Whether you are a solo practitioner or a larger law firm, the internet can be a great source of new leads. If your website isn’t bringing in the business you want, here is a 3-step approach to attracting more clients.

Step 1: Create a lead generating website.

Having a nicely designed website isn’t enough to generate leads. A clean design with easy-to-use navigation is a good start, but the vast majority of people who visit your website won’t yet be ready to hire you, so putting a system in place to capture the prospect’s information and get permission to follow up is key.

The best way to capture leads from interested prospects is to offer something of value in exchange for their name and email address. Some great ways to capture your prospect’s information include: offering a free report or e-book, holding an event (either a live seminar or a teleseminar/webinar delivered over the web), or giving away a physical product like a CD/DVD.

Step 2: Create a follow up strategy with prospects to nurture leads.

It can take upwards of 7-10 contacts with prospects before they are ready to do business with you, so having a keep in touch strategy in place is crucial.

A great way to position yourself as a specialist in your primary practice area is to start a firm newsletter for your prospects. A newsletter doesn’t have to be a lot of work. Simply write one article around 500-750 words each month and send it out via an email service like Aweber or Infusionsoft. In the newsletter, you can also include any recent cases you’ve won, client case studies (if your ethics board allows that), and other firm news.

Step 3: Drive traffic to your website.

Unfortunately, just because you build a website doesn’t mean people will easily be able to find it, so it’s important to have a strategy in place to drive traffic to your website. Some ways to drive traffic to your website include:

1. Optimize your website for search engines - Use a service like SEOBook’s Keyword Research Tool to do some keyword research on what keywords prospects are using to search for your website. Then, make sure those keywords are included in your website’s title tags, headers, and copy. Don’t go overboard with the keywords or search engines might see your site as spam, but make sure the keywords you want to be found for are actually on your website somewhere. For more information on search engine optimization, check out my podcast on Introduction to Search Engine Optimization.
2. Create educational content worthy of links - If you want to be found in Google’s “organic” listings, you’ll need to get other high-quality websites to link back to your site. Ask partner organizations and trade groups if they’d be willing to exchange links with you. Another way to get links is to create content that people would be willing to link to. Start a blog and post about the latest news in your industry. Or create an educational section of your website devoted to your main practice area with great articles and resources. Then, get the word out about these sections with press releases, article marketing and social media. Check out my podcast on marketing your website with social media for how to do this.
3. Start a pay-per-click campaign - One of the quickest ways to drive traffic to your website is through Google Adwords. With pay-per-click advertising, you bid on keywords that your prospects search for. Then, you create short ads that show up on the right side of the page in the Google search results. You only pay when people click on your ad. You can set up an ad campaign in less than five minutes to generate traffic immediately.

By implementing these three steps, you’ll transform your website into a powerful lead generating tool that continually brings in new business for your law firm.

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