Andrew Stickel

How to Promote A Law Firm Using Instagram

January 5, 2018 by Andrew Stickel

Every lawyer wishes it were possible to make contact with potential clients the moment they realize they are in need of legal services.

As it turns out, law firms can use Instagram to identify and reach out to these potential clients.

People share a lot of personal information about their lives on their Instagram profiles.

Therefore, it’s very likely that someone who is going through a divorce, recovering from a motorcycle accident, or being charged with a crime would post about it on this platform.

How To Find Clients Using Hashtags

To find these potential clients, lawyers need to perform a hashtag search within the Instagram app.

Search for hashtags that the clients you are trying to reach would use.

For instance, someone who has been injured in a motorcycle accident might use #motorcycleaccident or #motorcyclecrash.

The results will include anyone and everyone who has ever used this hashtag before.

You will need to search through these results to find people who are located near your law firm.

Start tapping on photos that are under the “Recent Posts” header to look for more information about each user’s location.

Sometimes, the location will be listed above the photo and underneath the username, but you may need to go to the user’s profile if it’s not listed there.

How To Localize Your Search For Clients

Depending on where your law firm is located, it may take a little while to find someone who is in your area.

Be patient when implementing this legal marketing strategy.

Once you find someone, send them a direct message from your business account on Instagram.

Don’t make an obvious sales pitch-offer them a helpful tip instead.

For example, someone who has been involved in a motorcycle accident may need to hear about the sneaky tactics that an insurance adjuster may use.

Then, let the person know that you would be happy to answer any questions he or she may have.

Be sure to review the solicitation laws in your state prior to sending this type of message.

Continue to search for other potential clients after sending the first message.

Everyone won’t respond to your message, so it’s best to send them to everyone you can find in the area.

Be sure to check your Instagram inbox frequently after sending these messages so you can respond to anyone who replies right away.

Marketing law firms using this method may seem time-consuming, but it’s not.

Plus, this approach allows law firms to speak directly to clients who are in need of their legal services without spending a dime on marketing.

How Search Proximity Helps Local Businesses

December 19, 2017 by Andrew Stickel

In real estate, there are three rules for success when selling a property: location, location, and location. Marketing on the internet isn’t that different. Location counts. Keep reading, and you’ll learn how your location impacts your internet marketing, how you can take better advantage of your location, and the most effective ways to reach the online visitors who are most likely to become your customers – the people closest to you.

Online consumers conduct more than 100 billion online searches each year, and today, location is a more important aspect of those searches than ever before. Why? Google, Bing, and other search engines assume that when someone is searching online for a business, product, or service, the searcher would prefer to find that business, product, or service locally. How can you help to make sure that the local business or professional practice that a visitor finds is yours?

Approximately 60 percent of the mobile users who search for a local business actually visit one of the businesses they find – the very same day – and a full 80 percent contact a local business at some point after conducting a local search. Over 90 percent of online consumers regularly conduct a search for a local business, so it’s imperative to make your location prominent on your homepage and to make sure all of the information about your location is accurate.

WHY WOULDN’T THE CLOSEST BUSINESS BE RANKED FIRST IN A SEARCH?

Local search engine optimization (local SEO) is online marketing that returns results to consumers based on the actual physical location of the consumer and his or her PC or mobile device at the time of the search. However, there are plenty of searches where the business closest to a consumer is not the first business listed in the search results. How does this happen, and how can local businesses improve their search engine rankings?

Let’s say you type the phrase “Italian restaurant” into a search engine like Google. A business named “Luigi’s Pizza Palace” may sit only a block away from you, but it’s not high in your search results. Why? It’s probably because the actual phrase “Italian restaurant” appears nowhere in the text on Luigi’s website. If you’re “Luigi,” you’ll need to revise that text.

While your physical location is primary, it’s not the only consideration of the search engines. Google also takes into account a company’s reviews, the company website’s popularity and quality, its links and backlinks, and the keywords embedded in the text. Websites should be updated – at least monthly – with some type of new content that includes keywords and details about the location.

WHAT MUST BE CONSIDERED TO IMPROVE A SEARCH ENGINE RANKING?

Even if you’ve peppered your website with plenty of accurate details about your location and plenty of key SEO terms, if you want to land high in the Google rankings, you also need to consider backlinks, review sites, and social media sites. Local reviews by local residents of your business or professional practice, for instance, can have a tremendous positive or negative impact.

An experienced and successful internet marketing company can manage any or all of your internet marketing and help you create a coordinated marketing campaign across the internet. Marketing help from internet marketing experts is something that every business and every professional should consider. The pros can see to it that your business or professional practice is everywhere it needs to be on the internet.

What else can you do to identify your business or professional practice with your location? Seek opportunities to speak locally, publish an op-ed in the local paper, or take part in a local charity event. Become acquainted with local reporters or with a nearby radio or TV station. Be the “expert” that local reporters routinely turn to. An internet marketing company will provide important help and insights, but they cannot know your community like you do.

The way consumers make online searches today is another element that you must consider. Voice searching is increasingly becoming the standard, and when consumers voice-search, instead of typing “Italian restaurant,” they tend to say things like “ask Google to find an Italian restaurant near me.” Any phrases you can use that include any of these words will be helpful.

HOW CAN YOU RETAIN THE COMPETITIVE EDGE?

The value of location is paramount, but several other considerations are equally essential if you’re going to win the local clients who are being targeted by your competition. Your website needs to be mobile-friendly because most searches for local products and services are now conduced on mobile devices. Your pages need to load quickly, almost instantly, and paragraphs need to be short. Use a “read more” or “continued here” link for lengthier pieces of content.

You must have quality backlinks, hyperlinks on other sites that link “back” to your website. Google considers the quality and quantity of your backlinks when it ranks your business or professional practice, so whenever you publish something or speak somewhere locally, or take part in a charity event, try to obtain a link on that organization’s website.

WHAT ARE SOME OTHER TIPS FOR ATTRACTING LOCAL CLIENTS?

Other tips for attracting local customers include adding a chat box to your website so that visitors can chat with a live operator; improving the “linking structure” of your site so that all pages are easily accessible; and engaging directly with clients or customers through social media sites, primarily Facebook and Twitter.

Even if you are located in a crowded urban setting where your competition is formidable, updating and revising your website – and all of your online marketing – to stress your location and local ties will help you appeal to local customers and attract a sizable percentage of the local online search traffic.

HOW CAN AN INTERNET MARKETING COMPANY HELP?

Professional internet marketing experts use advanced keyword research tools to identify the specific keywords and phrases that can put your business or professional practice higher in the search engine rankings. They can also help local businesses and professionals with website creation, social media presence, and reputation management. They can create the text, graphics, videos, and other tools you need to attract local consumers and boost your bottom line.

If you do nothing, your business certainly will not grow. But if you do any marketing on the internet, it pays to learn how to increase your local business and how to attract more local customers and clients. Consult a professional internet marketing company today about improving your search engine ranking, increasing your local visibility, and boosting that always-important bottom line.

How To Make The Perfect Landing Page

November 18, 2017 by Andrew Stickel

Technically speaking, a landing page is any website page where a visitor “lands.” If the exit rate from your own landing page – probably your home page – is high, it means that you’re not capturing the attention of potential leads. Should you create a new “dedicated” landing page? What does a landing page need? Keep reading, and you’ll find some suggestions for effective landing pages that will engage your visitors and pique their interest.

For most professional and small business websites in 2017, the home page generally also functions as the landing page, but you might want to reevaluate that function, especially if your analytics are indicating a high bounce rate. A home page has a number of functions – it introduces your brand, reflects your values, and links to the other areas of your website. It encourages your visitors to explore rather than convert.

Most professionals and small businesses fail to convert visitors because they don’t have a dedicated landing page – the home page is trying to do too much. And for that very reason, a number of professionals and small businesses are starting to experiment – and to find success – with dedicated landing pages.

HOW CAN A DEDICATED LANDING PAGE HELP YOU?

Creating a stand-alone landing page with the single, focused objective of retaining and converting your visitors can lower your bounce rate and increase your conversion rate. How can a “dedicated” landing page retain and convert its visitors?

Listed below are some tips that can make a dedicated landing page work for you:

Tip #1: The landing page’s text must be compelling. Even “good” writing with colorful phrases, perfect grammar, and no typos may not be compelling enough to trigger your visitors to action. The best website text incorporates the subtler elements of advertising and marketing that psychologists have been explaining ever since Freud – tapping into the average consumer’s fears and desires.

In his book, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, Yale professor Robert E. Lane writes that the function of advertising and marketing “is to increase people’s dissatisfaction with any current state of affairs, to create wants, and to exploit the dissatisfactions of the present. Advertising must use dissatisfaction to achieve its purpose.”

WHAT SHOULD YOUR LANDING PAGE TELL YOUR ONLINE VISITORS?

Humans are social creatures, and many have observed that we have what might be called a “herd” instinct. Your landing page’s text should very subtly, delicately, and vaguely imply to visitors that without your product or service, they’ll somehow be “left behind,” stigmatized in the eyes of their peers, and lose social status – or something even dearer.

If you are a professional like a doctor or an attorney, your visitors are likely already in a position where they might lose their health or mobility, their family, their property and assets, their freedom, or even their lives. Without making any specific promises that can’t be delivered, the text of your landing page should indicate to your visitors that they can put their concerns and fears in your trustworthy hands.

Tip #2: Unlike your website’s home page –with its multiple purposes – a landing page exists for one reason only, and that’s to generate a response to your call to action. Keep the text short and simple, and get directly to the point. Make it easy for visitors to respond and don’t clutter the page with anything that doesn’t function to generate the visitor’s response.

SHOULD YOU USE A CHAT BOX?

Without a dedicated landing page, most visitors will check out your home page, maybe two or three other pages, and go back to browsing. Your links or your contact form on a landing page must be easy to see – in fact, make them unavoidable. You should also consider using a chat box with a live operator on your landing page. A chat box gives your visitor immediate feedback and a genuine, direct, and personal connection to you.

Tip #3: The relevance of the page should be immediately obvious to the visitor. When someone arrives on a dedicated landing page, that person usually has a specific goal. Convey immediately that your visitor has landed in the right place. Make use of the page’s title, heading, or headline to tell visitors that they’ve landed where they need to be.

For example, a bankruptcy lawyer’s landing page might use this heading: “We protect families like yours from foreclosure.” A plastic surgeon’s landing page might tout, “This is the revolutionary cosmetic procedure you’ve been waiting for!” Understand what your visitors are looking for, and let them know at first glance that you can provide it.

SHOULD YOU CONSIDER MULTIPLE LANDING PAGES?

Tip #4: A landing page must maintain a single focus, so you may need to consider creating multiple “independent” landing pages. For example, a criminal defense lawyer might dedicate one landing page to DUI or DWI, a second page to juvenile crimes, and a third page to robbery, burglary, and theft crimes. Let nothing on a landing page distract from its single, dedicated purpose.

Tip #5: Including several brief, glowing testimonials on your landing page will substantially boost the page’s credibility. Testimonials can make the difference between a visitor who bounces and a visitor who converts. Use real testimonials from real clients, and place their pictures next to the testimonial text.

Tip #6: Use only relevant and pertinent images or video. Spotify, the online music service, can do this easily – their landing page shows a customer lounging with the headphones on and a look of relaxed satisfaction. If you’re a doctor or a lawyer, you’ll want visual images on your landing pages that convey ideas like health, longevity, freedom, and justice.

CAN AN INTERNET MARKETING AGENCY HELP WITH LANDING PAGES?

When your visitors are prodded by your landing page to create for themselves a mental image of health, freedom, and relief from want, you’ll make it almost impossible for most visitors to bounce without contacting you. Dedicated landing pages can help you get the clients you want, and an internet marketing agency can help.

An internet marketing agency can create your videos, graphics, and text, design your landing page or your entire website, and coordinate your marketing with review sites and social media sites across the internet. In fact, your internet marketing options – and possibilities – are virtually unlimited. And the best time to consult with internet marketing professionals about those options and possibilities is right now.

Tips For Improving Your Local Rankings

October 17, 2017 by Andrew Stickel

Global search engine optimization (SEO) is important, but let’s face it – most attorneys and other professionals in the U.S. are not looking for clients in Sweden or Thailand. The importance of local SEO cannot be underestimated. How can professionals and small businesses improve their local SEO? Keep reading, and you’ll find some tips you can use to reach more potential clients near you.

TIP #1: BE LISTED EVERYWHERE AND HAVE GOOD REVIEWS

Making yourself visible with an abundance of local listings is the key to effective local SEO. Your practice should be listed everywhere that’s appropriate, and your basic business details (name, address, phone number, website URL) should be as consistent as possible on each listing. Review any existing listings, fix incorrect information, and provide any new or missing details.

Are you satisfied with your online reviews? They’re important. Stay abreast of what people are saying about you on sites like Yelp and Angie’s List. When it ranks local businesses, Google considers the number of reviews linked to a particular business name, address, phone number, and website.

Businesses and professionals with more reviews on more review sites will naturally tend to rank higher on Google. If you need help with reviews or listings – and especially if you are dealing with any mediocre or negative reviews – an internet marketing company can work to ensure that your client reviews are positive and widely-distributed online.

TIP #2: FIND WAYS TO OBTAIN LOCAL AND REGIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE

Major publications are ranked high on Google. A very few criminal defense attorneys get a great deal of coverage – primarily because of high-profile criminal trials – but how can you get your own name and your practice noticed in a positive way by local newspapers, regional magazines, and professional journals?

Participate in – or organize – local charity events. Submit op-ed columns to the newspaper. Become a “sought-after” public speaker. If you’re honored with a professional award, send out a press release. Develop relationships with several journalists or with a local television or radio station. Be the “legal expert” that local reporters and news anchors can rely on for a good quote.

It won’t happen overnight, but if you are persistent with your local media outlets over a few months, you will find your efforts paying off. Journalists will tell you – they count on experts who are accessible, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. Consumers seeking legal help tend to presume that if the local media considers you trustworthy, you probably are.

TIP #3: FIND WAYS TO CREATE GOOD BACKLINKS

Your backlinks are the hyperlinks on other websites that “link back” to your own site. Quality backlinks are important because Google – for the most part – ranks you according to the number and quality of the backlinks leading to your site. If you don’t have abundant backlinks, your Google ranking plummets.

Whenever you speak, publish, or participate with a charity or any other local organization, try to obtain a backlink. Include your URL on everything you print or post. A professional internet marketing company can help you obtain the local and regional backlinks that you must have, but no company knows your own community the way you do. Always be seeking opportunities.

TIP #4: HAVE A GOOGLE “MY BUSINESS” PROFILE

Having a Google My Business profile is of the easiest ways to improve your local SEO, and it’s free. A Google My Business profile is a business listing that shows up for local searches. You must have a street address – not a post office box. Optimizing your Google My Business profile should give you a big boost among consumers who are searching for your services locally.

TIP #5: IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE’S INTERNAL LINKING

Many older websites could improve their “website architecture” or linking structure. Sometimes the only way to get to an important page is from the home page. You can do this on your own, or an internet marketing professional can help you add the internal links and menus that will make navigating your website smoother and easier.

Along the same line, your website should make it as easy as possible for consumers to reach you. Offer visitors a chat box and a chance to chat with a live operator. You should also try to have a contact form or intake form available on every page of your website. An internet marketing company can quickly and easily make these adjustments for you.

TIP #6: TIE YOUR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE TO YOUR CITY OR REGION

Make sure that your location is included in everything you do online. This tells the search engines where you are, and it helps to ensure that you’ll be ranked by Google and seen by consumers seeking your services in your area. Beyond that basic technical tip, you simply need to be creative.

You might consider, for example, creating several of your own brief videos highlighting a community landmark, a local or regional festival, or an important local historical event. Don’t hesitate to do a review – in print or video – of a local restaurant or attraction that you find particularly excellent. Be a cheerleader for your community. It raises your visibility and the sense that consumers can trust you.

TIP #7: ENSURE THE BIG DATA FIRMS HAVE ACCURATE INFORMATION

Google, Apple, Yelp, Facebook, and many more important internet companies and websites obtain local business information from four key data providers, so it’s imperative that the information those four data providers have is accurate. It’s up to you – or an internet marketing company working on your behalf – to ensure that they have accurate information about you.

The four local business data providers are Infogroup, Neustar Localeze, Acxiom, and Factual. They supply data to scores of search engines, websites, and apps. If they do not have accurate details about you, scores of other sites and listings may also be inaccurate. You can correct the information yourself at three of the data provider sites; at Factual, you must report a mistake and submit a correction.

TIP #8: ALWAYS BE CANDID AND FORTHRIGHT

You must be honest, candid, and authentic whenever you list your professional practice or small business on sites like Google, Bing, Facebook, or Yelp. Keep your profiles up-to-date. Use current, high-quality photographs and graphics. An internet marketing company can help you create the tools and local content you need, including blog posts, videos, backlinks, and more.

Take the time to learn more about boosting your local visibility and improving your local SEO. Right now, for example, is an excellent time to consult some internet marketing professionals about improving your local ranking, your local visibility, and your bottom line.

Ten Reasons Your Business Should Be Using Live Chat

September 19, 2017 by Andrew Stickel

Everyone understands that high-quality client service is vital to the continuing success of any business or professional practice. If you provide genuine value and a worthwhile experience every time a customer interacts with you, your customers will sing your praises to their friends and help grow your client base. If you’re not already taking advantage of live chat on your company’s or firm’s website, you’re missing a tremendous opportunity to expand your client base and to provide that worthwhile experience to your clients.

Live chat lets you communicate instantly with website visitors through instant messaging. The software works in somewhat the same way as a desktop messaging application like Skype, except that your website visitor won’t need special software. The chat appears in the browser window, so the visitor may “speak” with an agent or operator by typing text into the chat box. Emails and comment sections can’t provide immediate, real-time, two-way communication with your website’s visitors. Live chat can.

HOW DOES LIVE CHAT WORK?

Live chat was originally developed by LiveChat Software in 2002. Today, a number of versions of live chat and a variety of options are available, but all of them provide essentially the same functions.

Live chat works like this: Visitors to your website see a small chat box where text can be entered. In some versions, they will need to type in some something – like their email address or a question – to begin the chat and to indicate to your agent or operator that a visitor is online and wants to chat.

WHY IS LIVE CHAT RIGHT FOR YOU?

Other live chat features include chat monitoring, which allows experienced operators or agents to monitor newer operators or agents. This helps train new personnel and ensures that anyone who represents you online is following your script and adhering to your established client service procedures. Some live chat versions can even email your website visitor the transcript of a concluded chat.

Should your business or professional practice be using live chat? That answer is affirmative, and here are ten reasons why:

1. Live chat makes client service instantaneous. Your visitor isn’t forced to check his or her email every few minutes while waiting for your response. Moreover, live chat tells potential clients that you are prepared to help them – right now.

2. Live chat is reassuring. It tells your clients that you are there when they need you, and that you aren’t avoiding them or simply responding with the email version of a standardized form letter.

3. Live chat is efficient. Not even the best salesperson in the world can manage three or four distinct telephone conversations at once, but with live chat, any trained operator or agent can easily handle several conversations at the same time.

4. Live chat is cost-efficient. In fact, a large variety of “freemium” live chat options are available, and live chat is always free to your website’s visitors.

5. Live chat captures leads. You can program your live chat software to capture email addresses or even telephone numbers to initiate a chat. That steadily creates a promising set of leads from visitors who are indicating an interest in your service(s) or product(s).

6. Live chat guarantees consistency. You can create a script with standardized responses so that every agent or operator knows precisely what to say to every visitor and inquiry. You can rest assured that your agents or operators are providing swift and consistent answers to your most frequently asked questions.

7. If you want to look bigger than you really are, live chat can help. You can create “departments” like Support, Sales, or Billing, and ask visitors to “click” the department they need to reach, even if all of those “departments” are just one lone operator or agent.

8. Setting up live chat could not be easier. With just a small line of code added to your website, you can have live chat up and running in almost no time at all. An experienced internet marketing agency can help.

9. Live chat will help you identify your clients’ most common questions and concerns. It lets you review chat statistics and transcripts to identify the areas where your product(s) or service(s) can be improved.

10. A live chat is faster and more accurate than a telephone chat. For example, have you ever tried to give someone a complicated URL address over the phone? After trying to explain where the colon and backslash go, you’ll probably end up telling your client, “I’ll text it when we’re finished.” Live chat eliminates all of that inconvenience. You can copy and paste web addresses – and any other text – fast and accurately. Everything is visible on the screen, so no one has to be asked to “stand by” or “please repeat.”

Apart from its direct and immediate benefits, live chat can bolster your company’s or firm’s reputation in less direct ways. Your customers may give you good endorsements and reviews on their Facebook pages and anywhere else that’s appropriate. In fact, when you have a satisfied customer right in front of you on live chat, there’s no better time to ask politely for a positive testimonial or review.

WHAT MAY BE THE GREATEST BENEFIT OF LIVE CHAT?

You’ve now been introduced to most of the benefits of live chat, with one big exception. Perhaps the greatest benefit of live chat is simply that clients and customers love it. Go anywhere today that people are gathered publicly, and what are they doing?

They’re talking on the phone – or texting. People love to chat. In fact, we’ve all had at least one acquaintance who simply will not stop chatting! Moreover, your website visitors love having their questions answered and their concerns addressed instantly. Nobody likes waiting.

Your competition is probably already using live chat. If you want to get live chat up and running on your company’s or firm’s website quickly, or if you’d like to learn more about live chat and the other tools that can improve your client and customer service, arrange to speak promptly with the professionals at an experienced internet marketing agency. They can help you decide precisely how to set up your live chat, and they can get your live chat up and online almost immediately.

How To Create The Perfect Testimonials Page For Your Business

August 18, 2017 by Andrew Stickel

If you knock on someone’s door to sell a vacuum cleaner, the homeowner may not believe your claims about the item, because you have a conflict of interest. You stand to profit if you can persuade the homeowner to make a purchase. But if the same homeowner is told by a neighbor, “The Acme Company makes great vacuum cleaners,” and the neighbor has no conflict of interest, the homeowner is more likely to believe the neighbor and buy the product.

It’s a basic truth of doing business. Client testimonials are honest recommendations of a service or a product by clients who use the service or product in real life and profit nothing by endorsing it. It is not your fault, but your clients are always going to be more convincing than you are.

And if you are treating those clients right, they can provide powerful testimonials that you can use effectively on your website. Of course, some testimonials will be more effective than others. The best testimonials are personal, clear, and motivational.

In fact, good testimonials can boost the traffic to your website and bring in new clients. Today’s consumers – as you know – have their defenses up against marketing exaggerations, gimmicks, and insincerities. Any claims you make will be thoroughly scrutinized. Online marketing can help you level the playing field, because online marketing is entirely about building relationships and establishing trust. And a genuinely effective way to gain the trust of prospective clients is to share the stories of your satisfied clients.

It doesn’t matter how inspiring your own words are or how effectively you market your product or service. Testimonials tell your website visitors that the general public appreciates your product or service, and testimonials further tell visitors that clients who choose to trust you are not disappointed.

Testimonials establish credibility, so don’t waste space on your web page with vague or half-hearted testimonials. When you create a testimonials page on your website, only the strongest and most powerful testimonials should be posted there. How can you make a page of testimonials strong and powerful?

Here are some tips:

1. USE PHOTOS AND VIDEOS TO INCREASE TRUST

If you are an adult in the United States, you have been genuinely disappointed with a product or service that you’ve paid for, and probably more than once. Bogus promises, misleading ads, and disappearing acts by companies are all routine aspects of consumerism in the U.S. today. And when a service or product disappoints, you actually lose more than you paid for it, because you’ve lost the time and effort that you’ve invested.

Seeing a good report from another client – especially if it’s someone a website visitor can relate to – goes a long way toward assuaging the natural suspicions and anxieties of potential clients. And seeing a picture of the client who is making that good report helps to alleviate any suspicion that the testimonial is a fiction written by a marketing writer.

The psychology researchers tell us that photos make a statement more believable to the average consumer. Photos make testimonials “feel” more reliable. Video testimonials enhance that feeling even more. Researchers tell us that seeing faces increases our empathy, even if we don’t know the people in the pictures.

Obviously, you want to feature satisfied clients that potential clients will relate to. But don’t let a testimonial be “too” perfect. If your “satisfied client” is too polished, in looks or in words, your potential client may sense premeditation or artificiality. Your satisfied clients should appear to be casual and speaking more-or-less “off the cuff” rather than appearing to use a script prepared in advance.

2. TELL STORIES – DON’T STRING TOGETHER ADJECTIVES

Let’s say that you are looking online for a battery-powered screwdriver. You check the reviews and find posts that say, “Great product” or “Exceptional value.” You learn nothing from these reviews. But if a customer actually tells you about the product this way, “I needed this item to accomplish this specific job, and after disappointments with similar items, this is the one that did the trick,” you are probably going to be more impressed. When you seek client testimonials, encourage clients to tell their stories – which will be more than a string of adjectives.

Good stories slip into our subconscious and persuade people when they don’t expect it. Psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris tell us that’s how we’re wired. Our ancestors, according to Simons and Chabris, “learned from specific examples, not by compiling data from many people across a wide range of situations.” Today’s consumer may be an expert on marketing gimmicks, but everyone is wired to be pulled in by a good story.

3. SELL “THE FEELING”

The automobile commercials you see on television seldom sell you the automobile directly. Instead, they sell the experience, the sensation of what it feels like to own and drive the car. Testimonials help you do something comparable. When your website features someone who is easy to relate to, you’re selling more than your product or service. You are selling what it “feels like” to be your client, and when visitors to your website see satisfied clients, they will want that satisfaction for themselves.

It’s not a marketing rule or regulation, but you really must have pictures, and preferably videos, of the ex-clients who are offering the testimonials. Text-only testimonials are just too easy for someone to counterfeit and are as likely to create skepticism as trust. Video testimonials, however, are difficult to counterfeit, and it would not be worth the effort. When your website’s visitors see real people – people not unlike their neighbors and themselves – it eliminates the skepticism for most consumers.

A professional internet marketing agency can help you produce video testimonials and design a testimonials page or a complete website – along with a variety of other important online marketing services. It’s considerably less expensive than you might think. For far too many attorneys and other professionals, a good testimonials page is the single element missing from the website – and the element that might make all the difference. Don’t wait or hesitate to speak with experienced professionals at a good internet marketing agency for help with testimonials or with any other facet of effective online marketing.