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7 Online Reputation Management Tips for Law Firms and Lawyers

For Professionals Such as Lawyers, What happens if Your Online Reputation is Damaged? Clients seek lawyers, solo practitioners, and firms based on their perceived reputation and experience. Still, if defamatory rumors appear online or if actual negative links show up in Google searches, the damage could be severe. The result? Lost work, and possibly, worse–shut down the business (I’ve worked with firms where their revenue fell over 80% due to a poor web presence–from one negative post). Websites, blogs and online forums, social media platforms, review sites, videos, and even images that contain negative information are sources that can lead to reputation collapse. This, in turn, could easily lead to a significant decrease in clients and billable hours. Why Fixing or Building an Online Reputation is Important Negative online information discourages potential customers from initially contacting you; it could result in termination for existing clients. Similarly, having no or a minimal web presence can be almost problematic since many would see the lack of online sites as illegitimacy. Some lawyers may think that since much of their work comes from personal referrals, an online presence is not necessary or immune from damaging links. This is not true, however. While there might not be an immediate impact, damage to the firm could be extensive and long-lasting, especially as more and more clients become accustomed to searching for online information before hiring a professional, including lawyers. Bad Online Reputation Affects Ability to Practice Law firms and solo practitioners engage with the public, clients, and others in the legal system, of course. Because of the nature of these interactions, the slightest hint of online malfeasance could impact relationships resulting in lost trust. In addition, other lawyers, judges, clerks, administrative personnel, witnesses, jurors, and potential clients, when seeing bad online reputations, might give the court, opposing counsel, or jury ammunition that could significantly affect the results of a case. Here are some tips to help you repair or fix your online reputation for lawyers: 1. Monitor Your Online Reputation Frequently review how you and your firm appear online by searching Google results. Check weekly and set up Google Alerts to be notified immediately of any posts–good or bad–where your name or firm is mentioned. 2. Repairing Your Online Reputation Takes Time If an online reputation problem shows up, it takes time to repair, so prepare for the long term (except if removal is possible–see below). Several months of active suppression work is undoubtedly necessary, and, in many cases, six months or more with hours of daily work is probable to resolve the issue correctly. The level of severity determines the reputation repair timeline. It depends on how many links appear, where they show up, and the source. For example, if the first page of Google search results includes damaging posts from the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the SEC, the process will take much longer than if one blog post appears at the bottom of the first page searches. 3. Try to Remove Negative Reports Once something is online, it is challenging and nearly impossible to get rid of. Removal is always preferred for obvious reasons but is rarely successful. Even though the posts can seem libelous, many sites often ignore deletion requests, such as RipoffReport.com and most, if not all, journalistic/news sites. However, a very narrow range of items are candidates for potential removal. These include copyright violations of images, videos, or other content, posts that conflict with a site\’s terms and conditions, publishing personal information such as home addresses or bank accounts, or selecting other posts. 4. Create Good Content The best way to fix a damaged online reputation or build one is to create excellent and targeted content. Flooding the internet with quality content eventually pushes harmful elements off the first page, making this a critical online reputation management tactic. Write high-quality blog posts, white papers, or presentations that solve real-world problems for clients and make a brief video walk-through of a process or case you resolved. Focus on common questions and law-related topics you specialize in. As this information is published and discovered through internet searches by potential clients, you’ll be seen as a knowledgeable and trusted expert, adding a further boost to your reputation. 5. Share on Social Networks Use social media to share and connect with others. Spread the word about content generated from above and share related news from other sources and sites. Engaging in this way shows you are an active “thought leader” in the legal community and naturally draws clients. Key platforms to use are LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Scribd, university alumni sites, Medium, Quora, YouTube, and even Instagram. Additionally, be sure your platforms’ profiles are up to date. Include links back to your site, have the correct verbiage blurb that appeals to your clients, contains a headshot photo of yourself, and completes any empty profile sections–all of which help you be found in searches. 6. Get a Presence on Law-Specific Websites Search engines prefer and prioritize sites related to your industry—i.e., law–and thus usually rank them higher than others sites with more traffic. Create, update and be active on Avvo, Nolo, ABA Journal, Justia, and more. Answering questions here helps showcase expertise, increasing the likelihood of being found online during searches. 7. Continue to Add Useful Information The last step is to repeat constantly. Setting up a Twitter account or having an intern write one blog will not work. Instead, continually add new content, post and share daily on social media platforms, and pivot to new solutions. Because the process can take months, prepare to spend hours weekly repairing your online reputation. So, it is quite possible to build, boost and repair an online legal reputation, but the key is excellent content and constant engagement to draw in clients.

7 Ways to Gain Clients Using Online Reputation Management

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Build Your Online Reputation To Gain Prospective Clients Want to get clients? Build a great online reputation. People search on Google before, after, and during connecting with you to see what kind of experience you have and if you can solve their problem. Having a strong web presence generates trust, leading to converting prospective clients into paying ones. If the first page of Google searches is full of positive articles and links, prospective clients see you as trustworthy. This helps close the deal. However, if something negative appears, potential customers just move on to someone else–a competitor. Almost as importantly, if minimal information shows up in searches, you might appear unreliable or not real, also causing prospects to move on. Understand Your Client An online reputation should resonate and align with your clients’. But in order to do so, you need to know precisely who your prospective customers are. Research them thoroughly. Without an ideal customer composite, it’s difficult or nearly impossible to know where to start building an online reputation that resonates with clients. Understand who to target, think about what drives them, then present clear solutions that help. To completely grasp your clients’ needs, analyze them by drafting a detailed and comprehensive profile. This persona drives all content creation, marketing messages, and sales conversations. Gathering and sharing this targeted content allows you to speak directly to the wants, needs, and desires of your ideal buyer. Also, it crystallizes the kind of companies you like working with and what their pain points are. You can then craft the exact solution that they need. For example, if your prospective clients are a professional urban New York-area couple in their 30s and have a joint salary of $300K, then your reputation approach needs to appeal directly to them. Deliver Trust and Solutions Potential clients seek out a business that seems trustworthy, effective, and fixes their problem. An accomplished online reputation draws in prospects naturally and turns them into paying customers. Businesses often neglect to align their offers with what their clients really need the most and instead focus on what they want to sell. You should deliver solutions that your clients really need. Many times, however, clients think they need one solution but you, as the expert, know they need another. Be ready to explain the advantages of your approach. This continues to build trust. Continually building a positive reputation is key to reaching new customers. Once you have a comfortable connection, educate them on recognizing the superior value of your service. Overdeliver For All Clients, Especially the Best Ones Do really great work, naturally. This earns referrals and builds a reputation of excellence. Craft well-researched strategies, offer pinpointed analysis, answer questions immediately, give effective solutions, and be extremely professional–always. Very satisfied clients generate positive feedback that influences and encourages others to use your business. Existing clients bring business partners, friends, neighbors, or even their own professionals that they deal with (dentists, accountants, etc.). These satisfied clients can–and should–be used as a part of your reputation marketing strategy. Since nearly eighty percent of most business income comes from about twenty percent of their clients, this all makes sense. That’s why keeping current clients happy matters so much for building a positive reputation. Excelling for every single client all the time, while admirable, is not realistic or productive, however. Over-deliver for those best customers, but focus on delivering extraordinary service to the twenty percent that brings in the most business. Focusing on your best consumers results in retaining them, generating excellent recommendations, and most importantly, builds strong online and offline integrity. Blog Like Crazy What is one of the best ways to build or boost your reputation? Write. One of the best tools in your online toolkit is crafting well-made blogs. Writing great pieces not only brings eyeballs online to draw in potential customers, but it also highlights you as an industry expert in your niche. Everyone is looking for solutions on Google. For you to be discovered in search results requires the creation of truly exceptional work. Writing excellent blogs increases the chance of being found on the first page of Google, which leads to visibility, more clients, and a trustworthy reputation. Think of it like this: if a prospective client is searching for your business online and sees the first page filled with positive articles and links, they probably would pick you over a competitor who has minimal (or negative) information. The key is drafting the best blog possible. But a blog can be nearly anything: articles, audio recordings, videos, presentations, white papers, photos, infographics, graphs, and even memes. Another powerful feature of blog posts is that they generate “backlinks” or ties that connect to your content, which Google considers as an important page-ranking signal. Each time a new blog post is published, a new searchable article–and backlink–can point back to your website. If a blog piece is published every few weeks, that means several dozen new links potentially create many new ways to be found, leading to new sales opportunities, and more chances that you’ll be seen as an expert. But while frequent publishing is important, paramount is producing high-quality content. Have a Search Engine Optimization Strategy Being on the top of Google search results means business. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps drive prospective clients to your website and is a crucial part of an online reputation strategy. Since about 95% of clicks occur on the first page of searches, having a presence there builds trust and substantially helps in closing deals. High-quality content along with leveraging SEO builds an online reputation that strongly increases the chance of being seen first on Google, which leads to visibility, more clients, and additional online confidence. Google uses many ways to determine where to rank a website. While this is a massive topic in itself, to be found predominantly in search results requires the creation of exceptional work, such as high-quality blogs and some behind-the-scenes technical work, such as backlink creation

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