Social media more important than search engine optimization for lawyers

Social media, including blogs, Twitter, and social bookmarking websites is bringing profound change to lawyers’ marketing on the Internet. Word of mouth marketing, the leading source of work for the best lawyers, is coming to the Internet. Search engine optimization is becoming less important.

Until now, Internet marketing has been all about websites and search engine performance. If your website couldn’t be found, spend money on search engine optimization. Still not found, throw money at legal directories like lawyers.com, Martindale.com, or FindLaw. Want to spend even more, throw money at sponsored links to your website on Google or banner ads at the legal directories.

The majority of lawyer’s Internet marketing to date reminds me of how we viewed lawyer advertising back in the 1970’s when I went to law school. Advertising then was reserved for lawyers who did not have a reputation as a reliable and trusted authority. Such lawyers had either sullied their reputations and needed to advertise to get work from the unknowing or had not done anything to earn a favorable reputation, a reputation that was then spread by word of mouth.

Sunday afternoon I took a look at my web stats to see how people were coming to my blog. They were coming by virtue of social media, not because of search engine performance. Ten of the top eighteen referring sources to my blog were references generated via social media. Twitter, Google Reader for people subscribing to my blog, blogs referring and linking to my blog, and social bookmarking. Each of the arrows references a referral from social media, not a Google search.

Though my blog ranks in the top three for lawyer blog and lawyer blogs, people did not come to my blog via those searches. People came by virtue of my word of mouth reputation as evidenced in social media.

People were interested in what I had to say. People were interested in what other’s were saying about me.

I asked a friend in the technology industry last evening what was more important for a lawyer? Social media or search engine optimization? His answer: social media.

The reason is that search engine performance can be gamed. References to a lawyer in social media are earned. People are referencing the lawyer because of the lawyer’s knowledge, the lawyer’s skill, and the lawyer’s reputation.

Don’t get me wrong search engine performance is important. You want your blog to be found when people are searching for you and what you are writing about. Effective blogging will get you that.

But in the long run, build a reputation. A reputation means more. A reputation is not fleeting. And a reputation brings the best clients.

Social media will get you that reputation and spread it by word of mouth. Search engine optimization will not.