Last month I was pleased to see the advent of a new digital ranking of law firm websites: The Digital 100, based in the UK and managed by marketing agency TBD. The Digital 100 is “a subscription service which ranks law firms for their digital marketing performance. A bit like The Lawyer 200 or the Legal Business 100 do for financial performance.”
I love this kind of stuff.
I know, I know. The legal world is inundated with rankings and more rankings, some of which seem downright tedious or wrong – the quality varies, as we all know. But the Digital 100 isn’t there to rank firm practices and lawyers, but to rank law firms’ digital properties and marketing operations. And I love this sort of thing. Why? Because it’s a way to improve and succeed.
The Digital 100 is not there for you to be depressed at how poorly you’re doing. Quite the reverse.
Or, I’ll put it a different way: Digital – be it digital marketing, website design, social media engagement, and the like – is always changing. The technology, the code, the marketing methods that succeed. Think SEO isn’t changing? Wait till you read this article on “fraggles” and it will upend some of the SEO thinking you’ve been operating on for years. If you want to remain competitive, you need to be constantly aware of where you stand.
It’s a challenge. I myself help clients improve their digital situations, and then realize I have to walk the talk on my own website and digital channels. We are all trying to perform optimally, and it’s hard.
The Digital 100: A Positive Thing
So I think rankings like the Digital 100 are a positive thing. They are not there for you to be depressed at how poorly you’re doing. Quite the reverse: measurement is a way to GET BETTER, and to achieve your strategic goals. When you get on track, it is a total blast succeeding at the digital game. That’s why I’ve cooperated with my colleague Stacey Piper on numerous digital marketing audits for companies. In every case, especially if your digital performance is poor compared to your competitors, audits and measurements like this are a way to improve everything about your digital marketing and online presence.
In short, you’ve got to face up to reality before improving. Or, as Simon Marshall, founder of the Digital 100 and TBD, put it: “The time that clients and targets spend on sites is finite: they’re not going to read your perfectly crafted article if a better one exists on a competitors’ site.”
