The Benefits of Expert Status for Attorneys

The marketing world is filled with changing strategies for gaining consumer interest and attracting potential customers to a business's online presence. When consumers visit a website in droves, they can be guided through the conversion funnel. Site visitors are changed rapidly into paying customers. However, an effective marketing strategy, such as inbound marketing using your brand's expert status, is necessary to convince customers that your website is worth a second look.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing has very little to do with traditional search engine optimization strategies. However, the same practices that work for search engine optimization can be used to facilitate an impression of expertise amongst consumers. The real difference lies in the purpose of the strategies. For example, an attorney that wants to rank highly for search terms such as "insurance fraud" and "tax law" has two basic options. He can pursue search engine optimization by creating content that contains keywords, using meta tags to attract the attention of search engine algorithms, and attempting to earn links from other websites. This is all search engine optimization. With inbound marketing, however, the attorney tries to establish himself as an expert in insurance fraud and tax law. When this expert status is established, consumers will automatically search for that specific attorney when they need answers to tax or insurance questions.

The process of establishing oneself as an expert may involve the creation of high quality content or the earning of links from other industry websites. The focus, however, is not on impressing the algorithms. The focus is on impressing consumers. This is the fundamental difference between inbound marketing and search engine optimization. By focusing on consumers and the establishment of your expert reputation, you will never have to worry about managing algorithm updates or implementing cheap SEO strategies. Your consumer audience will associate your brand with high quality services.

What Does it Mean to be an Expert?

If inbound marketing revolves completely around an established reputation for expertise, the next question is "What does it mean to be an expert?" An expert is not necessarily the highest qualified or most educated industry professional. In the Internet world, expertise simply means that consumers trust you to provide accurate information, helpful content, and answers to all of their industry questions. Target, for example, is an expert in the retail industry. When consumers want inexpensive clothes, accessories, toiletries, electronics, or home décor items, they consider Target an expert with something to offer. Target isn't necessarily the best or most highly qualified retail brand on the market, but its expert status makes it valuable to the consumer.

How do You Become an Expert?

So, how do you become an expert? The first step is always the creation of content that meets consumer needs. If your consumer audience wants answers to pressing questions, write content that fulfills that need. If consumers want information on industry news, include those subjects in your created content. When the content featured on your website consistently provides the solution to a consumer problem, your brand will begin to have an established reputation as an expert.