Did you know that nearly 75% of American adults think that estate planning is confusing? That is far from the only estate planning statistic that illustrates the need for competent, engaged attorneys.
We know that people need your services, but sometimes the hard part is getting them in the door in the first place. Aside from the fact that people don’t tend to want to talk about preparing for the inevitable, you also have the challenge of getting your message in front of potential clients.
This is where marketing techniques such as estate planning SEO for lawyers can come in handy. By understanding what your clients need — or at least what they are looking for online — you should be able to drive traffic to your website and create business for your firm.
Of course, there’s more to it than that. We’ll go into more depth by looking at the following topics:
SEO is a type of marketing technique. The acronym stands for search engine optimization.
This type of approach aims to work within the rules of the search engine. Search engines are complex services that use algorithms and other automated processes to deliver the most relevant information possible to internet users.
From a marketing perspective, this presents an opportunity. One of the goals of marketing is to match customers, or in the case of a law firm, clients, with the products and services that they’re looking for. This aligns with the goal of the search engine.
SEO is about building a website in such a way that search engines can read it. It’s also important that humans can read it and find useful, relevant articles to read. That is, after all, the type of website that search engines want to connect people with.
SEO for estate planning attorneys is a bit different than it is for other types of businesses. This is mostly because the legal profession is very competitive online, and estate planning can be a competitive practice area.
When you are using this type of marketing technique for any type of business, it usually takes time to show results. In the context of a more competitive landscape, it can take even longer — if you don’t take every advantage available to you.
That’s why, with estate planning SEO, it is important to have a strategy right from the beginning. If you don’t target development in a methodical, forward-looking way, your competition might have the opportunity to outmaneuver you.
Many types of law firms tend to focus on short-term growth more than on the big, multi-decade picture. After all, a criminal defense, family law, or personal injury client might just have one legal issue in their entire lives that requires the services of an attorney who focuses on these adversarial practice areas.
Estate planning lawyers, on the other hand, tend to form lifelong or even multigenerational relationships with their clients and their families. In that context, waiting a few months for investments show to show low-maintenance, sustainable results is much more palatable.
In short, SEO is a good match for estate planners because it has the following attributes:
SEO for estate planning lawyers typically focuses on establishing knowledge centers on a website. For example, your office might want to provide some general information to potential clients illustrating the complexity of estate planning and persuading them to engage you for whatever services they may need.
It sounds straightforward. However, the fact that it requires dedicated research for each firm makes it difficult to talk about specifics.
SEO can be difficult to understand. That’s why we offer SEO for attorneys that takes the guesswork out of strategy. Whether you’re starting out or you’d like some more performance out of your budget, please contact us to discuss your goals today.
SEO often increases clients for a number of reasons. The first reason is the most obvious.
SEO, when it is successful, increases your website’s rank on search engines such as Google. This results in more people visiting the website. When more people visit your website, there are more chances for people to contact your firm to become new clients.
Another way you can get more clients is that SEO focuses, at least in part, on providing useful information to people who need your services. People might share these web pages, videos, and blog entries that you write with their friends who need your services.
This sort of referral and sharing behavior happens frequently with social media, but it can also happen via email, text message, and word of mouth. The key aspect is that you have to provide articles that people find useful and want to share.
The first thing you will need in order to have SEO is a website. SEO needs something that you’re trying to promote. If you do not already have a website or if you believe yours is out of date, we can help with our custom design services tailored specifically to attorney websites.
You also probably need some type of guiding strategy, as we mentioned above. Even if you know the basics, that is not typically enough to succeed. To be as efficient and successful as possible, you typically need to understand where to focus your efforts at different stages of your SEO progress in order to build and maintain your rankings.
There are many other types of online marketing and advertising for lawyers, but only a few of them have the same type of alignment with estate planning businesses that SEO does. Here are some examples:
SEO is very different from paid online advertisements, but, since they are both under the general umbrella of attorney business development, they are often talked about together. Let’s take a look at how this method works specifically for estate planning attorneys:
All of this adds up to lawyer marketing strategies for estate planning law firms that typically favor SEO rather heavily. Of course, your strategy should depend on a detailed analysis of your practice — not just assumptions based on your practice area.
If you would like a general idea of where you stand in terms of SEO performance, take a moment to use our online SEO audit tool. It should give you a few insights into the challenges your site faces in terms of SEO and the opportunities you might have in order to rank higher.
Of course, that’s not the whole picture. We’re also available for dedicated consultations. Call (888) 590-9687 to get started today.
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