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Recent Blog Posts
Engaging Blogs Can Be Key to Marketing Success
As the online marketplace continues to attract more and more participants vying for consumer attention, effective marketing strategies must be prepared to evolve. Every year, the marketing landscape changes substantially, and with big developments already starting so far in 2015, this year appears to be no exception. Maintaining consumer interest in your brand may seem harder than ever, but the solution may lie in a concept that has been around for years: blogs.
What is a Blog?
The word “blog” is truncated form of the expression “weblog” with origins traced to about 1999. The term originally referred to what was essentially an online diary or journal. Over the last two decades, blogs have evolved from a collection of personal opinions and experiences to a news source and brand outreach tool.
An estimated 240 million blogs are in existence today, reaching almost 330 million readers. Some blogs are extensions of news organization such the New York Times or The Huffington Post, while others provide a single company’s consumers with product and industry updates on a regular basis.
The Importance of Online Reputation Management
As a successful professional, you have spent many years building your brand. Your office represents your values and the commitment you have to your clients, and you look to offer exemplary service for years to come. Every business, however, eventually must deal with dissatisfied customers and clients. Dissatisfaction may stem from unrealistic client expectations or from legitimate cases of substandard service, but, whatever the case, unhappy customers can create problems, especially when they utilize the internet to voice their displeasure. Negative online reviews can cost you significantly by impacting your office’s ability to attract new clients and maintain the image you desire, but, fortunately, professional online reputation management can help.
Is Your Site Prepared for Google’s Update?
Ready or not, here it comes! Later this month, Google is expected to roll out a new system for ranking search results which will bring significant changes to the way in which websites may increase their visibility. The change creating the most buzz among marketing experts throughout the world can be summed up in a single word: mobile.
Search Engine Algorithms
Search engines like Google and Bing are designed to help users meet their informational needs by providing access to the sites that will best address the purpose of the search. Most do not simply match the specific search terms, but instead, analyze millions of sites in an attempt to calculate which pages may best answer underlying questions and provide the most accurate information. To do so, developers must provide the search program with the appropriate factors upon which to consider each site, compiled in a weighted list known as an algorithm.
It Is All About the Leads: How Online Legal Directory Listings Can Increase a Firm’s Bottom Line
For the practicing attorney, it is all about the leads. No amount of traditional advertising or newly adopted social media marketing can completely replace the importance of referrals or viable leads as a means to increase a practice’s bottom line. With 87.7 percent of all American consumers turning to the internet to search for an experienced attorney, will they be able to locate you?
Benefits of Legal Directory Listing
With one quick click of a mouse, online legal directories can provide prospective clients with comprehensive and relevant information about a specific lawyer or firm. Participating attorneys benefit when prospective clients turn into current clients and current clients remain satisfied clients. Inclusion in legal directories also creates more inbound links to to an attorney's professional website. Not only does this produce an increase in marketing efforts but it also provides effective online reputation management, drives traffic to the site, and ultimately elevates Search Engine Optimization (SEO) page rankings.
Optimize Your Website to Create a Better User Experience
Have you ever been trying to find the website for a local business only to locate a page that looks like it was uploaded before Google launched in 1998? Your reaction was probably similar to that of most other potential customers: confusion and a strong likelihood of taking their business elsewhere. Regardless of the quality of service or products offered by your firm, the modern digital landscape requires a strong, visible presence. Weak and outdated sites project to potential clients a lack of vision and forward thinking. Optimizing your site, on the other hand, can provide your prospective clients with a user experience that not only captures their attention online, but leads them directly to your office door.
Business owners need to keep in mind that website optimization is not a checklist of tasks to be completed once and tossed aside. It is a dynamic, ongoing process that must continually evolve to keep your site at the forefront of your industry. While there are certain ways to optimize a website for a specific target audience depending on a company’s primary focus, marketing experts generally agree on several main considerations for any successful business website.
Get the Highest Return on Your Content Marketing
Companies and businesses around the world are realizing the unbelievable marketing potential being made available to them by means of modern technology. From a sole proprietor with no employees to a corporate CEO of a publicly traded giant, the new wave of online marketing can be customized to meet the needs of any size business in any industry on the planet. While some companies continue to invest in large-volume print media or expensive television commercials, content marketing is quickly becoming the method choice for reaching more new potential clients every day.
In its annual business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing report, Content Marketing Institute, a marketing education and training organization, identified a number of trends and points of emphasis for business owners to consider in their marketing efforts:
Navigating the Changing Landscape of Search Engine Optimization
In the world on online marketing, the goal is to reach as many potential customers and clients as possible. You provide services that millions of people of need, and enhancing your company's internet presence is one of the most important aspects to reaching new clients. Enhancing internet presence means more than expanding the company website; it also requires an awareness and proper deployment of SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO represents a process of understanding the algorithms and characteristics of internet search engines, such as Google and Bing, and utilizing that information to draw more potential customers to your site. As search engines evolve to meet the needs of users, SEO changes as well, and an experienced marketing company can help you weather the changes while maintaining high internet visibility.
The Benefits of Increasing Mobile Marketing Efforts
As a practicing attorney, you are in business to provide professional legal services to all those who seek out your skills. But what if by increasing your mobile marketing efforts you could market these skills to a broader range of consumers?
Pew Research Center, a leading research organization dedicated to providing insight into American trends, recently reported that eight in every 10 American adults own two or more mobile devices, with 51 percent relying on a tablet or smartphone to seek out services or to obtain daily news.
As mobile technology quickly infiltrates social media marketing, perhaps it is the opportune time to revisit or create your mobile marketing campaign. Pew further calculates that 40 percent of all smartphone users typically visit one or more social media marketing sites, such as professional websites, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn on a daily basis.
How to Maximize Cross Promotion in Your Legal Marketing Strategy
The American Marketing Association (AMA), in collaboration with the Duke Fuqua School of Business and McKinsey and Company, recently reported, via The CMO Survey, that marketing budgets consume almost 11 percent of firms’ annual budgets.
As the CMO Survey provides analytical data to support the cost of marketing for business to business models, is there a way that small firms or solo practicing attorneys could slash their marketing budgets to provide cost-effective social media marketing practices?
There is, and it is referred to as cross promotion. This essential marketing strategy can and should be utilized in every type of professional social media marketing campaign. The strategy is quite simple. Cross promotion provides a quick and relatively cost-free method of increasing traffic to already established social media profiles.
There is a catch, though. For cross promotion to work, first established social media sites already need to be operational. For example, if you or your firm already engages your target demographic on Facebook, you must establish other social media platforms, such as LinkedIn or Twitter, to actively cross reference the profiles.
Tweaking Your Attorney Twitter Strategy
It is no secret that Twitter faced a tumultuous ride during 2014. However, according to Anthony Noto, Twitter’s newly hired Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Twitter and its executive team are promising a resurgence to increase investor confidence by escalating new product development and the launch of new program features.
As the Twitter team tweaks its vision for 2015, as a practicing attorney, what Twitter tweaks are you planning for in the new year? It may be time to revisit your Twitter account or schedule a consult with your marketing manager or contracted social media marketing firm.
In the interim, the Social Media Examiner, the world’s largest online social media magazine dedicated to increasing social media awareness, offers the following suggestions for tweaking your personal Twitter profile.
