COVID-19: Maintaining Focus on Your Law Firm Internet Marketing Campaign in a Crisis
By Alex on March 24, 2020 in Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Based on data from our clients and legal industry research, the legal market is one of the industries least affected by COVID-19 thus far. The benefits for marketing is perhaps that much more important.
The ultimate goal of all marketing is to obtain a positive return on investment. During this time, we are actively continuing to monitor and maintain (and in several instances, even increase) our Internet Marketing efforts. We also encourage you to consider these practical tips for your firm:
- Your Firm’s Online Presence – Make sure it is clear throughout your entire online presence (i.e., your website, Google My Business Listing, social media, etc.) that your firm is still open and accepting cases during this time.
- Test Communication Methods – If your firm is working remotely, make sure any and all conversions are being handled. Test and confirm all phone numbers are being routed and functioning properly. Also test and confirm that all contact forms are being retrieved.
- Get More Cases, Not Less – Don’t let your competition rack up your cases, as they may be focusing on their marketing efforts during this time. People are still searching for lawyers. Some practice areas are even seeing an increase in search results (see below for the data). In fact, with large amounts of the country working remotely, internet usage has increased! Yes, courts may be closed in some states; however, this may not stop the statute of limitations on cases and it does not stop clients from finding lawyers. Courts will reopen after this subsides and you will need the work then.
- Communicate Online – You can still apply “social distancing” by calling and emailing these potential clients. You can even do Zoom or Skype video conference meetings. Your clients should still get confirmation that your firm is, again, able to accept and take on their case.
- Find a Practice Niche – If your core area is in fact down, then what can your firm shift too? Is there anything that your firm specializes in that may be heightened during this particular time?
- What Niches are Up? Below is a study of trends and analytics that may help adjust to an alternate focus during this period:
- Year-to-date trends are already showing these areas have increased in search results:
- Wrongful death
- Estate planning
- Criminal defense
- Nursing home abuse
- Bankruptcy* (while it is flat now, we believe it will increase shortly).
- Trends are showing paid conversions have increased with securities, criminal defense, car accidents, family (divorce) and employment law. This means that while the search traffic is not up, websites with those practice areas are converting at a higher level.
- While some national trends are showing slight declines by around 10% for certain practice areas like securities and elder law, PaperStreet has case study clients for those specific practice areas where their campaigns have increased respectively by 52% and 47%! So, we are monitoring why there is a gap — perhaps it’s the design or marketing of the site.
- Year-to-date trends are already showing these areas have increased in search results:
On an Organic Search Engine Optimization level, this is an excellent time to boost rankings by reviewing the website. This can include writing additional content (both core practice area content and supporting blogging content that is particularly topical as it applies); cleaning, auditing, and editing old blog posts and focusing on any offsite content publishing opportunities. We suggest you check out our recent article on how SEO may protect your business during this period.
For Paid Search Engine Marketing, there are positive trends and signs indicating that if there is any downward trend at all, it is minimal. For more information, we have outlined an in-depth review of the impact on Google Ads for legal services with our recommendations on how to proceed.
Finally, we take pride in our speed and accessibility here at PaperStreet. That has not changed during the latest happenings in the world. We are a full service web design firm and can work anywhere we have an internet connection. With over half the team working remote normally, there has been very little to no adjustment needed in keeping PaperStreet fully up and running.
Stay safe out there!
