Professionals, You Can’t Ignore SEO

Originally posted in The National Law Journal on May 13, 2013

Search Engine Optimization — or SEO — is the art or science of search. Google, Bing, Yahoo and the others attempt to do the same thing: Match questions with answers. The point of SEO is to make what you post online line up with the questions your intended audience is asking.

Start by being helpful. For every 10 lawyers who object to giving away their expertise for free, another is building a reputation by answering pressing questions online, displaying his knowledge for the world to see. What is keeping your ideal client up at night? Write an alert, blog post or article that answers that question.

“Quantity isn’t really the key,” said Dan Goldstein, founder of Page 1 Solutions, which counsels professionals including attorneys about SEO. “Many times, lawyers equate more content with being better. But more important than that is how well can you answer the questions that people are asking. What research shows is that people start with a very broad query, but as you get more and more narrow and more and more specific, you are closer in the buying process for making a decision.” Ideally, your content will provide the answers potential clients are asking just before they decide whom to hire.

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Social Media Use by In-House Counsel at All-Time High

Originally published in The National Law Journal on April 18, 2013 

A study released on Thursday by Greentarget, Zeughauser Group and Inside Counsel has shone a bright light on a topic that has seemed somewhat mysterious: How do general counsel really use social media—or do they really use it at all?

The report confirmed findings suggested by surveys conducted since 2010. First, LinkedIn remains the king of the legal social media jungle, with more than 67 percent of in-house counsel reporting having used it either during the past 24 hours or past week. Sixty percent of this group used LinkedIn to connect with outside counsel.

Second, GCs continue to value Wikipedia for researching outside counsel, with 69 percent using it during the past day or week for personal reasons and 49 percent for professional reasons.

Third, according to Greentarget’s John Corey, “is the ‘invisible user’ trend whereby in-house lawyers are operating in listen-only mode versus contributing to the on-line dialogue.” According to his research, 74 percent of in-house counsel used social media in “listen-only mode.” Which tells us that just because potential clients aren’t commenting on your blog, it doesn’t mean they aren’t reading it.

The study confirmed that blogging continues to be a sound strategy for attracting the attention of in-house lawyers. Fifty-five percent read blogs written by attorneys and 53 percent “envision a future in which a well-executed blog will influence hiring decisions.”

Perhaps more important is where in-house lawyers find and consume information. Although a healthy 74 percent continued to read print publications regularly, 53 percent read news on their smartphones, 39 on tablets and 23 via mobile applications or apps.

How are in-house lawyers finding your writing? This is where the data are more provocative. A scant 2 percent of in-house counsel considered Twitter a credible source of “legal, business and industry news and information,” while 11 percent viewed blogs that way. That latter number more than tripled when news aggregators like JD Supra, Lexology and Mondaq got involved: 35 percent viewed blog content distributed by these aggregators to be very credible and 37 percent found it somewhat credible.

Connecting the dots for you: If your firm does a substantial amount of writing and blogging, but doesn’t use aggregators to disseminate that content, you not only are getting fewer readers; your content is viewed as less credible.

While Twitter accounts may help connect lawyers with thought leaders and reporters, that’s not necessarily true with in-house lawyer clients. Use of Twitter by in-house counsel continued to be quite minimal, with a mere 7 percent using the platform during the past week and an additional 7 percent within the past 24 hours. A full 72 percent said they never use Twitter. The survey showed Google+, Facebook and even YouTube were more popular with in-house counsel for professional use.

The last finding, which may turn out to be controversial, is that 2 percent of in-house counsel “say their decisions to retain outside counsel are influenced to a ‘great extent’ by peer-driven rankings,” according to the survey. We’re talking about Chambers, U.S. News-Best Lawyers and the like. While these listing still have some influence, it appears to be declining.

The entire survey results can be found at http://insidecounselsurvey.com.

Targeting your ideal client via LinkedIn

Originally published in The National Law Journal on April 3, 2013

There used to be a time when layers of secretaries and executive assistants insulated decision-makers against strangers, including peddlers of services. It was hard to position yourself to meet and impress the boss. Social media—and LinkedIn in particular—have broken down those barriers.

Through an advanced search on LinkedIn, you can build a list of your ideal clients while gaining insights into how best to connect with these hard-to-reach people. The first step is finding them.

It doesn’t have to be complicated.

“I found the names and companies of 100 general counsel in the Kansas City area with just a simple search on LinkedIn,” Burton Taylor, a marketing consultant at Proventus, told me recently. He started by selecting “advanced search.”

Then he simply entered the title, “General Counsel,” added the zip code and set the geographical search limit for “50 miles.”

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6 Fresh Digital Marketing Ideas in 60 Minutes

Last week in Las Vegas over a thousand attendees got together for the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference. You may have noticed me tweeting about this under the hash tag #LMA13. The session that I designed was called DMI: Digital Marketing Ideas Worth Spreading. The idea for the format was partly influenced by TED Talks and by Matt Homan’s Ignite program. We allowed six very different legal marketing professionals to share great ideas in exactly ten minutes. (Note: the first 7 slides in the first deck were intro slides to the program created by me.)

How to improve your rating at AVVO.com

Originally published in The National Law Journal on March 21, 2013

If you’re a lawyer, you likely have a profile on Avvo.com, even if you have never visited the site. Avvo.com, which bills itself as the largest online lawyer listing service in the world, has developed a database containing almost every lawyer in the country. Each gets rated from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best possible score. Clients and peers can post positive or negative comments.

“Why am I only a 6.5 out of 10?” A trial lawyer asked me a couple weeks ago. “And why does John [the lawyer across the hall] have a rating of 10?”

First things first: Why should you care? 

If you’re a corporate, business-to-business attorney, you might not need to care very much. If you’re a business-to-consumer attorney, your score might matter a great deal. The clients you’re interested in don’t tend to hire lawyers very often. They don’t understand what makes a great or even competent attorney. They might turn to Google, where they’ll be bombarded with advertisements for lawyers. But they don’t want ads—they want unbiased information. 

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