Your Law Firm, Internet Marketing, and Domains: Don't Make this Costly Mistake
How can your law firm, internet marketing, and a domain name add up to one expensive error?
In the age of the Internet, domain names are king. Like valuable real estate on the corner of a busy intersection in downtown Manhattan, your domain name is the address clients (and would-be clients) use to find you on the Internet.
So as you might expect, using some or all of your law firm’s name as your Internet address (aka domain name) makes good sense. And law firm internet marketing becomes easier too because finding you is as simple as a Google search.
The problem arises when someone else purchases and registers your law firm’s name for their own purposes. That is what happened to Gable & Gotwals, Inc. d/b/a when Dave Jackson secured the domain name “GableGotwals”.
While Jackson was not a competitor (he is using the domain for another business type altogether), the problem is no less expensive for Gable & Gotwals. The firm has been in practice for 65 years. They have letterhead and some marketing material that displays their name. And more importantly, they must have a long list of clients who know them by that name.
However, they do not have a registered trademark for the “GableGotwals” brand.
With law firm internet marketing now a key component of any thriving practice, that omission is a costly one. The complaint and subsequent ruling from the National Arbitration Forum was as follows "Other than Complainant’s assertions, there is no other evidence indicating that the GABLEGOTWALS mark has acquired secondary meaning or source identity in commerce, and use alone is not sufficient to prove this assertion."
The result is a costly one indeed, and not only in near-term law firm internet marketing. The cost will come in lost opportunity for years to come, as potential client referrals are lost simply because the client cannot easily find “GableGotwals” in their Google search.
If you want to protect your practice and enhance your law firm Internet marketing all at once, register your name with the Federal Trademark Office or better yet, go to a trusted colleague who practices intellectual property and have them do it for you.
Be sure to register several variations of your name, including .com, .net and .org extensions and any misspellings you can think of.
Domain names are only $10 per year at www.godaddy.com, one of the top registrars. It only takes 5 minutes to set up your account.
In a future blog post we will give you some tips for selecting a great domain name and how to use it to get more and better traffic to your website.
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