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The legal industry is becoming more competitive overnight. Traditional forms of promotion are less relevant and less effective now. The old rules are being unceremoniously replaced by a new legal ranking system.
Print Media
Problems: interruption marketing, dying medium, non-interactive.
Prognosis: Even as established print media transition to the internet, most periodicals have subscription models that restrict free access to information. As access to free information increases with the internet, web searchers are increasing more resistant to paying for subscriptions or access.
Television
Problems: blatant commercialism can tarnish reputation, interruption marketing, DVRs permit the skipping of ads altogether. Broadcast television is not well-targeted enough for most areas of law.
Prognosis: Eventually the internet will subsume traditional television under a hybrid that allows for interactive video content.
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Problems: buried deep in the warehouse, uniform listings, no competitive advantage over thousands of other lawyers.
- Directory websites contain thousands of lawyers and law firms in a standardized format, which by its very nature, does a poor job of differentiating among them.
Good for housing a large inventory, bad for promoting any of it.
Results are alphabetized and listings extend for pages and pages, so unless your name begins with the letter “A” you are ‘left in the rear’ where people rarely look.
- The major internet legal directories pile lawyers thousands deep into a ‘virtual warehouse.’
The public been conditioned to expect immediate information from the internet – no patience for Costco or Sam’s Club shopping experience from the internet – no time to park miles from the entrance, walk down long aisles to the back of a warehouse, piled with stacks of attorneys and law firms to chose from.
Multiple navigational steps are required to find an appropriate professional or firm.
The public has been spoiled by search engines.
Searchers have come to expect that simply by typing keywords, information, products and services are brought to the front of the store for them to choose from.
One-Page Book: Current research shows that most people do not read any further than the first page of search results. If the search doesn’t turn up what they want immediately, there is no need to keep turning pages –just refine the keywords and re-submit the search again.
This is why it is imperative that law firms enhance their positioning in search engines with regard to relevant keywords.
- Most internet directories do not provide backlinks that count toward search engine rankings due to several reasons.
Directories generally utilize JavaScript programs such as zip code filters or “nofollow” attributes which block search engine bots from reading (and crediting) the links
The sheer volume of links that directories contain dilutes the value of any single backlink that is provided…moreover, if the directory also contains all your competitors then it offers you no competitive advantage over them.
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Digital Law Firms’s Law Publishing Network. Front page, “Above the Fold”
[footnote: The phrase “above the fold” is co-opted from newspaper terminology in reference to the top half of the front page, whereas the bottom of the front page was folded under. Placement above the fold is also ideal positioning on computer monitors because it does not require scrolling.]
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