Lawyer Marketing March Madness Day 5
Today’s match-up:
(6) Directory Listings vs. (11) Blog
Keys to this lawyer marketing match-up:
In today’s lawyer marketing battle, directory listings square off against blogging.
Directory listings, whether online or offline, can be a good source of new clients. However, they are not without their shortcomings.
There are two main drawbacks to directory listings. First, most directories are built on a subscription model. Lawyers pay a monthly subscription to be listed in the directory. Therefore, there is no guarantee of any contact with a potential client. Many lawyers pay thousands of dollars to be listed in directories without ever talking to a potential client.
Second, the performance of a directory listing is often very difficult to track. Unless the listing contains a unique phone number, measuring ROI for a directory listing can be very unreliable.
Combined, these factors make many directory listings a black hole for lawyer marketing dollars.
On the other hand, good directories can be an excellent platform for personal branding. Some directories allow lawyers to create their own profile and marketing message. Additionally, high-ranking, industry-specific, directories can be a good source of higher volume, qualified traffic.
Blogs are relatively new to the lawyer marketing game. So far, they have proven to be very effective when it comes to branding your law firm. Of course, like firm websites, your blog is only as good as its content and its search engine visibility. Notice, I didn’t say content or search engine visibility. The truth is, you can rank number one in google but if your blog is spam, spun, nonsense, eventually people will catch on (although admittedly, your high visibility will generate some traffic). Likewise, you could be writing the best blog posts ever, but if you aren’t ranking, they aren’t reading.
Well-written blogs also can take a significant chunk out of your professional time. Many law firms leave blog posting to younger associates or law students. This often leads to content-spam (i.e. daily posts about some law-related news happenings). Again, while this strategy may work in the short-term, eventually this content-stuffing will go the way of keyword-stuffing.
Prediction:
Cinderalla, welcome to the ball.
A good blog is, and will continue to be, one of the strongest platforms for lawyer marketing. Directories will need to evolve or die. Eventually, lawyers will start asking questions about what their directory dollars doing.
Don’t forget to check out these other lawyer marketing match-ups:
(7) Paid Search vs. (10) Marketing Consultants
(1) Referrals from Colleagues vs. (16) Newsletters
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I had to go for the ‘loser’ of the pack and vote for directory listings. We’re new to this blogging thing, and really unsure how our blog brings people to our website, who in turn will call us with a question that could lead to business.
At this point, I think directory listings are better. But we’re still plugging away at the blogging thing.
We have a website and a blog, but we’re not sure if the blog is ranked. When you say, if you aren’t ranking, what do you mean by it? How do you get your blog ranked?
Amy-
I was referring to search engine rankings. So, to get your blog ranked, you have to do all the things that apply to search engine optimization in general.
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