The Rainmaker Blog : Law Firm Marketing and Business Development : The Rainmaker Institute : Stephen Fairley : Professional Legal Marketing

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At our Rainmaker Retreat in Orange County this past weekend, I fielded several questions from attorneys about keywords – how to find the right ones and how often to use them.

Here are 3 steps to finding the right keywords for your law practice:

Step 1: Make a list of 5-6 words and/or phrases that best describe your practice.

Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and think about what words they would use to find you. Hint: it is not the name of your firm. Choose words or phrases that describe exactly what you do, in laymen’s terms: i.e., Chicago divorce lawyer, car accident attorney, etc.

Step 2: Choose your keywords or key phrases based on relevance and difficulty.

Competition for the word “lawyer” is about as fierce as it gets, which means it would be very difficult for your site to rank high in search results for that word alone. The smaller you are, the more specific you want to get, choosing keywords that have less competition. Use Google’s Keyword Tool to see what the search volume is for your keywords and key phrases. Look for similar words that have less competition, but are still relevant to your business. Then strike a good balance between relevance and difficulty. Don’t forget to include long-tail keywords – i.e., “Chicago divorce attorney specializing in child custody” – most people are using those for search these days.

Step 3: Use your keywords and key phrases throughout your website.

Choose the best 3-5 individual keywords and your top 10 key phrases and use them in the content of your website as well as in the page titles and metadata. If you can secure a URL for these keywords, use that as well. Be sure not to “stuff” your content with too many keywords – your site should still be written for a human being, not a search engine. 

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NEW Webinar Tomorrow, 9/18: Business Development Strategies for Litigators

Business development is especially difficult for litigators, who often work for months on a case and bring it to a successful conclusion, only to find they have a gaping hole of billable time to fill!

Are you or your litigators building the referral network you need to bring in litigation business?

Listen in on Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 1 p.m. ET as nationally recognized business development expert Stephen Fairley and featured guest Larry Bodine, editor-in-chief of Lawyers.com, help you develop a practical plan to grow your litigation practice. Learn:

• Which strategies you need to put into place in order to obtain repeat business from former clients
• How to build a referral network to build your practice-even while you are prepping for a trial
• How to get more referrals from mega-firms who are conflicted out of a case
• How to identify small firm transactional lawyers who can send you litigation referrals
• How to focus on the “hottest” areas of practice, as identified by market research
• Methods our clients use to attract larger clients with bigger cases
• How to ethically promote your “big wins” to the media and via the Internet
• How to apply one of the most effective marketing techniques for litigators
• How to position yourself as an industry expert that attracts highly profitable clients

If the scheduled webinar time doesn’t work for you, you can still get access to a recording of the live webinar to watch at your convenience.  Simply click here to register online for the Business Development Strategies for Litigation Attorneys webinar – everyone who registers receives access to the recording of the live webinar, so you can watch it again or for the first time!