Even a lawyer needs a website to promote his or her business
It used to be that becoming a lawyer guaranteed work for years and years, but that’s no longer the case. The number of lawyers has grown exponentially and carving out a small niche in the market is more challenging than ever. Specializing in one area of law helps you find new clients, but it’s not enough.
Opening a website about your business can be a great way to get started. Not many attorneys embark on this venture and it may be a good idea to rank on search engines before your colleagues. Creating a website requires skills and a budget that not everyone has. Especially if you are at the beginning, it is complicated to have a few thousand euros to entrust the management of the website to a professional. However, there are online services that allow you to create a website with just a few clicks.
Custom domain name
Before thinking about how to create a website for a law firm, it is necessary to focus on the name of the portal. The domain name should contain only the name of the law firm. Alternatively, you can use your first name, last name and end with lawyer (“www-marcorossiavvocato.it” for example).
Who you are
The most important section of the website is “About you/Who we are. On this page you should provide the user with a very broad overview of your college and work career. You will need to list all of the graduate courses you have taken and the most important cases in which you have participated. In addition, you must list your field of specialization: lawyers are not all the same and each one is an expert in a different field. Finally, there should also be a small personal file that tells a bit about your life with an accompanying image. In the case of an “About Us” page for a law firm that consists of more than one lawyer, a separate page should be created for each affiliate.
Blog
A section devoted to the most important case studies (explained to perfection) and a sort of “encyclopedia” with an explanation of all the specialist terms cannot be missing from the website of a lawyer who aims to become a reference point for his or her field.
The importance of SEO
For lawyers, word of mouth is worth more than thousands of euros invested in advertising. But if you want to expand your boundaries and increase your clients, you can invest in SEO, or content optimization strategies to appear in the top positions of search engines for the most important keywords for your industry. When a user doesn’t know which lawyer to turn to, they search sites like Google, Bing and Virgilio to see which ones are the best. Appearing in the top positions allows you to have a strategic advantage over your colleagues. But to be at the top you need to invest time and money in creating SEO oriented content. It’s a long job, but it pays off in the end. To find the keywords most used by users in the legal industry you can use free online tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Answerthepublic.
Booking Form
The easiest way for users to get in touch with the lawyer is to include a booking form, which allows prospective clients to contact you, even if only to explain their problem.
Newsletter
If you decide to start a blog and become a reference for your industry, you will also have to create a newsletter to keep your users/clients informed. But in order to send a newsletter to people’s email address, you need to get their permission.