Category : Law

By OppGen

How to Generate More Personal Injury Leads for Your Law Firm

Personal injury is an area of law that is always going to be needed. As long as there are people, there are going to be accidents and injuries — and there are a lot of them. In 2019, nearly 4.4 million people were seriously injured in motor vehicle accidents. And that’s just car accidents. Take slip and fall accidents, the leading cause of workers’ compensation cases, which account for over 1 million emergency room visits.

These millions of accidents that occur every year could easily become personal injury cases. There are many PI cases every day in your own city, but if your firm does not have a strong digital presence, they will be missed opportunities.

Investing in personal injury lead generation can help these potential clients find legal assistance and even get your law firm more cases.

Personal injury lead generation is one of OppGen Marketing’s specialty areas. Learn more about our PI lead gen program by contacting us today.

 

Why Should I Invest in Personal Injury Lead Generation?

Investing in personal injury lead generation can help bring in a steady stream of cases to your law firm. But not all lead generation channels and companies are equal.

Examples of lead generation channels include:

• TV commercials
• Radio ads
• Billboards
• Print advertisements (i.e., newspaper ads)
• Digital marketing

 

How Can I Generate More Personal Injury Leads?

While there are many different ways to generate leads, the most effective and affordable way is through digital marketing.

The following items are often part of digital lead generation programs, including OppGen’s very own personal injury lead generation program. If you’re interested in our personal injury lead generation program, contact us for more information.

 

Having a Landing Page

Most digital lead generation programs require you to have a landing page. Landing pages are web pages created with the intent to have a lead convert. A conversion is the desired action and therefore depends on what your goal is.

For example, a conversion for a website like Amazon would be making a sale. In the case of a personal injury lead, the conversion is probably having the lead contact you, either over the phone or through a contact form built into the landing page.

Landing pages should be streamlined and built around the conversion goal. OppGen landing pages are built using industry best practices and extensive, ongoing conversion rate testing. We’ll continue to optimize landing pages and websites to ensure you’re getting the best possible conversion rates.

 

Tracking Leads

We’ve found that some of our personal injury law clients’ previous marketing agencies failed to properly track leads, which does nothing to help a lead generation campaign. Lead tracking is important because it helps us gather data on leads: the path(s) leads take before converting, demographic data, search history, and more.

This data can help determine where personal injury lead generation campaigns are seeing the most success, which areas need to be cut or changed, and who your best leads are, and which leads are more likely to become your best clients.

Because we recognize the importance of this data and know how to use it to your law firm’s best advantage, all OppGen websites and landing pages have end-to-end lead tracking click attribution. Contact us to learn more about our website and landing page design program.

 

Creating Pay-Per-Click Advertisements on Search Engines

Paid search ads are advertisements placed on search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. These ads are highly targeted and efficient because they are only shown to leads searching for specific words or phrases you decide to use. These prospects are also more likely to convert; they’re already seeking legal counsel and advice, and at this point in the marketing funnel, are deciding where they should go for that service.

They also incur a charge only when a lead clicks on an ad, which is why these ads are often referred to as pay-per-click (PPC). Using a keyword bidding system, you determine the cost per click (CPC). However, the cost per click also determines where your ad will be located. These ads are typically placed at the top or bottom of search engine result pages (SERPs). The best location is at the top of the first page.

PPC does have its drawbacks, though, especially with personal injury law. In general, the legal industry has some of the highest CPCs and is very competitive. When looking within the legal industry’s specific areas of law, personal injury law happens to be the most expensive area.

For personal injury law firms that do not have the biggest marketing budget or smaller PI firms, there are other more affordable channels for generating personal injury leads.

OppGen can recommend more affordable channels as well as strategies that can lower CPC. Contact us to learn more.

 

Investing Time and Effort in SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is an organic (which, in this context, simply means unpaid) lead generation strategy that involves getting your website to rank higher on SERPs and get more traffic and, potentially, more personal injury leads.

SEO has 4 main components:

1. Technical SEO: A fast website optimized for mobile device and other potential technical issues
2. Local SEO: Listings on Google My Business, Bing Places for Businesses, Yelp, and relevant personal law firm directories 
3. On-page SEO: High quality and authoritative content (i.e., blogs, podcasts, videos, and/or a combination of all of these)
4. Off-page SEO: Link building, social media shares, and 5-star reviews

Your law firm has the most control over local and on-page SEO. The main goal behind local SEO is to be found locally, and the best way to do that is to create accounts on Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, Yelp, and be listed on law firm and legal directories. All of these accounts and listings should include your personal injury law firm’s name, address, and phone number so it can be easy to find and easy to contact.

On-page SEO is about creating original, high quality, and authoritative content centered around search keywords you want to rank for. Content can mean a lot of things these days, but for the sake of simplicity, here it refers to blogs, podcasts, and videos.

Like with PPC, some keywords and phrases are more competitive to rank high for than others (in the case of PPC, that difficulty also stems from CPC). But you won’t know which ones are more difficult or challenging without assistance from an outside source like Ahrefs, which is still daunting to use and understand without the help of experts.

Unlike PPC, SEO is not a fast strategy with quick results. It takes time and effort to start seeing organic leads generated through your efforts.

But that doesn’t mean you should give up on SEO entirely. SEO is about making websites and content better, and that’s a good thing for all parties involved. 

SEO is absolutely worth the time and effort, even though it may not feel like it right away.

 

Using Facebook Ads

Due to the high CPC personal injury law faces on search engine ads, we highly recommend using a social media advertising platform like Facebook Ads.

Facebook Ads are more affordable compared to PPC ads and also have more specific audience targeting options. Not everyone who uses a search engine has an account (i.e., Google’s Gmail), and most search engines that have account options don’t have the most in-depth information on users, save for their sex, and geographic location.

Facebook users can give a lot more information based on their interests. For example, a user who likes the official Yamaha and Harley Davidson pages and is part of motorcycle groups on Facebook will likely be a better personal injury lead for law firms that specialize in motorcycle accidents.

 

Retargeting Personal Injury Leads

The lead journey is not as straightforward as a lead clicking an ad or link, going to the landing page, and filling out the contact form or contacting you via email or phone call for a consultation. There may be several times when a lead encounters an ad but doesn’t click on it. Realistically, they will probably see your ad or listing multiple times before deciding on contacting you.

They may even go to your landing page but leave the page without filling out the contact form. When this happens, you can utilize a strategy called retargeting (or remarketing).

Retargeting usually involves display ads, a type of visual search ad that is placed on relevant websites, that serve as little reminders for the lead to go back and fill out the contact form.

Chances are, you’ve probably been retargeted, too. For example, if you’ve ever left items in an online shopping cart, you’ve probably seen ads with those items on other websites you’re visiting. The goal of those ads is to get you to go back and finish the online checkout process.

 

Start Generating More Personal Injury Leads

If you want to start seeing a steady stream of new cases, it’s time to start creating a personal injury lead generation strategy. At OppGen, we can help personal injury leads find your law firm using a customized program that works best for your firm. No two lead generation strategies are the same because no law firm is the same.

We can help you generate more personal injury leads, so don’t wait around. Contact us today for more information.

By OppGen

How to Create Successful Facebook Ads for Personal Injury Law Firms

The cost of pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns vary from industry to industry, and unfortunately, legal advertising is the most expensive industry for PPC search advertising. Worse yet, personal injury law is perhaps the most expensive subcategory in PPC legal advertising.

For personal injury law firms that are on tighter budgets, this might mean search ads may not be the best option for digital marketing. But there are other, more affordable options.

One of the best affordable options for advertising your personal injury law firm is to go down the social media ad route. More specifically, utilizing Facebook Ads.

Before you can start a Facebook Ad campaign, you’ll have to create a business page for your law firm.

This blog will go into detail on how to set up a Facebook business page and how to create a successful Facebook advertising campaign. But if you don’t have time to delve into the details, we encourage you to contact us.

 

How to Set Up Your Personal Injury Law Firm’s Facebook Page

Having a Facebook business page can help you share valuable content, and best of all, it’s free. It’s also required if you’re running an ad campaign on Facebook.

Setting up a Facebook page for your PI law firm is a simple process. Start by logging into your personal Facebook account — and don’t panic; your personal Facebook profile’s information will not be visible on your business page.

Get started by going to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create. There, you will be presented with three empty boxes:

 

1. Type in Your Page Name

Your page name is simply the name of your business, so type in your law firm’s name. Facebook requires grammatically correct capitalization for business page names, so an all-caps name is not allowed (though acronyms are perfectly fine). It also should not include your law firm’s slogan, variation of the word “Facebook,” unnecessary punctuation, or symbols (i.e., ™, ©, ®). 

Page names also can’t be generic words or generic geographic locations on their own. The example name in the above image would probably be rejected because “PI Law” is likely considered generic; however if it were changed to “Columbus PI Law,” it may be accepted because it is now more specific to a location. But “Columbus” on its own would also be rejected because generic location names are not allowed to have pages with managers.

 

2. Select Your Business Category

The category describes the kind of business you have and can be selected from a drop-down list. Start typing “Legal” and you’ll see “Legal” and “Legal Service” appear on the list.

You can select up to three category options. For example, you can choose Personal Injury Lawyer, Legal, and Legal Service as your business categories for your personal injury law firm.

 

3. Write a Description

Unlike the last two text boxes, the description is not required; however, you should still fill it out with a brief description of what it is your business does. There is a limit of 255 characters for the description.

Then, click the “create page” button at the bottom of the screen. You cannot click on it until you’ve filled out the first two boxes. When it can be clicked on, it will change color from gray to blue.

 

4. Choose Images

You’ll want at least two images: a profile picture and a cover photo. Be sure to test the cover photo on different devices (desktop, mobile phone, iPad) to ensure it doesn’t crop weirdly.

The profile picture can be your personal injury law firm’s logo — something that’s representative of your law firm and its brand.

The dimensions for each type of photo are (in pixels):

• Profile picture: 170×170 on computers; 128×128 on smartphones
• Cover photo: 820×312 on computers; 640×360 on smartphones; minimum dimensions are 400×150. 

For profile pictures and cover photos that include a logo or text, Facebook recommends using a PNG file.

 

5. Add Contact and Business Information

Next up, you’ll want to add your contact information, including your law firm’s address, phone number, and email address. Feel free to include your business hours, too.

Make sure all of this information is correct; having incorrect contact information or the wrong address does not do your firm or prospective clients any favors.

 

6. Publish Your Facebook Business Page

Just because you created your Facebook business page does not mean everyone can see it. You’ll have to publish your page so the public can see it.

If you want to add or change anything later on after publishing your page, you can do so by managing your Page Settings.

In the meantime, you are ready to start your personal injury law firm’s Facebook advertising campaign.

 

Creating the Perfect Facebook Ads for Your Personal Injury Law Firm

Decide on Your Objective

In order to have a successful Facebook ad campaign, you need to set an objective — a goal with a particular outcome in mind. Facebook Ads has a list of different kinds of objectives, which will determine who will see the ads to some extent.

The following objectives are the most relevant to a personal injury law firm Facebook ad campaign:

• Brand awareness: This objective option shows ads to people who are most likely to pay attention to them.
• Reach: This objective balances your budget while reaching as many people as possible in your audience. 
• Engagement: This objective focuses on getting more people to follow your page or engage with your page’s posts. Comments, likes, and shares are the main types of engagement on Facebook.
• Traffic: This objective’s goal is to increase the number of people visiting your website.
• Lead generation: This objective is about progressively nurturing prospective clients to contact you to take their personal injury case.

 

Select Your Audience

Facebook Ads has some of the best audience targeting tools and is far more accurate than search ads. Search ads are great for finding prospects who are searching for your services, but they don’t exactly target specific audiences.

Facebook’s audience targeting tools includes the following targeting options:

 

Location

Both search ads and Facebook ads target audiences based on location, which ensures your ads are going to be seen by people in your neighborhood. 

 

Sex

While needing a personal injury lawyer isn’t a gender-specific trait, you may find that men or women respond better to one of your Facebook ads than others. You can then target that ad and have it pushed toward a more responsive audience.

 

Age

Age-based targeting may be more effective for some areas of personal injury law than others. For example, personal injury law firms that have worked in senior home abuse cases may find this targeting option more useful than a workers’ compensation attorney.

 

Job title

Some jobs are more inherently dangerous or risky than others and are more likely to result in accidents and workers’ comp cases. Truckers may also be at greater risk for accidents than those holding other occupations. You can use Facebook’s ad targeting tools to your advantage and find people who work in these types of jobs.

 

Interest

Interest-based targeting may be one of the most useful tools for personal injury lawyers. Suppose your practice specializes in motorcycle accident cases. A prospect who enjoys motorcycling may follow motorcycle companies like Harley Davidson and Yamaha on their Facebook account.

Interest-based targeting will push your personal injury law firm’s relevant ads to this Facebook user.

 

Behavior

Behavior-based targeting uses information like a prospect’s prior purchases and device usage to determine which ads to show them (i.e., if they use their smartphone during a certain time of the day, then they’ll see the mobile version of the ad during those times).

 

Lookalike Audiences

The lookalike audience targeting tool is one of our favorite options. You simply take the demographics and psychographics of your best clients, and Facebook will push ads to new people who have similar features to those clients.

 

Choose Your Ad Format and Location

For some people, asking whether content or design should come first is like asking if the chicken or the egg comes first. Some people say content (in the context of a Facebook ad, the text) and others say design (ad format and location).

Regardless of your answer, both content and design are important when designing ads for your Facebook campaign. But if you’re new to Facebook ads, we suggest starting with the design aspect because each kind of ad and location have different character limits.

In terms of locations, Facebook ads have a lot of options, which the Facebook Ads Manager platform refers to as placements. Facebook ads can be placed in the following locations on either mobile or desktop browsers:

• Facebook newsfeed
• Facebook Marketplace
• Video feeds
• Right column (desktop only)
• Facebook Messenger inbox
• Instagram feed
• Instagram Explore

And there are also mobile-only ad options, too:

• Facebook Stories
• Instagram Stories
• Messenger Stories
• In-stream videos
• Facebook search results
• Facebook Instant Experience articles/ads
• External apps

Ad placements affect quite a few things other than the character limit, too; photos for certain ads will likely be resized on a different device. Some placements cost more and less than others. If you’re not sure which placement is best, Facebook does offer an automatic placement option that delivers ads to the right people on your allotted budget.

However, it’s worth considering working with a marketing agency that specializes in creating Facebook and other social media ads for lawyers and knows which placements are best, rather than sticking with automatic placements. 

It may also be well worth your time and budget to work with an agency to design Facebook ads for your personal injury law firm. Facebook ads rely on some degree of creative work with images and video, depending on the ad format you select. Plus, experienced marketing agencies know the rules of advertising on Facebook and are less likely to have their ad rejected on the first submission.

Here’s a quick rundown of Facebook ad formats:

 

Single Image Ads

Single image ads use a single image. The expression “a picture is worth a thousand words” is pretty accurate here. Because you’re allowed to use one image, make sure it’s one that is powerful and high quality. To add an extra level of interactiveness, take a 360-degree picture.

Copy is also important here, too, but remember, it’s the image that will grab people’s attention.

 

Carousel Ads

Carousel ads are similar to single image ads except they are essentially a slideshow of up to 10 single, smaller images or videos in an ad. Each slide can have a different link and text below. 

Carousel ads can be used to tell a story in each frame or share multiple client testimonials in one single advertisement. Another option is to use a single image and divide it into different slides.

 

Video Ads

Video ads on Facebook typically run up to 15 seconds long, but they can run much longer than that. But if you’re going to go with the 15-second video ad, you’ll have to grab viewers’ attention with a strong pitch. Quality is a must here, too, so be sure to have a good editing program on hand. Or, have them professionally filmed, edited, and produced.

Like single image ads, video ads also have the interactive 360-degree option.

If you don’t have the budget for a high-quality ad, that’s OK. Facebook also allows video ads that use static images rather than video footage.

 

Instant Experience Ads

Instant Experience ads are only used on mobile devices, in which it opens to a full-screen view, which allows prospects to browse images and products, watch a video, fill out a form, or a combination of these.

Facebook has pre-designed templates for Instant Experience ads, which makes it accessible to just about anyone.

The big thing with Instant Experience ads is to have a really powerful pitch to bring prospects into the ad. This means you need to give them a really good reason to click on the ad.

 

Write Ad Copy

Copy is required for just about every Facebook ad, and each ad has a few different areas where you’ll have to have text. Each ad format also has different specifications regarding character limits, so pay close attention when creating copy for an ad.

The most important part about writing ad copy is including something of value and a clear call to action, or CTA. CTA is so important that one of the text boxes on a Facebook ad is called a CTA button. CTA buttons can be customized, so you do not have to stay with what it originally was. It’s actually better to change it so it fits your goal.

 

Set Your Budget

Facebook Ads, like Google and Bing Ads, relies on you to set a budget, which is the total amount you’re willing to spend. You can decide if you want this amount to be determined on a daily basis or over the lifetime of the ad campaign. You can change your budget at any given time, and you’ll never go over the budget you set.

Depending on your objective, you’ll only have to pay whenever an action is taken that meets your objective. For example, if your objective is based on expanding your personal injury law firm’s overall reach, then you’ll be charged whenever someone sees an ad (this includes someone scrolling past it). Or if you’re trying to convert more clients through a lead generation strategy, then you’ll pay per click.

Also similar to paid search ads, you’ll also have to bid on your ad.

It’s a lot, we know. Luckily, OppGen can handle all of this for you — and more. Click here to learn more.

 

Go to the Facebook Ad Auction

You won’t actually have to go or be present for an ad auction. Facebook’s ad auction is used to determine the best ad to show to a user at a certain point in time. This means your ad will be competing with other advertisers who are targeting people in the same audience your personal injury law firm is.

The ad with the highest total value will win. There are 3 factors that determine an ad’s total value:

• Bid: This factor takes into account how much you were willing to pay for an ad’s placement.
• Estimated action rates: This factor is based on an estimate of whether or not someone will engage or convert from an ad. The more likely someone is to convert on an ad, the better.
• Ad quality: This is why having a professional that knows Facebook’s ad platform creates your ad really makes a difference. The quality of an ad is determined by viewers’ feedback and assessment of anything that might make the ad considered low-quality (i.e., clickbait, not sharing all information available, exaggerated claims, etc.).

That said, not all ad auction winners will win based on how much money an advertiser bids; sometimes, having higher quality ads will beat out the highest bidder.

 

Publish Your Personal Injury Facebook Ad

Once your Facebook ad has gone through this process and has been approved, you can go ahead and publish a Facebook ad for your personal injury law firm. But the journey of publishing an ad doesn’t end there.

 

Track and Tweak Your Ad’s Performance

Facebook gives you the ability to track your ad’s performance in terms of engagement, impressions, and more. If your ad isn’t performing as well as you’d hoped, you can edit it.

 

Contact Us for More Tips About Facebook Ads for Personal Injury Law firms

For more ideas on how to create successful Facebook ads for personal injury law firms like yours, contact us today, or fill out our free digital audit. Our digital audit can help give you a better idea of where your personal injury law firm needs to improve its digital presence and how we can help you do just that.

By OppGen

Why Your Firm Should Be on Personal Injury Attorney Directories

Personal injury attorneys need clients to keep their law firm in business. Making sure your law firm is easily found online and offline helps both your clients and your firm. 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine and 74% of those prospects end up contacting a law firm over the phone.

One of the best ways to help prospects find your law firm online and make that phone call is to invest in an SEO strategy that includes getting added to personal injury attorney directories. This can boost your personal injury law firm’s digital presence and visibility while also increasing credibility, and OppGen can help do just that. Contact us for more information.

 

How Personal Injury Directories Help With SEO

SEO is an acronym that stands for Search Engine Optimization, a strategic, organic (unpaid) process of optimizing your website and its content in a way that makes search engines like Google or Bing rank it higher for certain keywords. A higher position is a better position, particularly if it’s on the first page, where it’s more likely a prospective client will click on your website.

Websites optimized for SEO run well and quickly on mobile devices, include in-depth content that helps site visitors and is linked back to by other websites (referred to as backlinks).

The process of getting more backlinks, known as link-building, takes a good portion of time, especially because it depends on other people to link back to your firm’s website.

One of the simplest link-building strategies is to ensure your law firm is included in personal injury attorney directories and local online directories. Not only does being in personal injury attorney directories increase your law firm’s visibility, but it also tells search engines that your website is credible because it’s listed in these directories.

As a result of that information, search engines will push your website up higher in the search results pages for relevant keyword searches.

To learn more about OppGen Marketing’s SEO program, contact us today.

 

National Personal Injury Attorney Directories

Even if your law firm’s website doesn’t show up on page 1 of a relevant Google search, it may show up on a personal injury attorney directory, where people are already looking for an attorney and are probably close to selecting the attorney who will represent their case.

Having a profile on these types of directories also increases prospects’ trust in your personal injury law firm, making them more likely to select you over a competitor who is not listed on relevant legal directories.

The following personal injury attorney directories are used all over the United States but narrow down results based on state and sometimes county and metro area locations.

 

Enjuris

Enjuris is a law firm directory that specializes in personal injury law. It goes beyond the scope of being just a directory; Enjuris offers legal advice and explains issues in a way most people can understand.

Because Enjuris is specific to personal injury law, it has a lot of information about the subcategories of personal injury law, such as car accidents, workplace injuries, and even nursing home abuse.

Providing educational information to prospective clients can help them determine whether or not they have a case that can win a lawsuit or result in a settlement.

In order to be added to Enjuris’s personal injury attorney directory, your firm must adhere to its requirements:

• Your law firm must practice personal injury law in some capacity
• If your firm’s primary practice area is not personal injury, you will have to prove how you serve injured clients
• Your law firm must have a U.S. address
• Listings must be submitted directly by your law firm or marketing representatives
• Your law firm website must contain unique content, be available for users at all times, not be under construction, and support multiple web browsers and capabilities
• If your law firm website is accepted, you will be charged on a recurring schedule based on the payment plan you chose

Enjuris editors have the sole and final discretion regarding your law firm website’s listing, placement, and content, and there is no guarantee your law firm will be approved and accepted into the directory.

The fact that Enjuris requires a membership payment may be a deterrent for some personal injury law firms, but that narrows down the number of competitors who appear on Enjuris’s personal injury attorney directory.

 

Lawyer Legion

Lawyer Legion’s personal injury attorney directory page goes into a great amount of detail about personal injury law that can educate prospective clients and potentially weed out cases that may be better served under a different area of law.

Lawyer Legion provides basic information about personal injury claims, including the elements of a personal injury claim and what must be proved in order for there to be a case; specific types of personal injury cases (i.e., medical malpractice, motor vehicle accidents, mass torts, etc.).

Lawyer Legion can help prospective clients find PI law firms that specialize in highly specialized areas of personal injury such as brain or spinal cord injury, which may make it one of the best directory options for more specialized personal injury law firms.

Lawyer Legion’s directory listing application process is done in 3 simple steps:

1. Undergoing a duplicate profile check
2. Submitting information about you and your personal injury law firm
3. Verifying your identity

Once your information has been verified by Lawyer Legion, your listing will be made public. 

Unlike Enjuris, Lawyer Legion’s directory listing is free.

 

Justia

Justia combines some of the best qualities of Enjuris and Lawyer Legion in terms of personal injury attorney directory and educational content, respectively. Even though Justia doesn’t specialize in personal injury law like Enjuris does, Justia does have an extensive list of Frequently Asked Questions/FAQs and a list of related topics and practice areas. It also does a great job going in more depth about the types of compensation a client can expect if they win a personal injury case.

Having a Justia directory listing can do more for your personal injury law firm than just having a listing. Its platform lets you interact with prospective clients and list your experience, fees, education, practice areas, and more, all in one place. Think of it as a LinkedIn for lawyers.

To be listed in Justia’s directory (which also creates a profile for the Legal Information Institute/LII, another legal directory), all you have to do is create a profile. Justia is free to use.

 

Martindale-Hubbell

Martindale-Hubbell, usually referred to as Martindale for short, is similar to Justia in that it’s also a networking website for lawyers on top of being a legal directory. It has a list of law school alumni and a massive database of articles from fellow attorneys.

Martindale even has a section for its newest law firms and attorneys, so that can definitely help your law firm stand out for those seeking personal injury services for as long as your profile is considered to be new.

Due to its focus on connecting lawyers around the globe, Martindale is an excellent site to have a profile in the event a lawyer needs to refer a client to another expert. Plus, having a profile on Martindale also gets you professional profiles on Lawyers.com and Nolo.com, two websites known for their in-depth information that helps prospects research their legal options.

Martindale’s peer review ratings and client ratings have been around since 1896 (with the company itself opening in 1868, over 150 years ago), which makes the company’s ratings a trustworthy staple for both lawyers and their clients.

For best results, Martindale-Hubbell offers a subscription-based profile that helps prospects find lawyers based on their firm’s name and their specific practice areas on both Lawyers.com and Marindale.com. These profiles also list law firm contact information, whereas nonsubscriber profiles do not. 

Given the reach and visibility, you’ll find from Lawyers and Nolo, it’s probably worth the subscription price, which will vary based on certain factors. The best way to find out how much a subscription would be for your personal injury law firm would be to get a quote.

 

Avvo

Avvo, which is actually part of the Martindale brand, gives its users two main levels of options for directory profiles:

• Avvo profile: This option is the most basic one, but it’s free and gets the job done. The basic Avvo profile allows users to upload their headshot, include contact information, select a practice area, fill out their resume, request peer endorsements, and request reviews from clients.
• Avvo Advanced: While the basic Avvo profile covers many of the basics most directories should have, Avvo Advanced profiles allow you to have a more in-depth profile that includes a carousel with featuring awards you’ve earned and answer questions from clients, which can help you get more personal injury leads. You can even allow prospects to book a consultation on your digital calendar. Most importantly, Avvo Advanced profiles give you a better position when prospects search for a personal injury attorney and don’t have ads for competing attorneys on your profile.

In our opinion, the basic Avvo profile should work just fine because it covers the basics a directory should cover, plus a few extra features.

 

FindLaw

FindLaw lives up to its name because its main goal is to connect prospective clients with lawyers. It is part of a network of legal directories that includes Super Lawyers, Law Info, and a Spanish directory, Abogado.

As a result of its main goal, FindLaw’s personal injury attorney directory page does not include informational resources, though it does have outbound links to relevant resources for both consumers and attorneys.

However, FindLaw does offer good advice on how to select a lawyer based on a client’s comfort level, the lawyer’s credentials, the expense, and law firm location. 

FindLaw’s directory listings start at $158 a month, but given that the website has 11 million users and hosts 2 million monthly visitors seeking legal assistance, that price may be worth it. Especially when you take into account that it’s part of a massive legal directory network.

 

Super Lawyers

Super Lawyers is part of the FindLaw legal directory network that helps prospects find the top-rated attorneys and law firms in over 70 different practice areas. 

Getting a Super Lawyers profile is more intensive and far more competitive than the other options, which is exactly why you should always strive to do the best you can with your clients and peers.

Super Lawyers are selected each year using a patented process involving a combination of different types of nominations (surveys, peer nomination, third-party feedback, Super Lawyers research team recognition); independent research, and peer evaluation based on what the research found in 12 different areas:

1. Verdicts and settlements
2. Transactions
3. Clients represented
4. Experience
5. Honors and awards
6. Special certifications and licenses
7. Position within the law firm
8. Bar and professional activities
9. Pro bono and community service
10. Scholarly lectures and writings
11. Education and employment
12. Other achievements

Only 5% of attorneys are selected as Super Lawyers, making it a very prestigious title and listing to go along with it, which only gives you and your personal injury law firm a massive boost in credibility to future clients.

 

Local Directories

These directories may not be as specific to personal injury law (or law in general) as the others mentioned are, but they’re still very important to local SEO.

Local SEO uses your personal injury law firm’s location, website, and contact information that makes it more likely to appear in local searches. Search engines use searchers’ physical locations when they search for certain businesses or services, and the nearest relevant businesses often show up higher on the results pages.

When multiple websites and directories include your law firm’s location, website, and contact information, it reinforces to search engines that you are close by, and will rank higher as a result.

Besides, it is always a good idea to be easy to find on a local level: 72% of people looking for a lawyer think it’s important to have a local attorney.

 

Google My Business

Creating a Google My Business account can put your personal injury law firm on the map — Google Maps, to be precise. Google My Business also lets you update your law firm’s location and hours, should they ever change, and even share business-related updates.

Google My Business makes it easy for people to leave reviews and testimonials. Search engines take five- and four-star ratings into account, too, when ranking relevant websites, which encourages businesses to provide the best service possible.

 

Bing Places for Business

Bing Places for Business is basically the Microsoft search engine’s equivalent to Google My Business. The process for getting your listing approved is similar to Google My Business, too, as it requires your law firm’s name, address, contact information at the very least. You can add photos of your business and include the hours of operation, too. From there, you’ll have to verify your listing.

Even though Bing may not be used as much as Google is, there are still benefits to using it. Bing can reach prospective clients in places Google can’t, and the people who use Bing tend to be older and have more funds than Google users.

 

Yelp

Like Google My Business, Yelp makes leaving reviews and responding to reviews a simple process. Plus, it adds one more place for your business to be found and can help improve your position in relevant searches.

 

Yellow Pages

The Yellow Pages have gone digital, making it easier than ever to be included in the local business directory. Just like Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, and Yelp, Yellow Pages’ listings are free.

 

Contact Us for More Information

Being added to personal injury attorney directories and local directories boosts your visibility, increases your credibility, and instills trust in prospective clients.

Visibility, credibility, and trust, when combined, create a recipe for successfully finding more clients and cases.

At OppGen, we have perfected this recipe for personal injury law firms who have seen more leads and gotten more cases as a result.

If your personal injury law firm is seeking more cases and/or needs a digital marketing strategy, contact us today for more information and advice.

By OppGen

Online Marketing for Law Firms: 6 Tips for Success

If you want your law firm to continue to grow and succeed, it needs to succeed in marketing itself digitally. This means your law firm needs to look as professional online as it does in person. Any disconnect between your law firm’s branding, design, and messaging at any level will deter prospective clients, so it’s important that your digital presence is just as professional and consistent as it is in your law firm’s physical office space.

To ensure that your law firm’s digital marketing strategy is helping it succeed, consider the following tips — or contacting OppGen for a free consultation.

 

1. Keep Your Law Firm’s Website Optimized

If your website is slow and doesn’t work smoothly on mobile devices, search engines will recognize that and push you down on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for keywords related to your law firm. Not only that, but slow, non-mobile-friendly websites hurt your overall accessibility with prospects, as do sites that are difficult to navigate. 

Your website should have a simple design with a navigation bar featuring the following items:

• Home page
• Practice areas
• Testimonials
• Blog
• About
• Contact and location information

Depending on what your law firm specializes in, the practice areas page may have a drop-down list. These items keep your site organized and easy to navigate. If it’s easy for prospects to navigate, it’s going to be even easier for search engines to crawl when reviewing your law firm’s website and determining its SERPs rank.

 

2. Write, Record, and Share Legal Advice on Your Website’s Blog

A large part of lawyers’ job is to give legal advice — and good legal advice at that. Rather than charge a prospective client for asking for advice, consider writing a blog for prospects about your areas of practice. This can be a wide variety of things, like how to prepare for a small claims court case (even though most lawyers are not involved in small claims court cases); what to do in an accident; how to determine if you’ve been discriminated against in the workplace; and so on.

If your blog’s legal advice helps someone, chances are they will remember that and recommend your firm as a resource. Or if they ever experience future legal trouble, they may reach out to you for legal representation. Word of mouth marketing goes a long way.

Writing isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but thankfully there are other ways to create content for your website. You can create videos, upload them to YouTube, and embed them on your website.

 Same goes for podcasts (though you’re more likely to upload it to Apple’s iTunes store or another podcast hosting platform, like Stitcher or Spotify, instead of YouTube). If you’re able to create blogs using multiple components of media (i.e., a blog post summarizing or transcribing a podcast), that’s even better. Making your content accessible to as many people as possible is always a good thing, and search engines will take notice of that.

Accessibility is a major consideration in OppGen’s website design strategy. Contact us to learn more. 

 

3. Think Locally

Since search engines take into account a user’s physical location when they search for businesses and services, the nearest locations are the ones that will show up first on the search results page. That’s why it’s imperative to create a Google My Business account for your law firm and ensure your location (address) and contact information is accurate and up to date.

Don’t stop at just Google My Business, either; make sure that information is available on Yelp, Yellow Pages, and other relevant business and legal directories.

When writing blog posts, try to include your law firm’s location in the blog title and body, or mention it in your podcast or video’s title and description. Narrowing down your location can be very useful, particularly in cases where laws may differ from state to state. That will save both you and prospects time when deciding whether or not there is a case worth taking to court.

 

4. Request Reviews and Testimonials

Once your Google My Business page and website begin to move up higher in the search results on Google, you’ll want to make sure you have reviews. More four- and five-star reviews can push you up in the rankings but they also instill trust in prospects who are deciding whether or not to contact your law firm for legal representation.

Same goes for testimonials, which should be updated on your website. Testimonials can be powerful marketing tools, as they tell a story of how you really helped a client out when they needed it.

So when you’ve won a case or helped a client settle a claim, be sure to ask them for a testimonial and/or review. You can also encourage former clients to write a testimonial with a contest, such as a raffle or drawing for every client who has written a testimonial or review for your law firm. The prize doesn’t have to be extravagant — it could be something as simple as a gift card to a local business.

Contact OppGen for more ideas on how to request reviews.

 

5. Create Social Media Accounts on Relevant Platforms

Social media is a great platform for reaching out to prospects and to current clients, especially when you take advertising options into consideration. But you shouldn’t create social media accounts for every single platform. While TikTok is all the rage with Generation Z and younger Millennials, it’s probably not the best place to market to clients who need legal representation.

On the other hand, if you’re a bankruptcy lawyer or business attorney, LinkedIn might be one of the best platforms to market your law firm’s services, especially because you can create ads and have them targeted to people in specific companies and certain positions.

As a general rule of thumb, Facebook and Instagram are safe choices for marketing most law firms, given their wide swaths of users from different backgrounds, as well as their highly targeted audience targeting tools.

 

6. Hire Digital Marketing Experts

Sometimes, it’s best to refer a prospective client to a law firm that specializes in a different practice area. Similarly, it may be best to reach out to a digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for law firms. 

OppGen has worked with law firms in different practice areas to ensure their digital presence best represents the work they do. We’ve created websites and landing pages that feature our proprietary tracking system that shows where a lead came from and how valuable the channel they came through is.

To discover where your law firm’s online marketing strategy can improve, fill out our free digital audit today, or contact us for more information.