Capture + Convert = New Clients

How to capture new clients and customers?

First and foremost – if you want to capture new clients for your firm, you have to find out where they are looking? Where are they getting the information to make a decision about an attorney or firm? Are they going to the phone book (they probably don’t have one). Are they asking a friend or associate? Are they reading books on the subject? Driving around looking for bill-boards or possibly calling your number from those catchy ads you were coaxed into buying on the 11:00 local news?

Every business is unique in where it acquires new clients. Most are finding new business from multiple streams and some rely much more heavily on the web than others.  For most of us the internet offers the best opportunity today for growing your business. Here is an example of where a law firm fits into the internet and digital marketing world:

Much more specifically, do individuals looking for attorneys search online?

(Study performed by AVVO of 1000 respondents)

As you can see by the chart above. The trend has moved overwhelmingly toward online referrals for individuals seeking attorney services. Perhaps Google is aware of the facts above and this is why they charge fees as high as $100.00+ for some AdWord CPC’s in many markets (CPC – Cost Per Click, not a lead or a client – just for clicking on your ad). All this combined with very high client value has caused a feeding frenzy from SEO’s that target attorney firms with promises of high search engine results.

(Client Value, simply explained: A pizza parlor’s typical client value might be a few dollars in revenue. A Physical Injury case for an attorney or a “mommy makeover” from a plastic surgeon, could result in thousands in revenue.)

Keyword Research and the Phrases that matter for your Firm.

There is a pattern to human nature and therefore a pattern for the top keywords across different market areas. Example: more searches for DUI attorneys compared to Divorce attorneys in resort markets with a more transient population that may be drinking a bit more than normal. But, the overall search term patterns are still there.

You can receive a free copy of our detailed case study for a great example of targeted keywords that is producing real visitors and clients)

Commanding a major segment of the organic or paid search for your business or practice in search engine result pages (SERPs) requires a much more targeted approach if you hope to gain access to those clients searching for your services in the highly competitive market such as attorney services. Finding the high value keyword is an important first step and the simplest approach, and a very effective one, is using Googles AdWords tool and planner. It’s free and you haven’t done so already, it’s easy and there are tons of tutorials online. Or, if you have a marketing team or firm you work with, they can give you the information and I would hope that they have already.

Organic vs Paid Ads

I’ll not labor this point – so briefly here are the stats:

• Close to 80% percent of links that search users click on are organic results!
• 70% – 80% of search users polled said they almost always ignore paid search ads.
• 75% of search users are not clicking past the first page of search results!
• On average, organic search traffic produces 25 percent higher conversion rates than traffic driven by equivalent paid search traffic!

Mobile Ready or Phone Apps Matter!

Internet Search on mobile and tablet devices is quickly gaining as the primary usage of internet information. If your online marketing team is not telling you that you must be mobile ready first then they are probably wasting your money!

Google, the world’s largest search provider, is openly punishing websites that are not mobile ready in both organic and paid search. Our own research has shown from as high as 1/3 of our searches are happening on smartphones or tablets.   But, even more impressive are the click thru rates for those clients.   As you can see in the example from one of our attorney websites below just how high the CTR is at over 8 times that of PC users. Surprisingly, in this attorneys market, only 7% of the total search volume accounted for 57% of the actual site traffic.

Mobile matters and ranking high in mobile requires high phone usability. Make sure you make it a priority to get your firm’s website phone friendly. (click here for how to score your websites phone usability).

Proof: While writing this post one of our new Personal Injury firms just got there 2^nd online lead from a phone call and iPhone search from the hospital room. Now that is “The Bottom Line”!

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][dt_button link=”http://onqsites.com/a-tale-of-two-attorney-websites/” color_mode=”custom” color=”#ddb06c” icon=”JTNDaSUyMGNsYXNzJTNEJTIyZmElMjBpY29uLW1lZ2FwaG9uZSUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmklM0U=” animation=”bounce”]Read Next: A Tale of Two Attorney Websites (more marketing strategies)[/dt_button][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Do you dream of a marketing plan that would have lasting results? A plan laser focused to bring in new business over the long term?

There are a ton of experts out there saying that you need to blog more, do more social media and generally your success means that you have to work more. I want to let you now that this article is not about telling you how you need to work more, blog more or tweet constantly. If you enjoy doing those things then fine, go for it. This article is intended to give you and overview of some fundamentals to ensure your website traffic has the maximum conversion and ROI of new clients and business.

Website traffic is a commodity. Like fuel for your car it’s expensive to run ads and perform strategic SEO. And like that gas you put in your car, you do not want to waste a drop of it. Traffic to your website will not get you the client lead if your website is not ready for it. This guide will give you a good start on identifying and making the changes needed to maximize your website’s lead generating potential.

Why Your website is not converting clients to contact/call your firm?

“You can lead the horse to water but you cannot make them drink? “ I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase and if you have ever spent much time around horses you may know why you cannot make them drink. (My answer is at the end of this post.)

Why can’t you convert visitors even if they need your services? They may hear about you, see your services and products, visit your website but they never order, call or contact you. Obviously you must have systems in place to lead new clients to your offer and service. But, before you do, remove any barriers that might send them away and you’ll be one step closer to making your website home page or landing pages a conversion machine.

Here are 4 of the common barriers that might be driving online visitors away from your website:

1) Speed matters!

I’m sure you have heard this before: “You have up to 8 seconds to engage your website visitor”. So, why should you believe this? Where did this idea come from?

Several main studies have all pointed to the fact speed matters:

• Google research stemming back all the way to 2006 (ancient history for internet users) discovered that a change in results from 10 results on the page that loading in .4 seconds vs a 30 page result loading in a mere .9 seconds caused a decrease in traffic and ad revenues by as much as 20%. If you want to argue that Google doesn’t know what they are talking about then why do they own over 3/4 of the search market and last quarter’s profit was 3.8 billion!
• Plus, probably one of the most quoted is the Zona research from as far back as 1999 that up to 1/3 of visitors were lost if a site took more than 8 seconds to download. As broadband became more prevalent the research from Akamai found that in 2006 1/3 of visitors left a page if it took more than 4 seconds to download.

The consensus is: website load speed matters!

Check your speed of your website and take the action necessary to make it load in less than 4 seconds.

Now also check your major competitors website. Use our free online tool and you can do both at the same time, plus a bunch of metrics to help you.  Your goal is to beat them in speed (our online tool can also check competitors along side your website). The reason I suggest this is that some website industries do load slower than others and usability is important also. Google maps is a prime example or real estate property search engines and MLS feeds. If your user is accustom to a high graphic content (and slower speeds) on competitors websites, then you may need to weigh those expectations against speed and checking against several of your top competitors is a good way to gauge your website.

But for attorney websites please note: we have done the research and Speed is always important.

2) Your website message: KISS – yes I’m going to say it- Keep it simple stupid.

Decide what business you are in!

Ask yourself these questions:

• What are you or your firm passionate about solving for your clients?
• Who is your audience, and what are they looking for?
• How do they benefit by using you or your business? (reference the first two questions)
• Then, Don’t tell us what you do but tell us in a simple manner and clearly how you help us.

One of Gestalt psychology’s central principles is the Law of Prägnanz. This law (literally, the “law of pithiness” in German) states that we order all our experiences in a symmetrical, simple manner. Even on the web our visitors might be frightened away if our message is not clear, simple and what they want to hear in just seconds.

So, visible on the page when your client first visits the site give them your simple message about what they want, how you can help and a concise call to action (Call for a free consultation or Get Your (not our) Free Online guide, Your help starts here, etc. )

Why is a simple and clear message important?

Tim Ash, author of the bestselling book Landing Page Optimization is a leading marketing and neuroscience expert states that decisions are not always made with the conscious part of our brain but through more primitive areas that rely on simpler less complicated choices. Overly complex decisions can cause a fight or flight reflex in the brain and drive visitors away.

In 2007, neuroscientists at the University of California Los Angeles scanned the brains of people watching commercials during the Super Bowl. While viewing advertisement during the game, subjects were scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) machine.   Results of the research clearly show that while watching some less complicated simple commercials stimulated empathy and connection, some of the most expensive ads (and complex) provoked anxiety and fear. Complex messages and information and startling images can and do tend to evoke the treat-detector region of the brain. So for an attorney website that means; get rid of the handcuffs and ambulances and replace them with smiling faces. Make your message empathetic, simple, clear and always about them (your customer) not you and your business or firm.

There is a ton of additional neurological research that backs up the principles that simple choices are always safer. If your interested :

Marketing and Neuroscience – What Drives Customer Decisions? – to

Googles landmark study in 2010 ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth), just to mention a few more.

Understand this formula from Tony Jeary in the book: Strategic Acceleration:

Clarity + Focus = Execution

In the 2015 B2B Web Usability Report, Nearly 50% of respondents said the #1 reason they left a website immediately was because of a lack of a message!

We evolved to move toward a simple less complicated direction. Get rid of the complicated landing pages and create a simple less complicated message.  SPECIAL NOTE TO ATTORNEYS: If your still unable, or your partners are unwilling, to give up those scary photos of you and the law books in your carousel on your home page and move them to a bio section of your website, then at least hire a competent web designer to build you a separate website dedicated to a simple clear message that will bring new business for your firm.

3) Make Sure you are Mobile Ready (Period!).

If your website is not currently easily viewable across all devices you are missing business. Google is not only noting mobile ready sites in smartphone search results, but has algorithms that lower your chances of being found in search engines if your website is not mobile friendly. More importantly, according to many recent marketing studies early in 2015, mobile and tablet traffic in the US is about 1/3 of the total internet traffic. This is a huge increase from 23.4% of total traffic from the latter part of 2012. (According to marketing and publishing firm – Walker Sands Communication’s)

(above graph provided by: A Kleinger Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) 2013 internet trends report )

 4) Keep your navigation simple and exactly what your visitor expects.

Some of this is starting to overlap but don’t use your website as a design experiment. Keep menus where they should be and what they should be. Allow visitors to easily move around your site and reach there ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth). Remember that visitors want things simple and you must organize the information on your website in a simple and structured way.  Allow your menu to be what your client might expect and don’t try to be clever or distracting to your visitors. Clearly mark your products and services and for attorneys, clear tabs to your services or practice areas. Think about the path that you might want your clients to take and design menus around that giving them the information that they are seeking.

Oh finally, Why can you lead a horse to water but not make them drink? Simply, they are prey animals that have evolved to stay alive by successfully sourcing out danger. They need water and lots of it, but if you do not take away the dangers they’ll never drop their heads to drink. Remove the distractions and let them clearly see the water they so desperately need and desire – they’ll drink.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Discover how you can achieve online Brand Excellence. Click the link above to find out more!

Rank Excellence is a USA based (Charleston SEO) program from onQsites, LLC

• Rank Excellence will get you on page one of Google organic search and seen by local clients looking for your business!
• Specializing in your industry type with laser focus on results produces new streams of clients purchasing your services and products.
• Exclusivity – We only accept one business within your market = increasing lead generation and growing market share only for you!
• Our Proven Strategy Will Help You Dominate Your Competition By Taking Over Google

Visit Rank Excellence and discover how excellence in SEO, content marketing, and building your Brand online can increase your business. Rank Excellence is Jet Fuel for SEO!

Charleston SEO | Rank Excellence for the World!

Your Website Solution!

onQ sites.com – designs and maintains websites for businesses. We offer an easy and complete solution for getting your company on the web fast and economically.

Your tailored solution will launch your company on the web without the confusion and high cost of other hosting and site development companies. Built-in SEO, responsive, fully optimized, fast and mobile ready – We guarantee you will be happy with your website or you pay nothing!

• Provide some basic information to help us get started
• Consult by phone with a member of our design team
• Submit your images or text if you have them
• We take it from there

Find an economical website and hosting solution here!

Can’t decide which plan for your web site? Free online search is available to discover “Your.com”. Select your domain name and reserve it for only $14.95/year. Decide later on a hosting plan with the security of knowing your domain name is secured.

1. Most Clients hate HTML rich emails.  If your drip emails have lots of colorful HTML and banners, they might just get dumped into the spam folder.  If you want people to read your emails, then keep them simple with no banners and pictures of your happy home selling face.  Nothing says “SPAM” like a colorful email that looks like it came from a discount retailer.  People are more likely to respond to auto-responders if they don’t know it’s an auto-responder.
2. Long emails go to the dump.  You don’t read long emails from anyone, not even people you like.  So why would anyone want to take 5 minutes to read an email from a real estate agent?  I’ve found that the most effective emails are about 3-4 sentences.  If a prospect can read it in 15 seconds, he might actually take 5 more seconds to reply.  (I sometimes use emails with no caps in the sentences. That looks authentic, though a little amateur.)
3. Give people a reason to respond, or your email is dumpster bound.  If your email doesn’t ask a question, cater to their specific needs or otherwise give the reader a good reason to reply, will they?  End your email with something like, “When are you thinking of moving?”  Or, “Let me know what you think of this house.”
4. Emailing too frequently and I’ll toss you in the trash.  If you email me every week, I’m eventually going to mark you as ‘junk’ in my email account.   Don’t email people every week if they aren’t moving for a year.  If a buyer has no time frame for moving, then once a month is plenty, maybe even too often.  Early on in my career I had everyone getting a weekly email with properties.  The vast majority of those people opted out of my emails within a few months.
5. Irrelevant emails are Dumpster material.  You can’t just have one email campaign, because you don’t just have one type of client. Buyers should get buyer emails, sellers should get seller emails.  Prospects with no set time frame should get long term, spread out emails that just remind them you are there.  You want a custom email campaign for each type of lead, prospect, and client you are working with.  And by the way, those are 3 very different types of people I just mentioned.  A lead is not a prospect, which is not a client, yet.
6. If you don’t send properties, your emails might be dumped as junk. We all know it that over 80% of the website traffic is searching for property!  I say “might” because not every drip email needs to show properties. But if you have a buyer, chances are they would rather see properties of interest than your pretty face.  Sellers want to see homes sold or listed in their neighborhood.  If you know anything about the recipient, sending properties of interest is your best bet.
7. And lastly, for the love of all things email, don’t forward jokes or trite little stories about your cat.  I am actually on one brokers email list and he forwards jokes to his entire sphere of influence (including me) about once a week. I have sent him to the trash dump even though he is a personal friend. So, now if he really has something to say I’ll never get it!  And, please don’t force your political ranting’s on me, not everyone is going to feel the same way you do and this will not only send you to the dump but may send your relationship to the dump as well!

Good luck and happy e-mailing!

Goals for your website!

What do you want your website to do for you? You are not going to achieve your goal if you do not know what those goals are.  Do you want more business, more sales, more clients? Do you want your website to take work load off  staff or yourself by relaying important and useful information? Is your website properly optimized to today’s SEO standards?

What is a short term goal, then maybe a longer term goal for your web presence? Ask yourself and answer these questions and lets build a website.

Things to keep in mind:

• Don’t over think what you want to accomplish. Rule #1 content is what web surfers are looking for. Flashy graphics and complicated layouts will not create traffic to your site.
• Template sites do not work! Yes, they look really great and everything is graphically perfect with pretty pictures and buttons but, they are not unique and search engines will not pick them up.  Try a dynamic site format (like one of our WordPress CMS sites) and concentrate on content and traffic and the search engines will come. You’ve heard: location location location for your business site – on your website it is: content content content!
• If you want a winning website that will get views – get serious about it. Take the time to make changes to your site and add content. We can design a site that is easily changeable. Add a blog, write about things in you industry. Become an expert and watch your site traffic and your business grow.
• Build intrigue. Find a way to use headings that will interest your website readers.  Then, if possible get them to sign up for more information or a free pamphlet or a monthly newsletter.
• Don’t give away the store.  If you do have something to say and important and valuable information to relay, at the very least ask your clients to sign-up to get the information. We can set up an auto-responder to automate the process and you can build a mailing list to grow your business with!

To Have Clear Focused Content Answer These 2 Questions:

1. What are the Actual (tangible) client benefits that you provide with your products and services
   • For each of the above, what specific problem does this solve for your client. (focus on client problems and solutions)
   • Who are you specifically solving those problems for (business type, individual, department – be specific and find your client and their profile)
   • Exactly How are your services or products a solution for those problems (as concise as you can explain how you solve the problem)
2. What business are you really in? (Use the above to help you determine)

As a reminder did I say:  Content! Content! Content!    Don’t forget to check out our Rank Excellence program: http://onQre.com, has a ton of information about how to build your online brand and finally get your business seen and stop losing customers to the competition.

Use the following outline to start yourself thinking, then email your designer or website-coordinator as much of the following information as possible:

• Logos, background photos, preferred colors – if different from the logo colors, let us know what you’d like. (remember that can be changed easily in the admin panel anyway – so we might experiment a bit later with them for the best result)
• Get together information about your company – or your corporate information for “About Us” page or “Company Info” pages.
• Any materials or research, articles, blogs or points of interest or market data and insight that you may have written – this is great for SEO!.
• Do you have some statement to show what makes your company unique (your unique selling perspective) Any special qualifications or credentials you’d like listed somewhere.
• Bios on Owners or other information you may want to include on your website (agent bios can come later if you’d like along with photos on the Office IDX interface)

Information on your geographic area, market, town of otherwise that would be beneficial to your potential clients.
Keep in mind the fundamentals of Great Real Estate Website Design are already going to be covered in your BrokerIDX Theme and design by us:

• Clean layout;
• Great presentation of the property search;
• Call to action buttons that make you want to click;
• Effective header area that Brands your Company and how to contact you
• Creative use of photos, icons, illustrations; (people like to look at the pictures!)
• Workable color-scheme; (nothing too hard to view)
• Multiple times for them to contact you and register for your great information and services!

Relax and enjoy the process while your Great Real Estate Website takes shape!

Getting Started Checklist:
Please list and gather any existing materials and information that will help us design your site. Here are some examples. Feel free to add any special needs or components required that are not listed.
1. Photos (photo docs on your computer or prints, slides, negatives)
2. Text (style of text if you have a company specific design in mind)
3. Brochures
4. Business cards
5. Flyers
6. Product shots
7. Product samples
8. Press releases
9. Price and part lists
10. Frequently Asked Questions
11. Shipping and handling charges and constraints
12. Warranty policy
13. Privacy policy (onQsites will include a standard copy with your package)
14. Return policy
15. Guarantees
16. Testimonials and/or endorsements
17. Credits
18. Bios
19. History
20. Education/Certifications/Awards
21. Case studies
22. Photos of yourself, staff and location
23. Transcripts of interviews
24. Industry recognition
25. Map and directions from major airports recommended places to stay nearby (if people visit your location), We will build a click-able Google map – so this is not necessary unless you have some special requirements

Many web surfers consider websites with flash content to look more professional if not more entertaining.

But, Flash animation files are slow to download and require a flash player plug-in. Regular static graphic requires less time to download.  Many people with slower internet service providers and mobile providers may have difficulty with load times for flash.

Also:
Not all browsers are compatible with flash players. The old versions of many browsers display flash movies. There is a solution however: to use Java Script to check the compatibility of browser and display the static image if the player is not available for that browser (this we always do).  Although very few there are still browsers who cannot understand Java Script…but there are some.

Our solution:   “A SPLASH OF FLASH” – Correctly implemented!
As you may notice we use mobile friendlier sliders on many of our websites. Why? The reason is simple and that is: the sliders can be  cache’d and this speeds up load times. They can also take advantage of responsive themes and present well over many platforms.  The “Splash of Flash” requires only seconds to load on high-speed connections and on all browsers it only has to load the first time!

Search engines do not like flash pages, as it makes it almost impossible for the search bots to crawl them. They cannot crawl links on your web page and cannot index your website content if it is in flash. We work around this issue using carousels and photos with title tags, keeping tabs and links in visible code and other tricks to make sure your website are more noticed by the Search engines.  So, don’t worry let us put a “SPLASH OF FLASH” on your site!

Here is a brief list of available features:

• Content Management
• Contact Management
• Online Registration –Member Sections – Protected Content
• Multiple Mailing list features and auto-responders
• Photo Galleries
• Audio and Video Podcasting
• Event Calendars – with auto mapping-direction features
• Online Registration and Mailing List Gathering for Student, Parent, Alumni and any other category.
• E-commerce or On-line Donations
• On-Line Fair Share Collections
• On-Line Documents and Forms
• Training and Support
• We Will Manage The Site For You and Be With You Every Step Of The Way!!!

You will receive all the functions of the web site Plus we will be here to help keep your digital presence up to date and functioning with our state of the art hosting!