The Great SEO Debate for law firms

A lot of law firms I talk to always bring up search engine optimisation, SEO.

It’s a valuable tool and used well a very valuable tool.

But lets look at it a different way. How valuable is it if it directs ‘the buyer’ to a site when they cannot interact or is say a brochureware site? How does the client engage, buy or interact? Yes they could drop an email. Yes they could fill in a form. Yes they could phone the firm up. But in the main web surfers come to sites for a reason, usually to get something, to solve a problem or to find a solution. They don’t come to read how wonderful or clever you are. They also expect to have a solution ( or at least a significant start to one) waiting for them; click it, engage with it, submit it…then carry on with their life.

The thing about websites and consuming on the web, (which is just about all of us or at least those that are reading this) is that we are now in a ‘click and solve’ culture and if someone clicks on your site and the solution they want is not readily available or easily accessible the chances are they will move on very quickly, trying to find their solution. No ‘clickable’ solution and you could start to look a bit dated.

If that ‘solution’ is not all that apparent, complicated to understand or written in a language that is not crafted for ‘the buyer’ then the SEO has done it’s job in getting them there but the website has failed in navigating them to their solution.

Lets change the dynamic. Lets say you have ‘clickable solutions.’ The clients journey to their solution is now more focused, efficient and elegant. The law firm can capture rich client data and productive work because the client has refined and delivered it to their desktop.

Remember, websites for law firms, in my opinion, should not be seen as a tool for online-only engagement. They are primarily to be used as a capture and initial drafting tool. Once the client is captured they can then be migrated to the high value engagement functions of phone and/or face to face. But as most people will instinctively Google for a solution would it not be wise to focus on having a space in Google world that has real meaning to the search?

But the law firm can also build relationships more efficiently via a true online portal and get the client to extoll your services, (just like every other online service industry does)…then social media really comes into play for law firms as peer-to-peer recommendation is the most compelling (and most cost effective) marketing tool of all.

I think SEO is a very clever tool. But it is one of many tools, both online and offline, that law firms need to deploy so they can forget about being big or small and focus on being smart.

Please let me know what you think.