Celebrate National Small Business Week with SLS Consulting
May 4-8, 2015 was National Small Business Week, a time to acknowledge and celebrate the millions of small businesses across the country that employ nearly 60 percent of the U.S. workforce. This year, the U.S. Small Business Association’s theme is “Dream Big, Start Small” as most businesses originate from just one entrepreneur with a dream to go big, make a difference, and truly thrive.
At SLS Consulting, our own beginning was no less humble. More than 15 years ago, SLS founder Susan Ziegler decided to finally take the leap and start her own Legal Internet Marketing company. It is certainly no easy decision to venture out and become an entrepreneur, but as a mother of three, the prospect of being able to stay at home with her children, set her own hours, and take charge of her career made it a risk worth taking. Read the rest »
Why Saul Better Call a Marketing Specialist to Fix His Local Search Campaign!
Sunday night’s premiere of Better Call Saul opened with the title character (a lawyer) working in a Cinnabon® (presumably part of witness protection), and then flashbacked to earlier days in his career (as a practicing attorney). Early in the episode, Saul travels to his “office” located in the water-heater closet of a nail salon. Before making his way through the salon, Saul asks the receptionist for his mail, and then proceeds to his “office” to sift through it. Thumbing through his mail, we notice that Saul uses the same address as the nail salon (no suite number or anything). While it’s yet to be seen whether or not Better Call Saul is a hit like its predecessor Breaking Bad, one thing is for certain: Saul’s fictional local search presence is in some trouble. Let’s talk about the concept of shared and virtual office space and why they don’t really work in today’s internet.
Before we start, let’s clarify that Saul doesn’t actually have a “virtual” office, but “shared” office space. While he does seemingly share an address with the nail salon, and (from the looks of his mail) doesn’t have a unique suite number, he technically does have a real office space where potential clients are able to meet with him (which puts him well within Google’s local search guidelines). However, because Saul shares his address with the nail salon, it could potentially create some confusion with his modern-day local search presence (i.e. not having a unique NAP these days is a MAJOR mistake Read the rest »
End of Year Marketing Wrap-Up – Video Marketing
Video marketing didn’t take huge leaps in 2014. A lot of attorneys used videos as a means of marketing to potential clients, and a lot of them continued to do it in the exact same way that they had in 2013 and prior. While there’s no doubt that video ranks well and will continue to do so in 2015 and beyond, law firms interested in shooting videos this year should keep conversions in mind throughout every step of the process. Additionally, when marketing these videos on the internet, a sound strategy needs to be drawn out beforehand in order to get the absolute most out of your video efforts.
You always have to keep the attention spans of your viewers in mind, and you should never market a video that runs too long or that doesn’t succinctly answer the questions that your audience wants the answers to. Give your viewers something of value, wrap it up in a short video, and be sure to tie it all in with your existing marketing efforts. Keep in mind though, the creative, pre-production process and the actual production itself are two entirely different things.
If you plan on shooting video in 2015, try to remember the following DOs and DON’Ts: Read the rest »
End of Year Marketing Wrap-Up – Social Media Marketing
All in all, 2014 was a busy year in the world of social media, and an even busier year for marketers trying to stay on top of all the latest developments and updates. Facebook removed like-gating, Twitter rolled out a brand new look, and Google+ removed authorship from the SERPs.
The number of people using social media sites continued to rise, and mobile apps (namely Instagram) really started to ingrain themselves into the everyday marketing practices of brands both big and small.
If you’re an attorney though, how should you approach your 2015 marketing efforts when it comes to social media? For starters, ask yourself the following two questions:
- How well are you using your social media presence to help leverage new business?
- Are you at least using it to help brand your law firm? Read the rest »
End of Year Marketing Wrap-Up – Content Marketing
So, how well did your content marketing strategy perform in 2014? With regular Google updates wreaking havoc on ever-changing search results, you’re in a good spot if your website is still ranking. Content-wise, ranking in today’s SERPs means that your site has quality content that visitors generally find helpful. You probably have a lower bounce rate than a lot of your competitors, and your web pages are almost certainly Hummingbird friendly.
So, what’s left to do now that you’ve given Google the high quality content that it’s always wanted? The answer is simple: review your content to make sure you’re doing everything you can to convert site visitors to potential clients. Here are a few points to keep in mind as you review your internet marketing strategy in 2015… Read the rest »
Bring on 2015! SLS Consulting is Trying Something New this Year…
Happy New Year, everyone! With 2014 in the rear view mirror, we wanted to start the year out with a post about where we disappeared to over the last couple of months, where we’re going in the coming months, and what our focus is going to be in 2015.
For starters, the end of 2014 was a busy one for us. With the holidays in full swing, we were already busier than normal, but an unexpected pipe burst quickly turned our office upside down. In November, the office across the hall from us flooded (from said pipe burst), and the water seeped across the hallway and into our office space. We really had to scramble to get our desks and office equipment away from the water, and spent the better part of a week moving, moving, and moving some more. When all was said and done, we were proud to have kept up with all our client work, but had neglected our own blog and marketing efforts, which we were already a couple of weeks behind on. But why were we already a couple of weeks behind? Read the rest »
Video Killed the Attorney Star
As most people are acutely aware, with smart-phones and Skype part of everyday life now, the camera can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. It is a microscope that focused one way somehow adds pounds, and another way, subtracts youth. It can highlight the things you don’t want on screen and shroud the things you want to stand out. It is relentless critic getting the best of you one day and a screaming cheerleader the next, determined to get the best out of you.
Take Richard Nixon for example. In the fall of 1960, then Vice President Nixon took on a young Boston Senator in the first televised Presidential debate. The contest was decided long before either of the two candidates opened their mouths. In one corner you’ve got sweaty, bulldogged Tricky-Dick looking like he’s got one foot in the grave and in the other corner, Camelot’s own smooth, suave and charismatic son – John F. Kennedy Jr. While there are plenty of contemporary examples, few offer the stark contrast between being fully prepared for the spotlight and just winging it. Read the rest »
The Ghosts and Ghouls of SLS Consulting
My name is Eric Watkins, and I am a Halloweenie.
I admit it. I come from a long line of dyed-in-the wool, Ichabod-Crane-loving, harvest-moon-worshipping, weirdos that considered Halloween on par, if not slightly more important, than every other holiday. My grandparents owned a costume shop and my father was chairman of a “haunted” something every year – so being scared, scaring others and coming up with inventive ways to accomplish both WHILE eating a metric ton of candy was just the way it was towards the end of October. Over the years, I became less and less enthusiastic, but the urge to carve a pumpkin or dress-up like a zombie-werewolf-thing at the first sign of fall never really left me.
So, when I moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles this year I wondered – how do Californians handle Halloween? I know what it is like for Northeastern ‘Weeners, but what was it like for kids growing up in LA?
Being the great folks they are, my fellow SLSrs took a few minutes out of their busy day to clue me in. I started with a simple question – As a kid, what did you most look forward to on Halloween? Read the rest »
Why Do I Need a Responsive Website?
From time to time, we’ll work with a client that is entirely satisfied with the look and feel of their website and doesn’t want a redesign. In some cases, we’ve had clients sign up with us immediately after having someone else redesign their site and don’t want to go through the entire design process again. However , sometimes we sign clients that have the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” mentality even though we know for a fact that a redesigned website would help their marketing efforts in the long run. Let’s talk this out a bit…
A few years back, mobile search numbers quickly began increasing and it was entirely understandable that a mobile site was part of the future of marketing. Here at SLS, we built out mobile sites for our clients because we knew that mobile search was only going to become increasingly prevalent . Sure enough, mobile search has become so popular over the last few years that some projections have the number of mobile searches SURPASSING searches on desktop computers by as early as 2015.
Nowadays, with more users searching the web via tablets (and from various tablet sizes, at that), having a website that’s tablet-friendly has started to become popular. Enter responsive websites, and why it’s truly important for attorney websites to be overhauled using responsive coding. Read the rest »
The Voice
A few years ago, NBC introduced “The Voice” to their primetime line up. Even if you haven’t watched it, you get the idea – four well known judges sit with their backs to a singer who belts out their favorite hit. Once one of the judges is impressed enough, they swing around and lay claim to that crooner’s talent for the competition ahead. While similar to other reality star-search shows in just about every way, “The Voice” has one distinguishing feature which is rather appropriate – the contestant’s voice. The show chooses to focus on the singer’s vocal talents first, ahead of the overall performance. A pretty interesting departure – a singing competition that focuses on singing!
With that said, let’s consider your online presence – every day you have potentially hundreds of customers cruising past your site, picking and choosing what interests them. Online judges who really have no idea who you are and what your services entail, other than what you put out on stage. So, you manage to draw them in, hook them with your incredible ranking and sharp visual style. Once they move past the professionally shot staff photos, the showy site architecture, and the well-crafted brand imagery, what is left?
The only thing that truly matters: your voice. Read the rest »
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