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Your Justia Lawyer Directory profile is a free marketing opportunity for you to connect with people who are actively searching for a lawyer. Read on for strategies designed to help you get the most from your presence in our directory.
The Justia Lawyer Directory simplifies the process by which potential clients research, compare, and contact attorneys that best fit their legal needs. Any attorney is eligible (and encouraged) to claim and complete their free Justia Profile in our directory. Attorneys with a claimed profile receive numerous marketing benefits.
With millions of visits each week, Justia is one of the most visited legal websites in the United States. This means that claiming your free Justia Profile in our directory has the potential to greatly increase your visibility online. Increased visibility translates to increased access to potential clients, as well as the potential to strengthen your brand and build your reputation with other lawyers and in the general community through your digital presence.
Furthermore, attorneys who claim their profiles in the Justia Lawyer Directory have the benefit of also being listed in the Legal Information Institute (LII) Lawyer Directory, meaning your free Justia Profile offers two unique opportunities for enhanced online visibility in directories that potential clients visit when searching for a lawyer.
At Justia, we want potential clients browsing our directory to have great information about their options, and we want lawyers like you to succeed in growing your practice. With just a little bit of effort, you can amplify the inherent benefits of your presence in the Justia Lawyer Directory and maximize your Justia Profile’s potential for both boosting your reputation and connecting you with new clients.
Phase One: Completing Your Profile
Upon claiming your Justia Profile, you immediately want to upload an engaging, professional photo. As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” People make unconscious evaluations in seconds, and research has shown that people are drawn to faces. Unsurprisingly, we have found that profiles in the Justia Lawyer Directory with photos have a much higher conversion rate than those without a picture.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a photo from a photographer. With the quality of smartphones today, you can take a high-quality image on your own. We have some tips on taking your own photo available here.
Next, you should fully complete your Justia Profile (or get it as close to complete as possible). On average, more complete profiles perform better in the organic results of our directory. Additionally, a robust profile is better for demonstrating your expertise and engaging with potential clients. Completed profiles offer the best chances of conversion. As such, you always want to strive to raise the profile completeness score displayed in your Justia Profile Dashboard closer and closer to 100 percent.
We offer numerous fields designed to help you build a robust profile and accurately showcase your expertise. You undoubtedly want to ensure that your location and contact information are up to date soon after claiming your profile. This includes checking and/or adding your address, phone number, and website information. You also want to prioritize completing your biographical summary and practice area information.
This biography does not have to be as detailed as what you would include on your website, but you can check this out if you need some ideas to get you started. Additionally, Cary Dohman and Marlene Shiner have both written great biography sections on their Justia Profiles. Remember not to paste a biography from somewhere else online, as duplicate content is bad for SEO (search engine optimization).
For your practice areas, you need to be sure you include all of your major specialties. If you do not include your practice areas, then potential clients cannot find you when they are looking for an attorney in that area. You can list as many practice areas as you would like on your free profile, but you will only show up in the organic results on our site for the first six practice areas you include. You can also list related services within your main practice areas. Think of these as your subpractice areas. For instance, motorcycle accidents are a related service within personal injury.
Users browsing the Justia Lawyer Directory can filter by related services so that they can find an attorney that specializes in their specific issue. For example, a potential client may have a legal issue that ties into immigration law, but not all immigration attorneys focus on family visas or deportation defense.
Next, be sure you have listed all of the jurisdictions in which you are eligible to practice law and complete your basic professional experience and education fields. From there, you can start adding in additional information, such as your languages, professional associations, publications, fees information, and videos. While fully completing your profile is truly the best approach, if you do not have time to complete it all at once or simply cannot fill out all of the information, your dashboard will suggest additional sections to complete in order of priority.
Phase Two: Getting Reviews
While reviews are technically part of completing your profile, they warrant a different approach in that you cannot simply add reviews to your profile on your own. Instead, you need to request reviews from your peers and clients (current, former, or both).
Attorney-to-attorney reviews are what determine your Justia Lawyer Rating. Your colleagues and other attorneys that are personally familiar with your work can leave you a review in the Justia Lawyer Directory by rating your legal knowledge, communication skills, legal analysis, and ethics & professionalism. They can also leave a general comment about your work. These reviews are then displayed prominently on your Justia Profile.
You will receive the Justia Lawyer Ratings Badge based on your performance in peer reviews. This badge is displayed on your profile and can also be used on your website or similar marketing materials. Receiving the highest of marks from your peers earns you top ratings and can help you stand out when potential clients are researching in our directory.
We also permit clients to leave reviews of their attorneys on the Justia Lawyer Directory. To leave a review, an individual must be an actual client or former client of that attorney. Random individuals that never received your professional services are not permitted to leave reviews on our site. Check out this previous Justia Onward post to learn more about our client reviews system.
Our research shows that attorneys with positive reviews in the Justia Lawyer Directory have better conversion rates and enjoy greater visibility in the listings.
Reviews are also very helpful when prospective clients use our comparison tool, as positive reviews help you stand out from the crowd.
We make it easy to request reviews on Justia by simply submitting email addresses for those people you wish to request reviews from through your dashboard.
Phase Three: Taking Visibility One Step Further
Once you have a handle on your Justia Profile, we offer opportunities to take your visibility even further than just the organic listings in the Justia Lawyer Directory. By participating in Justia Ask A Lawyer, you enhance your visibility in other locations across our site – again, for free.
Submitted answers put you in front of someone who currently has a legal question (the submitter) as well as future potential clients with the same or similar questions. Your Justia Profile in the Justia Lawyer Directory is linked to your responses, and your profile picture and contact information are displayed with your answer as well.
If you participate enough on the platform, you may appear on the Justia Leaderboards for your state and/or practice area. These leaderboards are displayed in various locations across the Justia Ask A Lawyer website, as well as in the Justia Insights Newsletter.
As a bonus, answers submitted through Justia Ask A Lawyer are also displayed on your Justia Profile which further demonstrates your knowledge and qualifications to potential clients and your colleagues. To learn more about using Justia Ask A Lawyer to market your practice, including how to write a great answer and get new question notifications, check out this post.
Phase Four: Reaching the Full Potential
If you are ready to take the benefits of your Justia Profile to their full potential, you can also sign up for our paid directory listings through the Justia Premium Membership program. We offer two levels of Justia Premium Membership: gold and platinum.
Justia Platinum Placements give you an exclusive, fixed top placement for your chosen locality and practice area. Premium members with a platinum placement can also take advantage of an enhanced profile that is free of competitors, access to profile traffic statistics, and a complimentary landing page. Additionally, these lawyers can add a custom tagline and description to appear with their placement.
Justia Gold Placements rotate above and throughout the listing pages in the Justia Lawyer Directory for their purchased locality/practice area combination. Premium members with gold placements can add a custom tagline and description that will appear with their placement and also receive an enhanced, clean profile and access to their profile traffic statistics.
You can contact us to discuss Justia Premium Memberships in more detail and get a quote.
Final Thoughts: Why Do You Care?
In the digital age, online visibility is the name of the game. You need to be seen by potential clients to sustain your practice for the years to come. Because Justia is one of the most visited legal websites in the United States, marketing in our directory is a prime opportunity for lawyers to increase their visibility and connect with potential clients.
Moreover, having a presence in the leading legal directories is important for overall legal marketing purposes. By claiming and optimizing your various legal directory profiles, you are better able to effectively manage your reputation, build your authority, reach more clients, and boost your website’s SEO.
If you have already claimed your Justia Profile, now is the time to optimize it for maximum benefit. If not, claim your profile to get started today.
