As lawyer marketing specialists, we have built hundreds of custom websites for law firms all over the country so we understand the importance of certain pages. One of the most important is the About Us page, along with attorney bio pages, yet these are often the most neglected. If you put yourself in the place of the consumer, what do you think makes the difference when a client is considering you among your competition? They want to know your education, your experience, and they want to know about you personally. In this post, we will look at the pieces of the puzzle that make a great page.
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Statistics show that at least 80% of the typical law firm’s overall website traffic comes from their attorney bio pages. In addition, 64% of in-house counsel and over 70% of C-suite execs consider attorney bios to be important when they are deciding what law firm or lawyer to hire for their company, as stated in a 2019 survey by Greentarget and Zeughauser.
As mentioned above, About Us pages and attorney profile pages should be considered some of the most important content of your website, not just an afterthought. Here are some of the components to make you stand out from your competition and help clients choose you. First, let’s look at About Us pages.
We recommend including your contact information at the top of the page, even though we include contact info in the footer of every page. Include your full address and phone number as well as a link to your contact form. You should also include all of your social media links.
Many times, we have trouble talking about ourselves, and talking about your law firm is no different. If you have difficulty writing an in-depth story for your About Us page consider compiling the necessary information and having someone else write it. As a matter of fact, at FORWARD Lawyer Marketing we do write the content for our clients’ websites and this includes About Us and attorney profiles.
Start with how the principles or founders became interested in practicing law, then tell the story of the law firm. Share experience, successes, and examples of case results if applicable. Talk about things your firm does in the local community and even why you chose to set up the practice there.
As marketers, we tend to tell our attorney clients to think of the About Us page as the online real estate where you sell yourself to potential clients. While this is easier with attorneys that do a lot of advertising and marketing, some aren’t comfortable with it. In that case, think of your About Us page like you are writing to a prospective client that doesn’t know you.
What do you most want a potential client to know about you and your law firm?
What makes you and your law firm different and unique?
What can a client expect if they retain you or your law firm to represent them?
We also want to keep in mind when writing and designing About Us pages for law firms that potential clients are browsing numerous law firm websites. More than likely, they’ve already seen many in the last half hour or less so it’s important to stand out.
Keep your website design simple and don’t use a lot of things like flash and other elements that can slow the site down. With Google’s Core Web Vitals update speed is one of the most important factors in search engine rankings. Use a conversational tone and speak using terms like “I”, “we”, and “us” for a more personal feel. Many lawyers will simply list their practice areas again, which is okay but should be in addition to not instead of telling them why they should hire you.
With lawyer marketing, we have to be careful of using superlatives such as “the best” but there is nothing illegal about showing off certifications and awards that the law firm and attorney partners have received. Be sure to have a solid statement of what sets you apart from the competition, called a unique selling proposition or USP in the marketing industry.
Break up longer content by using images and videos to keep visitors interested. SEO experts recommend breaking up text every 300 words or so. Many people reading content online are also reading on their mobile devices which makes paragraphs appear even longer.
Always include a professional photo of your law firm’s team. You should include interns and other office workers in addition to the partners and other attorneys practicing at the firm. You should keep this updated, so if you have turnover have the photo retaken as needed. You would be surprised how many people hire a law firm just because they identified with someone they saw in the team photo.
The number one thing to consider when writing an effective attorney profile page is that you need to make yourself stand out from your competition. Your attorney bio/profile page is where you get to inform potential clients about your education and experience as well as share some things about yourself that can help them decide that you’re a good fit for them.
Attorney profile pages tend to be among the highest-trafficked pages on a law firm’s website so it is crucial to invest the time and energy in doing it right. Let’s take a look at some of the key components that a great attorney profile page should have.
This should be obvious, the page is about a specific attorney, so the first thing at the top of the page should be the attorney’s name and their title if any. This is also where you want to put specific contact info and also include a professional headshot right at the top, preferably justified left or right.
This is your introduction to potential clients and you only have a few seconds to capture their attention. In this section, you should talk about yourself personally and professionally. Explain what got you into law, why you enjoy it, and how long you’ve been practicing law. This area should also be written with geo-local keywords that help the search engines relate you to the local area you practice in. Below is an excellent example of this done the right way from a personal injury attorney in Wisconsin.
In this section, you should include any awards and certifications such as “Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, etc. This is also where you should mention any specialization certificates for your areas of practice. If you have been published in any trade magazines or other print publications you want to talk about them and link to them here. This is a good place to talk about any local leadership programs you participate in as well.
This is where you list your education, starting with where you first attended college and then the Law School you graduated from along with the degree attained and the year graduated. We always like to link to the schools as well because they tend to be great authoritative sites for external linking. Any school awards should be mentioned here, such as, graduated Magna cum laude.
This is also where you would talk about any previous positions held either in other law firms or governmental positions or that maybe you began as a junior partner and have now become a full partner.
Now that you have done your best to convince a potential client that they should want to retain your legal services you need to ask for their business. Regardless of whether it is a link to your contact form or a statement including your phone number, it should be bold and stand out from the other elements on the page. Neglecting to add a call to action to your attorney profile page will cost you tons of potential clients.
If you have read through this entire blog post chances are you understand how daunting a task it can be to write thorough and comprehensive About Us pages and attorney profiles. Not only must the content be written to be attractive to potential clients but also for the search engines and this is a skill few possess. At FORWARD Lawyer Marketing, we have literally built hundreds of websites for lawyers and law firms across the United States and we have the experience to help you be successful. See some of our attorney-client testimonials here.
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At FORWARD Lawyer Marketing we believe in taking a “leave no stone unturned” approach when it comes to our legal clients. With that in mind, we employ extremely experienced people in the industry. Our SEO Director has been marketing online for well over two decades and oversees all SEO tasks including editing content and performing on-page optimization as well as internal and external linking. Our specialty is law firm marketing and local SEO for lawyers at FORWARD Lawyer Marketing, call us at (888) 590-9687 to discuss how we can increase the revenue of your law firm.
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