How Attorneys Can Use Off-Page SEO To Attract Clients

With off-page SEO, your website and social media profiles play a supporting role, at least initially. It requires a bit of upfront work, but it’s a powerful way to generate traffic, leads, and revenue for your law firm.

Here’s the best part about off-page SEO. It permanently eliminates your dependence on third-party lead sources and providers.

What Is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO involves strategies outside your website to improve its position in search rankings, such as earning backlinks from reputable sources and managing your firm’s online reputation.

Ronell Smith, writing for Moz, describes off-page SEO as:

The act of optimizing your brand’s online and offline footprint through the use of content, relationships, and links to create an optimal experience for prospects and search engine crawl bots. It typically leads to gradual increases in positive brand mentions, search rankings, traffic to your site, and conversions.”

It’s an integral part of search engine optimization.

The term off-page refers to third-party signals used by people and search engines to vet the quality of your business. These signals are ranking factors. Google uses more than 200 different ranking factors in their algorithm to assess the strength and trustworthiness of your law firm.

Why Attorneys Should Care About Off-Page SEO

This terminology can be confusing for many attorneys, as Smith demonstrated in an exchange he had with his client, an attorney:

For the attorney seated in front of me in my kid’s elementary school lunchroom, I might as well have just told him the earth is flat.

‘That makes no sense to me,’ he said, pushing his chin forward and tilting his head as if waiting for me to admit that I was pulling his leg. ‘You mean, there’s all this stuff [SEO] does on my site? And there is the stuff that we — me, my team and [SEO] — should be doing off our site as well? That’s like telling me, ‘It’s not enough that you live and pay for a nice house in a gated community. You also need to guard the gate to the community and pick up trash along the road leading up to your driveway.'”

So Smith reframed his client’s metaphor a bit.

“Not caring about off-site SEO is like having that great house in the gated community, but none of your friends want to visit because they’ve heard from others that it smells gross on the inside, and no one they talk to can either confirm or deny it. It’s not enough to only care about your website/brand or your house/neighborhood; you must always be working to enhance its reputation to ensure others will desire to visit/learn more about it.”

This is you. Your clients don’t have the knowledge, tools, or experience they need to evaluate your law firm properly. In any city, every city, there are 60 to 100 attorneys in your practice area, begging for your client’s attention.

It’s overwhelming. Choosing an attorney is not at all like hiring a consultant or selecting an accountant. Most of the time, your clients arrive with pain, problems, and distress. On some level, many of these clients are facing the fight of their lives. They’re looking for a protector who is willing to defend their interests. If they get this wrong, they lose everything.

This is why off-page SEO is so essential — prospective clients can’t afford to take a chance on that great house in a gated community on the off chance that it smells gross on the inside. It’s too much of a risk.

Is Off-Page SEO Worth It for Attorneys?

With off-page SEO, clients can use third-party resources to assess, vet, and verify important details about your law firm without your knowledge. Reports that are positive, consistent, and exceptional draw clients to your law firm automatically.

Attorneys can use off-page SEO to:

• Attract your ideal group of prospective clients (those who are willing and able to spend)
• Crowd out libel and vitriol from disgruntled clients
• Reduce your cost per lead (CPL)
• Increase your return on ad spend (ROAS)
• Boost law firm revenue year-over-year
• Create leverage, so you’re able to say no to disagreeable or costly clients
• Decrease the reliance on individual rainmakers or partners
• Reduce client poaching
• Increase client loyalty and demand for services over time

You can do all this and more, but is all the extra work worth it?

It’s no secret that many attorneys hate sales and marketing. John Cunningham at the Legal Marketing Reader lists the following reasons for this hatred:

1. Clients hate being sold.
2. Sales and marketing is a violation of our professional ethics.
3. Your time is better spent on billable work.
4. You don’t know what you’re doing so you could do more harm than good.
5. You went to law school to practice law, not build a business.
6. Marketing doesn’t apply to attorneys since you don’t sell a physical product.
7. Sales and marketing is outside your comfort zone.
8. You’re too busy to market your law firm.
9. All of your new clients come from referrals.
10. You already know how to market your law firm.

These are all legitimate objections, and they all have reasonable solutions. There’s a simple and efficient way to circumvent these problems while achieving the results off-page SEO provides.

Educate prospective clients.

The scientific literature is clear on this. Our brains are hardwired to seek out and enjoy novelty. Research shows novelty sparks exploration and learning. Education attracts prospective clients because it’s the mechanism that meets your client’s need for newness. What does this mean for attorneys and law firms?

There’s no need to sell.

If you meet your client’s need for novelty and you’re addressing the problems that trigger your client’s negative bias, you have the tools you need to attract their attention.

What does this mean? If you’re a commercial real estate attorney, for example, you can educate prospective clients about:

• The consequences of poor due diligence (when purchasing property)
• Environmental factors that destroy your portfolio
• The must-have clauses your contracts and tenant leases should have to maximize protection
• Property defects that destroy investor cash flows
• Protecting your investment in a construction dispute
• Why your LLC can’t protect your real estate business

Can you see what’s happening?

In each of these examples, the emphasis is on education, not selling. Attracting clients, in this context, is all about following a four-step process:

1. Identifying your ideal client (e.g., revenue, problems, practice areas, temperament, etc.)
2. Surveying your ideal client to get a list of their desires, goals, fears, frustrations, and problems
3. Creating a list of ideal client hotspots (e.g., local venues, clubs, publishers, or tangential sources)
4. Creating content that addresses these desires, goals, fears, frustrations, and problems

That’s it.

I’m oversimplifying here, but this is the basic foundation of off-page SEO.  Let’s look at the practical steps to follow when using off-page SEO to attract a steady stream of prospective clients.

Using Off-Page SEO To Attract a Steady Stream of Law Firm Clients

Here are some practical steps you can follow to boost website traffic to your law firm. This list is not intended to be comprehensive; these are a few strategies based on a few factors:

• You’re probably very busy
• Your advertising budget may be limited
• You need leads now
• You need leads consistently

Let’s take a look at a few strategies you can use to generate leads immediately.

Step #1: Advertise using the 60-30-10 framework.

Most attorneys lose money on advertising. They create ads, enter their credit card information, and send visitors to their homepage. As you’d expect, this fails to generate leads or produce revenue.

60-30-10 changes that.

It’s a concept popularized (with slight differences) by Perry Marshall, Wordtracker, and Digital Marketer.

Here’s how it works.

• You spend 10% of your ad budget on Cold traffic. You promote your content to highly targeted groups of local prospective clients who have never heard of you. You provide them with value in the form of education — a free tool, quiz, download, or content. If you have to lose money, you lose it here to gain valuable insights everywhere else.
• You use 30% of your ad budget on Warm traffic. Any prospects from your cold traffic who are now: (a.) Warm – they’re familiar with your law firm, they visited your website, consumed your educational content, or viewed an ad, (b.) Interested enough in your offer to covert, and (c.) Committed enough to engage with you. Your warm traffic is far more likely to convert, so spending 30% of your ad budget on this audience makes sense.
• You direct 60% of your ad budget on Hot traffic. These are the prospective clients who have converted in some way — they came to your seminar, read your book, or subscribed to receive more education. They’re followers on social media; they’ve signed up for your email newsletter, etc. They’ve self-identified, showing a clear interest in the education your law firm provides.

Here’s a simple strategy you can use to create outstanding content.

Reach out to a group, publisher, or educator in your local community. Offer to provide their audience with a free seminar, talk, or workshop. Record your speech in its entirety. You now have a lead magnet.

Now you’re ready to advertise.

1. Create ads on your platform of choice, e.g., Google ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, etc.
2. Spend 10 percent of your ad budget to advertise cold traffic to promote your education (tag prospects who visit your website)
3. Spend 30 percent of your ad budget advertising to those who visited your website (step two above). Make an irresistible offer (e.g., free consultation, enticing bonus, more education, a free copy of your book, etc.). Test your offers to see what works best. Tag prospects who accept your offer as “hot.”
4. Spend 60 percent of your ad budget advertising to hot prospects. Advertise your amazing reviews on Avvo, Yelp, or Google Reviews. Promote television appearances, awards won — anything that increases your authority, credibility, or prestige.
5. Make another irresistible offer (e.g., free consultation or enticing bonus). Be frank about your availability and the number of clients you can take on at any given time. If you have a specific amount of slots available for new clients, communicate that. Continue to promote your amazing reviews, linking prospects to your review profiles on third-party sites.  

This five-step process generates leads quickly.

You can expand your ad budget and the platforms where you advertise as your budget allows.

Step #2: Build a strong review portfolio

Research shows your law firm can lose as many as 69.9 percent of customers with four negative aggregate reviews in Google.  Reviews can increase your conversion rates by as much as 270 percent! The better your client reviews, the easier it is for you to attract clients, leads, and sales.

Your online reviews amplify or nullify your prospective client’s trust before you even meet them.

How do you use this? By automating review management. Reputation management tools make it easy to request, receive, and promote five-star reviews from established, A-player clients. Here’s a simple strategy you can use to attract more reviews.

1. You’ve finished your work with a client. You email, text, or post a message with a straightforward question. “On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, 5 being excellent, how likely are you to recommend us?” This question helps you to segment clients who are hostile, apathetic, and believers.
2. Create an email or text autoresponder sequence that enables you to reach out to clients automatically. You’ll be able to consistently request reviews without being directly involved. If clients are open to it, you’ll receive reviews (and new clients via Google search and review platforms like Yelp) without being involved directly.
3. Send hostiles to an internal review form. These clients provide you with the feedback your firm needs to grow automatically. Send friendlies to the review site of your choice (e.g., Avvo, Yelp, Google Reviews), where they’ll be able to share their story with other interested prospects.
4. Thank friendlies and hostiles for their willingness to share their feedback. Integrate their feedback, then show both groups that you took the time to act on their feedback.

Here’s the thing about online reviews. They have a significant impact on your off-page SEO. Google treats reviews as a ranking signal, the stronger your review portfolio on sites like Yelp, Avvo, or Google, the more prospective clients you’ll attract to your law firm.

Step #3: Become a serial interviewee

If you’ve already reached out to groups, publishers, and educators in your local community, you should have a list of interview targets. These are local sources you can partner with to share educational content. With this strategy, you’re pitching yourself as a guest for local venues and publishers. Possible sources include:

• Podcasts
• Radio shows
• Meetups
• Keynote speaking
• Becoming a panelist
• Television
• Webcasts
• Local AMA’s (Reddit style)
• Bonus guest at relevant workshops, panels, or events

Here’s the key.

You’ll need to deliver incredible value as an interviewee for this strategy to work. This strategy is all about wowing your audience. Instead of selling at the end of your presentation, offer more education via your website. When these prospective clients arrive on your site, tag and add them to your 60-30-10 framework.

Record all appearances.

You can turn these appearances into the future lead magnets, products, bonuses, or incentives to attract even more clients. Recording your educational materials means the value you provide is permanent and never-ending. Add your recorded content to your 60-30-10 framework.

Post your content on YouTube.

If it’s video, make sure it’s edited professionally. If it’s audio, create simple slides that go along with your presentation. Optimize each video around a specific, high-traffic keyword. Here’s a comprehensive guide showing you how to do just that.

Advertise each new video heavily, via the 60-30-10 framework, for the first 24 hours, to get your video ranked. Continue to promote your videos over time to build your following. Embed your videos on your site and use it as a lead magnet. Be sure to tag the visitors that arrive on your website.

Reach out to each of the partners you collected in step one and ask them if they’d like a copy of the video or audio as well. Make it easy for your partners to share and promote the video; the easier it is for them to promote, the more likely they are to do it.  

Step #4: Optimize your Google my business account

Research from Think with Google shows:

• Google is the number one review platform; 63.6 percent of searchers search for reviews on Google before visiting a business.
• There are 3.5 billion searches every day. That volume grows by 10 percent every year.
• Google accounts for 57.5 percent of all reviews worldwide, across all review platforms.
• A 900+ percent increase in mobile searches for  “___ near me today/tonight.“
• A 500 percent increase in “near me” mobile searches (i.e., “attorneys near me”)
• 200+ percent growth in mobile searches for “Open” + “now” + “near me” (i.e., “law firms near me open now,”)
• Search volume for local places, without the qualifier “near me,” has grown by 150 percent 
• Google My Business signals) are the most important ranking factor for local pack rankings (25.12 percent of the total).
• 25.12 to 27.94 percent of your local search rankings (local pack + localized organic rankings) are dependent on your Google My Business profile according to a recent ranking factors study by Moz.
• Online reviews make up another 6.47 to 15.44 percent of online reviews.

Google is the de facto standard. Prospective clients will use Google to vet your law firm, assess reviews, and verify your credentials. Any off-page SEO benefits you receive will most likely come from Google. Your Google My Business account is an essential ranking factor that’s used to gauge your performance.

Here’s a comprehensive guide you can use to optimize your Google My Business account.

Off-Page SEO Is the Key to Success in Google

Remember the metaphor from Ronell Smith earlier in this blog? Most attorneys have the incredible house in a beautiful gated community, but prospective clients aren’t interested in visiting. From their client’s perspective, their house smells like vomit on the inside — but their existing clients won’t confirm or deny.

This isn’t you.

Your clients don’t have the knowledge, tools, or experience they need to evaluate your law firm properly. Instead of begging for your client’s attention, you earn it. You provide prospective clients with the education and training they need to choose your law firm.

Education eliminates the need to sell.

Instead of sales pressure, your clients receive clarity and the options they need to choose the right law firm. The secret, as we’ve seen, is novelty. Novelty sparks exploration and learning in your client’s mind. It motivates them to seek a solution to the problems you’ve identified.

Provide clients with the education they need, and you’ll find they bring their problems to you automatically. 

The ABA approved credit card processing for legal fees in 1974. However, law firm credit card processing has been slowly adopted. Only 62% of large and midsized firms use online payments consistently — even with well-established methods like ACH, eChecks, and credit card processing.

The Impact Credit Card Processing Has on Law Firms

The lack of online payments has a significant impact on lead generation, revenue, and profitability. A compelling value proposition or winning proposal won’t mean much if you can’t accept payment using the methods your clients want to use. If clients aren’t willing to spend money with your law firm, you obviously won’t receive the revenue you deserve, which means profits will continue to be sluggish.

According to a recent study by TSYS, 77% of consumers prefer card payments over cash, check, or wire transfer. Of that, 44% preferred using their debit cards, while 33% preferred using their credit cards.

Why Are Law Firms Slow To Accept Online Payments?

When it comes to online payments, many attorneys and law firms have hidden objections. These objections need to be addressed before attorneys feel comfortable accepting online payments. Let’s take a look at a few of these objections.

Objection #1: Credit card processing is too expensive.

According to Finextra, the cost of traditional billing, via paper invoices and snail mail, is around 9.5% of the amount collected on your invoice. Firms are so used to paying the expenses that come with conventional billing that they’re typically not aware of the amount they’re losing unnecessarily.

For example, if your invoice is $4,520.00, are you okay with giving away $429.40? If you send 25 invoices out to clients each month, that’s $10,735 or $128,820 annually that’s lost unnecessarily. 

Direct costs involved in paper-based billing include:

• Invoice and file preparation
• Envelopes
• Offering basic or alternative fee arrangements (debit, credit, retainer, fixed fee, etc.)
• Paper invoices/bills
• Printing (e.g., ink, toner, networking, security, maintenance)
• Postage/franking

Indirect costs are either fixed or costs that can’t be directly attributed to billing costs. Indirect costs include:

• Accounting and reconciliation requirements
• Bill query management and response times
• Customer service workforce to address calls
• Dealing with lost invoices
• Locating and submitting undistributed bills
• Bill storage costs (space rental and fixed costs)

Hidden costs are the expenses no one is looking for or controlling; these costs include:

• Hidden or unexpected payment transaction fees (e.g., annual, PCI, statement, batch, or termination fees)
• Timekeeping, billing, invoicing, and payment processing errors
• Increased float/overdraft protection requirements
• Longer sales cycles and the loss of potential cash-flow acceleration
• Lost/higher cost digital marketing opportunities
• Loss of “green” benefits/credits

It’s important to choose a payment processor that saves you money. Bill4Time Payments, for example, offers industry-low fees with a 2.9% fee for all cards, zero hidden fees and chargeback assistance.

Objection #2: Online payments will be complicated.

If you’re setting online payments up for the first time, you’ll need to go through a certain amount of transitional pain to get things up and running. However, two reasons explain why this objection doesn’t bear much weight.

1. The work is front-loaded. Once things are set up, the effort that’s required to maintain your online payment solution is managed by your provider. You provide them with the information needed to get started, but once you’re set, it’s mostly automated.
2. Integrated payment processing. Most of the set up is done for you with practice management solutions like Bill4Time. You’re able to simply monitor the flow of cash into your accounts as clients self-manage and provide you with the payments you need.

Objections #3: I can’t maintain IOLTA compliance if I accept credit cards.

According to ABA Rule 1.15, you’ll need to ensure you deposit client funds in the appropriate trust account. How do you accomplish that with credit cards?

“(a) A lawyer shall hold property of clients or third persons that is in a lawyer’s possession in connection with a representation separate from the lawyer’s own property. Funds shall be kept in a separate account maintained in the state where the lawyer’s office is situated, or elsewhere with the consent of the client or third person. Other property shall be identified as such and appropriately safeguarded. Complete records of such account funds and other property shall be kept by the lawyer and shall be preserved for a period of [five years] after termination of the representation.”

To address this, legal practice management software like Bill4Time offers a solution that streamlines online payments while ensuring compliance with IOLTA guidelines. By integrating credit card processing directly within the software, it eliminates the need for third-party processors and ensures that client funds are directly deposited into the correct trust accounts, maintaining clear separation from the lawyer’s own funds.

This simplifies the payment process and provides peace of mind that compliance with IOLTA regulations is maintained. Discover how this all-in-one payment solution can support your firm by watching the video below.

Outlook on Law Firm Credit Card Processing

The legal industry has been slow to adopt online payments, lagging behind other industries, niches, and service providers. At first glance, this doesn’t seem like a serious issue for law firms until you realize that not using online payments is a source of revenue leakage.

Utilizing a built-in payment processor like, Bill4Time Payments, is a great way for businesses to offer ePayments that are compliant and allow them to collect more on the dollar. Bill4Time Payments is ready in Bill4Time user accounts and easy to activate. Streamlining your payments and getting paid faster has never been easier!

Try Bill4Time for FREE

Law firms are seeing the benefits of cloud-based solutions for better productivity, security, and cost-effectiveness. These solutions offer numerous benefits, including user-friendly features, accessibility, and automation, making the day-to-day operations of a law firm faster and more convenient. Here are the 6 advantages of cloud-based billing for lawyers.

What Is a Cloud-Based Billing or a Cloud-Based System?

A cloud-based system, also known as a cloud-based solution, cloud software, or cloud computing, is an all-encompassing term that refers to hosted services over the internet. Instead of storing information in physical documents at a physical location, cloud services bring everything to a virtual space.

The cloud can be public, which means the services are sold to anyone with internet access, or private, which is a proprietary network or data center that offers its services to a shortlist of people with limited rights and access.

For business, a cloud-based system revolutionized industries by supporting remote teams and tasks, enhancing data security, and storing vital information in a safe place where it’s unlikely to get lost, even if a device goes down or an office building suffers a disaster. Another feature is automation, which is available from certain vendors and tackles some of the day-to-day responsibilities of running a business or law firm.

1. Remote Access

Most of the world has gone digital, and businesses are realizing the benefits of hybrid and remote teams. Attorneys can now work from any location, whether they’re remote employees, out on client lunch meetings, or spending time at the courthouse. Laptops, smartphones, and tablets can be equipped with cloud-based technology that offers access to important documentation without leaving it sensitive to breach.

In addition, remote access with cloud solutions makes timekeeping more effective. Attorneys struggle with time tracking, to begin with, but it becomes more challenging when they’re out in the field. Client meetings, research, and other out-of-the-office tasks can be forgotten, leaving attorneys without hours of billable tasks. Time-tracking consumes a large portion of an attorney’s tasks, so by automating this process with a tool like Bill4Time, attorneys can keep a log of billable time with handy tools like automated timers and appointment conversion. Best of all, these tools are available on any device with an internet connection.

2. Security

One of the concerns with technology for law firms has always been security. Attorneys and law firms amass a lot of sensitive information, both for the firm and the clients, and a breach could be devastating. To combat this, law firms preferred manual entry methods and physical documents.

Cloud-based solutions are secure, however. In fact, they may be more secure than physical documentation, which is vulnerable to theft or disaster. With a cloud-based solution, the information is stored on a physical server with a secure data center that only verified individuals can access. Vendors provide security through updates and monitoring from IT teams and backup servers to protect information. If a device crashes or the law firm suffers a disaster like a flood or fire, the documents are safely stowed away on the cloud.

Bill4Time’s cloud solution uses data centers with 24/7 uninterrupted service and data security provided by third-party leaders in the industry. Data centers are also distributed geographically to mitigate the impact of disruptions to regional service. Updates and services take place in rollouts that ensure clients experience minimal downtime.

3. Low Maintenance

Maintaining physical documentation or on-premises storage solutions present challenges for law firms. Depending on the size of the firm, it may need several servers to meet its demands, taking up physical space and creating information silos.

On-premises solutions require ongoing maintenance and associated expenses, such as backup hardware, battery power, and repairs. Law firms may need to bring on an IT professional or a team to manage these tasks, cutting into the bottom line. If the system goes down, staff can’t invoice, bill, or track time effectively, losing billable hours.

Cloud-based billing solutions address all of these problems. Information is stored on distributed servers to limit disruptions and mitigate the effects of outages. Any updates or maintenance tasks are handled by the vendor, ensuring minimal downtime and eliminating the need for an in-house IT team.

4. Automation

Legal management software with cloud-based solutions offers many productivity tools and features, such as a recurring billing process, automating invoicing, due date and payment reminders, and more. This takes a lot of the strain off law firm staff, allowing them to focus on mission-critical tasks.

To streamline the process, Bill4Time’s legal management software allows law firms to create detailed, customized invoices and reports that align with the previous standards and designs. When the time-tracking system is upgraded, clients can count on continuity and consistency in the invoices that maintain their trust in the firm. The programming team does all the work and duplicates existing invoice formats and templates. In addition, invoices can be detailed with fields for custom reports, users summaries, trust account activity, and appended forms. The software also supports custom rate tables and billing data reports.

5. Simplified Auditing

Audits can be stressful, but time-tracking software simplifies the process by providing all the important details to prepare, including invoices, recurrent billings, financial reports, and payments. All account activity is recorded in one place to save time, energy, and costs.

Outside of an audit, law firms can bring up a detailed analysis of any report at any time using legal management software. This may include taxes, liabilities, and expenses, tax deductions, and more.

6. Profitability

Time-tracking, billing, and data storage are among the most important concerns for any business, especially law firms. Using an automated legal management solution with the cloud allows law firms to automate redundant tasks, track time effectively, and support remote and hybrid teams.

Cloud computing is the future of law firms and businesses in a variety of industries. Specific practice management solutions provide cloud-based data storage and reporting with secure networks and servers, automatic maintenance and upgrades, and remote access for remote attorneys or attorneys in the field. With the right tools in place, law firms can save time, money, and frustration.

The challenge of attracting new clients in the legal sector can cause frustration among many lawyers. In contrast, rainmakers, who have a knack for bringing in business, receive high praise for their abilities.

The common perception is that success in this area demands aggressive sales techniques. However, an approach centered on earning trust through quality client reviews reveals itself as a surprisingly effective method for growth.

Why your law firm reviews matter

Research from Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center analyzed 57,000 reviews from anonymous consumers and 65,000 reviews from verified buyers of more than 13,500 unique products and services across a large variety of categories. Their findings demonstrated that reviews could increase conversion rates by 270%. On the conservative end, businesses that display ratings and reviews experience average revenue uplifts of around 18%.

It’s more than just having reviews. Your law firm should focus on the quality of the reviews rather than the quantity. Especially, if you’re just starting your strategy to increase reviews and have very few reviews currently. Even 1 or 2 bad reviews can severely impact how prospective clients view your firm. In fact, bad reviews put businesses at risk of losing:

• 21.9% of customers if you have just one negative review listed on page one of Google
• 44.1% of customers if you have two negative results
• 59.2% of customers with 3 negative results
• 69.9% of customers with 4 negative results

If your law firm has four negative (aggregate) results listed in Google, you will lose 69.9% of your customers, three reviews 59.2%, and so on. 

Let’s look at Mackenzie and Milford, a fictitious law firm, to see how this would affect their firm:

• Average order value (per customer): $6,500
• The average number of transactions per year: 2
• How long customers stay with the business: 3 years
• Total number of new website/offline visitors per month: 2,633
• A conversion rate of 2%

$6,500 * 2 transactions per yr * 3 years = $26,000 lifetime value (per client)

52.65 clients * $16,000 = $1,368,900 in projected revenue. 

These numbers are impressive.

How do they change once we begin attracting more four and five-star reviews? Let’s plug in the numbers we received from our research above to get a better idea. 

• Firm revenue jumps to $1,615,302 if we use the 18% estimate. 
• Firm revenue jumps to $5,064,930 if we use Northwestern University’s 270% estimate. 

That’s an enormous increase. 

This doesn’t require a whole lot of work either. The steps you follow are simple, repeatable, and precise: 

1. Ask your existing clients (via a third party, i.e., your administrator) for reviews.
2. Collect reviews for major platforms (Google, Yelp, Avvo) then pursue smaller niche platforms (e.g., Martindale, Lawyers.com, etc.).
3. Use remarketing/retargeting to advertise your reviews to prospects who have visited your website or viewed your ads (online or offline).
4. Present these prospects with an irresistible offer to entice them to schedule a meeting with you. 

It’s a straightforward process you can use to grow your business. 

Now, what if clients in your practice area (i.e., B2B) don’t rely on online reviews as much? This strategy is still incredibly effective. Work to create case studies; provide prospects with as much specificity in your case studies as you’re able to (e.g., names, dates, contacts, outcomes, etc.). Then repeat steps one through four. 

Why reviews produce exceptional returns

Clients don’t know what they don’t know. Especially, about the complexities within the legal industry and how they operate. For this reason, you have to meet them where there are and tap into what they care about most:

• Price
• Experience
• Service
• Results

Your reviews provide prospects with an inside look at all four areas. This is good news because it lets prospects know you’re a safe bet, a reliable option they can trust to handle their legal matter. You don’t need to do any selling, and your clients just need to tell the truth about the incredible results you consistently provide. 

How to get started: 

1. Create a list of passionate clients who love your firm and would happily advocate for your work
2. Create a template your support teams or virtual assistant can send feedback requests to clients on your behalf.
3. Have a trustworthy person in your office interview your client about their experience with you or your firm. Be sure to record the conversation (with their permission, of course). 
4. Transcribe your conversation, then send a snippet to your clients 
5. Include links to websites where your clients can share their reviews, add it to your email signature, and your website. 
6. Once posted, create remarketing display ads that are targeted to prospects who’ve already visited your website or clicked on your ads. Use these ads to attract new clients and request reviews from existing clients.

What makes this strategy so significant? 

• Only tagged and segmented prospects who have visited your site will see your ads
• Most attorneys aren’t using this strategy to win new clients, so there’s less saturation
• Prospects see that you’re able to generate huge wins for your existing clients
• Your business development costs go down, while revenue shoots up

It’s a simple strategy that produces exponential returns over time. 

Law firm reviews are important to your business development

The secret to growing your firm lies in harnessing the enthusiasm of clients who appreciate the value you bring. This strategy paves the way for sustainable expansion, avoiding the pitfalls of traditional sales tactics.

Navigating the complexities of business development in law requires a delicate balance. Emphasizing genuine connections over aggressive sales can transform the way your firm attracts new business. Encourage your clients to become advocates, and watch as your practice grows stronger.