3 Easy Ways to Boost Your Firm's Online Presence

Other than through referrals, the Internet is often the first place that potential clients go to when they start their search. For potential clients of professional services firms, such as law firms investment banks, etc., about 45% name Google search as a key resource in their hunt for a service provider. 

Your firm’s online presence can determine the first impression you make, which is a major factor in whether you even get the chance to prove your value to them. 

Further than just first impressions, your online presence is an important determinant of your ability to garner long-term loyalty and trust in existing clients. Additionally, it helps you establish an effective long-term nurture of people who may not be ready for your services quite yet. 

In professional services, though, it can be tricky to identify the best way to enhance your online presence. In addition to smaller marketing teams and budgets when compared to product brands, it may sometimes also feel like your firm doesn’t have much to post.

However, there are several effective and relatively easy ways to increase your firm’s online presence within the next several months. Let’s dive in.

SEO and Thought Leadership

Since many prospective clients start their search online, you’ll want to boost your odds of being discovered by search engines. This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes into the picture.

The goal of SEO is crafting a website that is likely to get indexed by Google - therefore making it more possible for potential customers to find you. There are many factors that go into your website’s SEO, but keyword optimization is a major component.

While optimizing keywords on your website pages and landing pages is crucial, publishing educational resources on a company blog - while targeting high opportunity keywords -  is one of the best ways to harness organic traffic and enhance your online presence.

About 96% of potential clients use search engines to seek out legal advice, and numbers are similar for other professional services industries like accounting. This makes for a great opportunity to provide “free” content that builds trust and puts you top-of-mind when these individuals are in need of your services.

Types of content to publish

Boutique Growth laid out several different brand positioning strategies for your blog that you can use as fuel to plan your content. Here are some of the highlights from the list:

• We know our stuff. Present your firm as the ultimate expert resource. If your potential clients have a question related to your industry or want to hear some expert thought leadership, they know that they can head to your blog to find out.

• How to do it right. Give your potential clients the tools they need to be successful in the interim of signing on for your services. These kinds of blogs contain various how-to’s, tutorials, and best practices guides.

• Industry insider. Deliver the inside scoop on all of the latest developments in your industry. If new strategies, technology or other significant shifts relevant to your target audience pop up, you want your blog to be the first place your audience hears it from.

Employee Personal Branding

When you’re in the services industry, your people are your product. Highlighting your employees and their expertise not only gives your potential customers confidence to spend money with you, but can also help you get discovered online.

76% of people say they trust content shared by other people rather than by brands. And marketing messages sent from individual account versus brand accounts reach a 541% larger audience. So leveraging the visibility of your service providers - whether they are accountants, lawyers, bankers or recruiters - is vital to building an online presence for your firm.

Some employers may argue that employees building their personal brand online may cause them to get poached by other employers. However, the rewards almost always outweigh the risks. Your service providers are the face of your brand, so when they distribute thought leadership and flex their expertise, your brand benefits.

Encourage your employees to get active on social media. LinkedIn is typically a great place to start, but many people have success on more casual platforms like Twitter and Tiktok, too.

On these platforms, your team members can share helpful tips, anecdotes and opinions and join relevant online conversations to help to prove their - and consequently your brand’s - aptitude.

Leveraging your employee’s personal branding goes further than social media, though. Use pictures, videos and articles from your top performers on your website. You can also use these same resources in emails. All of this helps to humanize your brand and generate more trust.

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Social Media Presence

Many people wrongfully believe that social media doesn’t or shouldn’t play a large role in a professional services marketing strategy. However, neglecting your social media channels can cost you a lot of potential business.

Hinge Marketing found that 52.5% of professional services firms use social media, which is even more than the percentage who use email marketing (48.9%). This means that you will struggle to keep up with the competition if you don’t participate on social media.

And according to the ABA, 42% of small law firms are actively gaining new clients through social media channels. Clearly, social media is worth investing some time and budget into.

Content distribution

At a the most basic level, your social media accounts on places like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are free promo channels for content like blogs, case studies, testimonial videos and more.

When you distribute this valuable content across these channels, you’re giving people who would never otherwise be on your website the opportunity to engage with your brand. This can lead to increased brand awareness and even more leads or website traffic.

Company culture

Social media profiles are also great places to display your company culture. Show them the people behind the brand. Much like with the previous section, this helps to humanize your brand to prospective clients. It tells them what it would be like to work with you.

Another significant benefit relates to recruitment. The best of the best have high standards. And when they can see right away what kind of an employee experience you provide, the top talent will be more likely to join your team versus the competitors.

Whether it’s simply generating brand awareness, nurturing your current contacts, collecting leads, or increasing your website traffic, social media is a piece of the puzzle you don’t want to leave out.

Enhance Your Online Presence and Start Winning New Business

In 2023, being active online is crucial to your firm’s success. Even more “traditional” industries are not excused from the digitalization of how the world does business now.

With these steps, you’ll have a strong foundation to start building an effective online presence.

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Take a look at the video below to learn more about what we do: