SEO in a Major Lancashire Legal Practice
Interview between Bob Kipling and Jan Klin
How would you describe your company and its mission?
We are a firm of solicitors serving a client base centered around Lancashire & Cumbria. We cover Commercial Property, Corporate law, Commercial and Personal Litigation, Family, Probate and have a specialist Rural Business department. More than 50% of our business is with business clients and a fair amount of that is repeat business.
How long have you had a website and what is its main purpose?
We've had a website for around three years now. This is its second incarnation and we are already looking at a redesign to keep it looking fresh and new. The is essentially a brochure site, with news items to keep clients updated about areas of law that affect our client base, and news of the firm. We have also recently added a password protected Extranet area where we can hold documents such as auction packs, and property information so potential buyers or agents can download them.
Does the site work for you? ie deliver the benefits you were expecting?
I don't suppose initally we expected much from our site. It was set up as a defensive measure, we had to have one because everyone else had one.
There was never any intention to "sell" any services through the site, we have seen various other firms try that and none have really succedded. In Law, the personal service is very important. We did hope that if anyone was looking for a new lawyer, they might see the site, contact us and eventually become a client. As there was no optimisation, we got few visits to the site and it generated little new business.
It was mainly there so people who had seen our web address on stationary, etc could visit, or via one of the links from various directories such as the Law Society directory, Yell.com etc.
What is your online marketing strategy? - which methods do you use to attract potential customers?
We now have an optimised site that appears well up in the rankings for our chosen serach terms. We also utilise PPC advertising on Google as well and have increased the number of links from other sites.
The strategy is to try and get people viewing our site
How does your online activity mesh with your offline marketing?
What we are starting to see now is an increased number of new clients who have initally viewed our site and then made an appointment to see us, turning into clients
How do you see the future regarding your online activity?
Unless there is a significant change in the legal lanscape, then I feel our website will continue as a non transactional presence. The firm is growing rapidly and is in the process of merging with another sizeable firm in Preston and East Lancashire, hence the present redisign to match our new corporate branding.
What is the single biggest lesson you have learned about your web activities?
If you don't get your website optimised, its invisible. Prior to optimising our site I searched under one of our chosen phrases. I got down to page 50 on Google and we still hadn't appeared. With the right tags in place we now have most of our chosen phrases on the first page, some in the top 3. It takes some thinking about and some work but if you want your site to be seen, its worth it.The stats package we now use use shows us how many hits per day and which pages are viewed so it makes it easy then to see whats going on.
Can you imagine life without a website?
I can when I've got updates to make and precious little time to do it!. In truth the website is an excellent tool for what we want and we are starting to see new business as a result of it. I certainally wouldnt want to be without it now.
Thanks Bob - Napthens Solicitors Preston
How would you describe your company and its mission?
We are a firm of solicitors serving a client base centered around Lancashire & Cumbria. We cover Commercial Property, Corporate law, Commercial and Personal Litigation, Family, Probate and have a specialist Rural Business department. More than 50% of our business is with business clients and a fair amount of that is repeat business.
How long have you had a website and what is its main purpose?
We've had a website for around three years now. This is its second incarnation and we are already looking at a redesign to keep it looking fresh and new. The is essentially a brochure site, with news items to keep clients updated about areas of law that affect our client base, and news of the firm. We have also recently added a password protected Extranet area where we can hold documents such as auction packs, and property information so potential buyers or agents can download them.
Does the site work for you? ie deliver the benefits you were expecting?
I don't suppose initally we expected much from our site. It was set up as a defensive measure, we had to have one because everyone else had one.
There was never any intention to "sell" any services through the site, we have seen various other firms try that and none have really succedded. In Law, the personal service is very important. We did hope that if anyone was looking for a new lawyer, they might see the site, contact us and eventually become a client. As there was no optimisation, we got few visits to the site and it generated little new business.
It was mainly there so people who had seen our web address on stationary, etc could visit, or via one of the links from various directories such as the Law Society directory, Yell.com etc.
What is your online marketing strategy? - which methods do you use to attract potential customers?
We now have an optimised site that appears well up in the rankings for our chosen serach terms. We also utilise PPC advertising on Google as well and have increased the number of links from other sites.
The strategy is to try and get people viewing our site
How does your online activity mesh with your offline marketing?
What we are starting to see now is an increased number of new clients who have initally viewed our site and then made an appointment to see us, turning into clients
How do you see the future regarding your online activity?
Unless there is a significant change in the legal lanscape, then I feel our website will continue as a non transactional presence. The firm is growing rapidly and is in the process of merging with another sizeable firm in Preston and East Lancashire, hence the present redisign to match our new corporate branding.
What is the single biggest lesson you have learned about your web activities?
If you don't get your website optimised, its invisible. Prior to optimising our site I searched under one of our chosen phrases. I got down to page 50 on Google and we still hadn't appeared. With the right tags in place we now have most of our chosen phrases on the first page, some in the top 3. It takes some thinking about and some work but if you want your site to be seen, its worth it.The stats package we now use use shows us how many hits per day and which pages are viewed so it makes it easy then to see whats going on.
Can you imagine life without a website?
I can when I've got updates to make and precious little time to do it!. In truth the website is an excellent tool for what we want and we are starting to see new business as a result of it. I certainally wouldnt want to be without it now.
Thanks Bob - Napthens Solicitors Preston
posted by Unknown at
7:12 am
