Law Firm Marketing Tip: How Personal Injury Lawyers Can Use Press Releases to Attract New Clients

Press releases were originally used by public relations staff as a method of communicating with the media. However, with the growth of online news syndication websites, such as Google News or Yahoo News, and the typical internet user’s reliance on RSS feeds and search engines, press releases can now be used by personal injury lawyers as a direct-to-prospect marketing tool.

By using a leading wire service such as Business Wire, Market Wire, PRNewsWire or PRWeb, your press releases will not only be sent to hundreds of relevant media outlets, but they can also be syndicated in order to boost your website’s search engine positioning through incoming links.

As a personal injury lawyer wanting to implement internet marketing strategies to get ahead, you cannot ignore the power of the press release in today’s world. However, unless you know how to create a press release that will grab people’s attention, you will struggle to gain visibility.

Here are seven tips you can use right away to maximize your exposure:

1. Choose a Newsworthy Topic: Before writing your press release, make sure it has a purpose. If you simply want to announce you’ve opened a new website or a blog, it is not likely any of the major media outlets will care. However, if you focus on the unique solutions, services and resources that are now available to consumers needing a personal injury lawyer, you’ll receive far more attention.

2. Start Strong: Your headline needs to compel people to read while using targeted keywords that will demand attention. Your headline, summary, and first paragraph should provide a full picture of your news event while the rest of the release will describe it in more detail.

3. Make it Easy to Read: The easier it is to understand your press release, the more likely bloggers and journalists will choose to run with it. Set your legal jargon to the side and discuss your news event with simplicity.

4. Give People a Reason to Visit Your Site: While your press release might be interesting, it won’t always lead people to visit your site. However, by mentioning a special offer for free reports, white papers or information guides, you’ll attract much more attention. Also, having links in your press release will improve your search engine positioning.

5. Distribute the Release: Not only should you use a major press release distribution service, but you should also compile a list of local media contacts that are likely to post news regarding personal injury law. This may include newspapers, magazines, blogs and more. You should also host the press release on your own site and submit it to social media websites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit.

As with anything in law firm marketing, you need to track the results of your press releases to find out what worked best and how to improve it in the future. By measuring inbound links, the number of website visitors that came directly via the press release and the overall effect it had on your business, you’ll quickly see that press releases can be a great benefit when marketing your personal injury law firm on the internet.

How to Cut Down and Remove a Tree Safely

From time to time you will need to remove a tree from the garden. Possibly you own an aged tree that is diseased, an apple tree that doesn’t produce fruit any more, or a tree that’s diseased or in an inconvenient position. Although it’s tempting to give it a bit of chain saw action and fell it all in one go – avoid! Take care and you’ll get the tree down safely and make life effortless for yourself.
Now, before you start, take notice. Make sure that you’re allowed to take the tree down. If you’re not sure then you’re going to need to call your local council. Also, if the tree is over 20 ft or 6 metres in height, don’t even think about it. Far too big and dangerous for an newbie. You will need a skilled tree surgeon to deal with it. They’ll be able to talk to the council for you as well.
OK, so you are determined to go ahead yourself. You’ll need some equipment. Thick gardening gloves – ideally leather. Rope, a chain saw, a pruning saw, a good ladder and safety glasses. You should actually have a helmet but you almost certainly will not bother. But for crying out loud wear your safety goggles. A wood chip in your eye is a real day spoiler.
1. Get your ladder and thread it between the branches to the top of the tree. Make certain that it’s secure and at that time get a friend to hold the bottom of it. If you don’t have any friends – well that’s the topic for another article. If this is the case on the other hand, lash the ladder to the trunk of the tree so it won’t fall or move when you are on it. I would spend some time making sure it’s nice and tight if I were you. You’ll be untying and re-tying this ladder a lot all through this exercise if you are on your own.
2. Start cutting at the pinnacle of the tree. Use the pruning saw or the chain saw to cut branches into manageable lengths. don’t cut pieces that are too large and heavy to lift comfortably. You don’t need me to tell you that you are at the top of a ladder!
3. Shift the ladder round the tree as you work. This will mean getting down the ladder and untying and tying it if you’re on your own. do not be tempted to stretch and reach for branches that are beyond you. Get down that ladder. People have very severe accidents with chainsaws. In fact, in August 2004 a man accidentally cut off his wife’s head with a chain saw, do not take chances.
4. Continue cutting back the branches, but bear in mind to leave a minimum of one main branch to support the ladder. As soon as you have taken off most of the branches, use a shorter ladder or fold a down the one so that it can stand on its own.
5. Move the stand alone ladder into place so that you can begin to cut down the trunk piece by bit. Keep the portions small to make disposal quicker. Cut the tree to within 6″ of the ground.
6. You will now be left with a stump. The easiest way to remove a tree base is to pay somebody else to do it! Failing that, hire a stump grinder from an equipment rental shop like HSS. It will make short work of a base but it can be a unpleasant and sweaty business. If you don’t need to deal with the stump instantly, you can buy a root killing product from a garden centre. When applied to the base it will work its way to the roots to destroy the plant. It may need a few applications. In due course your base will rot, making it easier to take out.
7. Finally, burn the branches and small logs or put them in the boot of the car and take them to the local recycling centre – where they’ll probably burn them someplace else.