80% of website traffic for law firms come from this powerful section
Is your attorney bio really that important? Does it really help pull in clients? To answer these questions, let us look at some stats, shall we?:
- Bios account for about 80% of website traffic for law firms.
- Attorney bios are second to personal recommendations in influencing hiring selection.
- 78% of in-house counsels use bios to research and hire outside counsel.
With these, there are two things we can agree on. First, most people use biographies to validate their attorneys of choice, and second, the higher you rank on Google search results, the more people there will be that get to see what you offer. To further exemplify how important rankings are for law firms, here’s a quick scenario of the ‘domino effects’ visibility could have on your firm’s business. If people Google your firm and can’t find you, especially if they don’t know who you are (we know, that stings), they won’t have you top of mind and then wouldn’t have you in their go-to options when needing the firm’s services.
If you view your attorney bio from your prospects’ point of view, you will find that users today come from all different channels because they don’t have a linear customer journey. To paint the picture, let’s say there’s a prospect, David, interested in having the financial advisor services of your estate planning firm. He’s been reading an article on your website about all the technical steps. Then he deviates and clicks on one of the attorney’s linked profiles, e.g., their LinkedIn profile, and wants to read more about this lawyer’s specializations and such. Will David find all the information he was looking for? He better, because if he doesn’t and finds a competitor of yours that does answer all of his questions, then, well… we all know how that story will likely end.
That said, to increase the number of clients, you need to make sure that your bio’s visibility ranks higher on search engine results and fully delivers all the information that your prospects are looking for. To achieve this, here are three ways you can highlight your attorney profile to the max:
1. Focus On The Basics
How often have you exited a website because you couldn’t find what you were looking for fast enough?
A common mistake in most attorney profiles is providing too much information. Of course, a high word count is necessary if you have many accomplishments and that is also essential for SEO, but oftentimes the client wants to know one thing out of the hundreds you have in your bio!
You only have a few seconds to impress the reader. Research shows it takes three seconds for someone to determine if they like you and want to do business with you. To help the reader digest all of the information on your site, quickly scan your profile and find what they need, make sure to focus on the basics such as:
Who are you?
Your bio should give your readers an immediate idea of who you are, what your values are, and how you work. The key here is to infuse your bio with the proper adjectives and descriptors. Here is a quick exercise to help you come up with the best description of who you are.
- Assume you walked into a room full of people, and a colleague sees you without you seeing them. What do you think they will say about you? Write down what you think in terms of adjectives such as “curious” or “intuitive.”
- Come up with sentences that describe how you fit those adjectives. For the two above, you could come up with something like, “John can identify problems and solve them without the client ever finding out there was an issue.”
Don’t focus too much on your academic qualifications as you talk about yourself, even if they are impressive. After you have been in business for a while, academic qualifications don’t significantly impact the decision of your prospective client as much as your professional results and personal characteristics. So, mention them in passing.
What kind of law do you practice?
Although it goes without saying, you will be surprised at how many attorney profiles fail to deliver this point. Some omit it entirely, and others don’t quite manage to get the message across.
Your bio should include a section that breaks down what kind of law you practice in layman’s terms. Technical language and legal jargon may sound condescending to the readers, or it may just confuse them – both instances will typically cause them to turn away from you.
Once you write your bio, you can run it by some non-attorney staff to see if they fully understand it as well.
What makes you different?
Why should they hire you instead of the tens of attorney websites open in their background tabs? What sets you apart from them?
Although this should be spread out throughout the bio, to supercharge your attorney bio, you should close your bio with why they should choose you. You can complete an accomplishment, award, or recognition for your services with a case you handled.
2. Use A Great Photo
People process images faster than text. Images are processed 60,000 times faster than text. And your prospects are no different. They want to put a face to the name. So once your bio loads, the first impression of you is given by the photo on your bio.
If they get the wrong impression, they won’t hesitate to close the page and continue searching. This is why images are such an essential piece of the puzzle. Your photo should exude professionalism, warmth, and confidence. Here are some rules of thumb you should use to take your picture.
- It should be a headshot.
- It should reflect your personality and character. These are communicated through your pose, facial expression, angle, lighting, and background.
Here’s an example of one of our client’s attorney profile:
3. Optimize for SEO
As mentioned above, 80% of legal website traffic goes to biographies, and more than 50% of people click the first three results on the Google results page. As such, you should put effort into ensuring that you rank higher than other attorneys offering similar services. You can do this by optimizing your bio for search engines.
Because you know who you are targeting, you can research what words they mostly search for and include them in your bio. These are known as keywords. You should include them sparingly to avoid being penalized by search engines by lowering your rank.
Also, you should include geographical information on where you practice. For example, instead of saying “John is the best lawyer,” say, “John is the best lawyer for auto accidents in Kissimmee, Florida. His specialization includes road traffic accidents.” This will ensure that all local searches lead to your page. Additionally, it caters to your ideal niche market.
Shine, Connect and Build Your Attorney Bio. Supercharge Your Attorney Bio
Lawyers that are in-it-to-win-it know that it’s critical to create an excellent first impression. As a result, prospects connect with and trust them immediately and are willing to hire their services.
Undoubtedly, attorney bios are very effective in pulling in clients.
To take advantage of the enormous potential attorney profiles bring, you may want to partner up with a team with significant digital marketing experience and a track record to prove it. This is where Consultwebs comes into play.
We are a digital marketing agency that employs various strategies, tactics, and online tools to help law firms attain their marketing goals. For over two decades, our experts’ primary goal has been to help our esteemed law firm clients dominate search engines, score high-quality leads, sign new cases, and leverage long-term tactics to achieve online success.
Do you want a bio that ranks higher in Google search results? Do you want a compelling attorney bio? Talk to us today.
