Legal Directory

What is the Best Legal Directory?

Why are most Legal Directories online now?

The reality is that an online legal directory is the best resource for potential clients now. Most law firms now rely on online referrals, and the number of services that rely on the internet will continue to grow. The statistics for the internet are staggering:

• 95% of homes with average household incomes of $75,000 use the internet regularly

• 80% of all internet users have a computer at home

• 74% of adults in the United States use the internet on a day-to-day basis

With such a wide use of the internet, printed directories have lost more and more importance. Some evidence shows that 39% of all spending on printed yellow pages decreased in just two years from 2009 to 2011. With the decrease of printed material, more and more people are turning to the internet to research legal issues and services provided by specific lawyers.

An online legal directory provides multiple advantages for both the client and the lawyer, including the following:

• These services allow a person to undergo a specific legal procedure almost immediately

• Certain services can allow a potential client to search for firms around their specific area code and within a particular subdivision of law

• These services give a client updated contact information such as email and telephone for a potential firm

What is one of the best legal directories online?

There are several directories around the internet that compare closely, but some of the services provided by laws.com are both cutting edge and unique to the website itself.

With over 2,000,000 monthly users, the legal directory on laws.com is one of the largest directories accessed across the country. A more detailed explanation of individual tools within the marketing tool is listed in the “The Right Law Firms Directories” article on this website. A summary of these tools is listed below, but this article will mainly focus on the brand tool and the importance of a brand within a legal directory. Some of the tools include:

1) Targeted Matching System- this service allows the lawyer to advertise their services within a certain area code and type of law. The tool uses unique algorithms to compare the collective searches of a client to a lawyer’s services and profile.

2) Smart Intext Advertising- this tool allows a client to avoid long listings of individual law firms and attorneys. Instead, a lawyer’s profile is linked to certain articles that a client might be reading. A law firm can compete for advertising privileges within certain key words and articles and determine how frequently they need their services to be advertised in certain areas.

3) Highly Customizable Pages- If you are competing with several different firms in the area, you can make changes to your profile in order to appeal to certain clients. Besides contact information, a lawyer can choose to provide a summary of the firm, their education, and individual testimonials from former clients.

4) Social Media Marketing- You can link your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other accounts to your profile as a lawyer. If you write a blog, you can provide links to the blog as well as any other sources that describe your updated services or recent testimonials.

5) Brand- This tool is one of the most important tools located on the laws.com, but the other tools used for the legal directory are essential as well. The brand tool will help a lawyer create a brand that accounts for vanity, non-vanity, and brand searches on a search engine. This tool will help a lawyer formulate a unique point of view, phrase and target the brand towards a specific audience, allow the brand to deliver the same message over and over.

What is a Brand Promise?

Laws.com is a unique legal directory because the website will actually help a lawyer phrase their brand promise by using very unique and specific algorithms. It may seem like a lawyer has an unfair advantage within this kind of legal directory, but the effect is quite the contrary. The critiqued brand promise allows a client to reach a lawyer faster and allows a lawyer to do the following:

1) Consistently deliver a philosophy and legal service in as little as 5-8 words to a couple of sentences.

2) Deliver the main focus of the firm and give people confidence in your firm’s capabilities

3) Broadcast the benefits of their service to potential clients

Why must a brand promise adapt to different searches?

With a brand promise, a lawyer tries to market their services to the largest audience possible. However, a lawyer can’t address a large audience unless their brand adapts to different kinds of searches. When people are searching for a law directory, they will often use three different kinds of searches, and these are all expanded below:

1) Vanity Phrase- an example of this kind of phrase includes, “Divorce Attorney New Orleans.” The search term will most likely produce millions of results.

2) Non-Vanity Phrase- an example of this kind of phrase includes, “Slipped in Lancaster last night and need a lawyer.” The majority of potential clients use this kind of search, and although the phrase is abstract, the type of phrase usually indicates a specific location and legal need.

3) Branded Phrase- this type of phrase is usually used by clients who have received a referral or read an advertisement. This branded phrases will almost always include the firm’s name, the lawyer’s name, and phone number.

So, why is it important to adjust your brand statement within a legal directory? Well, without an adjusted brand statement, your services wouldn’t show up in a majority of searches. According to some studies, vanity searches account for 16% of all legal searches, branded for 21%, and non-vanity for 63%. If a lawyer were to only adjust his or her brand statement for one type of search within a legal directory, they could be missing out on potentially two-thirds of all possible clients.