September 2015 - Ontario Lawyers Directory

BLF Magazine Talks About Interactive Content and Legal Marketing

Posted on September 30, 2015January 9, 2021 by Law Firm Newswire

Interactive Content Featured in Latest Bigger Law Firm Magazine

San Francisco, CA (Law Firm Newswire) September 30, 2015 - The Bigger Law Firm magazine discusses in its latest issue ways in which law firms can integrate interactive features to enhance their website and ultimately convert more clients.

A website’s interaction with site visitors is a key component to ensuring a higher conversion rate of visitor to client due to the interactive content’s ability to convey more information more effectively. Although many websites have interactive components integrated into their site, many law firms’ websites do not. A website may have a contact form or the ability to comment on a blog post, but while useful, these are basic features.

One can amp up law firm websites by using more advanced forms of interactivity, such as integrating features like quizzes that act as educational tools to teach users about the area of law in which they are interested. Another feature could be a form that allows potential clients to ask for a case assessment that lets them explain their case to an attorney and get an idea of what legal options they may have to pursue.

Polls and surveys are also valuable tools to gauge how effective a law firms’ website may be, as it provides the chance for a reader to answer questions relating to usability and clarity of information quickly and anonymously. The results often help an attorney fine tune his or her site and begin to offer more information in areas that are trending. The beauty of polls and surveys is they provide instant feedback.

Transforming text into visual interactive content is another way to engage website visitors. For example, a legal concept can be illustrated into a series of slides. Roughly 65 percent of people are visual learners, and thus law firms need to cater to those who learn by seeing, not just reading, although the visual aid may include voice and text as well. If the visual aid is simple but powerful and creatively presented, most people are more likely to understand the material and not only share it, but convert.

What once took hours, highly skilled computer programmers and a large budget has become easier to access thanks to the advent of user-friendly and easily accessible content creation tools. Before signing up for any form of interactive content tools, one should know precisely what is needed for each website under consideration for an upgrade. One should start small and test to see what works on each website and be ready to expand law firm website interactivity to keep ahead of the curve.

Download Storytelling & Storymaking - The Bigger Law Firm Magazine

To learn more about how to build a Bigger Law Firm, visit https://www.biggerlawfirm.com

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Shorter Content on Lawyers’ Websites Could Rank Higher According to Article in Bigger Law Firm Magazine

Posted on September 28, 2015January 9, 2021 by Law Firm Newswire

San Francisco, CA (Law Firm Newswire) September 28, 2015 - An article in the new issue of The Bigger Law Firm magazine says that shorter content on law firm websites may actually rank higher than longer content in search engine results pages.

In his “SEO Obiter Dicta” column, legal marketing expert Jason Bland questions the conventional wisdom that lengthy content is looked upon more favorably by search engines. Bland indicates that since Google's Panda update, which devalued webpages that provided no real user value, many in the search engine optimization (SEO) field have assumed that short content is less valuable. That is not always the case, Bland writes.

Search engines seek to deliver the most useful content to users, and Google has identified content that it is actively seeking to weed out. This includes content that is automatically generated by a computer program rather than written by humans, content that is copied directly from another source and “doorway pages” that exist solely to target search terms but do not provide additional content beyond what is already present on the website.

Bland points out that “short content” is not on this list of low-value content. In fact, if a search engine user is asking a relatively straightforward question, a law firm's concise answer can easily become the top search result, ahead of longer articles on more authoritative websites.

The fact that law firm websites can use concise content to dominate the results pages for certain search terms is just one of the SEO secrets revealed in this issue of The Bigger Law Firm magazine. Bland also points out that duplicate content can be a significant problem for law firm websites, as copying the text of statutes, though helpful to users, can actually be a red flag for Google. However, Bland provides an easy fix that law firms can use to correct the problem — without removing the content. To learn more, read the latest issue.

Download Storytelling & Storymaking - The Bigger Law Firm Magazine

To learn more about how to build a Bigger Law Firm, visit https://www.biggerlawfirm.com

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Mastering the Art of Storytelling and Storymaking Featured in the Latest Bigger Law Firm Magazine

Posted on September 24, 2015January 9, 2021 by Law Firm Newswire

San Francisco, CA (Law Firm Newswire) September 24, 2015 - The most recent issue of The Bigger Law Firm magazine (BLF) concentrates on how to master the art of storytelling and storymaking in order to establish connections with one’s future clients. Dipal Parmar describes the value of relating a narrative that is authentic, consistent and memorable, and that will help create a brand for one’s firm.

In addition, she discusses the importance of setting the correct tone in one’s story to elicit a certain response from the readers of one’s blog posts, photos and videos on social media that a law firm may use as part of its marketing strategy. Parmar also directs attention to the process of storymaking, which involves using information collected from the audience, including testimonials, reviews and Tweets, and then redistributing the content.

BLF founder Jason Bland explains that, in contrast to what one might expect, brief content could have a higher rank on Google than a longer article of the same topic because the shorter content may offer more value. He also provides examples of “thin content,” or various kinds of content that offer little value to users.

Ryan Conley highlights the advantages of including interactive features on one’s website so as to learn more about one’s readers and to inform them of latest developments via the use of quizzes, polls, surveys and blogs that permit them to post comments.

Brendan Conley shares the significance of performing a search engine optimization (SEO) audit of one’s website in order to determine whether any changes need to be implemented that will improve one’s rankings in search engines.

Alisha Corbitt illustrates the efficiency of EagleEye Agreement Checker to assist attorneys in drafting contracts that are far more accurate than traditional methods of writing contracts.
Justin Torres offers insight into the use of vector graphics in web design as a way of strengthening a website’s performance, including load time.

Kerrie Spencer describes a product called Litéra Smartsend, which helps preserve the security and confidentiality of lawyers’ emails.

Ryan Conley discusses the various social networking websites and the ways in which one can use them to build and maintain professional relationships.

Tyler Rhodes clarifies the meaning of backlinks, and stresses the value of quality over quantity in building links on attorney websites.

Download Storytelling & Storymaking - The Bigger Law Firm Magazine

To learn more about how to build a Bigger Law Firm, visit https://www.biggerlawfirm.com

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Study Shows Quality of Links Counts More Than Quantity for Top-Ranked Lawyer Websites

Posted on September 21, 2015January 9, 2021 by Law Firm Newswire

This new report shows that link quantity does not guarantee top search engine ranking.

San Francisco, CA (Law Firm Newswire) September 21, 2015 - The findings of a new Custom Legal Marketing Lab report challenge the widespread view that law firm websites with large backlink portfolios tend to outperform ones with smaller portfolios.

Titled “Does the Top Ranking Website Have More Links?,” the study analyzed the backlinks of law firm websites that naturally ranked first and second in Google search results for each of the major metropolitan regions of the United States. Law firms practicing in areas such as personal injury, bankruptcy and estate planning were examined.

The Legal Marketing Lab research team found that around 54 percent of the websites that ranked second in search results had more backlinks than their first-place competitors. The reverse was true for over 45 percent of the searches. The slim margin between the data indicates that a high volume of backlinks does not negatively impact a website’s placement among search results in a significant way.

Backlinks play a key role in extending the reach of a website and providing new sources of traffic. A link portfolio refers to a summary of all the backlinks that lead to a site’s webpages from various locations across the internet, including blogs, websites, legal networks and directories.

Quality is as important as quantity when it comes to the link portfolio of a law firm’s website. The websites ranked highest among the search results had diverse link profiles that pointed to more government, regional and education-oriented websites rather than free web directories in comparison to their competitors. The results imply that link-building is no longer just about the high volumes of traffic that a backlink brings to a website. Without quality content that has real value for its audience, bulk links generated through duplicate directory listings and other similar practices fail to achieve the desired search results.

The study is available on the Custom Legal Marketing website and the Custom Legal Marketing to Go App available on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

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