When prospective patients start looking for a lawyer, they want two things: a great lawyer and nearby location. When they start searching for an attorney on the web, what will they learn about you? Are you aware of what, if any, online reputation your firm has? Don’t like what you see? Look to lawyer reputation management for help!
Even though you may not be very involved in the online community, you can be certain that your competitors are. If there is negative information about your practice online, it can hurt business and give the wrong impression to prospective clients.
What Are People Saying Online about You?
Before a client sets foot in your office, they most likely will have looked for you in a search engine such as Google or Yahoo Local. According to the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of Americans say they perform research on the web for products and services. Even more significantly, 24 percent report they have written online comments or reviews about products or services they have utilized.
These numbers reaffirm what attorney marketing specialists have known for a while — online reputation management is a critical part of maintaining the health of your law firm. If you don’t know where to start, ask yourself these questions:
- When was the last time you reviewed your website’s content?
- Who, if anyone, manages your reputation on the Internet?
- How long has it been since you searched for your name and law firm on the Internet?
- What, if anything, are clients saying about you and your law firm in online review sites and forums?
Lawyer Reputation Management: Proactive Versus Reactive
Think of proactive online lawyer reputation management like having a checkup at the doctor. If you catch problems before they begin, it can make treatment and recovery a shorter, easier process.
Part of being proactive online means getting satisfied clients to give positive reviews online. Many people are willing give online reviews of products or services they are dissatisfied with. An online review program can help give your satisfied patients an incentive to take the time to give positive reviews.
If you’ve just decided to do a search for your name or your practice online, you may find negative reviews and even misinformation are already there. This is where reactive online lawyer reputation management will play a key role. It’s not too late to reverse the negative effects this will have on your practice.
How We Can Help Your Law Firm
The Internet is a constantly evolving forum for anyone and everyone who has access. Unfortunately, there are people who would use it unethically to out-do their competitors, and those who would take out their frustrations on you or your firm for circumstances beyond your control.
Our lawyer marketing team has a proven history of helping attorneys and law firm practices build and reinvent online reputations.
Our Lawyer Reputation Management Services Include:
- Completely enhance local directory listings with positive, keyword rich content.
- Start review programs — Provide incentives to clients to give positive reviews on Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Avvo.com, etc.
- Market positive content that specifically targets attorney’s name and practice names.
- Report and try to remove negative web content or bad reviews that are spammy.
If you have existing negative reviews on the web, increasing the number of recent, positive reviews will lessen the effect of any older, bad reviews. Promoting positive content for your name will drop negative content down in search engine rankings and, in time, render them ineffective.
