DIY law firm digital audit for business growth

1. Google vanity searches: I suggest that you Google your name and local market at minimum on a quarterly basis across all platforms: phone, tablet, desktop, and even open an incognito window in Google to conduct the search. You’ll hear this referred to in the digital marketing industry as a “vanity search.” 

For example, google “Attorney (INSERT NAME) Cedar Rapids” or “(ATTORNEY NAME) Iowa” across multiple devices. You will also want to use search terms for your law firm name, like “(INSERT NAME) Law Firm.”
 
I recommend creating a repeat reminder for every three months on your calendar (or your assistant’s/ intern’s calendars) blocking out 10 - 15 minutes to do this exercise. Note what other firms are appearing on the first page, check to be sure your firm information is correct where listed, etc.

- Google Maps listing: Kudos if you have 5-star reviews. Below, I will share an opportunity to generate more positive online reviews for your firm – which ultimately leads to more business.
 
The point is this: your referral business, or people who have been referred to you by another person or attorney, are going online and the first thing they will do is Google your name.
 
During networking events when you meet a new acquaintance, take a guess at what they are going to do after that great conversation you just had. That’s right! They are going to Google you, and maybe even find your LinkedIn profile to invite you to connect.
 
Bringing it home, the purpose of this simple strategy is to ensure than anywhere someone may look for you online, whether it be your referral business, potential clients, opposing counsel, etc., you are represented in a professional and elevated manner that will welcome others to do business with you.
 
2. Competitive analysis: Now let’s take it one step further. While you have your Google browser open, let’s run a sort of competitive analysis. Go ahead and Google your area of law and market. In example, this may look like typing in to your search query “divorce lawyer Monticello” or “estate planning attorney Iowa.” What attorney names and firms appear at the top of the search? Are you showing up? This gives you some insight as to who you are competing against in the market. 

There are ways to make sure you appear at the top, both paid and organic. You may consider a small Google ad campaign to appear at the top of search results.
 
If you see a Super Lawyers link appearing in some of the search results. You may consider applying to Super Lawyers to be potentially chosen and leverage this accolade in your digital marketing. I have helped attorneys in the past win clients just by promoting they are a Super Lawyer. If you have been selected for other accolades like this, you typically can get a free badge to upload on your website.
 
Also, consider taking time to walk through your firms Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis.
 
3. Networking: Circling back to event networking or any networking that you are currently involved with, I’ll share another tip with you. Always have a 30 second elevator pitch ready for that undoubtedly guaranteed question you are going to be asked: “What do you do?” or “What area of law do you practice?” 

There is a simple formula to this answer, and it works because of a known marketing tactic that expert marketers know all too well. We all learn from repetition, and when it comes to brand recognition, the magic number is typically seven, meaning it takes a person or consumer seven times to engage with your message for it to resonate. For attorneys, your message is simple, and you may follow a format of: “I am an attorney specializing in estate planning, charitable gifts, and setting up nonprofit organizations so that people are confident in planning their legacies and nonprofit organizations are successful.”
 
In practice, this may also look like “I’m a personal injury attorney who helps Iowans who have been injured due to negligence so that people can move on with their lives, heal, and recover.”
 
On a side note, another one of my favorite ways to answer the question of “What do you do?” is to respond with another question. In my own example, many times you’ll hear me networking outside the legal industry with a response that sounds something like “Well, to help you better understand, let me first ask you this: Do you have currently have a will and trust?” or “Have you ever worked with an attorney?” Engage them in conversation and weave your one-sentence mission statement in.
 
Does your firm sponsor events or local teams? This is another great way to increase your brand awareness.
 
4. Google search from legal consumer perspective: Speaking of questions, that is another great online search to conduct regarding your digital audit. What are some of the most common questions that your clients ask you? Go ahead and put those questions into the Google search and press enter. What appears? 

Maybe you are a bankruptcy attorney. A question you may want to type in to Google is “How to file for bankruptcy in Iowa in 2024?” or “How do I know if I qualify to file for bankruptcy for my business?” Take note of what appears in the search results. In the search results, if it appears that there are competitors paying to appear at the top of search results, this may be a paid advertising opportunity for your firm.
 
Don’t worry about going to page two of the search results because I’ll put it to you this way – it is an old marketing saying that page two of Google is the best place to hide a dead body because nobody looks there! Typing in a question that clients commonly ask you is a great exercise, and we will expand on that more here in a minute.
 
5. But first, let’s talk about social media. There is a lot to unpack when it comes to law firm client development and social media. You will want to have your ideal case and client profile identified and unwavering before embarking on any type of substantial paid campaign. However, for digital audit and business development purposes, consider where your potential clients are spending their time. 

For most law firms, this means you need to highly consider your presence on Facebook and LinkedIn. If you are actively posting on your Facebook page that is great!

Facebook: Share your blog posts to your law firm Facebook page. This will direct traffic to your website. I like having a question in the post where they must click on the link to get the answer from your website/ blog. Assess what types of posts are getting the most engagement and you can do more of those.

If you ask firm interns or employees to like/ follow your page and invite their networks to like/ follow your page, that is an easy way to increase your audience.

LinkedIn: Consider bulking up your profile to include keywords that your potential clients are searching online. For example, adding “nonprofit lawyer” or “criminal lawyer” may help you gain more visibility to the right audience.

For example, you may explain important facts about your career such as background, practice areas, and build authority by mentioning your experience in your “About” section.

If ever need ideas for LinkedIn posts, a simple online search will yield information that you can put to use right away.
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I know some attorneys request that clients like/follow their law firm social media accounts on their client intake/outtake forms when appropriate.
Other good post ideas (for any social platform): Any volunteering or charity events that people at your firm take part in, be sure to post a picture. It is always good to tag the organization too (and reach their audience as well!)  

Another tip that I have utilized and worked well was to set a reminder on my phone for Tuesdays and Thursday at 9am to make time to review social platforms and either simply share an article or post to my page and add my commentary or post new content (maybe a picture from my iPhone’s arsenal, maybe an article from Forbes.com, etc.) just to keep a constant presence.

Instagram and TikTok have their place as well, so it is great if your firm has these profiles. These platforms do require more strategy and time to be done correctly. In my previous work with solo and small law firms, it is typically determined that the time and energy is not worth the ROI.

6. Your digital audit would not be complete if it did not involve a spotlight on reviews. I’ve worked with business owners across many industries, and I am very aware that the mention of reviews and ratings is enough to get some worked up to a passionate level. But why are we talking about reviews? Online reviews are actively serving as today’s word of mouth. I can guarantee that you have at some point taken online reviews into consideration when making a buying decision: considering a product purchase, choosing a plumber, figuring out a restaurant while on vacation… and the list goes on.  

Do you remember when we discussed the vanity searches and referral business? Yes, those referrals and even your new connections are Googling you, and they are going to see your online reviews. Will this sway their decision? Most of the time it will certainly have an impact. Note here that the goal is not to have 100 total reviews with all of them being five stars. To the reasonable consumer that can also be perceived as fake, leaving them scratching their head as to the legitimacy of the reviews and how they were solicited. Let’s set the bar to meet or exceed four stars out of the five-star scale. How are you going to achieve that? We can have a conversation about customer service, but, typically, all you need to do is just ask! Request reviews at all stages in the client process. After the first phone call, a meeting, email correspondence - whenever someone pays you a compliment, kindly ask them to review your business. This does not need to sound gimmicky. It may be as simple as a new client calling your office and thanking you for picking up the phone (because that is the most common complaint from legal consumers – no one answering the phone at a law office. A subject for another time).
 
When you are paid a compliment, you can explain that you really appreciate their feedback and that is something your firm is diligently aiming to develop. If they wouldn’t mind taking a minute, it would mean a lot to you if they could provide a review on your Google business page. Offer to send them a follow up email with a link to make it easy for them. You don’t have to wait until the representation is complete.
 
Consider having a link on your website to where clients can leave reviews; some implement this as a “review platform.” Also, you can send follow up email surveys to clients after meetings or include them in an outgoing client survey.
 
To curate more positive reviews in a short amount of time, here is a quick, free, and easy strategy that has worked very well for many of my previous clients. Compile a list names and email address of previous clients or even people who you’ve consulted or given advise to in the past. To start, I would recommend the list be 15-30 contacts. Create an email template with verbiage to the effect that their feedback means a lot and give them a step-by-step process for leaving you a review. In example: 1) visit Google Business listing and provide a link to said listing 2) Click “Write a review” 3) Click “Submit”. And thank them for their time. It will take you or your office staff under an hour to send this out, and within a few days you will likely have and handful of additional five-star reviews. I had a personal injury client use this strategy which resulted in the firm gaining a dozen five-star reviews in less than a week.

7. Let’s shift gears a little now and focus on your office and website. If you are meeting with a client in your office, do you think they are instantly going to want to hire you if your door falls off the hinges when they go to open it? Maybe a plant has been neglected and is dying over in the corner by the window. Maybe you or your staff appear or behave unprofessionally. I have heard horror stories, even one about an attorney welcoming a potential client to their home office while wearing a bathrobe. The most common offense I’ve experienced is files upon files disorganized and hanging all around the office. Ultimately, the answer is no! Absolutely not on the bathrobe.

Your law firm website is your online office. When a potential client finds your online office, i.e., website, the goal here is to instantly build trust and emotional connection. Ideally, your website will look professional, be easy to navigate and have a clean, well-maintained feel. I’ve helped many law firms find a good photographer so that professional images are featured on the website and can also be utilized in other marketing materials.  

The most visited page of any website is almost always the home page. Do you know the second most visited page of solo and small law firm websites? I’ve looked at the back-end analytics for hundreds of small law firm sites here in the Midwest and across the country, and the second most visited page is always an attorney profile. People want to see who they may be doing business with. It is best practice to have each of your attorney profiles on their own separate page. No one wants to scroll all the way down to the bottom of a webpage to find what or who they are looking for. Also, consider featuring a nice team image on your homepage, including all staff. This gives your client the impression of hiring an entire team to work on their case, not just one attorney. It is also helpful to have multiple people featured, because some people will relate more to a certain individual than others.
 
Website speed and mobile responsiveness is important, not only to provide your visitors with a good experience, but it will also help you appear higher in those search results that we talked about earlier. Within the quarterly calendar reminder to conduct your Google searches, go ahead and include these links to test your website speed and mobile site and get feedback directly from Google:

• https://pagespeed.web.dev
• https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/testmysite/
• Another good one for broken links and duplicate content that is not hosted by Google: https://www.siteliner.com

Another thing I will say about your website is to develop website pages dedicated to the specific types of cases you want to attract. For example, if you are an estate planning attorney taking on all sorts of estate planning cases, but your ideal case is high-asset probate, be sure that you have a page on your website dedicated to all the information a potential client will want to consider when going through this type of legal matter.

How does this client development play out in the real world? One of my former FindLaw counterparts in the Ohio/Kentucky market shared with me that his family law attorney client was pleased when she received feedback from a new valuable client to the firm that the reason he chose to hire her  was because he searched online for his complex (high-asset, multiple businesses owned by him) divorce with a preference for a collaborative approach and he only found two attorneys in his area who offered any information regarding his specific case type. One firm’s website had a page dedicated to this topic that offered limited information and a sub-par user experience (aka out-of-date website). The other firm had an in-depth page on their website covering his exact type of case, featuring a professional image of the attorney as well as a professional video with the attorney discussing how she approaches these types of cases. He obviously chose the latter.

You may also consider publishing client testimonials on your website utilizing a similar strategy as the template for curating more law firm reviews.

8. This leads us to the topic of a law firm blog. Before legal consumers reach out to an attorney or even before they ask someone they know a question about a legal matter, I can guarantee you they have asked Google first – and on this note, it is even more likely they’ve inquired the all-knowing Google on their mobile device because nobody wants their employer or spouse finding personal searches such as “Will I lose my house in a divorce?” or “What happens after a second offense DUI in Iowa?” in their search history. When someone is going through a life-changing legal matter, being the one to offer the answers they need wins you the business pretty much automatically. Not only does an active blog position you as a thought leader in your industry or niche practice, but as in the collaborative divorce example earlier, your potential client is highly attracted to your firm because they can trust that you understand exactly what they are going through and how to handle it best. Not to mention, the search engine optimization benefits, or your firm website or blog post appearing high in the search results conducted by legal consumers.  

Here is my best recommendation on law firm blogging. You probably already have a list of dozen questions that your clients commonly ask you by now. Turn those questions into the title of your blog post. For example, “Are you required to go to court if you breach a contract?” is the title of your blog post. The content of your blog helps answer that question. Keeping the post at a high-level and not diving into the weeds is recommended and to take a conservative approach, and it is advisable to place a disclaimer at the bottom that there is no attorney-client relationship established through the blog. You may also consider publishing your blog as a frequently asked questions section of your website.

Finally, many times I have been asked by attorneys if they should feature video on their website. There is a video aspect in Google’s website rankings, so it is a question worth asking. I always say that with video, it is most important to be very definitive regarding your specific goal for the video. If the goal for your video is to offer another way for potential clients to experience your firm online – back to that main goal of your website to build trust and an emotional connection – I may recommend a firm overview video hosted on your homepage and possibly even short biography videos for you, as the attorney, hosted on your corresponding attorney profile page. If the goal is to generate immediate leads, you may consider animated video and an aggressive social media campaign and a direct call-to-action. I also know of a large firm that started vlogging on their YouTube channel with a high-level goal to gain awareness and educate the public. Again, with any video investment, just be sure that you are crystal clear on the goal and key performance indicators for measuring success.

9. Lastly, include legal directories in your digital audit. When conducting your vanity searches for yourself and your firm, take notice of the legal directories in which you are appearing. These may include Martindale, FindLaw, Lawyers.com, Avvo, Lawyer.com, Legaldirectories.com, local directories and more. A few things here:

• Make sure that all your contact information including phone number, address, email address, etc. are all up to date.
• There are a ton of free listings that you can take advantage of, and I always recommend doing so. Back to that magic number, the more places you are represented with your message the better.
• If the directory involves reviews, refer to the review strategy we discussed.

In conclusion, is everything going to happen all at once? Nope, let’s not set that expectation (we can keep the topic of setting client expectations in mind for our future blog post). Think of it like when you set a goal to get in shape, quitting smoking, or any other lifestyle change – it takes time. The small things you do now and on a consistent basis will pay off. I know this first-hand from working with solo and small law firm attorneys who have taken my advice in the past. These small windows that you weave into your workday to conduct your own digital audits or write your blog posts will add up, help you take your business to the next level, and assist you in landing that dream client.