Why Digital PR is Vital for Your Law Firm

Digital public relations (PR) involves boosting your law firm’s visibility and cultivating trust and authority in your field. If your law firm is hoping to grow and engage with more clients, it’s worth incorporating digital PR strategies into your content marketing efforts.

Many people in need of legal services gravitate towards attorneys with a solo practice or smaller law firms in the hopes that they will receive the customized support they are seeking. Although larger, more established law firms may be able to take on a higher number of clients and cases, people often feel safer and more comfortable working with a smaller law practice—especially if they are grappling with sensitive issues that make them feel vulnerable. Smaller law firms are inherently more approachable, and clients often prefer to entrust them with their legal needs. However, larger law firms tend to have more resources to support their digital marketing efforts; some even have specialized, in-house marketing teams whose sole purpose is to increase the firm’s search engine optimization (SEO) performance and drive more web traffic to the website. As a smaller law firm, it can be difficult to devote the time, effort, and resources to improving your content marketing strategy, as your attention is best served focusing on your clients’ needs. Creating an effective and impactful law firm digital marketing strategy may be more straightforward than you think. In fact, focusing on improving your SEO performance and incorporating a results-driven digital public relations (PR) strategy can have a measurable effect on your firm’s visibility, authority, and trustworthiness within a relatively short period of time. This post will explore some of the benefits of investing in digital public relations for law firms and how you can start paving the way toward steady and sustainable growth.

What Does Digital Public Relations for Law Firms Mean?

Most of us are familiar with the term public relations, but what does this mean in the context of law firms? Essentially, public relations is all about highlighting the successes of your company across various media channels and cultivating a positive public image and professional reputation through strategic communication. Digital PR shares the same goals, but it takes into account the seemingly endless reach of the internet and uses several targeted strategies to use online platforms to enhance your law firm’s visibility and cultivate engagement with potential clients through various content marketing approaches. In other words, your law firm can harness the reach of the internet to spread awareness of your services throughout your community (and beyond) and become more recognizable (and eventually, more trustworthy) to potential clients who come across your posts, website, newsletters, ads, or other content marketing campaigns. The more that members of the public are exposed to your law firm’s brand, the more likely they will be to think of your law practice when a legal question arises.

How Digital PR Efforts Affect SEO and Boost Your Law Firm’s Visibility

Most small law firms understand that maintaining a user-friendly website is vital to ensure that potential clients come across your page or posts when searching for legal information in your local area. Unfortunately, simply having a live website is not enough to remain competitive or visible to search engines (which, in turn, means that fewer people will come across your website). Search engine algorithms like Google are driven to provide searchers with high-quality and relevant content in response to their search queries. So, a well-rounded and impactful law firm digital marketing strategy needs to incorporate SEO efforts to remain relevant and visible to both search engines and their users. Moreover, as search engines are evolving to deliver results that are convenient and customized to suit the needs of users, focusing on local SEO strategies will boost your visibility as well. For instance, a law firm that takes the time to create complete attorney or firm profiles using Google Business Profiles and other online directories makes themselves more visible to search engines (and, in turn, to potential clients looking for legal services in their city). As you start to work on your digital PR strategy, you can link your promotional blog posts or celebratory social media posts to your website (and provide links to your website whenever you generate new content). Creating a series of backlinks and connections among your content marketing efforts signals to search engines that you are a trustworthy and authoritative entity, which then boosts your position among the search results rankings.

Digital PR for Law Firms: Getting Started

Once you get a better sense of how the synergy between a digital public relations strategy and SEO efforts is crucial to your law firm’s reputation and visibility, you will likely want to know how to get started. Below are just a few steps to help your law firm launch an effective digital PR strategy that will support and enhance your marketing strategy for law firms efforts.

Create a Goal-Oriented Law Firm Content Marketing Strategy

In the online world, the consistent generation of new and high-quality content reigns supreme. Search engines reward websites and digital marketing strategies that post regular content that’s customized to address user interests, concerns, and needs. As you develop your content strategy, think about creating posts or blogs that address common client questions or legal topics that your clients may be interested in, then share these posts across multiple social media channels, e-newsletters, and any other digital media. As people come across your posts and respond to the user-friendly tone and client-forwarded content, they will be more likely to engage with your posts (i.e., comment, “like,” or share them), which reinforces your authority in the eyes of search engines. Many law firms find it helpful to establish concrete goals, like posting one new update or highlight once a week.

Build Meaningful Relationships and Partnerships With Users and Platforms

Search engines will be way more motivated to amplify your law firm’s posts and content when other sources of authority and trustworthiness share them as well. For example, if a local newspaper writes a brief article about a recent case your firm won or if a community center shares that your office participated in a local service project, search engine algorithms will notice these mentions and reward your website with higher rankings because they see you as an integral and trusted presence in your community. Although it may feel uncomfortable at first to promote your firm’s accomplishments, doing so improves your authority online and reassures potential clients that you have the talent and skills to help them achieve their desired outcomes. If you’re ready to learn more about how to integrate digital marketing for lawyers strategies that deliver the results you’re after, it’s time to discuss your goals with a law firm digital marketing professional.

There’s a reason why law firms across the country trust LegalRev to help them grow their business using proven marketing strategies. Book a call with us today by calling (800) 893-2590 to discuss your digital marketing goals.

August 13, 2024