Lawyers face the same challenges any business does. To be able to get new business they need to market their services, i.e., advertise. And lawyers cope with the same marketing and advertising challenge every business does - just how to beat the competition. Plus lawyers need certainly to assume that any Internet or non-Internet marketing or advertising they do may produce minimum results for the quantity of time and money they spend -- whatever an outside marketing or advertising advisor may say to the contrary.
Prior to the Internet the main non-Internet marketing option or advertising selection for any lawyer was to promote in the yellow pages. To this day the print yellow pages contain lots of colorful, one page display ads that feature lawyers offering their services, and lawyers pay a whole lot for these ads. How effective these ads are is anyone's guess -- it's hard for your colored, one page display ad to stick out when you have 20 other lawyers doing exactly the same thing! The yellow pages companies, however, continue to promote their marketing and advertising philosophy that "bigger is definitely better" and "everything we sell is the opportunity," so they really often present a lawyer with a non-Internet marketing and advertising solution that costs plenty but often produces little.
This distinct thinking, along side the use of print yellow pages generally, went the way of the dinosaur at a very accelerated pace. The yellow pages on the net form had their heyday for most decades, but the people now goes to the Internet for the data they seek, so most print directories are collecting dust. A lawyer who advertises in the print yellow pages may get calls, but they'll most be from vendors utilising the yellow pages as a low priced source of leads.
The major paid search providers (pay per click search engines) tend to provide lawyers Internet marketing and advertising solutions in a manner similar to the way the yellow pages do with their print directories. "Bigger is definitely better," so rather than realistically discuss with a lawyer a pay per click Internet marketing and advertising campaign that makes financial sense and produces a good ROI, the pay per click providers will tell the lawyer to select as numerous top listing keywords (the most expensive) as their budget will permit and bid as high because they can law. The lawyer may go broke in the process, but at least they'll get exposure! Many lawyers get into pay per click as a quick way to get leads but quickly exit monthly later after spending plenty of cash for Internet marketing and advertising results that produce only expense.
While pay per click Internet marketing and advertising is the running favorite of Internet marketing advertisers worldwide, pay per click advertising for a lawyer is usually an incredibly expensive proposition for what they get. How much a lawyer is willing to "pay for a lead" takes on a complete new meaning with pay per click. The price per click for most lawyer related keywords, e.g., "personal injury lawyer," "criminal defense lawyer," can vary from $5.00 to $70.00 per click with regards to the market, and when the typical lawyer's conversion rate (the quantity of clicks it takes to generate a lead) of one to two percent is factored in, the lawyer can end up paying well over $500.00 to $7,000.00 per lead, and a lead is not a client.
The main problem lawyers face if they assist pay per click (and this translates straight into poor conversion rates) is that (1) they spend very little time creating their pay per click ads and (2) the ads direct traffic to the lawyer's website. Any Internet marketing professional who knows something about pay per click knows there is a constant send pay per click traffic to a website. Instead you create special pages, i.e., "landing pages" for pay per click traffic to be directed to. The landing pages perform the work of convincing traffic to accomplish what the lawyer requires, which will be normally to contact the lawyer via e-mail or by phone.
Legal Internet directories and portals provide lawyer a possible Internet marketing and advertising option due to their popularity and enhanced Internet visibility. How effective a listing in a legal Internet directory or portal may be for a lawyer with regards to marketing, advertising and Internet exposure will depend upon the particular attributes of the legal Internet directory or portal in question. Everything being equal, legal Internet directories or portals that charge a fee to be listed inside them make more sense as an Internet marketing and advertising choice than similar sites that provide listings for free. The lawyer must be particularly careful, however, if they consider advertising in legal Internet directories and portals that "look" like they provide a lot -- and an amount to opt for it -- but also for whatever reasons simply don't produce enough leads for the quantity of Internet marketing and advertising money the lawyer must spend.
Many legal Internet directories and portals exist which have a very strong Internet presence, and they're excellent resource centers for lawyers, but this doesn't automatically make them good places to advertise. With Internet legal portals especially it's not just how many lawyers the portal attracts but how many people the Internet legal portal attracts that are looking for legal services. People have paid thousands of dollars for advertising in Internet legal portals which have produced nothing in the manner of Internet marketing and advertising results. A really wise idea for almost any lawyer who considers advertising in an Internet legal portal is to get some very accurate user demographics on what sort of specific traffic the Internet legal portal is clearly attracting.
What's a lawyer supposed to accomplish? Everywhere the lawyer looks, perhaps the marketing and advertising media is Internet or non-Internet, considerable financial risk is involved, and a guarantee that the lawyer are certain to get good, solid results for the quantity of money they spend is frequently hard to achieve.
Ultimately the easiest way for a lawyer to opt for Internet marketing and advertising - the way that will ultimately have them the most effective long term results for the cash they spend -- is to target on getting their website to rank high in organic search results. When things are thought, people on the Internet who seek out goods and services mainly seek out websites to find their answers. They may look to legal Internet directories and portals, and should they don't find what they want they may turn to pay for per click listings as a final resort (only about 30% to 40% of users bother with pay per click) but ultimately individuals who search the Internet are searching for websites offering them with the answers they seek.
If your lawyer is looking for an Internet marketing and advertising solution that doesn't require being the main pay per click crowd, the lawyer might want to look into pay per phone call programs. Pay per phone call is similar to pay per click, nevertheless the lawyer doesn't pay for a phone unless they receive one. And the expenses for pay per phone call are normally substantially less that what the lawyer will pay for a press in many cases. A good lawyer might even wish to consider getting involved with several pay per phone call providers with the idea that between the providers the lawyer will receive enough leads in the aggregate to create involvement with your programs worth it.
