can be a tactic that helps build trust and provide valuable information to potential clients. And just like blog posts, it can help establish you as a thought leader in the legal community and make you stand out from the crowd. Here are a couple ways to utilize video across your website and social media:
Host an Ongoing Legal Webinar Series.
Legal webinars might NOT sound like an intriguing topic for people to attend and sign up for, but you may be surprised. Since COVID, businesses investing in webinars have risen by 67%. And consumer consumption of webinars – up 293%! For law firms, webinars can be a great way to answer client questions, provide training, tell client success stories, and introduce people to your business.
Webinars don’t need to focus on client acquisition. Some law firms strictly utilize webinars to appeal to potential partners or other lawyers looking for information. Regardless of your webinar strategy it opens the door for more opportunities and standing out from the crowd.
Embed Videos In Your Website Blog and Practice Area Content
Hosting a legal webinar? Put the recording on your site! Speaking at an event? Post the video recording on your site! The point is, video content shouldn’t be ignored as part of your legal website content. It can be a great way to highlight your services, your story, or provide some information to potential clients. And just like everything else I’ve talked about, it builds trust and makes you stand out from other firms!
And Don’t Forget About TikTok!
We talked about TikTok video strategies in several posts (including how to start a TikTok As A Lawyer and in our 2022 Law Firm Digital Marketing Strategies post. So, I won’t bore you with the reasons or topics you need to be posting about. Just jump on the bandwagon!
Create A Gated Content Download Strategy
Getting leads from content marketing often isn’t something that happens overnight. If you’re looking for a way to utilize content marketing, while focusing on lead volume now, a gated content strategy is a creative way to make it happen.
So what exactly does it mean? Essentially, you’re creating content that is only viewable or downloadable once someone gives you their information. It sounds scammy, but in reality, it’s a strategy (if done right) that can be a great lead driver, while still providing value to potential customers. Here are some ideas:
- Subscriber to Newsletter. This one should be self-explanatory 🙂
- Checklists. Checklists and cheat sheets that outline important steps to take in legal actions. Could also be things like “Your Estate Planning Checklist” Or “Steps to Start a Business”
- Law Firm Ebooks. Similar to checklists, an ebook is longer form to guide clients through the legal process or simplify complex issues. “Your Guide to Franchising a Business”. “Your Guide to Setting Up an Estate Plan”
- Research Reports on Legal Trends. Things that are happening in the industry
- Webinars. See Above! Webinars are a great way to get people to give you information, while providing valuable content
Promoting your content is probably the other big piece with the success of gated content. Not only embedding it and having on your site will make it successful. If you plan on building this piece out, consider dedicating some ad budget and promoting on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and even TikTok!
Bringing It All Together
If you haven’t noticed, we love content and SEO. And if you want your firm to be successful in 2023, embracing new content trends and investing in your website is the key. If you haven’t put together a law firm digital marketing plan in 2023, now is the time. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help.
