As reported in Legal Futures recently, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) has warned that barristers are at risk of being “squeezed out of the market by a declining case load, a surfeit of barristers and increasing competition from both other regulated legal professionals as well as unregulated service providers.”
It’s no secret that over the past year mobile has had a tremendous effect on how people access the internet and, as a result, how law firms approach their marketing.
We are pleased to note that the powerful, open source, scalable CMS that we use for the majority of our clients' websites (ie the core of their online business generation projects) has been voted the best free CMS of 2015 by cmscritic.com.
Law firms have faced many challenges due to changes in the legal sector such as new types of legal service, law firm mergers and pricing pressures (outlined in more detail here). It is likely that firms will continue to face further obstacles in the future.The good news is there are a number of ways that your law firm can significantly improve its business leads and beat competitors by developing a prominent online presence. In this digital age, more and more people are seeking legal services online. Below, I have outlined four major predictions for the online world in 2016 which can hopefully act as a guide to how your firm can come out on top next year.
We do apologise to our loyal subscribers about the recent lack of an update; it’s been a busy few weeks at Moore Legal Technology. We’re pleased to say that we are growing at a rate of knots, both client and staff wise. Recent client wins include several London based law firms covering myriad sector groups and practice areas as we continue to increase our footprint south of the border. We are very pleased to have grown in size to accommodate these new clients and welcome Kate Flannigan to our team.
Like some of my colleagues (especially at our sister companies Curated Media and Unlock The Law) you may have been eagerly awaiting 21st October 2015 aka ‘Back to the Future day’.
Law firms throughout the UK and internationally are facing the same challenge – how to distinguish their offering from that of a multitude of other law firms.
If you are no different from your competitors then you are a commodity. In order to avoid commoditisation you need to be able to differentiate your services with something unique, something that is not easily copied by other law firms and which is valued by clients and potential instructing agents. It’s never been more important for law firms to identify their own unique message and shout from the rooftops about how they offer a better, different service than their competition.
Google has revamped its local SEO algorithm, making it a huge ranking factor for local businesses like law firms. On 6th August, the “Snack Pack” results moved up the SERPs (search engine results pages) and more than halved in number.
We frequently carry out website and online strategy audits for law firms based on our many years of experience and knowledge of what it takes to generate business online within the legal sector.
A large part of my role involves me traveling from Glasgow to all parts of the UK. So far this year I’ve been as far north as Inverness and as far south as Southampton. Trips to London are becoming increasingly commonplace.
Just as 2014 was labelled “the year of content marketing”, 2015 has been called the “the year of video marketing,” (probably by somebody selling video marketing services I would imagine. I think I’ll start putting it out there now that the coming years will be those of online business generation for law firms!). I digress, all unnecessary labels aside, law firms, like any other businesses, require to find new and interesting ways to reach potential clients and video remains largely untapped in that regard within the legal sector. Read my new guide to video marketing for law firms including 5 top tips for video marketing excellence for law firms.
Social Media Marketing has become unavoidable for businesses throughout the UK, and as our Social Media Expert Stacy Nelson stated in her latest blog ‘law firms without a social media marketing strategy are missing out on a good chunk of business.’
This article was first published by Howden Insurance Brokers, and is re-published here with permission.
Solicitors are risk averse by nature, and the perceived risks of social media marketing can put a lot of law firms off. However, social media is becoming ever more prevalent in modern culture. This head-in-the-sand approach could mean law firms without a social media marketing strategy are missing out on a good chunk of business.
You have an impressive looking website, social media campaign and PPC strategy, your site is ranking well in Google, you have tons of quality content throughout your site and social media platforms but somehow you are not pulling in half as many enquiries as you were expecting. Why? Usually the answer is – a lack of effective calls to action.
How is your law firm doing in search? Where do you rank? What does your meta data look like for organic results for your main legal services? What do your PPC ads look like? Don’t know? Don’t care? Over the next ten years we’ll be seeing more and more businesses, not necessarily law firms nor solicitors, advertising alongside you in organic (whether in the local block of results or otherwise) and paid Google search. And it probably won’t be the same competitors you may have expected to appear there in the past. In today’s blog, I look at the forces that are driving such unexpected competitors to appear there, how you could be missing out on significant amounts of new business and what you can do to take advantage of the opportunities the internet still presents law firms and solicitors who deserve to have an outstanding online presence.
It’s been a busy time recently for the Moore Legal Technology team during which we have launched new websites for the following, among others:
With the rise of social media marketing; the ever-changing landscape of SEO; the competitive but rewarding battleground of PPC; and now more-important-than-ever, mobile marketing – it can be easy to forget good old fashioned email marketing. However, email marketing shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s inexpensive, a great way to reach qualified customers, people who already know you and trust you, it’s easy to measure and test, and it can be effectively integrated with your ongoing marketing strategy. If executed properly you can:
Recently we were invited to tender for the delivery of online marketing services to a long-established law firm in England. At the meeting one of the key discussions related to whether we’d recommend focusing the online marketing efforts and investment into targeting people searching locally for their lawyer or nationally. Indeed, we get asked this a lot and taking the wrong approach on this could be costing your firm thousands of online enquiries each year. So what’s the right answer?
My colleague Patrina Nolan and I were given a fantastic opportunity last month to attend the prestigious event that is SMX. The two-day conference took place on the 20th and 21st of May and was held in the ETC Venues in Bishopsgate.
