Introduction to Starting a Law Firm

Posted on September 6, 2011 by jdoptimize

You May Start A Law Firm

Have you been reading the news lately? Law students are graduating without jobs more so than ever before. Many recent graduates are realizing that they have no choice but to hang their own shingle.  Likewise, practicing attorneys are finding that their jobs are not very secure. They are also discovering that the big law firm business model is slowly crumbling. For that reason more seasoned attorneys are striking off on their own as well.  These are troubling times for lawyers, but with the right set of marketing skills in addition to your education you will be able to create a thriving practice and become a powerhouse in your field.

JD Optimize Can Help You Start Your Law Firm

One of the things about JD Optimize that sets our company apart from other online lawyer marketing companies is the fact that our owners are attorneys who have started a law firm from scratch and developed a thriving legal practice.  We have knowledge about running the business of a law firm that no one can match in the law firm SEO industry.

Over the course of the coming weeks and months our attorney owners will blog about starting a law firm business.  We will provide advice on everything from picking a name to what type of phone system you should use.  There is a lot that goes into running a law firm and we want you to be successful in starting and running your legal practice.

They say the best way to learn something is to simply do it and that is what the owners of JD Optimize did in starting their law practice.  It would have been extremely helpful, however, to have a mentor who could guide us in the right direction instead of learning by trial and error.  Fortunately for you, we will serve as your mentors in your quest to dominate the legal industry in your region.

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Online Marketing A Must

Posted on August 31, 2011 by jdoptimize

Online Attorney Advertising Services Are Necessary

There is no way around it.  If you are an attorney in this day and age you must have a website. Traditional methods of advertising are becoming less popular whereas the internet is becoming the go-to source for most people.  Rather than picking up yellow pages people are jumping on their computer or smart phone to find what they are looking for.

Although a website is a must, you can’t just throw up any webpage and expect to get business.  There are many different components which go into online marketing like law firm SEO, and unfortunately, a busy attorney cannot run the aspects of his online marketing campaign by himself.  Trust us, our owners are attorneys and know exactly what it takes to build a law firm from the ground up and successfully run a self sustaining law firm.

Only Spend What You Need to for Law Firm Internet Marketing

JD Optimize provides the online marketing services for lawyers that every legal professional needs to capture leads from the millions of people who are looking for legal services online.  And, we do it better than the competition at a price that is below what the competition is charging.  We can do this because our attorney owners know exactly what type of budget sole proprietors and small law firms can dedicate to their marketing campaign.  We also know what kind of return you need to be able to see in order for the cost to be worth it to you.  For that reason we have structured our pricing system in accordance with law firm needs no matter what your size or what you are trying to accomplish.

JD Optimize Will Get Your Firm Off the Ground

If you are new to the online world of marketing a law firm or if you have worked with other companies but found that your goals were not being met, call us at 800.431.1132 to find out how we can help your law firm capture more leads and generate more business.

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What Does Your Website Say?

Posted on August 15, 2011 by lawyer

Today’s Interpretation of an Online Presence

In the past, actually only a couple of years ago, a company that had a website was either cutting edge or simply an internet based company. Over the years however this interpretation has changed drastically and today an online presence is as important as anything a business does to establish legitimacy. As an attorney this can be even more important than most professions. By having a website you are not only promoting your brand and providing information, but at its core you are stating that you are a legitimate and professional business that people can trust. Without a website or with a less than professional one you are saying the opposite.

Loosing Customers at Your Digital Storefront

You would never set up shop in a shed you built yourself, you wouldn’t put a desk in a storage unit, and you wouldn’t decorate your office with unprofessional accents and ridiculous colors. So why does your website look like the digital version of all those things I just described? As websites take their place of prominence as a business necessity they need to start being treated as such. Websites are now usually the first point of entry for most potential customers and as the old adage goes you can’t make a second first impression. So those attorneys with less than professional websites, self built websites, or completely utilitarian websites are loosing customers before they even know they’ve got them.

JD Optimize Can Help Make Your Website Speak Volumes

At JD Optimize we special in building your brand online and making sure your web presence conveys that you are a legitimate, accomplished, professional. With services from blogs to professional produced and edited videos we will make your digital office space, look as good as or better than your physical office space. Check out our pricing options today and don’t lose any more clients because of what your website says about you.

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JD Optimize Offers Professional Videos

Posted on July 28, 2011 by lawyer

Law Firm Videos Done Right

As you made your decision to attend law school and become an attorney there were likely naysayers and skeptics that questioned your choice. Some of the biggest worries that friends and family usually have is that you will be come calloused, lose your morals, or maybe most worrisome that you end up being one of those guys with the bad T.V. commercials . Unfortunately, for lawyers there are few who really understand what attorneys do and why they are necessary to the system, and although law school may involve some ethics questioning it doesn’t involve T.V. commercial training, and because of that lawyer advertising is some of the saddest stuff to cross the tube.

Getting Help With Your Video Advertising

One of the biggest things that turns people off from hiring an attorney is the way they portray themselves. When it comes to lawyer advertising professionalism is the name of the game. Just like you don’t want to see your surgeon during game show breaks making statements like “we’ll take care of that gallbladder lickity split,” potential clients don’t want to see their attorney dropping catch phrases during daytime television. So what is the solution? A professional video by JD Optimize is the solution.

JD Optimize – Your Video Experts

Providing your clients with a clean professional video on your website will help get your content to them fast and effectively. In this day and age very few people take the time to read pages and pages of a websites; but they will, however, click on a video. With a video on your website you can get potential clients to see how professional you are while telling them about your services and the reasons the should hire you. We don’t cut any corners in production, filming, or distribution of your video and we make sure you don’t end up looking like the budget day time t.v. commercials. Call us today to find out more.

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A Blog For Everyone

Posted on July 18, 2011 by lawyer

Today it’s common to hear “I read it on a blog,” or “oh I’m posting that on my blog” and in this blog world of pseudo journalists and housewives turned blog icons it’s easy to think that a blog doesn’t have a place in the legal profession. But in reality the blog is just a tool to get ideas out to the world, yes it has been made popular by less than professionals, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used by professionals.

The Blogging Benefit

There are a number of things a blog can do to help lawyers either get their name out there or get clients in their office. One of the biggest things that blogs are used for is to improve a website’s search engine optimization or SEO. When a person goes to a search engine, say Google, Yahoo, or Bing; they type in a series of words and that search engine goes through websites to find the best matches. These matches are based on content and if your website doesn’t have good content it will be hard for a person to find your sight. As the search engine crawls your website it will look for how much content you have and if it is original, and that is why blogs are so helpful. As you spew original information from your mind to your blog you are improving the chances people will be able to find you through the internet.

JD Optimize – Here to Help

Now what you may be thinking is that it would be great for search engines to be able to find my site and bring me more clients but I don’t have time write original content. Well if that is the case you are in luck because JD Optimize will do it for you. Not only will JD Optimize write blog content for you but we will make sure that search engines will be able to find your site and provide you with more leads. Call us today to find out more about our marketing options and pricing. 800.431.1132

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The Bar or The Web

Posted on July 13, 2011 by lawyer

Mistakes Are Made

As humans, we make mistakes, things slip our mind, we just don’t think for a second or whatever it is; the bottom line as previously stated is that we make mistakes. This mistake making is no different in our occupations, people get fired all the time because they made a mistake, if its not a big one then sometimes bosses let it slide, but it can become an issue. In the legal profession a mistake might mean more then simply losing a job. Because of the gravity of what’s at stake and the high level of excellence the legal profession requires of itself, legal mistakes can often be catastrophic. Possible consequences, could be loosing your license, sanctions, fines, or sometimes criminal charges. How often have we seen in news reports that the attorney ends up on the other side of the coin and becomes the defendant in court, not the representative.

Prioritizing to Minimize

One thing that can make attorneys more prone to mistake making is having too much on their plate. This is why hiring someone to take care of your marketing is such a good idea. The question should really come down to whether or not you want to deal with the bar – because you made one of those mistakes – or whether you want to not deal with your website. At JD Optimize we understand the pressures of the legal industry and we try and minimize them by allowing you to focus on your clients and your practice. Call us today so we can help you simplify your life and allow you to prioritize your time to minimize the mistakes. 800.431.1132.

 

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The Intelligent Consumer

Posted on July 7, 2011 by lawyer

A Societal Change

Back in the day before the dawn of tweets, texts, posts, and chats; back when you had to ask someone to be your friend face to face and look in a thing called a phone book for a telephone number, consumers trusted the knowledge of professionals. Hanging that diploma on the wall meant you knew what you were talking about, and clients believed that. Well obviously that’s not the case any more. Doctors are competing with WebMD experts, Yelp and Google provide forums for all your disgruntled clients, and everyone out there has an advanced degree in Wikipedia. So what does this mean for the private practice attorney? Well it means that selling your client just got a lot harder.

The Professional Look is King

As consumers are bombarded daily by advertising they have gained a much better eye for good marketing than most people think. As the amount of people clamoring for our attention increases we have to develop internal filters for those things that are not important to us. When people are in the market for an attorney they want a couple very important things, a professional that they can trust who will work as hard for their interests as the client themselves would. If a person needs an attorney something pretty serious is usually going on in their lives and they don’t want to deal with an ambulance chaser or half interested lawyer. One of the biggest mistakes lawyers make in their marketing decisions is a less than professional website. Consumers today can spot a website that was not done professionally and they interpret that as a lawyer who is either a goof off or not a hard worker, and they move on to the next attorney. At JD Optimize we create professional looking websites that convey the right message to consumers. Check out our pricing options today or give us a call to see what we can do for you. 800.431.1132

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Outsource Your Practice

Posted on July 1, 2011 by lawyer

You went to law school right? You didn’t go to bookkeeping school, salesman school, marketing school, or web design school. You went to law school. And at law school they taught you the law and maybe a couple of other things like how to not get into trouble with the bar. But now that you you’ve set out on your own, “hung a shingle”, and started building your practice, you realize something…. you only know the law.

Of course some of the stuff is common sense, you can keep a ledger, you can talk to clients in a way that encourages them to sign on with you, and you can start some sort of marketing. But did you really go into mounds of debt and through decades of school to be running Quickbooks and calling the phone book distributor? So with your new found accounting skills maybe you should do a quick profit and loss statement and figure out if your time is well spent doing the menial administrative tasks involved with your practice.

At JD Optimize we take one of these nagging concerns off your plate, that of marketing through a website. Not only are most attorneys not equipped to build and run a website on their own, but most don’t have the time or desire too. Furthermore, you should be enjoying the success you’ve obtained through years of hard work, by vacationing or spending time with family; while we take care of your website. JD Optimize is owned and run by attorneys and we understand how to get you clients, so give us a call or check out our pricing options.

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Dealing with Technology

Posted on June 22, 2011 by lawyer

Building a Website

In today’s world the computer and software industry is a huge industry with millions of players. From multimillion dollar international firms to guys in their mom’s basement, everyone says they can provide you with everything you need. This is never more apparent then when looking for someone to build you a website. The intricacies of building a webpage can be confusing no matter how tech savvy a person is and a lot of times a client might not really even know what they are looking for. This produces a problem for a lot of web designers because they aren’t very well versed in providing content for the website. Most designers know how to make things function and look visually appealing. So for the client that is not sure what should be on their website or how to make it efficient they end up winging that part on their own.

JD Optimize | Operated by Attorneys

At JD Optimize attorneys will be the ones helping you build your webpage. We know the intricacies of owning a legal practice and we know how to get clients to you. Not only do we make your site look and feel professional but we help provide the content that will bring clients to your site. With our wide array of services from videos to blogs we’ll make sure you have a strong online presence, which is an absolute must in today’s legal field.

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The Realities of the Legal Industry

Posted on June 15, 2011 by lawyer

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about a 37-year-old New York attorney who followed the same route as most attorneys and is now working as a temp. According to WSJ “there is a growing field of itinerant ‘contract’ attorneys who move from job to job, getting paid by the hour, largely to review documents.” Although there are a large number of people in the economy who are saying “at least you have a job,” the reality is that the legal industry is not what it once was. With Law School debt, looming at over $100,000 for most graduates,”at least” having a job doesn’t cut it anymore. This is something that prospective law students are finally starting to understand. The Law School Admissions Council has recently reported that law school applications are down 11% this year.  What does this all mean for the solo practitioner, or those trying to hang a shingle? It means that the margin for error is smaller than ever, and you really can’t afford to make careless mistakes.

The Website Necessity

With the number of legal careers dwindling, more and more graduates are trying their hand at building their own practice. The small firm industry is becoming a crowded place and with increased competition comes the need for better marketing. A company website is now more important than any other time in the history of the law and the internet. With new entrants to the market possibly being more tech savvy than the veterans, it is important to let your internet hungry clients know who you are and the experience you have to offer. Whether you have been practicing for years or just passed the bar call JD Optimize at 800.431.1132, so we can help you succeed in your legal career.

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