Starting a Law Firm | Nolo.com and Yodle Follow Up

If you haven't started your law firm yet, one thing you can be sure of the minute you put your website up is that you will start getting marketing calls. People will be calling you and promising you things like "I can get you on the first page of Google," and "we have x number of leads come here each day that we want to send to you." It's going to sound really great, and most of it is going to be crap.

You ever hear of the saying if it sounds too good to be true it probably is? It's not a saying, it's a fact.

With that being said, however, if you are starting a law firm you are going to have to find a way to get clients. Most of the really good ways you do yourself. But there are some supplemental means of marketing your law firm, and two that I tried were Yodle, which specializes in Google adwords ads (the ads you see at the top and right hand side of your web browser when you search for things) and Nolo.com, a legal website (you can visit their site and see exactly what it is). I've posted Yodle reviews before (you can find Yodle review 1, Yodle review 2, Yodle review 3, and Yodle review 4 by clicking on the links) and a nolo.com review before, but I wanted to update them to reflect my recent experience. Here we go.

Nolo.com Review Update

One of the cool things about this blog is that when I write something about a company, particularly one that cares about it's image, I almost always get a follow up call from someone at the company. If it's a good post, I get a thank you call. If it's a bad post (or less than flattering) I get a call to discuss. My last review of nolo.com as it relates to starting a law firm wasn't great but wasn't terrible. The gist of it was that I don't think any of those sites send me good, qualified leads. Period.

I went on to point out that I bought the nolo.com subscription because of the links they could give me, but that I wasn't thoroughly impressed with the traffic they were sending.

And then, right on cue, I got the call.

And I must apologize, because the nolo.com rep that called was very nice and I promised to write about our conversation on here at least 3 weeks ago. And I'm finally doing it.

What she told me was what I expected to hear. They get x number of people to their site a month from Washington searching "x" keywords, x number of people went to your site and stayed around for a bit. In the end, I think 32 people found me from that site in about 9 weeks, or about 4 a week. That's not bad.

But here's the thing I'm curious about. How many of them were shopping for an attorney in Seattle and how many were just out looking around for information? The reason why I think it was the latter is this - here are the keywords used to get to my information:

Dealing with a DUI

What to do if you are pulled over

Revoked drivers license

Search and seizure

Getting out of jail

I know from experience that people are calling me when they search for a few specific keywords - namely Seattle DUI attorney and all of its variations (Seattle DUI lawyer, etc.), and Seattle criminal attorney and all of its variations. But people aren't calling me when they search for "search and seizure." They're either curious or bored or trying to solve their boyfriend or girlfriend's case on their own.

I think the bottom line is this: I was happy they called. I was happy they stand by their product. And I don't mind their product (I think I pay $167 a month). I just don't think it's as effective as what they claim. Will I keep it? I probably will. But if I were just starting a law firm would I buy this service and then just wait for the phone to start ringing? No.

Yodle Review Update

I've written about Yodle on here a bunch of times. And I'm now fairly convinced that as each day passes the ads placed all over the place are becoming less and less relevant. Think about it this way, when you search, do you ever click on those ads? I don't. In fact, I don't even see them. I automatically go to the search results. I think every day more and more people are getting that way, particularly with the advent of the Google places placement at the top of the results.

So, as of this month, I'm no longer using Yodle. I was putting about $1,000 a month toward it, and I figured I could better use it in other places (like marketing to referral sources, which are a huge boon to business). So, you can thank me later, but this will be my last post about Yodle.

General Update

Since this post isn't long enough already (insert sarcasm here), I'll give you a little bit of an update about where my practice is at. This money has by far been the best month for the firm. I pulled in somewhere between 13 and 14K, which is awesome. And there isn't much sign of is slowing down.

I think I'm going to give it another month or two, and if business stays steady, I'm going to hire on some help. I've been looking at getting a law clerk, but at this time of year, pickings are slim. And I need someone that's available to answer the phones and do administrative stuff so I can spend more time doing this and working on my cases. I'll keep you updated on how that process goes.

As always, if you want any specific information, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to address it.