Friday, May 16, 2008

Article Marketing For Lawyers

By: Laurie Williams

What is article marketing?
Article marketing is a clever method of promoting a product or service through the use of articles. You simply write articles relating to your expertise. After you’ve created an article, you share your article with the world. Content is a valuable commodity on the Internet. If you provide good content, your article will likely be picked up for use in blogs, newsletters, lenses, portals and websites.

Article Marketing is an excellent way to promote a law firm. Law Firm articles can help establish credibility for your practice, help establish yourself as an expert in your field, brand your firm and lead potential clients to your firm. Also, since articles can be syndicated, there’s an enormous potential to utilize articles to drive visitors to your law firm’s website and to ultimately generate more business!

The following are some tips and ideas on how to write and promote your law firm articles.

Start with existing articles.
In many cases you may have articles you’ve written in the past that are still relevant. Why not dust those off and use them to market your firm? In most cases, the content is still relevant or could be easily adapted to fit current trends and conditions.

Write new articles.
Share your expertise by writing articles based on practice area topics for which you practice. For example, if you represent clients who have been involved in 18 wheeler accidents and would like to target more 18 wheeler cases, simply write an article about 18 wheeler accidents. To support your topic of choice, consult with research and statistics organizations. They provide detailed statistics, trends and information which can be referenced. Combine hard facts and data with your own experiences for a compelling article.

Keep articles relatively short.
Articles do not need to be lengthy. Many articles fall between 150 – 500 words. Keeping it short is a good rule of thumb, particularly when the article is going to be viewed and read on the web. However, oftentimes, it’s difficult to convey a message in so few words. In those cases, try to keep the topics under thousand words.

Find a Topic
Once you’ve decided to write an article, it may not be as easy to find a topic to write about. It helps to write about something you have a passion for. That passion will carry over into your article and in turn, produce a piece the reader will be compelled by.

One way to find a good topic for your article is to do some keyword research. If you are hoping to attract clients using the article, it helps to know which topics prospective clients are using to locate law firms and legal information pertaining to your practice area. There are a number of tools available on the web for keyword research. To locate them, search for the phrase “keyword research” in your favorite search engine and you’ll generate a whole wealth resources. You may also choose to hire an Internet marketing consultant to handle this task. Oftentimes consultants have the necessary tools and expertise to give you a clear understanding of topic you should be addressing.

Don’t Forget Your Author Box
The author box consists of your personal biography, copyright notice, and a link back to your law firm’s website. This should be kept brief. You want to state in the article box that permission is granted to re-publish this article online as long as the author box is left intact and as long as the hyperlink is linked to the correct website.

Not a writer? Have Someone Write an Article for You
It’s quite possible that you don’t have the time to write your own articles or maybe writing is not your forte. No problem. There are a number of consultants available who can do this task for you. It’s referred to in the industry as “ghost writing”. There are a number of quality professionals who specialize in copywriting and ghost writing. You simply convey your thoughts and expertise verbally or in written form and let these “wordsmiths” do the rest.

Another suggestion is to tap into your law firm’s internal resources. It’s quite possible that someone on your staff is an excellent writer and can do the work for you.

Include a Picture
Including a picture reminds the reader that there is actually a person behind the article. It lends credibility to the article. Additionally, a photo helps brand yourself in your field with name and face recognition.

Share Your Article
Once you’ve written your article(s), you need to let people know that they are available for reading and re-publishing. There are a number of organizations or individuals who may choose to re-publish your article on their Blogs, MySpace, Lenses, Websites and other online mediums.

To share your article, you need to submit it to any number of article syndication sites and article directories. These sites give authors the opportunity to dramatically increase traffic and exposure by syndicating to thousands of publishers almost instantaneously.

Search Engine Benefits
By sharing your article, you not only promote your name and brand, you increase your rankings with the major search engines.

Search engines determine rankings based on a number of factors. Two of those factors are incoming link popularity and keyword density. By including an active hyperlink in your author box for articles, you increase link popularity. Each time your article is re-published, you receive a one-way link back to your site! Also, if your article is on a particular topic with strategic use of keywords, your article is more likely to show up in top results with the search engines.

As a legal professional, it’s critical to your success that you establish yourself as an expert in your field. By publishing quality articles with useful content, you WILL drive prospective clients to your firm and establish credibility that will secure more clients. Article marketing is one of the most powerful marketing methods available to lawyers … and best of all, it’s FREE!

Article Source: http://articles.directorygold.com


Laurie A. Williams is a veteran Internet marketer for the legal industry. She has been involved in Internet marketing for over 10 years. Please see her site, LegalMarketingPros.com for more information.

You Need A Lawyer Now

By: Gail Metcalf

The fact is that most legal matters are settled prior to actual trial. If someone tries to sue you or you need an attorney's service, the normal cost of an attorney is prohibititive. The fact is that we live in a highly litigious society. Depending on which plan you've paid for, there may be extra fees for the work required. However legal services insurance is a broader concept and may encompass situations where extra coverage is required.

Prepaid legal plans are a great way to go for less-complex legal issues. Although it is necessary not to contaminate a child abuse case or neglect investigation, you must protect your rights. The fact is that many cannot afford an attorney. A consumer loan can stop harassment by a collection agency, but can a creditor still use their credit? When you are trying to think through what legal advice you need for your divorce, you need professional services.

This is a pre-paid plan, although it is not like one found in a life insurance policy. Depending on your jurisdiction and the specifics of your case. Prepaid legal plans and discounted legal services are useful for many situations involving legal rights and responsibilities that can be handled without legal proceedings.

If you have questions will you have to pay for the lawyers time and chances are you will. Prepaid legal plans provide legal advice and still save money on prepaid legal search. Even today to protect us, and better still prevent a theft from taking place at all. Have you ever been wrongfully stopped by a law enforcement official?

If you have a choice between a few attorneys it will be a very few. A prepaid legal plan does for you and your family what a complete family insurance plan can. While you probably won't need all these services every year, depending on the plan, complex matters generally are excluded from coverage.

I have used a prepaid legal service for years now and I have to say that for about the cost of a pizza a month, you can have help when you need it. When you hire a lawyer and tell him/her your story the lawyer is bound by rules of ethics. Depending on membership category, you could get a 25% discount on all publications. If you have tax concerns or financial problems, then you will most likely need a specialist.

Article Source: http://articles.directorygold.com


Gail Metcalf writes about prepaid legal on her Personal Finance website Household Wealth

Car Accident And Florida Lawyer- An Inseparable Pair

By: Ian Koch

Accident of car invites enquiries on how to claim insurance coverage amounts and on how to claim good compensation amount if there is total loss of life. However, the laws and practice varies from state to state. It is to be taken into account that in places like Florida, a lawyer needs to be engaged for this purpose.

But the accident auto lawyer Texas is to be selected based on the experience of the lawyer in handling such automobile accident related cases particularly the car accident cases. In this regard, one may even enquire on the reputation of such lawyers.

However, as a person involved in the accident or as a caretaker of the accident victims, one needs to be genuine in their approach for the insurance claims etc. In such genuine cases, the Florida-lawyer may be able to argue in an intellectual manner and thereby provide some good guidelines to the clients like you.

Such arguments with legal statements in the court of law will be of more useful to the victims of car accident in getting the amount due to such accident. However, this depends on the evidences that are put forth by the concerned legal personnel with appropriate claim forms, statements from the concerned persons.

In Florida, lawyers are, many in numbers and many of them are efficient in handling the accident borne injuries or loss of life. The highly reputed lawyers might have handled numerous cases at a point of time.

In all automobile injury cases, the concerned individuals will put up the claim forms in a short time without making much delay, in association with the legal experts.

Accident-car is evidence that is materialistic in nature and the concerned Florida-lawyer may cross-examine the witnesses depending upon the history of the concerned accident car based problem.

Do prefer an experienced Florida lawyer as he pursues Florida Auto Accident Claims very easily. However, one needs to tell everything on what has happened to them when the accident-car encountered problems on road. The special Florida lawyers who handle accident-car cases expect comparatively a higher fee and most of the time the fee may be settled after the case meets up with success.

The concept of 'no cure no pay' may also be offered by a few of these lawyers, which means if you win the case you pay a decent salary if not you pay little or nothing. Pretty fair, somebody will say.

Article Source: http://articles.directorygold.com


Ian Koch is a publisher of Accident Lawyer Info. You can go to The-Accident-Lawyer.com for more.

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