5 Simple Steps To Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Whether searching for a restaurant, a retail shop, or a business to hire, most people turn to Google these days to find just what they want or need. Despite the prevalence of Google searches and the many perks of having a robust online presence, many businesses – including law firms – fail to utilize the extremely important and free tool that is Google My Business.

You can think of Google My Business as a modern day Yellow Pages. This tool is offered to all business owners and serves as an online directory within which potential customers can research and get in touch with a particular business. It houses the essential information pieces for a business, such as your law firm’s location, hours, service areas, and more. So how do you make sure you are utilizing this powerful tool to reach and appeal to potential clients? Read our tips below for five simple steps that will help you optimize your law firm’s Google My Business Listing.

Get Started on Google My Business

First, you need to set up or claim your Google My Business Listing. Even if your law firm is operating virtually, it should still have a Listing. Go to Google’s Business page, follow the prompts to get started, and complete all sections of the dashboard. Be sure to verify the Listing as this helps establish your law firm is a legitimate business.

Optimize Your Listing

Once your Listing has been set up, you should build it out properly. Following these steps will ensure appropriate and full optimization: Keep information up-to-date and consistent.

Make sure the business name, address, and local phone number (known as NAP) are all accurate and consistent with the information on the firm’s website. This will not only make it easier for clients to know where and how to contact you, but using inconsistent information affects Google Search and Maps rankings.

Choose the right category.

Select the most appropriate category relevant to your law firm. While you have to choose from a list of available categories rather than create your own, you can still select a more specific category to describe your work, for example choosing “Personal injury attorney” rather than “attorney.” You can add additional relevant categories after selecting a primary one. Selecting a more specific primary category is important because your selection will appear next to the firm name in a local search, and possibly within the “Local Box 3-Pack” (example below), quickly clarifying the type of law your firm practices for potential clients.

Upload high-quality photos.

Regularly add firm photos to your Google My Business Listing. When applicable, include photos of attorneys under “team” and “at work.” You can also share interior photos of the law firm itself, along with video footage – including a 360-degree virtual tour. This will help your law firm stand apart from others and brings a more accurate depiction of your practice to your Listing.

Share Posts on your listing.

Google Posts are a great way to share your law firm’s content and updates; including blog posts, events, and offers. Posts will appear within the Listing’s knowledge panel (shown below) after a Google search and help showcase your law firm’s knowledge, personality, and expertise.

Encourage client reviews.

Ask your happy clients to leave a review on Google. Positive reviews on Google are an important ranking factor and will improve your law firm’s visibility in search results. Five-star reviews with commentary will also draw in more potential clients. Be sure to respond to all Google reviews your law firm receives, new and old, positive and negative.

Google My Business Help

Properly managing and optimizing your Google My Business Listing is a crucial piece of any digital marketing strategy because Google is the best way to get your law firm’s information in front of potential clients when they need you. If your firm hasn’t taken advantage of this opportunity, the time is now. Contact the digital marketing experts at Stacey E. Burke P.C. for more information today.

How To Improve Your Website’s Domain Authority

“How can I rank higher on Google?” This is the $64 million question asked by every business attempting to generate new business – and law firms are no exception. Ranking highly in Google and Bing search results can lead to more conversions, and thus more business for your law firm. Reports indicate websites ranking as the very first organic search result receive 42% of traffic, while the second result gets only 11%, and the third 8%. So how can your law firm’s website jumpstart its race to the top? By focusing on domain authority.

What is Domain Authority?

Domain authority is a score developed to analyze how likely your website is to rank on SERPs – or search engine result pages. While a website’s domain authority analysis includes a variety of metrics and variables just like Google’s algorithm does, it focuses heavily on the number of referring domains (also commonly called backlinks) for a given website.

Backlinks are links to your website from other websites – good backlinks are from sites that already have strong credibility with Google. By linking from the external site to your website, the external site shares some of its SEO value with your site. A backlink indicates to Google your website is so authoritative on a topic that other quality websites are linking to its content as a reference. In other words, it’s the equivalent of a digital footnote or citation.

How Can I Find Out My Website’s Domain Authority?

Many free tools exist, but the best one for analyzing domain authority is Moz. Simply enter your website here: https://moz.com/domain-analysis. Within seconds, the tool tells you the website’s domain authority (on a scale of 0 to 100), the number of linking root domains, and the number of ranking keywords.

Keep in mind that most law firm websites exist in the 0 to 60 range for domain authority, so don’t panic if your score isn’t very high. Even some of the largest, oldest, and most established law firms in the country only have domain authority scores in the low to mid-50s. And keep in mind: because domain authority is scored using a logarithmic scale instead of a linear scale, it is significantly easier to increase your score from 15 to 25 than from 75 to 85.

How Do I Increase My Score?

In order to increase domain authority, one of the most crucial considerations is increasing the number of backlinks to your website. This practice is referred to as “link building,” and it’s an ongoing process that should be part of a long-term digital marketing strategy.

Primarily focus on building quality links over quantity. A backlink from one or two high domain authority websites will carry a lot more weight than a bunch of backlinks from low authority websites. National news organizations, leading industry publications, and websites with .edu or .org top level domains generally have strong domain authority. You can also use the same Moz tool mentioned above to:

Analyze your strongest competitors and see the Top Linking Domains for their websites.

Engage in strategic outreach to some of these domains for backlinks.

Determine what high value domains are missing from competitors’ link profiles and request backlinks from some of these domains.

Building backlinks takes time, and often requires reaching out to a lot of websites in order to obtain just one or two backlinks. Stay focused on the long game over time, and work on making small steps towards building your SEO value by increasing domain authority.

Law Firm Digital Marketing

If your law firm needs help evaluating its website and determining the best strategy for improving its digital presence, the legal marketing experts at Stacey E. Burke, P.C. can help. Contact us today for more information.

4 Mistakes to Avoid During Your Holiday Social Media Campaigns

Last holiday season we shared our top tips for creating and running a successful charitable campaign on your law firm’s social media accounts. While we still look forward to the holidays this year, there is no denying this holiday season looks a bit different, and your marketing efforts should be adjusted accordingly. Yes, we are in the middle of a global pandemic, but devoting time and funds to benefit an organization or charity can be more impactful now than ever. With this in mind, it is important to make sure you go about your charitable work optimally. Read below to learn which mistakes to avoid during your law firm’s holiday social media giving campaign.

1. Only focusing on yourself

Once you’ve selected the organization your law firm will focus on, it is important to make them the star of the show in your social posts. Avoid promoting your law firm during this time; and, instead center your messaging on the work the organization does in the community and the impact they make. It is always a nice idea to share why your law firm chose the cause it did and how it ties into your law firm’s values and passions, but don’t make the social media holiday posts focus too much on you. You are “giving” your law firm’s social media footprint to another group so that it can benefit from reaching your audience.

2. Failing to communicate with the organization

It is not a good idea to jumpstart your campaign and tag an organization on your social platforms if you haven’t even contacted them yet. Whether you have established a relationship with this organization or not, it is important to touch base and make sure running a holiday campaign to benefit them is okay. A good relationship can even lead to more exposure, as they might share your social posts and spread the word about what your law firm is doing to help. Also keep in mind each entity potentially has its own brand standards and imagery it might like you to incorporate into the visuals you use during your social media campaign.

3. Slacking on community management

Now that you have shared social posts and encouraged the involvement of your social media audiences, it is important to closely monitor the engagement your posts receive. Your followers might have questions about how they can help to further support the organization you are highlighting. They might share their own personal stories regarding involvement with the organization. It is extremely important to pay attention, engage with, and encourage this kind of participation, rather than ignoring it or failing to check in for extended stretches of time.

4. Not following up with your audience

The holidays will come to an end, but that doesn’t mean you are done with the charitable campaigns entirely. After the New Year, take the time to thank your social media followers for their involvement. Let your audience know how much of an impact they made in helping your firm support the organization.

Law Firm Social Media Charitable Campaign Help

The main goal is of course to benefit an organization that is important to your community and your law firm. Given the uncertainty and gloom many have experienced this year, the holidays should be a time of coming together and making an impact, and it is crucial your law firm takes the time to do it right. If you need more advice on how to get started and the do’s and don’ts of running a social media charitable campaign, contact the legal marketing experts at Stacey E. Burke P.C. today to learn how we can help your law firm make a difference.

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

 Just as with our legal work, when it comes to law firm content marketing, planning in advance improves the execution. Taking the time to research, map out, and plan every aspect of each piece of content your law firm will produce makes it easier on the lawyers and/or other authors to be consistent with voice, timing, objectives, and effectiveness. If you don’t create a plan to get everything done that needs to be accomplished, the chances of it happening decrease. This is why we recommend and explain below how to create a comprehensive content marketing strategy for lawyers and law firms.

What is a Content Marketing Strategy?

A content marketing strategy is a document (or set of documents) that describes how you plan to attract and engage your target audience with content. It typically includes a description of your existing clients and/or the clients you want to hire you and the information they’ll need as they look for solutions to legal problems you can help them resolve. It should also detail your business goals and how your content will achieve these goals.

Seven Steps to Excellent Law Firm Content

One of the most important components of a content marketing strategy is your editorial calendar. This document maps out a schedule of what content your firm will create and when it will be written, published, and/or distributed. An editorial calendar helps your content production stay on track, allowing you to be more deliberate in your actions. Here are seven steps we recommend for planning, creating, and promoting exceptional and well-ranking law firm content:

Lay out your goals: The first step in creating a content marketing strategy is to put into words the reasons why you want to create content. While potential benefits include increased website traffic, greater brand recognition, lead generation, and the opportunity to establish a firm’s lawyers as “thought leaders,” in this step you’ll need to explain exactly how your content will help the company meet its goals.

Identify your audience: One law firm can and often should create content for multiple audience segments. Create content for both a specific purpose and for specific people. Put yourself in the shoes of your desired prospects and former and current clients by thinking of their questions and how you can address them.

Audit your existing content: While having a lot of pages on your website used to be a good thing, search engines now prefer quality over quantity. This is one of many reasons why it’s important for law firms to undertake strategic content audits on a regular basis. A content audit is a process wherein you analyze the content you have created and published to gain insight into what performs best, which pages should be consolidated, and what pages need improvement and/or can be eliminated and redirected.

Conduct keyword research: Know your main keyword and three to five variations BEFORE you start writing. Since using relevant keywords and phrases in your content gives your writing the best chance of ranking at the top of search results, research is a critical step in building a successful strategy.

Create an editorial calendar: As with most data sets, inputting all of your research into an Excel spreadsheet makes for a very organized content calendar. In the editorial calendars we create for our law firm clients, we use the following headings: Date Due, Date Posted, Title, Category, Keyword Phrase, External Link, Internal Link, and Notes. This way we can keep track of when each piece of content is posted, the exact H1 heading or title we want to use, the blog category or categories to select and associate, the keyword phrase for which we are optimizing each piece of content, at least one external or outbound link to include in the article, what practice area page to link to in the post, and any additional notes. Many marketers include the type of content as a column option if they include graphics, video, and other forms of multimedia in their editorial calendars.

Write, publish, and amplify your content: There are a multitude of steps a digital copywriter must take in the backend of a website in order to ensure a piece of content is ready to publish. Those steps include adding images and metadata, among many other tasks. Once a new webpage is live, you should draft unique social media posts for each channel on which the firm is present; ideally, those channels will include Google My Business and LinkedIn at a minimum, although we also recommend Facebook and Twitter for many law firms. Sharing content on social media gets more eyes on your content, which leads to more clicks. You can and should also share your law firm content in email newsletters and other digital materials.

Measure your success: The only way to know if your marketing is working effectively is if you track the results. The performance metrics you track will depend on the goals you set. You need to specify these metrics in your plan and start following the results as soon as you begin in order to optimize your content to achieve your goals and continue to improve your results. Free tools like Google Analytics will give you real-time data that lets you track how your content is performing.

Content Marketing for Lawyers

Developing a content marketing strategy for your law firm has tremendous value and is worth the time and effort. While content marketing is something you can do yourself with a little know-how and some dedicated time, our legal marketing professionals can help your law firm create a successful program. While you focus on running your law firm, our team creates content that will drive traffic to your website and convert visitors into new clients. For more info on how we can help, contact us today.

Building Your Brand with LinkedIn Marketing

Since the network launched in 2003, LinkedIn has proven to be an incredibly valuable professional tool. While the social platform began as a means to build work-related connections and search for employment and hiring opportunities, it has grown into something much more: a marketing tool.

Professionals and businesses are now experiencing more opportunities to build their brands on LinkedIn. What does this mean for your law firm? When done correctly, your law firm’s LinkedIn Page can generate tremendous exposure, build relationships with potential clients and referral sources, and even drive abundant traffic to the firm’s website. With the right strategy and approach, your firm can begin capitalizing on LinkedIn’s benefits in no time. Follow our simple steps below to start building your law firm’s brand on LinkedIn.

Start with a Strategy

As with any marketing venture, the first step to building your law firm brand on LinkedIn is to strategize. To do this, define specific goals for LinkedIn marketing, identify your target audience, and build your content around those key factors. Examples of goals to set for building your brand include:

Increasing reach and exposure

Building professional connections

Driving traffic to your website

Remember that the key to success in any marketing strategy, especially when it comes to social media, is understanding who your audience is and coming up with a tactical plan to answer their questions, address their pain points, and to otherwise give them what they need and want.

Optimize

Now that your goals are established, make sure your law firm’s Company Page is optimized and ready for the attention that will be coming its way. Your LinkedIn Page is one of a law firm’s most important digital assets and should portray a level of professionalism that is in line with your company brand and values. Confirm all facets of the profile are complete and accurate. Follow this checklist to guarantee your Page is primed and ready to go:

Page overview is complete with a brief but informative description that uses valuable keywords

Profile and banner image are uploaded, look professional, and are properly sized

Contact information, including the firm’s website, phone number, and email address is accurate and up-to-date

You are following hashtags relevant to the firm’s practice areas

Inform employees once the firm’s Page is live so they can add it (and thus link to it) in their Individual Profiles under “Experience”

Create

Once you’ve determined your goals, defined your target audience, and optimized your Page, it is time to start creating and sharing content. The foundation for content published on your Page will of course be the law firm’s website and blog; however, before sharing updates, consider:

What will resonate with your target audience (think about what questions clients frequently ask or what updates your followers should be informed of)

What topics are current and relevant to your practice areas

What will be useful to your audience

Create a content calendar based around these questions with the idea that the number one rule for content is to give the people what they want. Focus on sharing high-quality content each week and sticking to a consistent schedule. As with anything your business produces and disseminates, the quality of the work you share will greatly impact the impression you leave on the public. Be sure it is well researched and delivered in a medium that you know your audience will love. Content doesn’t just mean text – videos, long-form posts, and/or infographics, among other forms of media are also valuable social media content worth creating and sharing. We’ll explain how to know what your audience is enjoying under the “analyze” section below.

Participate

Being active on LinkedIn means more than posting great content every week. It is important to engage on the network with followers and colleagues. Being an active participant on other Pages as well as your own can lead to more views on and engagement with your Company Page and even more traffic to your website.

If you receive comments on your updates, be sure to respond in a timely manner. Be “social” on this social media channel by joining groups that pertain to your law firm, such as Personal Injury Attorneys of Texas, for example. Go the extra mile and also participate in group discussions to build your credibility and develop relationships.

Analyze

Two more critical steps in a marketing strategy are analyzing the competition and evaluating your own work. It is not enough to post high quality updates on your Page, you must also measure how it performs using LinkedIn Analytics.

Learn how your content is performing under the “updates” section of analytics. Here you will find data such as impressions, social actions, click-through rates, and more. Make note of what is performing well and what isn’t in order to determine what your audience is actually consuming and appreciating so that you can adjust your strategy moving forward accordingly.

Under the “Companies to track” feature, you can get an idea of what law firms the network perceives to be your competition. Find out whether or not these law firms are posting the same types of articles or blogs; and, if so how can you set your law firm apart. If their content is tanking, how will you do it better? Taking a step back to assess not only your own work but the work of other law firms will help you refine future content calendars and overall strategy, while also giving your firm the edge it needs to stand out.

Get Help with LinkedIn Marketing

When it comes to building your law firm’s brand, LinkedIn stands out from other social media networks by giving businesses the opportunity to establish authority in a more structured, professional setting. The network has grown into a beneficial marketing tool, when used appropriately, because it has the power to highlight your expertise while building brand awareness for your law firm.

LinkedIn marketing must be done right in order to be worthwhile. If you wish to create a Page and/or be more present on your law firm’s existing Page but are not sure where to start, we can help. Contact the social media marketing experts at Stacey E. Burke P.C. today to learn what we can do for you.

Online Reputation Management: What Are People Saying About You?

The internet is an open space. So far, there isn’t a thing called censorship. Amidst the “openness” of the web world, you should be prepared to face negative feedback, criticism, and even false information circulating about you at some point of time.

Knowing the web world better

The web world is a plant of roses, as it has a lot of thorns. So, when you decide to enjoy the roses, you must also be prepared to get pricked by thorns sometimes. Smart web masters prepare themselves with good online reputation management.

The idea is to create such beautiful and big roses that overshadow the appearance of thorns. To put it in other words, you must develop such a strong and positive image of your business online that a few defamatory or false details about you are unable to create any effect.

It is inevitable for an online venture to supervise and manage its image well, so that other people get no chance to step in and conjure up stories about you. Online reputation management companies, as their names suggest, are designed to manage your reputation in the virtual world. The companies are well versed with the ever changing scenes on the web and are apt in devising strategies that complement the constant shift.

Protect yourselves on the web

Newcomers on the web often fail to realize the importance of online research. It keeps them updated with shifting trends, competition, and developments, besides what people are saying about them.

Although your business may not be completely dependent on the internet, your rivals and your customers use the internet. Even a slight negative portray of your business can trigger skepticism among your customers. If you don’t take measures to appease this negativity, you might find your image sinking in a sea of slander.

Sad but true, in today’s dynamic and cut-throat competitive internet world, online businesses need to fight a constant battle to keep up their good image. Some even struggle to survive online.

However, businesses that deploy expertise to take care of these aspects find no difficulty in surviving online. In fact, they thrive. They are successful in ranking their websites among the top 10 of major search engines. Thanks to dedicated and excellent efforts by good search engine optimization (SEO) companies, it becomes almost a child’s play to make your website shine like a star.

Where are you online?

Google yourself. Type your name and the name of your company on the search engine. See what pops up. Be ready to get surprised or even shocked by the results. After this online research of yourself, you will realize the importance of web reputation management and SEO.

If you find yourself among the top, you will be happy to realize that your effort of hiring reputable SEO services has bore fruit. Well, you have a reason to rejoice.

While celebrating, do not forget to thank the team that strived hard to convert your website into this glorious website. Good services are known to burn the midnight oil to give you outstanding results.

 

Powerful Blog Content For SEO Drives More Traffic

 As of today, Google has indexed approximately 50 billion web pages. This certainly is a huge number. Companies and entrepreneurs desirous of maximizing their usage of the internet find this number intimidating. In this era of digital marketing, enterprises aim at extended sales cycles and long-term relationships with their customers.

“We want our web page visitors to feel we are experts in our subject and they must trust what they see and read”, says a budding entrepreneur keen on making it big in the online retail business. A blog is a wonderful tool and SEO strategy to enable a business to build their brands and prop up traffic.

Here is where blog content for SEO comes into the picture.

If you regularly update your blog, you make it active and live on the internet – a facet that’s vital to uplift the rankings of your page. In simple words, search engines love websites that are frequently updated with high-quality content.

A fresh blog creates more opportunities for the webmaster to highlight keywords. This is not surprising, because keywords are high on the algorithmic chart for SEO and ranking purposes.

Keywords are fuels that pump energy into blogs.

Even if you are not keen to hire a professional web content writer, you must keep in mind the following while writing blog content for SEO. Energize old content with long-tail keywords

For those who are not familiar, long-tail keywords are three to four keyword phrases that are exclusive to the content in the blog. Seasoned writers have now realized that most customers use a very specific phrase while searching for a product on the internet. Therefore, a multiple-word keyword phrase is far more likely to rank well than a generic keyword.

A recent study has already revealed that long-tail keywords with three or more words have resulted in better conversion of visitors into buyers.

Add punch to your headline

This is a very important aspect while writing blog content for SEO.

Any headline is made up of words, so it is vital it must make use of the right words.

They say of the 70-80% of people that read your headline and only 15-20% read the rest of the post.

By crafting a magnetic and powerful headline, you will vastly increase the number of people that will go through your blog content in its entirety.

A successful blog content writer for SEO says that a writer must spend as much time it takes to write a piece of compelling content as on the headline.

It must answer readers’ questions

A blog is written with intent. The crux of online marketing is matching users’ intent with what is written in the content. And keywords must strongly point out what users actually want.

You must keep in mind that Google is not the only search engine that makes use of keywords in its ranking algorithm. Others like Bing and Yahoo do so too.