Developing a presence for you legal practice online can seem overwhelming. There is no shortage of websites, experts, blogs, and ads about how to go about building your professional presence on the web. Frankly, a lot of what’s out there simply isn’t very good. Part of the lack of quality comes from a fundamental misunderstanding about what metrics are most likely to lead to success.
At one point or another, someone might have told you (or you may have reasoned this on your own) that you need to rank high in search engines to have success in growing your online visibility. And while it’s true that search engine rankings are a piece of the formula, far too much emphasis is placed solely on rankings.
If you take a step back from the noise of the SEO and internet marketing world, you’ll realized that keywords, rankings, optimization, link building, content development, and various other components to internet marketing really come down to two essential things:
1. Getting eyeballs on “you” on online.
2. Turning more eyeballs into actions.
By getting more eyeballs on “you” I mean getting your persona, message, offering, content, point of view, expertise, knowledge, etc, in front of the right internet users. Notice I said internet users and not search engine users.
People use the internet in a vast variety of ways. And the ways that they use it can depend on a wide variety of factors. Some of these have to do with who they are as people. Others have to do with what they look for online. And of course, many of these factors depend upon their experience with using the internet.
In order to get more eyeballs on yourself, you need to understand some of the characteristics of your audiences. Who are these people? How do they use the internet? Once you’ve done that, you need to get yourself visible in the places that these people look. While this probably means search engines, it also means a variety of other online places online. These place may be social networking sites, or industry journals, or news websites.
But eyeballs alone aren’t enough. You need actions. You need internet users to call you. You need them to email you. You need them to quote you, cite you, interview you, link to you, share your writing, talk about you, say positive things about you, etc.
And so, all of your online efforts should really be tied back to attracting more eyeballs and motivating more actions.
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Great post Gyi. Usability testing is fundamenral, preferably using a diverse range of existing clients. And of course while doing it, get a sense from these clients where and what they engage with online. This will give you a sense of where other similar client cluster groups maybe located, then start engaging there.
Dan, thanks for the comment. Your advice is sound. Your existing clients are you best sources for online intelligence. Too many firms simply don’t take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that their current and former clients are.