(MENAFNEditorial)
The internet and the constantly evolving technology has changed the world forever.
I am a 37 year criminal defense attorney.
When I started my practice money was tight. I was driven to maximize every dollar I spent and scrutinized every expenditure as if it were an investment.
I successfully built a $350000 annually practice primarily using print advertising mostly in the yellow pages to grow my practice. Today that strategy would never work. I look at the challenges facing professional service providers today and I have to take a moment to digest the severity of the changes that have occurred over the past few decades.
The internet and the constantly evolving technology has changed the world forever. Professional service providers now have to be “computer savvy” in addition to being subject matter experts in their chosen field.
I have spent the last two years learning all I could about internet marketing. I did this not because I needed to but because I felt the desire to share my past history and merge it with today's technology. The fact that I was not raised with the internet but am an old “warhorse” that has been through the system gives me a unique perspective. My goal is to help as many new professionals build successful practices based on my experiences and perspectives.
This will be the first of a series of articles I plan to publish on various aspects of marketing a professional services practice. Naturally I will draw from my experience in the legal market. The lessons do apply to other professions equally as well.
Lesson 1 – You have a website….now what?
Most professionals have a descent website. Mistake number one is believing that having a mediocre web site is enough to grow your practice. YOU HAVE TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE!
How? There are hundreds of ways to draw traffic to your site. Posting your web site link on social media pages is one cost effective way to spike traffic to your site.
Here is a little “trick” I learned that meets several marketing objectives to promote your website:
Write a newsworthy article. This must not be promotional. The article must be informative educational or instructional. There are marketing agencies that will take your article and add key words to help promote search activity. Once the article is complete they will launch your article into syndication. The syndication network includes:
125+ US journalists writers and content experts
1500 Top Editors in Chief
5500 Editors Nationwide
50000 + Blogger Editors
15000 + Syndication Partners
Depending on the subject matter of your article it could be picked up hundreds of times and printed or posted to blogs around the country. Every article contains your web site link. You are promoting your practice locally and nationally.
Why is this important?
1) The more active your web site is the higher your quality score. This improves your overall ranking for search results.
2) If someone does a search in your market for your services recent activity such as an article published is a new key criterion for search results. In addition the article itself may show up as a listing so you take two positions on a search results page which knocks one of your direct competitors off the page!
3) If someone reads your article they will become more familiar with you than a competitor on the page so your leads are more qualified than others. You are the “subject matter expert” in this area.
4) The article remains in syndication forever. You could have an article picked up several months after you launch it which will spike the number of visits to your site perpetually.
5) You can generate hundreds and in some cases thousands of visits to your web site for a $175 onetime fee literally pennies per visitor.
6) If you write one article per quarter you can guarantee a constant flow of visitors to your site annually. All the benefits you reap for $700 per year is the way to maximize your marketing return on investment.
This would be the equivalence of taking a quarter page advertisement out in the yellow pages from my day.
If I can be of any assistance I would welcome the opportunity!
Contact me at:
gmzlawpc@aol.com
www.marketyourlegalpractice.com
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