4 Things to Think About When Selecting an Online Marketing Firm

So your firm has a website, but now you're thinking about how to get the site noticed. Maybe you're even thinking about your web presence beyond your site. If you're thinking it's time to find an online marketing partner to help you handle all this, there are a few things you'll want to consider. Here are four questions you might want to ask as you consider your online marketing strategy.

1. How will you develop content on your firm's site?
Search engine algorithms usually put a lot of weight on whether a website contains new and original content. The more new content that goes up, the better your site's ranking in search results is likely to be. So you will want to have a plan to add new and relevant content -- blog posts, articles on legal topics, videos, or the like. Think about the kind of content-production plan you can put in place.

2. Are you considering your overall web presence?
Your firm's web presence will inevitably extend beyond your firm's website: to various directories, consumer review sites, and of course social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. How will you use these sites to brand your firm? How will you address the things, both positive and negative, that other people have to say about you on the web?
3. What sort of vendor will you choose?
Online marketing can encompass many strategies: website development, content creation, search engine optimization and marketing, social media strategies, and so on. Will you choose to work piecemeal, implementing strategies one at a time from multiple vendors? Or will you seek a partner to do it all, creating an integrated online strategy? Of course, you'll want to make sure as well that you're working with trustworthy vendors, with a track record.

4. How will you measure the success of your efforts?
There are lots of ways to measure the success of an online marketing strategy. Does it help you rank higher in search results? Drive traffic to your site? Bring in those valuable inbound links? Most importantly, does it bring in clients? Before you hire any marketing firm, ask about how you will evaluate the success of your lawyer marketing strategy.

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• LawyerMarketing.com home page