The 6 Tips and Tools For Lawyers To Reach Top Law Firm Ranking on YouTube
Let’s talk about the second largest search engine on the world . . but owned by the largest search engine in the world.
Okay, we all know it’s Google.
But YouTube can work more effectively as a way to market your law firm than even using Google itself.
How come?
First, let’s get some stats on what YouTube is doing and where it’s going.
Video is more popular than ever. Online video continues to grow in both demand and content quantity.
YouTube launched in 2005, and by 2006, 650,000videos were being uploaded to the siteevery single day.
That number has only grown, and now there are over 400 hours of fresh and original content being uploaded every minute.
That growth doesn’t look set to slow down, which is why video marketing for lawyers is more important than ever. While other online video platforms are showing varying degrees of success, YouTube remains the king of video, and lawyers need to learn how to leverage that popularity to power their content marketing efforts.
Open a ‘brand’ rather than a personal channel for your law firm.
The importance to be able to develop your law firm brand is important. Rather than opening a personal account that only the Google Account holder can use there is the ability to have multiple Google Accounts provides greater flexibility and power to your channel.
See how to upload and create your branded channel below –
Use your law firm logo for your channel
Use titles and descriptions to the videos to assist in their visibility, including links to your website and social media platforms.To help people find you, add titles and descriptions to your videos.
Try and also present the personality and ‘culture’ of your firm with informative and relevant information about the firm so that visitors know who you are and what you stand for.
Make it short and engaging.
Here is a good example from Injury Trial Lawyers, APC:
Useful resources
Use Creatopy to create online banner covers for your YouTube channel.
Use TubeBuddy for promotional and channel health tools.
2. Know – And Research – Your Audience
Your YouTube channel for business will provide access to some key tools that provide some important tips to help find out more about your audience.
As a law firm you will have a good idea of who your clients are, but to be able to dig down into the audience details lets you get a great opportunity towards finding out how your videos can resonate effectively with them.
Among the tools from a brand channel is the Analyticsearch Your Audience, Too tab that gives quantitative and qualitative data about your channel and your audience such as:
view counts
audience demographics
revenues
average watch time
interaction rates
This information will let you learn more about the videos that are being viewed and by whom. It will provide information about location, gender, age and other key data that lets you better calibrate how to reach your audience and perhaps to even tell you that you have an audience you didn’t know about.
Also you should set up a YouTube community page that lets you interact with your audience to find out more about who they are and – more importantly – how they think.
Research Your Audience
You need to constantly be checking your audience stats, but also check your competitors’ videos and the comments being made.
Check the view count on competitors’ videos and see what is working for them, how many comments are accruing and how you can improve what is being said.
Key Tip: Don’t forget to check any video channels beyond your own area of law or specialty. Check for interesting, engaging channels that are attracting high viewing and see what they’re doing that may suit your own channel.
You should also check the video descriptions being used to see what keywords they are using (of which more below).
You need to work on optimizing your video to ensure the descriptive material is working – or at least working as well as it should be.
Key Tool:
Use YouTube Analytics to view what’s working for your channel and get deeper insights into views, subscribers, watch time, and more.
3. Optimize Your Video For High Rankings
Once you’ve selected and produced your video you need to have it optimized for the highest, possible rankings.
Many otherwise good videos are wasted because they have poor titles, poorly chosen keywords, bad thumbnails and so forth.
It is critical if you’re going to produce a video with the aim of attracting more clients that you also do yourself the service of making sure it is properly optimized.
So what is required?
Use the Right Keywords
Choosing your keywords is one of the key parts of making an engaging, successful video that will reach your target market.
You can use different keyword tools like the TubeBuddy tool that lets you enter a phrase to check the competition and other factors to create a successful video.
You should look at the Google keyword planner to help select the right keywords before you start your video – but most certainly after it is completed.
There are ample ways to use the planner and other keyword tools, such as the Keyword Explorer tool (below), but make sure you use keywords naturally and without overuse or with overly advertorial-style usage.
Use a Great Title Using Good Keywords
A good title is critical to success because the time you have to attract your ‘audience’ is limited and you want to catch them with the best title you can.
That said, don’t use clickbait titles that leave the readers disappointed or angry. Preferably talk of the benefits you offer with you video for those law firm clients seeking legal help of some kind.
Consider the following as a way to generate a top title –
Identify a central idea or theme in your video
Search for short and descriptive keyword phrases that address this theme or concept
Choose a title that answers the most important question for viewers and potential clients.
Key Tip: YouTube limits the title to 70 characters. It is best to also limit your title to around 60 characters so that your title is not ‘truncated’ in the search results. So write your title with great care.
Take this video from lawyer/videographer Liam Porritt, with 250,000 views over the past 9 months. He may not be marketing a law firm as such, but he is reaching his target audience (young or aspiring lawyers) with a catchy title (“Day in the Life of a Corporate Lawyer (The Honest Truth)” )and leveraging off a notorious, fictional lawyer.
If you want to get the most out of your videos, focus on their total watch time. Based on the Comscore survey, the duration of the majority of the YouTube videos is about 5 minutes.
If you create long videos by just repeating yourself, it won’t help. People need a good reason to be interested in your video.
To help create a great title look at – >>How the video will help readers>>What the central idea of the video is>>The descriptive keywords that address your video ‘theme’
Use a Great Thumbnail that is relevant and interesting (with short descriptions)
4. Have a Call to Action
The idea is not just to have users watch your video, but also take action and click through to your website or call your line.
You need to ask them to do so – follow up with any questions they may have or queries that remain unresolved. If you have helped create something that is authoritative and useful they will remain interested, so give them the option – ASK them – to contact you.
Adding calls to action to your videos will help you create more engagement on YouTube. They can also be irritating, so try to use them in the right way.
No matter what goals you have, to get more likes or more subscribers, be clear about key actions people need to take.
You can add your website link or ask for subscribers to your channel within the video or at the end to help people understand the next step.
If your goal is to attract a lot of subscribers, try to do it smartly. Your efforts will be rewarded in the long run.
5. Spy on Your Competition
Spying – or more professionally – ‘competitive analysis’ – is essential if you want to rank well and get ahead of your law firm competitors.
A lot of the data you need to identify how to find opportunities and profit from them is already on the other channels and there are tools available to help the process too.
You need to check competitors’ channels and see which channels are generating good views. See what their audience is and what reactions they’re achieving so that you can develop your own strategy.
Included in this process is reading the comments on the other videos.
Key Tip: Check what descriptions and keywords are being used to help optimize their videos.
6. Share Your Video on Social Media
Sharing your videos on social media is fundamental if you want to grow your channel. As a savvy marketer, it’s important not only to publish your latest videos on social media but also to be active in social communities and groups.
Each social platform has its own culture, and you need to figure out which one is best for you and where your efforts will be appreciated.
Remember also to interact with your audience and ask them to subscribe to your channel and what else they are looking for.
You should also work with other YouTube influencers and brands in your niche that might permit making videos together to broaden your law firm audience.
Use the following effective tips to promote your videos:
Add YouTube videos to SlideShare presentations
Share your videos on Pinterest and Twitter
Make mini promo videos on your Facebook page and link back to your original YouTube video
Integrate your videos into your blog content
Publish your videos on Scoop.it
Promote and share your videos on relevant Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn groups, and communities
Include your videos in guest posts on related websites
Open a ‘brand’ rather than a personal channel for your law firm.
Research Your Audience
Spying – or more professionally – ‘competitive analysis’ – is essential if you want to rank well and get ahead of your law firm competitors.
Sharing your videos on social media is fundamental if you want to grow your channel. As a savvy marketer, it’s important not only to publish your latest videos on social media but also to be active in social communities and groups.
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