Legal websites run the gamut from simple “electronic business cards” to richly interactive sites. However, building the site is not enough. A website is not a Field of Dreams; it’s not enough to build it and they will come. Success means site visitors ultimately become clients.

A Website to Meet Your Goals

Building and promoting a website often seems complex, expensive, and unnecessary to firms that earn most of their business from referrals. Understandably, if the firm derives over 90% of its business from referrals, leadership hesitates to spend $1,500 per month, or more, on a website, digital marketing, or search engine optimization (SEO).

Victoria Silecchia, chief marketing officer at Omnizant, sat down with Zack to explain why all firms need a professional website and how to create one affordably. OneFirst Legal, a new division launched by Omnizant on September 1, is the key to an affordable, modern website.

Fundamentally, a firm without a website or one that puts no effort into SEO finds itself at the mercy of chance and competitors. Attorneys running referral-based practices still need a professional web presence. It need not be elaborate, but it must exist. Nor does the site and its essential marketing need to cost thousands to create or maintain.

Prospects Do Research

Even referral-based practices must consider what information prospects find online when searching for a firm or attorney. Having a website means the firm controls its image, its first touchpoint with would-be clients.

Referrals will research the firm. The question is who controls the information they see. The firm may not care about its Google Business profile or reviews, but others will.

Affordable SEO Marketing Achieves Defined Goals

In addition to the website, OneFirst Legal collaborates with the firm on what Victoria termed “branded visibility,” a targeted form of SEO.

In this context, “good SEO” is not optimizing for better Google rankings for highly desirable and expensive keyword combinations like “car accident” and “New York City.” Instead, OneFirst Legal’s branded visibility concentrates on simpler and more meaningful goals, like ensuring the firm’s site is the top hit when someone searches specifically for the firm or attorney’s name.

Without a website and absent branded visibility, the top hit for a firm or attorney is often an aggregated attorney directory showing both the firm and its competitors side-by-side. In some cases, unscrupulous law firms may bid for their competitors’ names, paying web search engines to show the result “Smith Law Firm” higher in the list than “Jones Law Firm,” even when would-be clients expressly search for “Jones Law Firm.”

OneFirst Legal Quickly Creates a Customized Web Presence

While Omnizant has helped law firms with full-service digital marketing capabilities since 2006, OneFirst Legal delivers the essential website tools a firm needs at a budget-friendly price.

OneFirst Legal creates and hosts solutions for solos and small firms wanting a modern, secure, and accessibility-friendly web presence. For firms of five attorneys or fewer, OneFirst Legal charges a one-time $199 setup fee and $199 per month after that.

OneFirst Legal designs its WordPress-based templates with flexibility and modularity in mind. Victoria likens their templates to prefabricated home blueprints. The design is tested, perfected, and quickly deployable. Website “floorplans” may be similar, but customization remains key. Continuing the analogy, each firm’s site has unique paint colors, siding, landscape, and furnishings.

OneFirst Legal’s Creation Process

OneFirst Legal understands that attorneys desire speedy results with minimal meetings. A firm can go from zero to launch in under three weeks, in five simple steps:

1. Use the self-scheduling tool on OneFirst Legal’s website to grab 15 minutes. Learn if the OneFirst Legal approach suits your firm.
2. Complete a single enrollment form to sign up.
3. At the kickoff call and design meeting, 3-to-5 business days after enrollment, you select the site blueprint, practice areas, colors, and images.
4. OneFirst Legal professionals customize your chosen blueprint with layered colors, retina image-grade photos, moving elements, and text.
5. You review the website’s first draft 3-5 business days after the kickoff meeting, make any changes, and launch.

Creating Visibility for Your Modern Site

Once launched, OneFirst Legal handles monthly updates. They continually refine Google Business Profile optimization and branded visibility SEO. They work with the firm on review generation, ongoing postings, and site maintenance. OneFirst Legal does not limit support or update time.

Getting Started

Visit http://onefirstlegal.com/getstarted to see how affordable, vibrant layouts bring legal websites to life and how versatile templates work for different practice areas.

The post Omnizant Makes Quality Websites Affordable with OneFirst Legal appeared first on Lawyerist.

The phrase “digital marketing” encompasses many things and has changed over the last decade. 

Digital Marketing for Attorneys Evolves 

Marketing for legal services has a short history compared to other products and services. Before the 1970s, rules prohibited attorney advertising. And once permitted, many people saw things like TV ads and billboards as crass, even desperate. But public opinion changes, as do the methods for attracting its attention. While an ever-diminishing number of attorneys buy ads in the Yellow Pages, digital marketing spending grows by leaps and bounds. Every new or growing law firm needs a website to attract and inform potential clients. 

Fred Cohen, Founder and CEO of Omnizant, recalls that, a decade ago, when attorneys thought of their website, they imagined an online business card. More recently, they noticed that their firm website could be a powerful tool for client generation. But, in some ways, firms have now over-corrected, seeing all marketing as digital and neglecting traditional tools. 

Omnizant’s approach balances the traditional and digital functions of a marketing agency. Omnizant helps with positioning, messaging, and differentiation—traditional marketing functions, while blending in powerful digital capabilities for maximum visibility. As Fred puts it, “[Attorneys] have gotten past the idea that lawyers shouldn’t market or have an active web presence seeking clients.” 

Goals of a Law Firm Website 

When working with a firm on its website, Fred and his team aim to build a site that answers three foundational questions: 

1. What unique value proposition and experience does the firm offer prospective clients? 

2. How does the firm view its relationship with the client? 

3. What is the firm’s approach to a matter? 

In answering each of these questions, the firm, with Omnizant’s help, tells a compelling story. The goal is to create a website that serves as a learning experience. Potential clients can then determine whether the firm is a good fit. 

In addition to a robust and purposeful website, Omnizant works with the firm to determine its target client and how to identify those prospects. As Fred says, a marketing agency should help drive relevant traffic to your website, not sheer numbers. Success is more than a high search engine optimization (SEO) rank. Law firms need a holistic approach to get your message in front of the right people to let them know you can help them. 

People shopping for legal services today are sophisticated consumers and know they have many options. When they select an attorney, it’s both an overt assessment (e.g., does the firm meet my stated needs) and subliminal, a practical and emotional decision. Communicate a cohesive branding message with words, imagery, and color to reach both sides. 

The Future of Legal Marketing 

Automation is coming for marketing. This alarms some, given the rudimentary state of firms’ marketing efforts. While artificial intelligence (AI) grabs the headlines, many firms don’t have sound marketing fundamentals. Too few firms use customer relations management (CRM) software, pipeline tracking, or lead attribution software. These long-standing technologies are nascent, even in mid-sized firms. 

Once your firm has the basics in place, Fred says, then it’s time to think about marketing automation. The purpose of automated marketing efforts, such as “drip” campaigns specialized for a persona or client profile, is to keep the law firm “top of mind.”  

It’s hard enough to be a good lawyer without worrying about the minutia of what good marketing entails. Omnizant is a great partner for growth-minded firms, which it defines not as simply “more clients,” but rather “better clients” or “specific clients.” Their approach harkens back to tailoring the firm’s website and overall branding to attract clients that match its value proposition. 

Where to Start 

Holistic firm marketing may seem overwhelming, but Fred offered advice to get started even before you engage Omnizant or another agency. 

1. Know what you are good at and passionate about. 

2. Figure out what information you have available to share with prospects. 

3. Don’t become obsessed with search engine ranking scores. Ranking improvements come with high-quality content. Long-form content, in the range of 4,000 to 6,000 words, generates more traffic. This is especially true with the advent of AI, which can flood search engines with short content. 

4. Although long-form writing is advantageous, one should give finite responses to finite questions where possible. Be concise where appropriate. 

5. Attribute website content to a specific author whenever possible. Search engines value authorship, proof that a human wrote the piece because it adds credibility and defends against a flood of AI-written dreck. Bylines add to the “authority of authorship” and improve the firm’s visibility in search results. 

Learn more from Zack’s chat with Fred by watching our video and visiting Omnizant’s website to grab their guide on search engine optimization for lawyers, or go ahead and get an SEO Audit.

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