Have you ever wondered if your law firm’s website is truly serving your business needs or just another digital business card lost amid a sea of competitors? Today, we’re focusing on a popular website solution provider for law firms that often receives mixed reviews: Findlaw. In this article, I’m going to help you understand why Findlaw’s website offering might not be the best bet for growing your legal practice.
As someone who has been in the digital marketing trenches, and as the founder of T. Walker Consulting, Inc., I’ve seen firsthand the transformation that strategic online marketing can bring to a law firm. Our team has managed to harness the power of strategic website optimization, targeted local SEO, and compelling content to produce over 25,000 qualified inbound leads for legal clients in just a year. If you’re hoping to harness similar growth, you need to know the limitations and pitfalls of some of the more general solutions like those offered by Findlaw.
Understanding Findlaw’s Website Offering
To properly assess why Findlaw’s website offering might fall short, it’s crucial to understand what they’re actually providing. Findlaw is marketed as a one-stop digital solution for law firms, promising to handle everything from website design to online marketing. On paper, this sounds like a dream come true. In practice, however, the reality can be quite different.
The All-In-One Illusion
Findlaw markets its service as comprehensive, but a jack of all trades is often a master of none. While they provide a broad range of services, the quality and effectiveness of these services can vary significantly. By attempting to manage design, content, SEO, and more all under one roof, some crucial elements might not receive the specialized attention they require to truly thrive.
High Costs with Questionable ROI
There’s no denying that Findlaw’s services come with a substantial price tag. While investing in your digital presence is necessary, the returns offered through Findlaw can be less than satisfactory. This can be due to generic design templates, recycled content, or basic local SEO strategies that don’t dive deep enough to be truly impactful.
Lack of Customization
Every law firm has unique needs and serves a distinct clientele. When you opt for a service like Findlaw, customization is often limited. The result? A generic website that doesn’t stand out or effectively communicate your law firm’s unique value proposition.
The Importance of Tailored Website Design
Let’s talk about why tailored website design is crucial for your law firm’s success. Your website is often the first impression potential clients have of your firm. It needs to reflect your brand’s identity, values, and the unique services you provide.
Strategic Website Design and Technical Optimization
Strategic website design is not just about aesthetics. It’s about creating a seamless user experience that encourages visitors to engage with your content and contact your firm. Technical optimization ensures that your site loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and can be easily accessed by search engines and users alike. While Findlaw offers standardized templates, these might not be optimized to provide an effortless browsing experience or convey your firm’s brand effectively.
The Downfall of One-Size-Fits-All Solutions
With a cookie-cutter approach to design, many of Findlaw’s websites lack personality and fail to convey distinctiveness. Without personal touches that reflect the firm’s character, potential clients might not get a sense of what makes your firm the right fit for their needs. Custom design allows more flexibility to highlight specific areas you want to emphasize—something pre-packaged solutions often miss.
Why Local SEO is Essential Yet Often Misdirected
Local SEO is a powerful tool for drawing in clients looking for legal services right in their area. Unfortunately, general services often take a broad approach that misses the nuances and strategies needed to effectively drive local traffic.
The Importance of a Targeted Local SEO
We’ve honed our processes by emphasizing Google Maps, ensuring that your firm not only appears in local searches but stands out. While Findlaw may implement basic local SEO strategies, their breadth of focus means they can lack the depth of targeted tactics to significantly improve your local presence.
Common Pitfalls in Findlaw’s SEO Offering
A key part of SEO is not just making your site discoverable but making sure it ranks highly for the right terms. Findlaw’s generic strategies might boost your visibility somewhat, but whether they target the right kind of high-value traffic is an entirely different question. Effective SEO requires continuous optimization and refinement based on detailed analytics—an area where broad service offerings can falter.
The Critical Role of Compelling Content
When it comes to content, quality trumps quantity every time. Your website’s content must resonate with both potential clients searching for legal services and search engines alike. However, if you’re relying on Findlaw for content creation, you might find the quality and personalization lacking.
Professional Content Development
High-quality, original content can spotlight your firm’s expertise, drawing in clients who need your specific services. This means deep, engaging, and authoritative content that addresses client pain points, showcases your expertise, and is tailored to your practice areas. When Findlaw churns out content at scale, the personal touch that connects with your audience can often be lost.
Expansion Beyond Basic Content
With T. Walker Consulting, we strive to continually expand and refine our client’s content offerings to adapt to changing trends, client needs, and search engine algorithms. Regular content audits and expansions ensure that the content remains fresh, relevant, and search-friendly—a necessity that may be neglected when subscribing to less personalized solutions.
The Significance of Review Management and Call Volume Growth
These elements are often overlooked but crucial to demonstrating credibility and growing a client base.
Review Management Mastery
Positive reviews can tip a potential client’s decision in your favor. Focused efforts on obtaining and managing client feedback can greatly enhance your firm’s reputation. While managing reviews might not be a forte of comprehensive services like Findlaw, dedicated strategies can significantly improve both review quality and quantity.
Driving Calls Through Enhanced Google Maps Presence
Strategic improvements in Google Maps rankings can drive an impressive increase in call volume. We’ve seen firms enjoy a 400%+ surge in call volume by optimizing their map-based searches. Findlaw’s more general approach may lack the specialized attention needed to drive such substantial growth in this area.
Demonstrable Success Metrics Matter
Metrics are the proof in the pudding, showcasing what’s working and what needs improvement. A major disadvantage of general digital service providers is that their metrics can be too broad and not always linked to actionable insights for your firm.
Understanding and Measuring Success Metrics
To truly understand the effectiveness of your online presence, you need measurable outcomes. Our proprietary system focuses on clear, actionable insights—from conversion rates to search ranking improvements. Comprehensive, tailored metrics help you understand not just raw traffic numbers, but the quality of leads and subsequent business growth.
Complimenting Your Strategy with a Market Analysis
Before committing to any service provider, it’s wise to assess potential opportunities through a market analysis. We offer complimentary analysis to pinpoint where strategic improvements can deliver the most impact. This level of customization and strategic insight is something generalized providers may not offer.
Conclusion
A law firm’s digital presence is more than just a pretty website—it’s a fundamental tool for business growth. A specialized, tailor-made approach goes beyond the surface level, targeting specific goals such as increased local visibility, quality content, and robust user engagement. By sidestepping services like Findlaw that offer a one-size-fits-all solution, your firm can cultivate a standout online presence that truly serves your business needs.
If you’re interested in exploring how we can tailor our strategy to maximize your firm’s potential, feel free to reach out for more insights into our comprehensive marketing system designed to transform law firm revenue.