First, your site has to get noticed by standing out among your competitor’s sites. Once they’re there, your site has to convince them to give you a call. Then, of course, you have to be prepared to promptly answer every call that comes your way to get the client.
1) Get noticed
76 percent of consumers search online when looking for a lawyer.
If your firm can’t be found from an online search, you’re depriving yourself of the biggest opportunity for new business. Word of mouth is powerful, but simply doesn’t allow the scope of the all-encompassing internet. Therefore, making sure search engines favor you is essential.
There are two main ways to accomplish this:
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO). Though they’re carried out in different ways and require different resources, both are effective. The decision between the two will boil down to what you’re willing to spend more of: money or time.
PPC advertising involves paying search engines for ad placement on their sites based on keywords. You pay a small fee for each click on your ad, expanding your reach. Little effort is required, and the potential for return is significant: only 24% of people actively avoid paid ads when looking for a lawyer, which means that nearly 75% of people are willing to click on one.
SEO is free, but more labor-intensive. SEO involves a variety of strategies for making sure your site appears in search results: specialized content, social media outreach, negotiating backlinks with other websites — it’s a fairly new practice requiring some experimentation and trial-and-error.
2) Get the call
Give them what they want.
Once you’ve gained traffic, the goal is to convince visitors to pick up their phone and call you. The information on your site is what will accomplish this.
Exactly what information are visitors looking for when they get to your website? A 2017 study by iLawyerMarketing.com asked respondents what would most impact their decision to hire a lawyer:
…where they want it:
An overwhelming amount of respondents use either JUST a smartphone, or a combination of smartphones and personal computers when searching for lawyers online.
What this means: your website has to run just as smoothly from a mobile device as it does from a personal computer. When designing a mobile-friendly website, consider the following:
-Responsive design: your site should detect the user’s screen size, and automatically adjust the display accordingly;
-Font size: you should use at least 14px font for a mobile-friendly website to avoid making users have to zoom in to read the site’s content; and
-Button size: the bigger, the better to avoid the chance of accidentally pressing the wrong button.
Don’t forget the phone number.
Seventy-four percent of those who begin a search for an attorney online end up contacting via phone.
Seventy-two percent of those seeking local professional services are “extremely likely” or “very likely” to call if a phone number is available from search results.
Sixty-five percent of people find it “extremely important” or “very important” to be able to call a business during the research phase of decision making.
Sixty-eight percent find it “extremely important” or “very important” to be able to call a business once they’re ready to purchase.
What does this mean? Having a phone number accessible during every step of interaction with your website is imperative. You want to provide a visitor with an effortless transition from browsing your website to speaking with you on the phone. There are a few ways to do this:
-Providing a phone number directly from search engine results;
-Featuring all your firm’s contact information under passages of text, as well as at the top and bottom of every page on your site; and
-Including a dedicated contact page with a form, making it easier to contact you without leaving your site.
3) Get the client
They’ve looked through your site, decided that you might be a good fit for them, and they’re ready to call — there’s even a decent chance they’re ready to do business. Are your phones ready?
Answering every call promptly is everything — it might be your only chance to gain a client.
However, you’re busy. If you or a receptionist personally answered every call that came in, you wouldn’t get anything else done. Not to mention the calls that come in on nights or weekends, each of which are a missed opportunity if left unanswered. If you’re unable to answer all of your calls, a 24/7 live answering service can help pick up the slack. Imagine the phone experience of an in-house receptionist, available at all hours at a fraction of the cost.
Answering services of yore got a deservedly bad reputation for outsourced call centers, untrained agents, and long wait times. Thankfully, those times are behind us.
With the right answering service backing you up, you’ll never miss another call. When considering your options, keep an eye out for these key features:
-Availability 24/7;
-Agents based in the U.S; and
-Providers that either specialize in taking calls for law firms, or have prior experience doing so.
Did you catch all of that?
Three simple, but not-so-obvious steps to making sure your website is helping you ramp up your phone traffic. Remember, the sharpest tool in the shed isn’t very useful if no one knows the shed is there.
Julian de Sevilla is the Marketing Specialist for PATLive, a 24/7 live answering service. He manages the company’s social media accounts and blogs and oversees overall content strategy.