I won’t be posting much on Legal Practice Pro anymore. Here’s why, and where you should go to find me.

I was at a networking event with a friend of mine this past week, and he was trying to figure out how to introduce himself. As a newly-solo attorney he’s having some trouble getting his rhythm professionally, and he doesn’t yet know where he fits in.

I’m just a lawyer, he said, trying it on for size.

I nearly smacked him. Would have, if only I didn’t have a drink in my hand at the time.

Not because it was a lame elevator pitch (it was) but because he’s more than just a lawyer.

He’s a single father of twins.

He’s hustling to make enough to keep a roof over his head, give his kids an awesome life, and pay spousal support to his ex-wife.

He’s a lover of camping and ice cream, soccer and old slapstick movies.

Damn right, more than just a lawyer.

Which is precisely why I’m moving things around a bit.

Legal Practice Pro Chronicles Our Journey

I started Legal Practice Pro in 2008 as a place to share information about marketing and running a consumer protection law firm. It’s been an awesome ride, and I like to think we’ve all learned a bunch of things along the way.

Many of these topics found their way into my practice and my personal life. They enabled me to move across the country, manage two offices on opposite coasts, build a thriving practice, and connect with more interesting people than I ever would have thought possible.

The information covered on this site can be seen in action on sites such as Consumer Help Central, Consumer Ledger, and Money Go Roundtable. Truly, these sites all all products of the information put into action.

Publishing content about these areas has provided me with an opportunity to share tips and educate myself at the same time.

But We’re More Than That

As with my friend, we’re all more than simply our professional careers. We have outside interests and try our best to be better people tomorrow than we were yesterday.

We’re all looking to evolve personally, and to take that evolution back with us into our professional lives.

For the past few months, I’ve been thinking about some of the bigger questions surrounding our practices and our lives. How we move through our day, integrate our professions into the day-to-day grind without losing our soul, and how we find tools to enable us to blend the different aspects of our lives more effectively.

I’ve also struggled to find a place to discuss the technical aspects of the practice – the substantive work that speaks to lawyers rather than to potential clients (I’ve got Consumer Help Central for my clients).

Railing against counterproductive local rules, considering court trends and similar thoughts are things you’d probably like to hear about but clients don’t want to hear my inside baseball stuff.

And That’s Why I’m Moving

These issues led me to start moving some of my more personal work to JayFleischman.com. I hope you’ll swing by and spend some time there with me.

We’ll still talk about marketing and running a consumer protection law firm, but I’ll feel a bit more free to use the platform to talk about the rest of the story. It’s less, “here’s what you need to do,” and a whole lot more of, “here’s what I’ve been doing and here’s how I’m doing it.”

It’s going to be a lot more conversational, and I think you’re going to like it.

Legal Practice Pro Is Your Platform

What about Legal Practice Pro? I’ll still be here from time to time, but for the time being I expect to take a bit of a break. Some of the existing content will be spruced up a bit and brought to the front of the site for you to read with fresh eyes, and I hope you like what I choose to show you from the archives.

Beyond that, I’m giving Legal Practice Pro to you.  Contribute an article for publication and, if it’s good, I’ll publish it on the site.

I’m particularly interested in your experience running a solo practice or small law firm. Your marketing efforts, awesome technology finds, and management lessons are the most compelling stories you have to share, and I’d be honored if you’d do that here.

Click here to be sent to the contribution page, where you can type your article and submit it for review.

Please Check Out the New Site

Click here to be taken to the new site, where you can subscribe to automatic email updates and see what’s brewing over there.

See you soon.

By the way, my good friend Karen Oakes took this picture of me while we were in San Francisco for the NACBA convention a few years ago.

You’re a solo attorney, or maybe you’re in a small firm of 2-5 lawyers. You juggle your responsibilities as well as can be expected, but there are only so many hours in a day.

Of course, business needs to come in the door so you can keep your practice afloat. You put up a website, maybe a blog, and commit to creating great content.

Part of your job is now creating that content and getting it into the hands of those who are most likely to need your help. This is your target audience, and unless you reach out to them there’s no sense in existing online at all.

Part of reaching your audience is in defining great content. Some folks think that means optimizing your articles within your perceived guidelines, and others think it’s in using the language used by your potential and existing clients.

Both are correct. You’ve got to write for your audience while balancing the needs of the search engines in their efforts to rank better content higher.

Either way, you’re the expert. At least, you need to be.

There are many companies out there willing to optimize your site, create powerful backlinks and expand your online network to include more of the people with whom you’re looking to connect. Some of those companies are good, some less so. As with anything, there’s good and bad and you’re responsible for making those decisions.

You need to understand the goals of your site, the needs of your audience, and – here’s the important part – the identity of your audience. You’re ultimately the expert.

You can’t hire out the hard work of identifying your audience, of determining who you’re talking with and how they interact.

You can hire a company to handle your social media presence, but not until you know your audience and where they hang out. Pinterest, for example, it terrific – but not for everyone.

The content you create, the words you use, it’s all dependent on your knowledge as the expert.

You can hire out the mechanic aspects of your site – design, upkeep, plugins and functionality are technical points. You still need to understand those mechanics so you can tell if things are being handled appropriately, but implementation is best left to others.

Still, you need to be the expert. And if you’re not willing or able to do so, you should rethink your position.

Image credit:  zacharmstrong

You’re a bankruptcy lawyer and decide to start up a blog. You get a designer, learn WordPress, and launch your site.

Each day you publish a new article to your blog, complete with a photo and a zippy headline. You write like a pro (or hire someone else who does the job for you – I don’t like it, but I’m not Polyanna about the world) and hone each article with masterful SEO techniques.

At the end of 60 days you check your stats and realize this blogging thing hasn’t moved the needle whatsoever.

Same at 90 days.

What gives?

Why Doesn’t Anybody Like Your Blog?

You did everything you were told, you worked hard, you cranked out awesome content. But nobody likes your blog because you, gentle reader, are boring.

You’ve got quality bankruptcy content (or whatever your field of law happens to be), but you’re a one-trick pony. The world, however, is filled with people who have diverse interests.

Your visitor shows up as a result of a web search or moment of chance, gets a question answered and never has reason to return again because all you’re talking about is your field of law.

There’s no reason to return, to subscribe to email updates, or to take any action outside of contacting you for an appointment. If the visitor doesn’t want an appointment yet, there’s no compelling reason for them to stick around.

How To Fix The Problem

Consider your prospective client, the person who comes to your site. Who is this person, and what else does their life entail?

If you’re a bankruptcy lawyer then chances are your prospective client is also interested in:

• frugality
• budgeting
• retirement planning
• saving money
• finding the best life insurance
• parenting

You get the idea. They want more than simply bankruptcy-related articles in order to keep them coming back to the till.

A buying decision is seldom made on the basis of a single visit to a professional’s website or blog. Someone needs to be exposed to your thought process, personality and viewpoint a number of times before they’re willing to trust you with their finances.

You’ve got to prove yourself, and the only way to do that is to get someone to come back and visit a few times.

And to do that, you’ve got to be interesting rather than a one-trick pony.

You Know This Stuff

If you’re a bankruptcy lawyer, you deal with these issues all day. Clients talk about how they cut back on their expenses in order to avoid a trip to your office, how they’re worried about their credit scores post-discharge, and how their money problems are impacting their personal lives.

You are, in many ways, a social worker or financial counselor. Use that knowledge to fuel your content creation efforts, and you can reap the benefits easily.

Image credit:  Coulter Sunderman

Potential clients aren’t initially coming to your website to see how great a lawyer you are or to see what solutions you have to offer for their legal troubles.

Fact is, the couldn’t care less about you. They care only about themselves.

Their needs. Their wants. Their world view.

Nothing wrong with that. The sooner you learn to live within those confines, you’ll be better able to help them with their problems.

Here’s what I mean.

Nobody Cares About You

When we were living in caves and hunting for food, the strongest survived because they hunted and fought harder than the others. They didn’t sit around handing out hunks of deer meat to the other villagers to their own detriment.

They cared for their children before those of others, kept themselves safe from the elements, and listened intently as their elders told them stories about their own family history.

Though we’ve evolved as a species, we sometimes do kind things for others – but seldom when it would cause us immediate harm. Lord Of The Flies was more than a book; it was a microcosm of the human experience.

Translated into our everyday lives, I am far more interested in me than I am about you. My problems are more important than yours, my needs are greater, and my happiness is paramount.

Why People Visit Your Website

People visit your website if it helps them solve a problem or answer a pressing question. If your site doesn’t deliver on the immediate need, the visitor is gone.

This, in spite of the fact that you graduated summa cum laude from some ivy league school.

This, in spite of the fact that you’re a handsome fellow.

This, in spite of your results.

All that matters is that you’ve gone to the trouble to meet the visitors need in the form of content that speaks to them directly.

Tell The Story The Visitor Needs To Hear

To build your client base from your website, you’ve got to convert visitors to clients. Do that by focusing on the visitor’s needs first and foremost.

Consider who your visitor is, and what they’re looking for when they come to your website. Learn how they talk, what they worry about, and the manner in which your message can best be conveyed in order to reach them.

If you’re a bankruptcy lawyer, don’t talk about exemptions – come at it from the perspective of, “what do I get to keep if I file for bankruptcy”.

If you’re a divorce lawyer, think about whether you’re going to attract fathers or mothers, young or old, established professionals or people coming out of a, “starter marriage.” Use the terminology they use in their day-to-day conversations to connect with them.

Let Your Visitor Be The Authority So You Can Be One As Well

The more material that you provide that are of interest to your visitors, the more they will be empowered to understand their situation. This allows them to consider your solution as a viable alternative.

As the lawyer who taught the visitor enough to make a confident decision, you have made that person and authority of sorts when it comes to their own situation. That’s not to say they know enough to be a lawyer, however. Rather, the visitor knows enough to recognize that you may well be the right person to help steer them through their problem.

If you’re smart enough to teach this one thing, the thinking goes, you likely know far more at a deeper level than do other attorneys. You, therefore, are the default authority – the only lawyer good enough to help.

And that, my friend, becomes the reasons someone will hire you on the basis of a visit to your website.

Simple, yes. Easy, no. But with enough time and practice, you can master this skill and bring in more of the work you want to handle.

Image credit:  wonderferret

In the beginning there was Lycos and AltaVista. Then came Yahoo and Google. You can see them all in the rear-view mirror.

Lots of us are conditioned to finding information by going to the ubiquitous Google search box and typing to our heart’s content. When we hear online marketing professionals talk, it’s in terms of search engine optimization. The information they sling is largely the same as it was a few years ago – get more links, create more content, look to user experience in creating a more profitable site.

And to a large extent, they’re right. But there’s a critical piece of the story that’s missing.

There’s More Than One Game In Town

What you’re looking for is not to be the top of the search engines, or even the top of one in particular. With Twitter serving up 1.6 billion searches per day and Facebook doing about the same, it’s easy to see that Google is still the single dominant player in terms of search traffic (about 14.27 billion searches per day).

But the almighty Google controls only about 65% of search traffic worldwide, and once you factor in sites like Pinterest, YouTube, Bing,  and the rest it’s easy to see that people are getting their answers in lots of different places.

Why Settle For A Bigger Piece Of A Shrinking Pie?

Even when talking about, “getting seen on Google,” we’re talking about a variety of different things. Search results are comprised of:

• raw search
• personalized results
• social results
• local search results
• video results (via YouTube, a mammoth search engine in its own right)

To try to master each one of those channels, you’re looking at an uphill climb. After all, the search algorithm is a constantly-changing animal – what works today may well be proven useless in a few weeks or months.

Beyond that, consider that search platforms such as Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist a few years ago.  As more people than ever get their information from social networking platforms, the size of Google relative to other options becomes ever smaller.

Think About Findability

We use content to connect with our clients and those who will someday need our help. But in order to make that connection, we’ve got to be found.

For some, blogging or podcasting will be how they generate content. Others will choose video, and some will opt for photos. Regardless of the medium, however, without the ability to be found your message won’t spread to those who need it most.

Your challenge, then, is twofold.

First, figure out where your message will do the most good.

Second, do the work needed to get found in that space.

The world’s bigger than simply Google. Ignore it at your own peril, but don’t forget all the ways to win the game.

Image courtesy of  Paola Frogheri.

Building a fire is fun. Roasting the marshmallows is usually a treat, and sitting around watching the flames is one of the primal joys of our species.

It’s around a fire, after all, that our ancestors spent countless evenings telling stories, singing songs and generally deciding the fate of the entire tribe.

When the fire burns low, we’re left with embers.

We grab a poker and try to bring up some fire and keep the magic going a bit longer, but any fix is temporary. We were a few dancing sparks, maybe a bit more heat, but that’s it.

In order to bring the fire back to life, we’ve got to add something. More kindling, more wood, and more effort.

So, too, in the way we practice law. To bring in business, you’ve got to add something. What worked a decade ago isn’t doing the trick in the age of digital communication. People are finding their own answers in new places, reaching out to nascent networks for help.

Notice that I didn’t say you should be moving all of your business building efforts online, or to the “flavor of the week” social network. That would be irresponsible of me.

Your existing marketing channels worked for a long time without help, so unless you’re not getting any return on your investment you should remain there. The trick is to add an online component in a way that complements your existing strategy.

Which media you choose to add – a blog, a podcast, video, social networking platforms, or whatever else is out there – depends on where your prospective and existing clients can be found. Failing to do that almost ensures the failure of your online efforts.

And we all know it’s a shame to see a good fire die out for lack of tending.

Image courtesy of  colorblindPICASO

You want to move your reader to take action – give you a call, set up a consultation and, ultimately, become a paying client.

When you want content that delivers, content that improves your brand, your practice, and yes, the lives of your clients, it’s important to go into the process with a goal in mind. This goal will guide you through the process, so don’t put your fingers to the keyboard until you’ve determined what you want your content to do.

As Rick Springfield famously said, “we all need the human touch.”

Strategizing Your Content

Before you even think of more specific goals like improving conversion rates, it’s important to consider the broader goal of an article or a blog post.

Where does this new piece of content fit in with regards to your overall strategy? Ultimately, how do you want to change the reader? To put it one way: you don’t just want them to click that link, you want to facilitate the change that will make them choose to click that link.

The Human Touch

There’s a certain science behind copywriting and SEO, but what it really comes down to is one person communication with another.

Put yourself in the reader’s shoes: if you stumbled upon this blog, what would you need to see in order to take action?

Ultimately, it’s about offering value. No matter your end goal, no matter the change you want to make in your reader, your job is to give them something of value, to make their lives better or more interesting for having read it.

Whether you’re pursuing higher conversion rates, more subscribers or more clients, make your reader happy they found you.

Image credit:  wellurban

You may get tons of traffic and kudos from your colleagues, but that’s not going to pay the bills.

In order to make it work, you need to figure out where you want to go.

Here are some things to consider before you put your fingers to the keyboard.

Why You Need A Long-Term Goal

Putting up a blog post asking for people to hire you isn’t likely going to give you much bang for your buck, time-wise. It’s likely going to be seen as a crass promotional ploy without more to it.

So, too, putting up articles that give away information without a long-term plan will result in your blog being seen as a wonderful free resource for those who will eventually go elsewhere for help with a legal problem.

It’s like a chess match, requiring goal-setting and a vision that stretches far into the distance.

They’re All Puzzle Pieces

Your long-term goal is likely one that brings more clients to your door. But clients come from various sources – referrals from other professionals, as a result of news articles, word-of-mouth, and direct response mechanisms. A successful law firm is going to rely on a number of those sources, contributing to a holistic marketing approach.

Unfortunately, each piece of content is unlikely to serve all marketing purposes. What appeals to a fellow lawyer won’t have a massive impact a potential client, and your clients won’t be impressed with a piece tailored towards the press or academic journals.

With that in mind, you’ve got to look at each piece of content as a piece in an enormous puzzle. A video for the client, an article written for a fellow attorney, a press release for the journalists, and on and on. They fit together in a haphazard way at first, but step back and see whether taken together they accomplish your overarching goal.

Each Serves The Greater Purpose

Today you want to write about a recent decision of interest, but who’s your intended audience and why are you telling them about it?

Perhaps you’re looking to get family law attorneys to refer clients to you for bankruptcy. If that’s the case then you want to use a bit more “lawyer-speak” and pepper in something about how you’re looking at the issue on behalf of your bankruptcy clients referred to you by family law attorneys.

On the other hand, maybe you want to tell potential clients about a new pitfall or solution. Tone down the legalese and be sure to let the reader know you’re going to analyze client scenarios to maximize the benefit (or minimize the downside) of the decision.

Once you know the goal of the post, you can take take appropriate action. Without knowing the goal, however, you’re stuck.

Plan First, Succeed Sooner

One of the things I teach people in my workshops is the value of planning before you begin to create content. It may seem like a waste of precious time, but a few days of working out the roadmap will help you get to your destination far quicker than would otherwise be the case.