Your website acts as a showcase of your firm to the world, it is your primary online presence so ensuring that it looks and functions in the way that visitors expect should be one of the most basic planks in your law firm marketing strategy. It works for you 24/7.
I’ve written before about the importance of a website in the overall marketing strategy for a modern law firm. To recap, the basic functionality/features that your website must have in 2014 are:
- Mobile friendly
- Modern design
- Up to date content
- Fast loading
- Optimised for SEO
There is a real opportunity for you to kick start your marketing if you are upgrading or about to upgrade your website and this is not just because you have a shiny new (and hopefully mobile friendly) website.
Maximise Your Impact & Reach
When you upgrade your website it is critically important that you announce it to the world. You need to maximise the reach and impact of your new site by telling people about it and encouraging them to visit.
This is a perfect opportunity for you to reach out to your clients and remind them who you are, what you do and how you can help them if they need any legal services.
If your website was a new car or house you would naturally be keen to tell people about it.
If you had a new office you might throw a party and invite your clients or if you saw them in the street you might invite them to drop by and say hello sometime.
Your new website is no different, it is your primary marketing tool on the web, so you should promote it.
Communication Opportunities
I have also written before about creating, or at least taking advantage of, opportunities to communicate with your clients, a new website is one of those opportunities and you cannot afford to miss it.
Whether it’s starting a new firm, getting your first website or just replacing your old site with one that has a modern design and is mobile friendly you want people to come and visit it.
You can make an immediate impact
Often, when we think about ways to increase the number of visitors to a website and therefore increase the chances of communicating and engaging with visitors we think about long term strategies to attract new clients like:
- SEO
- Content marketing
- Advertising
All of these things will likely generate more visitors to your website but will these visitors be ready to engage your services, probably not.
It’s more than likely that if they are browsing the web looking for a lawyer, once they decide that they need yours or similar services they will need to get to know you, check out your expertise and personnel, check your reputation and compare you with the competition. This takes time.
On the other hand your existing clients already know you so you can easily reach out to them, invite them to come to your new website and remind them about who you are and how you can help them.
Launching a new website
We have recently had a number of firms upgrade or replace their old website.
In each of case they have upgraded to a modern, mobile friendly website. In some cases these new websites are included in their practice management software package.
Some have also taken the opportunity to update their logo and website content to create a totally fresh start to their online marketing.
To promote the website we either sent a special announcement about the firm and the website upgrade or included an announcement about the new site in their monthly newsletter.
We have seen firms increase their website traffic by over 600% simply by letting their clients know that they have a new website.
Clients have even stopped lawyers in the street and complimented them on their site upgrade, “Oh and by the way we also need to come and see you about ….”.
The new website content, particularly photos and articles about the firm has created engagement with clients and attracted plenty of positive feedback.
These clients would not have even known about the new website if they hadn’t been told.
Conclusion
The key benefits of announcing your new website & communicating with your clients:
- Reminds clients about how you can help them
- Generates more work
- Helps keep clients loyal to your firm
A new website is a great reason to communicate with your clients and to remind them about the services you provide and how you can help them.
To put it bluntly, there is no point having a great website if no one knows it exists.
