How to Grow Your Law Firm with Digital Marketing

As a law firm owner, you’ve already overcome immense challenges to build your business from the ground up. You’re an expert legal mind dedicated to serving clients and fighting for justice. But in today’s digital age, simply being a talented attorney isn’t enough to sustain growth. To truly expand your law firm, you need a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that will get your name out there, attract new clients and ultimately drive more revenue.

The Importance of Digital Marketing for Law Firms

Whether you run a solo practice or a mid-sized firm, having a strong digital presence is absolutely crucial in the legal industry. This study by the IAALS at the University of Denver and HiiL found that people are increasingly searching for legal information and services online. For instance, they determined that: 

• 73% of respondents looked for legal advice using search engines
• 62% visited relevant websites (of which 29% accessed a law firm website)
• 10% were searching for help on social media.

With many potential clients now turning to the internet to find and vet attorneys, digital marketing has become the key battleground for acquiring new business. But simply having a website is not enough — people are also looking for answers on social media or rely on search engines to provide them with possible solutions. So, you need a coordinated, multichannel digital marketing approach to beat out your competition and get found by prospective clients.

Building Blocks of a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

At its core, an effective digital marketing plan for law firms includes:

• Content marketing 
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing.

Let’s dive into how each of these elements can help grow your law firm.

1. Content Marketing

Quality content is a major factor in building your digital reputation and nurturing leads through your marketing funnel. A content strategy for your law firm should include:

• Blogging about legal news, describing cases, posing Q&As, and exploring other educational topics
• Creating in-depth guides, whitepapers, and e-books on areas of practice
• Publishing informative videos, webinars, podcasts, and other multimedia 
• Guest posting on legal publications and high-profile blogs
• Repurposing and syndicating content via email, social media, etc.

Well-executed content marketing will help position you as an authority, while also optimizing your website and brand exposure. It allows you to reach those people who are not yet in active search for a legal service provider but might be interested in cooperating with you after an impressive article or video.

2. Search Engine Optimization

With SEO, you optimize your website and online content to rank higher in search results for relevant keywords that your target clients are searching for, like “personal injury lawyer in Connecticut.” The higher you rank in search, the more organic website traffic and potential new cases you’ll get.

Effective law firm SEO involves optimizing several factors, including:

• Your website’s structure, speed, mobile-friendliness and security
• Adding targeted location and practice area pages
• Optimizing titles, headings, URLs, image alt text, and body content with relevant keywords
• Acquiring high-quality backlinks from other authoritative websites
• Optimizing your Google Business Profile and local listings
• Ensuring your website has a good user experience and low bounce rates.

SEO is an ongoing process that requires continual optimization and the creation of new content targeting the keywords most relevant to your firm. It takes patience and perseverance, but a strong SEO foundation will pay dividends in the form of compounding organic growth over time. SeoProfy has written a detailed guide that will help you develop an SEO strategy for your legal services.

3. Pay-Per-Click Advertising  

While SEO focuses on organic search traffic, PPC advertising like Google Ads allows you to instantly display paid ads at the top of search results for specific keywords. PPC can be highly targeted based on location, search terms, times of day, and more. However, you’ll need a sufficient ad budget since you’re charged each time someone clicks your ad.

With PPC, you can create text-based search ads that appear when someone googles a relevant keyword phrase. You can also run display ads and video ads across websites and platforms. Effective PPC management involves extensive keyword research, A/B ad testing, conversion tracking, budget management, and continually optimizing your campaigns. When done right, paid advertising can drive an immediate influx of high-value legal leads.

4. Social Media Marketing

Social media isn’t just for consumer brands — law firms can use platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to share content, connect with clients, promote their services, and more. A professional social media presence is increasingly important for establishing credibility and awareness in the digital space.

You can use social media to grow your legal business with these approaches:

• Creating profiles and sharing blogs and updates 
• Promoting key content and practice area pages 
• Engaging with your audience and influencers 
• Joining legal industry groups and discussions
• Advertising and boosting high-performing posts.

However, to make the most out of your social media marketing, you should carefully research what social networks your audience uses most and what types of content they are likely to engage with. 

5. Email Marketing

Email remains a highly effective digital marketing channel. An email list of current, former, and prospective clients gives you a direct way to nurture leads, share insights and updates, promote new services, and generate more business from your existing contacts.

This includes initiatives like:

• Email newsletters highlighting your achievements and thought leadership
• Drip campaigns to educate leads on areas of practice
• Lead nurturing sequences tailored to different case types
• Automated email workflows to reduce manual outreach
• Email promotions, announcements, surveys, and more.

Cohesive Integration is Key  

Mastering any one of these digital marketing areas can be a powerful growth catalyst for your law firm. But the real key is cohesively integrating all of these channels into a unified, overarching marketing strategy. This 360-degree approach increases your overall brand visibility, allows you to capture leads through multiple touchpoints, provides more insight into which marketing efforts are most effective, and ultimately accelerates your ability to gain new clients and cases.

For example, someone might initially discover your law firm through a social media post. From there, they consume some of your educational blog content and then sign up for your newsletter to learn more. After nurturing them via email, you can retarget them with paid ads to potentially convert them into a client.

Assembling Your Law Firm Marketing Team

Of course, such a comprehensive digital marketing program requires resources and marketing expertise that most law firms don’t have in-house. Here are some options for building out your legal marketing dream team:

• Hire In-House Marketing Staff: For large law firms, creating an internal marketing department may make sense. This could include hiring a director or chief marketing officer, SEO specialist, paid ads manager, content writers, social media coordinators, and more.
• Outsource to a Legal Marketing Agency: Most firms choose to outsource their digital marketing needs to a specialized legal marketing agency instead. This is typically more cost-effective than hiring an entire in-house team, and you get access to a whole suite of marketing experts and capabilities.
• Contract Individual Freelancers and Consultants: Another option is to contract individual freelancers and consultants for different initiatives on an as-needed basis. For example, you could hire a freelance SEO consultant on a monthly retainer, pay a per-project rate to a legal content writer, and so on.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach — the ideal choice will depend on your law firm’s size, objectives, marketing budgets, and available resources.

Success in the Digital Age

As you’ve learned, a comprehensive digital marketing strategy has become indispensable for driving the growth of any modern law firm. While leveraging SEO, PPC, content, email and social media may seem difficult, legal practices that get it right can siphon a steady stream of new clients from their competitors.

By establishing a cohesive, unified digital presence and continuously optimizing your law firm’s marketing efforts, you’ll be well-positioned for success in the digital age as you scale your legal empire. The long-term payoff for your bottom line — not to mention the positive impact you’ll have in serving more clients seeking justice — is well worth the investment.