Advertising Options for Indian Lawyers Mehnat.IN

Note: All the below offers are no longer available.

1) An Offer for Lawyers (Advertising Option) —

As far as I know, lawyers are permitted by their bar council to put up 'website information' limited to name, qualifications, practice area, and contact details, there being no declared limit on the number of webpages where they are allowed to put up such information, or on the ownership of such pages. Have you tried Google (pay per click) or JustDial (annual subscription)? Are you disappointed by the low conversion rate / low return on investment / low number of enquiries / high initial financial commitment / inadequate explanation of the expected success rate / unsatisfactory business practices / low or zero verifiability? Finally you have another choice.

(Reasonably popular) The website www.mehnat.in has become quite popular, and currently gets more than one hundred and fifty unique visitors every day (for March 2014 so far)

(Relevant to the relevant audience) The vast majority of visitors visit the site looking for advice about matrimonial litigation and dowry law related issues like divorce, AB/bail and 498a/406. 150 visitors per day is a fair number of visitors for any website. Also remember that these are not people who are here to download wallpapers or to share status updates. They are mostly people who are looking for information related to their current or future marital litigation.

(Most direct and desirable discovery route for users) All visitors are either from search, or repeat visitors, or (a now noticeable trend) word of mouth.

(Very sticky site) Every day many visitors spend plenty of time reading this site. The average visitor spends almost six minutes on the site per visit. Compare this with the internet average of about 30 seconds on a website. Even a highly respected and well-designed website like Legally India dot com manages a site engagement average of 3 minutes per visit. The fact that that website targets a decidedly more literate audience than this site makes the user engagement statistic for this site even more impressive. The site is not as sticky as facebook, but do you want to advertise on FB?

(Sufficient audience) The daily visitors figure means that about 55,000 people who have an ongoing interest in matrimonial litigation will visit this site over the next year, and a very decent percentage of them will stick around and read the website for a reasonable period of time.

(High goodwill) Read the 'praise from readers' page on the website to get a small glimpse of the goodwill enjoyed by the website. I guess that this is seriously better branding / positioning for you than websites which are growing infamous for bad business practices, and which provide contact details of photostat shops, vegetable sellers, or massage parlours to more or less the same audience as the one to which they provide contact details of lawyers.

(Highly targeted) More than 75 percent of visitors are from India, and other major countries where visitors are from are USA, UK, UAE, Canada, and Australia. The major territories (in decreasing order by numbers of visitors) are Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka, USA, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, UK, Madhya Pradesh, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Punjab, Canada, Australia, and UAE. Clearly, the geographical distribution is reflective of the Indian diaspora.

(Low minimum financial commitment) You can put up a banner with your name and contact details on every single page of this website for 1000/- rupees per day of 24 hours, or 3500/- rupees for one week, or 10000/- rupees for 31 days, or 21000/- rupees for 92 days, or 32000/- rupees for 183 days, or 50,000/- rupees for one year. As far as the annual advertisement price is concerned, let me state here for all comers that I will shut this website down if anybody can tell me a place where they can get such a readership for so little money. Banners on the homepage can be linked to your website. You may wish to consider the other, quasi-advertising option described below this offer.

(No garbage or clutter) There are zero graphics on the website, zero distractions for the reader. Just the text, and -tomorrow- your advertisement. (ads will be put up in html text only to maintain a clean look, and only within the main text body or below it in every article). (Strict editorial control) Nothing goes up on the site if I don't put it up.

(High visibility and effectiveness) Your listing on all pages, combined with the need of the average visitor is likely to ensure that you will get enquiries from readers.

(A word to the wise) However, if you want guaranteed success from an ad campaign (some people have asked such questions), then you need a rich papa, not an ad campaign. Remember that advertising only serves to inform people about your professional existence, and (to the perceptive client) as a rough indicator of your financial solvency and your desire to work. Nothing more. It is only one of the first few steps in your effort to succeed. You cannot expect to overnight develop the brand equity or the reputation which is enjoyed by the editor of any given newspaper just because your advertisement may happen to appear in that newspaper.

This fact does not worry those who realise that editors are not in a position to sell services which advertisers can. If you are sitting around twiddling your thumbs because nobody is aware of your office or your services, then perhaps it is time for you to advertise.

2) Another Offer for Lawyers (quasi-advertising option) —

Dear lawyers, now you can avail the following facilities from mehnat.in —

1) Your own internet address with the Indian Mehnat branding (in the format xyzname.mehnat.in)
2) Your own website on the above address with 100 megabytes linux hosting.
3) Unlimited bandwidth (with uploading and live-checking service included).
4) A hyperlink to your homepage from the homepage of mehnat.in
5) Listing of your name and contact details on the lawyers listing page (to be made).
6) All questions sent by readers mailed to you, and your reply to every question posted on this website along with your contact details. Till date only very few selected queries have been published on the questions and answers page. At present no lawyer is answering any queries sent by readers to this website. I repeat for the nth time that I am not a lawyer.
7) All this for a total of 15999/- rupees for 5 years. Less than the price of a cup of tea per day, and as far as I am aware this is even cheaper than just buying a simple domain name and hosting a website on it for five years with zero value addition in terms of increased professional visibility.

For lawyers' websites only.

Advertising/Marketing Options for Indian Lawyers