Most of us seem to assume that the legal industry is a very lucrative one, and all lawyers must be swimming in clients who are eager to spend their money. In truth, the industry is far more varied and competitive than people gather just by watching it from the outside.
Not only do lawyers need to go through a demanding education system to start practising, but they need to build networks of contacts and gain experience before most people are willing to work with them. Even lawyers who have a great deal of experience and expertise find themselves competing with many other professionals who have similar backgrounds.
In order to differentiate themselves and demonstrate their value to prospective clients, lawyers need to engage in some form of marketing. As you will discover in this article, digital marketing was the perfect solution for this particular law firm; O’Sullivan Legal.
O’Sullivan Legal is a Sydney based law firm that specializes in family law issues but now represents clients in several other areas as well. They, like many smaller law firms, struggled to gain exposure that would help them grow commercially.
Taking on higher profile cases and building their reputation is a common goal amongst lawyers and this was no different for the firm’s Director, Ben O’Sullivan. Mr. O’Sullivan knew a great deal about the law, but hadn’t been a student of marketing, so he knew he had to solicit some outside consultancy.
This is where O’Sullivan Legal engaged with one of Sydney’s leading digital marketing firm’s; SEO Shark. The local digital marketing agency was able to implement this discipline of search engine optimization on behalf of O’Sullivan.
By soliciting SEO Shark, O’Sullivan was able to begin crafting their online presence by using optimization tactics. This primarily involved the creation of high quality content, the building of backlinks and the web development of O’Sullivan’s website.
In terms of content, a great deal of writing was created regarding the legal areas O’Sullivan specialized in. Articles and blog posts that discussed issues related to law were paired with keywords that O’Sullivan wanted to rank for and then distributed amongst a network of backlinks.
This kind of work was the primary means by which O’Sullivan was able to enhance its online visibility. By creating a network of high quality content that links back to O’Sullivan’s domain, search engines (and users) began to see the firm with a higher level of authority.
This enhanced mindshare took time to generate and would have been impossible to get overnight. These kinds of tactics require months of careful distribution and monitoring to make sure that a consistent effect is being created.
On the web development side of things, O’Sullivan’s website was optimized so that all of its internal elements worked optimally for users and search engine indexers. This meant creating a website that looked good, was easy to navigate and kept visitors engaged.
By improving the website itself, O’Sullivan was able to retain people on their webpage for longer and this eventually meant more prospective clients. The time people stay on the website is itself a ranking factor, so by directly improving the quality of their site O’Sullivan continued to gain exposure.
O’Sullivan’s story showcases how effective digital marketing is when it is done properly and given enough time to work. While there are certainly faster methods of paying for exposure, the kind that O’Sullivan has generated is based on a sincere reputation that is self-perpetuating.