According to the Age of the Client, a LexisNexis report, 75 percent of lawyers see attracting clients as a significant challenge. What’s worse, 6 out of 10 lawyers see retaining clients as a challenge. 

What if it wasn’t?

What if you were able to generate a never-ending supply of leads and clients for your law firm? Would you be as concerned for the future, especially in our current climate? I’m going to show you how to do just that today by creating digital tripwires.

What’s a Local SEO traffic-pump, and how can it help you? 

It’s a referral system that drives a consistent stream of prospective clients to your website. These clients come from local sources (digital and offline) that are willing and able to make referrals on your behalf.

How this referral system helps you: 

• It minimizes business development costs 
• Attracts clients who are able and willing to invest in your services
• Provides your law firm with steady channel partners you can rely on to grow your firm
• Reduces per lead costs consistently over time
• Increases return on ad spend (ROAS) costs 

This is the secret weapon elite firms use to grow. 

It’s quid pro quo relationships at scale; you’re able to attract, develop, and nurture a significant number of profitable relationships for your firm over time. 

Here’s a condensed view that explains how it works. 

Step #1: Choose a practice area

The Pareto distribution (80/20 rule) applies here. You’ll want to choose the practice areas that perform best for your law firm. If the vast majority of your work comes from real estate clientele, you’ll want to take note of that. If you’re looking to transition from one practice area to another, focus your attention there. 

You must specialize first. 

During this selection process, you’ll want to identify your value proposition, ideal price ranges, alternative fee arrangements, etc. In addition to the details above, you’ll also want to collect crucial information, including: 

• Value proposition
• Firm history
• Attorney accomplishments
• Contact information
• Answers to client objections 
• Social proof, credibility, and prestige markers
• Risk reversals 
• Irresistible offers
• Promises and assurances (e.g., calls returned within 24 hours)

This is the information prospects look for before they decide to request a meeting. It’s a preliminary step that sets the tone for future actions. 

Step #2: Create a list of local sources 

Let’s say you’re a business and commercial lawyer based in Chicago. You’ll want to create a list of local sources that specifically focus on the Chicagoland area. 

Here’s a sample list.

• City Club of Chicago, a speaker or group of speakers, addresses a forum of 1,540 members.
• Tenchnori is a startup focused club dedicated to educating would-be entrepreneurs.
• Tech Cocktail a classic showcase and mixer that hosts more than 15,000 attendees.
• American Club Association, is an invite-only club that emphasizes networking and mutually beneficial relationships.
• Vistage International Inc. is an exclusive, mastermind club with two-stage interviews and big-ticket rates. 
• Chicago Latino Network a 50,000 subscriber group that’s focused on events and expert panels.
• Executives’ Club Of Chicago is a corporate and individual membership club with more than 1,500 C-suite and senior executives.
• Chicago Network is an invite-only club for women that’s focused on influential women in a variety of markets. 
• Committee of 200 is another invite-only club for female entrepreneurs. 
• Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce – networking that’s available to any Chicagoland business. 
• Meetup and Career groups in Chicago, a category page that’s focused on smaller, more informal groups. 
• Small business groups in Chicago
• Eventbrite networking groups and upcoming events. 
• Avvo Q&A Answer questions on Avvo, and you raise your digital profile 
• World Business Chicago, an economic development group and business development hub. 

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but I think you get the idea.

Step #3: Select prominent keywords

Next, you’ll want to select an appropriate list of keywords. You can use SEO keyword research tools like: 

• Answer the Public
• Google Keyword Planner
• Wordstream 
• Ubersuggest 
• Soovle 

You’ll want to build a list of general and location-specific, educational, transactional, and navigational keywords that are appropriate for your law firm, for example: 

Education keywords

• Independent contractor law
• Suing clients for non-payment
• Dividing business assets
• Divorce business assets 

Transactional keywords

• Small business attorney
• Small business attorney Chicagoland
• Small business attorney Chicago
• Small business attorney near me

Navigational keywords

• [Your name] law firm
• [Yourdomain] law firm
• Go [Yourdomain] lawyer
• Contact [Yourdomain] lawyer

The keywords you choose should be oriented around you, your firm, and your practice areas. If it’s directly related to any of these categories, you’ll want to add it to the list.

Step #4: Setup local tripwires

Head over to Google.com/Alerts then enter in these keywords. You’ll want to enter your keyword phrase in quotes like this: 

” Small business attorney Chicagoland”

If you’re monitoring keywords on a specific site you’ll want to structure your keywords like this: 

” Small business attorney Chicagoland” AND site:domain.com

You can also use Follow that Page if you’d like to monitor the content on a particular website. For example, you can use Law.com to curate content. If Law.com writes about legal challenges for small businesses, you can discuss that content with the local sites on your list.

Write it, deliver a speech, create a video, etc. 

Next, you’ll want to create content along with a content upgrade. A content upgrade is an additional piece of education that’s designed to draw prospective clients to your site. If you’re a business attorney writing about employee contract law, for example, you can provide small businesses with a content upgrade in the form of an employee law checklist for small businesses. 

Here’s where the tripwires are created. 

You’re going to use GaryVee’s content pyramid to scale this content and maximize the amount of value you receive from this piece of content. What’s a content pyramid? 

GaryVee explains: “The ultimate goal of creating this presentation on my content model is to show you how my team took one of my keynotes, repurposed it into 30+ pieces of content, and then successfully distributed all of that content, resulting in over 35,000,000 total views.”

Here are the slides from his presentation. 

GaryVee has a massive following on his social media accounts. 

What if you don’t? 

That’s an easy fix; just reach out to the list of sources you’ve collected above and syndicate the content for each source. This means you:

• Give them an unlisted link for your YouTube video 
• Give them a list of 5 to 10 tweets, that they can send out on their Twitter profile. 
• Do the same thing for each of your local sources, for each of their social media accounts. 
• If they’re on a social media platform, you create a micro version of your content for them to share regularly, promoting your business indefinitely
• Once you’ve shared content with Local Source A, immediately ask Local Source B if they’d like to syndicate your content. You share your content with 10x more sources, but you only create it once!
• Make sure the majority of your content leads back to your law firm website in some way. 

Whenever you see content on a large, popular site that relates to the keywords in your list, you create better content for your local sources that they can share with their entrepreneurs. 

How do you multiply your content? 

• If you host an event, make a speech, or run a workshop – record it. 
• Take that recording and turn it into an mp3.
• Transcribe your recordings and turn them into a blog post or ebook. 
• Pull 5 to 10 quotes from that blog post then turn them into tweets, status updates, Instagram posts, etc. 

Do this, and you’ll be seen everywhere in your local community. With 10 hours of work per month, you can ensure that your business will be seen everywhere in your local community. 

This is the power of the local SEO traffic pump. 

Local SEO can be incredibly profitable for your law firm

But it all depends on your referral system. 

The right referral system drives a steady stream of prospective clients to your website. These high-value clients come from local sources (digital and offline) that are willing and able to refer your business to their audience. Provide them with the kind of value they’re looking for, and you’ll find their audience becomes yours. 

Do this, and you join an elite group.

As we’ve seen, 75 percent of lawyers see attracting clients as a significant challenge. With the right referral system, you’ll have everything you need to attract a never-ending supply of leads and clients. 

There’s been a 500 percent increase in “near me” mobile searches. We’re in the middle of a local search explosion. According to Google, nearly one-third of all mobile searches,  1.1 billion+ searches per day, are location-specific search queries. 

These searches continue to climb. 

The numbers from Google’s report shows a staggering change taking place, one that lawyers and law firms may not be prepared for. 

Why Local SEO is essential for your law firm

Local search is a way of life for your clients. More and more, your clients are conditioned to search for the specific things they want, regardless of what it is. Research from Think with Google shows:

• A 500 percent increase in “near me” mobile searches (e.g., real estate attorney near me, tax attorney near me)
• 150+ percent growth in mobile searches for  “___ near me now.”
• Search volume for local places, without the qualifier “near me,” has grown by 150 percent  
• 26 percent of searcher clicks go-to brands that appear first in Google (ads not included).
• 3 in 4 smartphone owners turn to search first to address their immediate needs (e.g., DUI attorney, gun rights lawyers Chicago)

This is why local SEO is so essential. Most lawyers are familiar with SEO; a savvy few are even familiar with the ins and outs of local SEO. Most do it badly. 

If you’d drive like a reliable stream of eager clients to your law firm, you’ll need to focus your attention on local SEO.  

What exactly is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a subset of Search Engine Optimization that focuses on local intent. 

• Lawyers near me
• Real estate attorney in Chicago Loop
• DUI lawyer in Milwaukee
• Affordable Small business lawyer in NYC

Those results can be displayed in a special table known as the local pack or their usual results. 

Google uses signals called local search ranking factors to determine which law firms are displayed first/prominently in its search engine. The better your local search ranking factors, the better your rank in Google’s local search results.  

Here’s a list of these signals: 

• Google My Business (GMB) Profile: A free profile that helps you to drive engagement via Google Maps, Google Reviews, and other services on Google. A GMB profile is a must-have for strong local SEO performance. 
• Link Signals: Who links to you, the number of sites that link to you, the words they use to link to you, etc. Each link functions like a vote. The more votes you receive from high trust or high profile sites, the easier it is to rank for your desired keywords.  
• Review Signals: The number of online reviews you have, review recency (recent reviews are more valuable), review diversity (i.e., reviews on a variety of other sites), review velocity (how fast do you accumulate reviews?). The stronger your review portfolio, the easier it is to attract new clients at a lower cost. 
• On-Page Signals: Your website’s reputation, your name, address, and phone numbers are consistent with information available online. The amount of traffic coming to your site and more. 
• Behavior Signals: Do visitors click on your links/listings? What’s your click-through rate? These behavior signals tell Google a lot about the relevance of your page and whether it’s something searchers are looking for. 
• Citation signals: Consistent name, address, and phone numbers across the internet, on each of your profiles. Listings on a variety of relevant, local sites and directories. 
• Social signals: Engagement on social media platforms (e.g., likes, hearts, shares, etc.) also function as votes. They’re challenging to game and provide Google with a helpful measure of a lawyer’s brand reputation and credibility. If you’re consistently trending on Facebook or Twitter, you’re worthy of more attention. 

Optimize your law firm around these local search ranking factors, and you improve the volume of traffic and leads you receive from Google.

Why Local SEO is a problem for lawyers

Savvy lawyers are aware of these concepts, that isn’t the problem. It’s merely a good understanding of marketing. 

This isn’t your fault. Several barriers make it challenging to draw clients to your law firm successfully. I’m talking about cultural programming, perceptions, and myths that shape how lawyers promote their firm. 

Let’s take a look at a few of these. 

1. It’s unprofessional to sell. This is a bit of a paradox — rainmakers are revered in law firms, but selling is often viewed as a sin. This discomfort with selling has a lot to do with the social and political class requirements of the profession. That’s a tough position to be in because, like it or not, selling is a necessity in the legal industry. 
2. My law firm isn’t a business; it’s a calling. This is true, but you can’t help clients with your calling if they don’t know you exist. 
3. Clients hate being sold. In reality, clients hate being pushed, bullied, or manipulated into something they don’t want. They want to be treated fairly and to be given a choice. Doing this the right way is what selling is. 
4. My time is best spent focused on client matters. No problem, find someone to handle the business development and marketing concerns for you. Get someone else to solve this problem for your law firm. 
5. I want to practice law, not run a business. You can’t have one without the other. At some point, you’ll be expected to attract clients, whether you’re a solo lawyer or a hungry lawyer who’s looking to make partner. 
6. We get clients through referrals. This is good news, but it’s also irrelevant because your competitors are overtaking your firm on Google, Facebook, Yelp, and other platforms as we speak. Eventually, you’ll be forced out of the client conversation. 
7. We already have rainmakers. You have rainmakers until you don’t. It’s common for law firms to depend on rainmakers; what these firms don’t realize is the fact that these rainmakers hold their firms hostage. They use their ability to generate business as a bargaining tool to make unreasonable demands. What happens when their firm fails to meet their needs? They take the clients they brought in elsewhere, leaving your firm exposed and unprotected. 

Here’s the good news. 

These issues are relatively easy to overcome. With a little bit of preparation and the right strategy, you can use Local SEO to attract clients to your law firm, with minimal, direct, one-on-one selling required. 

Local SEO isn’t an optional add-on, it’s a must-have

It’s an essential requirement if you want to stay in the game. Google says the demand for local search is growing. Your clients are spending more time on Google to find the services and providers they need. 

Can they find you? 

Local search is a way of life for your clients. Your clients know what they want, more and more, they’re turning to Google to get it. In my next post, I’ll show you how to build a strong local SEO campaign that produces traffic, generates leads and boosts 

Doubling your revenue sounds impossible. 

How can these billing tips double your law firm’s revenue at a time when many firms are experiencing a decline in demand for legal services? According to the 2019 State of the Legal Market, law firm realization rates have dropped significantly and continued to decline since the Great Recession. This has harmed firm revenues. 

Is it possible in this economic climate for a firm to double its revenue? 

Doubling your revenue: More about you, less about competition

These billing tips are more about your behavior than they are about your competitors and their actions. Boosting your income comes down to three best practices. 

1. Minimizing errors and mistakes 
2. Increasing your firm’s income 
3. Layering your firm’s income 

In my [previous post], I shared several strategies you can use to reduce billing mistakes. In this post, we’ll focus on the strategies you can use to double your firm’s revenues. 

Let’s take a look. 

Billing tips to increase your firm’s revenue

First, some important disclaimers: 

• The strategies I mention may require modification to work correctly. 
• Some of them may not work in your jurisdiction due to legal constraints. 
• For many of you, these strategies will work well, which may create a (different) set of problems. 

I’ve written comprehensive guides on each of these topics; I recommend that you take a look at them. 

You can increase your firm’s income in a variety of ways: 

1. Boost your firm’s utilization rate with utilization optimization. Your utilization rate is a reflection of your firm’s productivity and billing efficiency. The higher your utilization rate, the more revenue (and profit) your firm can generate. Here’s how you calculate your utilization rate: Billable hours/total # of hours recorded in a particular period = utilization rate. 
2. Increase your firm’s productivity. Believe it or not, it is possible to 2x or even 4x your productivity. To boost your firm’s productivity, you’ll need to make the distinction between toil and productivity. Toil refers to tedious, exhausting, and repetitive busywork that’s never-ending. Productivity is work that rings the meter, taking you closer to your goals and objectives. 
3. Educate to attract new clients. Education is the key to attracting a steady stream of clients. While many firms have a problem with selling, very few have a problem with educating prospective clients. As it turns out, education attracts clients consistently because it does two things well. First, it identifies a problem clients have, and second, it positions you as the solution to your prospective client’s problem. Once you’ve educated clients, they’ll approach you as a prospect. This is when you provide them with information. When I use the word information, I’m referring to details like your billing policies, available AFAs, client references, practice areas, years of experience, cases won, etc. Information turns prospects into clients. 
4. Create win-win-win origination credit schemes. To quote Jim Cotterman, principal at Altman Weil, origination credit schemes are “the single most important determinative factor in partner compensation.” Origination plans are crucial to your firm’s survival. Research shows, when clients were served by three practice groups, revenues were 5.7 times higher than those served by one. Clients who were served by five practice groups generated fees that 17.6 times higher than those served by one. This also prevents poaching. When multiple practice groups serve clients, they remain loyal to the firm, rather than an individual attorney. This is the single, most effective way to boost employee morale, increase firm business, and keep clients. 
5. Promote your firm with the right tools and resources. You can use State Bar referrals, CLE credits, Facebook, PR, and other channels to promote your law firm and amplify business development. Using the right tools and resources, you can attract a steady stream of prospects from a variety of sources who are all eager to work with your firm. 

Each of these strategies can double your income on their own but that’s not the most efficient use of these strategies. 

A better approach? 

You double or triple up on these strategies; find the approach that works best for you, get it to a place where it’s working for your firm. Then you add another strategy from the list, then another. These are big problems, but they produce a disproportionately large amount of revenue for your firm when you get them right. 

It isn’t hard. It just requires hard work. 

The strategies I’ve shared above are conventional approaches you can use to double your firm’s revenue. In the next section, we’ll take a look at transformative results. 

Here’s the difference. 

• Conventional results create trust. Conventional results = doing your job exceptionally well. Being a great attorney, going above and beyond for clients and your team. Exceptional day-to-day performance increases. If you’re a real estate attorney, your documents and agreements are above reproach; your work is pristine, you’re fast, efficient, helpful, productive, etc.
• Transformative results build careers and firms. These are the extras, the above and beyond results that make things better for your firm, the industry, or clients as a whole. It’s doing what other attorneys or firms won’t or can’t do. Most real estate attorneys, for example, won’t take the time to run monthly webinars or workshops for real estate investors or corporate entities. 

See what I mean? 

Use these law firm billing tips to double your revenue

It’s not about them. It’s about you. 

As we’ve seen, these billing tips are more about your behavior and the way your firm is structured than it is about your competitors. Boosting your income comes down to following and optimizing your firm around best practices. 

Most firms don’t want to do the work. 

It’s annoying, tedious, and occasionally difficult work. But this is also your opportunity. The research shows many firms are experiencing a decline in demand for legal services. Realization rates have dropped significantly and continued to decline since the Great Recession. 

Law firms need to adapt to survive. 

You have the blueprint; double or triple up on these strategies. Find the approach that works best for you then get it to a place where it’s working for your firm. Then, when you’re ready, add another strategy from the list. 

Doubling your revenue isn’t impossible. 

With a structured plan and clear steps to follow, you’ll find you have everything you need to double your firm’s revenue year-over-year.