I don’t know how many times I’ve been contacted by website designers and SEO (search engine optimization) experts, telling me that they can consistently get me onto the first page of Google. Whenever I am told this, I always ask them the same question:

What can you do for me after that?

First Page; First Step

These vendors either aren’t thinking it through or have no clue as to what to do once they get you to the first page of the Google search results. Now don’t get me wrong, getting to the first page is clearly an excellent goal and one that can take a while to achieve. If you are looking for a web design and marketing company, their knowledge of SEO is certainly important.

But like anything else, getting onto the first page of the search results is only the first step. There are some important steps after that, and a good web design and marketing company will know what they are, and help you take those steps.

Next Step: Getting Them to Click

Being on the first page of Google doesn’t do you any good unless they are going to click on your link and go to your website. They need to choose your search result over the others on that page. In order to do that, your content has to have a good headline and a good meta description.

A Good Headline. What is the headline of your landing page? Is it compelling? Does it make the person want to learn more? Does it inspire curiosity and interest? For example, for a criminal defense firm there’s a big difference between “Top Defenses to an Assault Charge” and “5 Ways You Can Screw Up Your Case, Get Convicted of Assault, and Wind Up in Jail.” Which one do you think a visitor will click on?

A Good Meta Description. Have you ever noticed that when you search for something and Google comes up with a page of results, each result has a headline to click on and a small paragraph of text underneath it? That small paragraph of text is called the meta description. This description allows you to add a description of up to 160 characters that can tease the content of your landing page. It’s an opportunity to convince the person even more to click on your link rather than someone else’s.

A good web design and marketing company will be able to help you to craft good headlines and meta descriptions to get visitors to click through to your content from the search results. If the design company you’re talking to doesn’t know about this step, move on.

Final Step: Getting Them to Raise Their Hands

None of this is of any use unless the person that goes to your website contacts you in some way. Your content needs to be compelling enough to get the reader to take action. Each of the pages on your website must have some sort of compelling offer. You can tell them to call you, but if they aren’t ready to do that yet, you should have something they can download in return for their name and email address. They have now self identified themselves and given you permission to market to them.

Obviously, a visitor that calls you and sets up a consultation is much better than one that doesn’t. However, if they identify themselves with their name and email address, they are giving you a huge opportunity to continue the persuasion process. They read the page on your website, but the more persuasive content you’re able to get them to read the more likely they are to hire you at some future point.

Again, a web design company that does not understand this cannot help your practice to grow and thrive. You have a website to market your practice; so your web design company should be one that can be your partner in accomplishing this.

Don’t Have a “Web Guy”?

If you’re searching for a good web design and marketing company, you can certainly use this article as a litmus test to separate the proverbial men from the boys. You are also free to hire any one of them you wish. However, my strategic partner Foster Web Marketing has worked with me for 14 years to help me build my practice. I would recommend that you at least reach out to them and see what they can do for you.

Have a “Web Guy” Who’s Just a “Web Guy”?

There are many good web design companies out there; they just don’t know how to market your law practice. If you need assistance in getting more people to click on those links to your website, and then raise their hands for more, please feel free to reach out. Just click here to schedule, an initial call to discuss your needs further and see if I can help.

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