LMAtech 2015 - Strategies for Maintaining your Firm's Digital Brand: Evolution not Revolution

Strategies for Maintaining

your Firm’s Digital Brand:

Think Darwin, Not Ché

Jaron Rubenstein, Rubenstein Technology Group

Sarah DiCaro, Perkins Coie LLP

Jennifer Larivee, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Katy von Treskow, Winston & Strawn LLP

Our Panel

Jaron Rubenstein

Founder & President, Rubenstein Technology Group

@RubensteinTech

jaron@rubensteintech.com

Sarah DiCaro

Senior. Digital Marketing Manager, Perkins Coie

PerkinsCoie.com, 2nd Place LMA 2015

@SDiCaro

SDiCaro@perkinscoie.com

Jennifer Larivee, Esq.

Director of Marketing, Akin Gump

AkinGump.com, 3rd Place LMA 2015

JLarivee@akingump.com

Katy von Treskow

Director of Mktg Communications, Winston & Strawn

Winston.com, 1st Place & Best in Show, LMA 2014

KvonTreskow@winston.com

Topics

Maximize Organic Search

Exceptional Website Search

Leverage Analytics

Compelling Video

Comprehensive Attorney Bios

Maximize Organic Search

Monitoring, maintaining, and enhancing your SEO results

Poll: SEO at Your Firm

How many firms have a formal SEO strategy, and

how do you manage the work?

No formal SEO strategy

We have an SEO strategy, managed internally

We have an SEO strategy, managed by an outside

firm

6 SEO Best Practices

Use meaningful, keyword-rich URLs

Make content easy for search engines to index

Go mobile – ensure your website is mobile optimized, if not responsive

Keep your content fresh

Serve website contact via HTTPS for improved privacy and an SEO boost

Employ semantic page coding and proper page hierarchy

Maximize Organic Search:

Key Takeaways

Manage your SEO

Google yourself!

Focus on headers, page titles, meta descriptions

and content; pushing niche and industry terms is

much easier than broad practice names.

Work with your development partner on continuous

improvements.

Take a holistic approach to content

Your Questions?

Exceptional Website Search

Optimize your visitors’ ability to find firm information

Defining the Best Search Experience

Analytics don’t lie.

Users like search refiners and filters.

After conducting an initial search and navigating to

the full page of results, Winston users can further

refine results by a variety of categories

Defining the Best Search Experience (cont’d)

Depending on how search is conducted, different filters will be available.

Beyond focusing on known on- and off-site influencers (e.g., content, keywords and HTML tags) think about impactful structural elements, like topics and type-ahead functionality.

If you expect large internal engagement with your site, evaluate your attorneys online behaviorisms and develop the friendliest tool possible.

Defining the Best Search Experience (cont’d)

Don’t underestimate simple and literal results.

Feed the engine.

Inform and ensure the best search results by associating topics, tags and related pages to each new page of content you add to the site.

Think multi-dimensionally.

Search has more layers these days to generate and influence results. Think about that when brainstorming with attorneys.

Exceptional Website Search:

Key Takeaways

Review analytics for your Search Queries

How many users are using search?

What are they looking for?

Are they finding it?

How can you improve their experience?

Make your search smarter

Your Questions?

Leverage Analytics

Create a KPI scorecard defining actionable analytics

Poll: SEO at Your Firm

Have analytics been effective in driving strategy

and change with your firm’s content strategy?

No

Somewhat

Yes

1

9

19 main practices,

135 related practices

75% of visitors

do not click on a practice

Most common click-thru

is the advanced search

20

5 main practices, 34 related practices

Traffic increased by 50+% for practice pages

Traffic increase by 30+% for industry pages

Returning visitors increased by 40+%

Direct traffic increased by 95%

Rebuild – Analytics and Tips

Visits and views only tell some of the story. Review visitor journey

Is search used?

Time spent on page/bounce rate

Do you need a new content strategy? Look at competitors and clients

Consider renaming pages and updating navigation

Lose the internal structure approach.

Reference surveys, reports, articles, etc..

2

1

Leverage Analytics:

Key Takeaways

Review analytics reports regularly

Use data to drive decision-making

Use data to convince decision-makers

Evaluate your content strategy

Your Questions?

Compelling Video

Producing quality video assets for your audience

Poll: Analytics at Your Firm

Does your firm use video as part of your digital

marketing strategy?

Yes

No

Videos are Popular, Influential,

and Self-disruptive

With our site redesign, we wanted to bring our content and messaging to life with compelling visuals in the form of infographics and videos.

At launch (October 2013), videos were sprinkled throughout our site to reinforce our brand and demonstrate the culture of the firm through the people.

Analytics, coupled with strong SEO indicators, led to us enhancing the scope of this substantially.

People like to watch videos.

Videos enhance the firm’s SEO and SMO strategies.

Videos are Popular, Influential,

and Self-disruptive (cont’d)

Our website isn’t the only home for video content.

Social media channels are placing an emphasis on visual messaging, and visitors are more likely to “share” and “like” this type of content than standard updates.

With an archive of rich content, we also repurpose videos when pitching attorneys for speaking engagements and media opportunities.

The development of this was massive to enable and mirror our full-site functionality, seamlessly.

RubensteinTech embedded videos into our preview panel to allow for deeper and targeted consumption of this content.

This is a self-disruptive channel, with attorneys telling you their story. The ability to build on that is really exciting and evolving, constantly.

Compelling Video:

Key Takeaways

Look for opportunities to leverage video content for

your firm

Ensure your video content is supported for mobile

users

Consider social media channels for video, like

YouTube and Periscope

Emphasize quality over quantity

Your Questions?

Comprehensive Attorney Bios

Deeper profiles for firm attorneys

Poll: Bio Campaigns

Does your firm have a formal bio campaign to

update attorney bios?

Yes, in progress

Yes, planned for the future

No

Poll: Bio Campaigns

Who in the firm is primarily working with attorneys

on bios?

Marketing/practice support teams

Marketing tech team

Communications team

No support (Attorneys are responsible)

Other

How General Counsel Research

Outside Lawyers and Law Firms

3

3

What Clients Want in a Bio

Where I Went to Law School in 1973

The Judge I Clerked With

Every Type of Matter I’ve Worked On

Courts and Bars I’m Admitted To

What Other Lawyers Think of Me(Superlawyers, AV Rating, etc.)

Law Review Articles Written

Do You Have Experience Doing Exactly What I Need?

What Kind of Work Are You Really Good At?

What Do Your Clients Think of You?

Will You Return My Calls?

Are You a Jerk?

Links to Blog Posts

Are You on Facebook or Twitter?

Contact Information

Comprehensive Attorney Bios:

Key Takeaways

Start a bio campaign to ensure you have well-

written, up-to-date attorney bios

Take advantage of the fact that everyone will be

looking at their bios after re-launch

Use analytics to drive bio decision-making and

desired attorney behavior

Your Questions?

Q&A

Thank You!

Jaron Rubenstein

jaron@rubensteintech.com

@RubensteinTech

Sarah DiCaro

@sdicaro

SDicaro@perkinscoie.com

Jennifer Larivee, Esq.

jlarivee@akingump.com

Katy von Treskow

KVontreskow@winston.com