The clock starts, the moment a visitor sees your website for the first time…And you DON’T have minutes to hold their attention …you have seconds. 10-20 seconds to be exact.
That’s why you can’t waste a single moment to brag like a feather-weight boxer on HBO, holding nothing back about why you are THE best –and why your competition doesn’t stand a chance. If you don’t, then you could lose that potential client faster than the time it takes to post a badly written tweet.
If You Aren’t Bragging About Yourself, Then No One Will
On your website, you absolutely should be bragging! You should be talking about why you’re better than your competitors. You should be listing your strengths, your victories, detailing the best parts about your legal expertise from your accolades to the charities you support.
You want to leave absolutely no doubt that you are, in fact, the best law firm. Period. And you know it. On the other hand, If it looks like you are unsure about your own abilities as lawyer, then why should your potential clients believe in you? My point exactly.
You’ve got to be the biggest believer in yourself, before you ask the same of anyone else.
Areas To Focus On
The key is to talk about the aspects of your career and achievements that will be relevant to the wants/needs of your clients. Anything on paper that has helped you win in court will also win you a client. For instance, make sure you list things like…
- Academic performance (as far back as your undergrad)
- 3rd party industry ratings (ie. Martindale-Hubbell, SuperLawyers)
- Local and national legal associations
- Memberships within legal field
- Speaking engagements
- Non-profit and charitable work
- Anything else pertaining to your particular area of practice
Your Online Reputation: Because It Matters
An area that is often overlooked by far too many attorneys is their online reputation. Especially in this particular era of mobile devices and social media, if people didn’t originally find you on Google -they’ll Google you anyway. What are they’re looking for?
They want to see what your past clients are saying about you.
And because the web is becoming more and more integrated into our lives, it could only take a handful of unfair, unreasonable, and less-than-optimal reviews before your practice begins to feel the pinch of a dwindling client base. That’s why there are services available that can remove the tarnish and add a little polish to your web image. But here’s a quick tip, so you’ll never even need to pay for such services: it’s hard to find bad reviews when there are so many good ones out there, so ask your clients for testimonials.
Not only will this drown out the few inevitable bad ones, but it will lend you ‘social proof’, making you look positively stellar in a marketing forum that’s rapidly expanding in usage.
Better Than Your Competition? Proven.
It is true that the web and social media can destroy a perfectly good reputation. Yet at the same time, harnessing the power of the web, accumulating raving reviews, and revving your social media marketing engine can grow your practice in ways that no other medium can.
However, you need to bullhorn your site visitors with the proven facts: you are authoritatively better your competition, and you’ve proudly displayed the reasons as to why this is the case.
First, you will gain the respect and trust of your visitors, who will then become clients.
Second, your competition will soon be doing just that (if they haven’t started already).
