Marketing Your Firm on the Web

It really was not that long ago that the Internet was new and uncharted territory.  Law firms with a website were the exception, not the rule, and were ahead of the technology curve.  Today, when almost everyone is familiar with the Internet, most people expect a business, including a law firm, to have a website.  A presence on the web has become a necessity.  While there are many reasons, one of the most important is the ability of Internet users to quickly locate and obtain information.  Thus, the Internet has become the fastest way for potential clients to find and investigate law firms with which they are considering doing business.  Lack of an Internet presence, or the wrong type of Internet presence, limits the number of potential clients who will take the next step and actually contact the firm. 

Most people know what a website is.  At its most basic, it is a collection of hosted pages, linked together to display information.  In the early days of the Internet, it was usually enough to have a very simple website that listed the law firm’s address and telephone number, gave directions to the firm and profiled each attorney.  However, a website can do much more for a firm.  If used properly, an Internet presence can become one of the best ways to showcase a firm’s expertise, attract quality clientele and provide useful information to your existing clients.

Designing for Success

There are a number of things that a firm can do to turn its website into a marketing tool, before it has a single visitor.  Most attorneys hire a web designer rather than create their own site.  Careful thought should go into the choice of a designer as very few specialize in law firm sites.  This is not to say that a designer who has never designed a site for a law firm cannot create one.  However, their creative instincts may not translate all that well to the legal market.  Most web sites either sell things or provide information.  A good law firm site does a little of both in that it provides information in order to induce a sale of services later.  It is a delicate balance.  Too much sales and a law firm site looks unprofessional.  Too little sales and it is less likely to result in a contact from the visitor.  Evaluating the prior work of the web designer and carefully reviewing any proposed site is critically important.

 As you review a potential site for the correct mix of sales and information, keep a few other things in mind.  Every website should be easy to use.  Clear navigation in a familiar location is a must.  Use a template and don’t vary the location of navigation from page to page.  If users cannot identify your navigation, they won’t stay very long.  After all, the “Back” button is easy to find.  Users should never have to scroll before they can navigate.  That is too much work.  You should also limit horizontal scrolling.  Your site should be designed to accommodate users who are working in 800x600 screen resolutions.  These users should not have to scroll sideways to see your content.  Links should be blue and underlined, as they have been from the beginning of the Internet.  Other colors have lower click-throughs because users do not identify them as links.  In short, make your site familiar and easily understood by the majority of web users. 

Now that your site is easy to use, you need content that will capture the attention and interest of the potential clients you are targeting.  This is the primary reason for having a website in the first place.  With this in mind, there are several things that set good law firm websites apart and help land clients.  First, consider your target client and design to them.  If a potential client has found your site, you can assume that they did so through a web search, a link from another site, or because they remembered your web address.  In most cases, this means that the potential client is looking for something in particular that led them to your site.  For example, if a prospective client is looking for an attorney to handle their auto accident case, they likely typed “personal injury lawyer milwaukee” or something similar into Google.  If you are fortunate enough to have this potential client find your site, will they find what they are looking for?

Potential clients want to know if you are the right attorney to handle their case and there are several pieces of information that can lead them to the right conclusion.  What is our prospective auto accident client looking for that will lead him or her to our firm?  In essence, it comes down to how much you know about their area of law and whether you have a track record of helping others in similar situations.  You establish your knowledge of a practice area through helpful content such as online newsletters, presentations or web logs.  Establishing a track record is even easier.  A list of representative clients is a great place to start.  Next, provide testimonials and success stories tied to these clients.  Demonstrating familiarity with a practice area and providing success stories about your existing clients is a web marketing strategy that works regardless of which type of law you practice.

Some Common Mistakes

Having a website and a lot to say is a dangerous combination.  This is especially true when the purpose of your website is to impress potential clients with how much you know.  Nevertheless, my first suggestion is to avoid cluttering your site.  While it is very important to have useful content on your site, there is such a thing as too much information in one place.  Many studies suggest that the typical user visually scans a website for less than ten seconds before deciding to explore further or click away.  If they click away, they are likely gone forever.  For this reason, your home page should be clean, professional looking place of entry that invites the user to explore further.  Far too many sites provide the wrong first impression by splashing a confusing jumble of information all over the first page.  At best, the prospective client is confused and cannot immediately find anything that suggests your site has the answer they are looking for.  It is much easier to click away than it is to try and make sense of the mess they are looking at.  At worst, the potential client develops an impression of the firm as one that is disorganized or having difficulty establishing priorities.  Either way, you will have a hard time bringing them back.

Another type of content to avoid is what I call Industry Speak.  In other words, assuming you are not trying to attract other attorneys as clients, your website should attempt to impress potential clients, not other attorneys.  On law firm sites, Industry Speak comes in two forms.  The first is trying to impress clients by throwing a lot of legal terms at them.  This merely produces a slight glazing of the eyes before they click away.  The other is a tendency to brag about the organization of the firm.  Clients could care less how many different departments a firm has, how many lawyers are in each one, or how much each department has grown since 2003.  For most potential clients, all that matters is whether you can help them.  Your firm’s depth chart does very little to assist them in this decision.

My last two common mistakes are ones that all sites should avoid.  For law firms, the first one even more critical because of the professional image they are trying to convey.  This is the tendency for trendy web designers to fill sites with the latest bells and whistles.  Avoid flash presentations, blinking text, unusual background colors and anything else that anyone younger than twenty describes as “cool.”  Features like these distract and drive away users.  On a law firm site, they just look unprofessional.  Finally, if you are going to have a “What’s New” section on your site, make sure it is updated frequently.  Also, your What’s New listings should only contain things that are new.  I have seen listings of supposedly new content that are fifty items long and go back four years.  This type of content is only useful to people who get their news from the History Channel.

If You Build It, Will They Come?

The best law firm web site will not lead to clients unless it can first attract web users and bringing traffic to a site may require an investment of both time and money.  The time component involves making sure your site is optimized so that search engines can find it.  This is simpler than you might think.  Keywords in the right places greatly improve the ranking of pages in a search engine.  Those places are the body of the page, the title of the page, the description of the page and the keyword meta tag.  If you don’t know what these are, ask your web designer about them.  The reason that these are so important is that search engines read these four areas of the page when they visit your site.  Having your keywords in all four makes the page stand out and increases the probability that the search engine will determine it is important.

You may also have to spend a little money to attract users to your site.  Nearly all written materials that leave your firm, including letterhead, business cards, brochures, etc., should list your web address.  This is all part of building site awareness.  Also, don’t forget about your yellow pages ad.  Many prospective clients will begin their attorney search the old fashioned way then follow it up with a visit to a website before they call.  On the other hand, be wary of anyone who offers to enhance your search engine ranking for a fee.  While it is possible to purchase an ad for specific keywords, there is no way to buy a higher search engine ranking.  A higher ranking requires knowledge of web design and search engines.

There are a number of ways to monitor whether people are finding your site.  For starters, you should carefully review whatever web site statistics your hosting company provides.  The important statistics are visits and page views.  The number of hits can be misleading as it records files that are accessed.  Thus, a home page with many graphics will often have a hit for the page, plus each of the graphics.  Visits track how many different users (or search engines) actually visited your site and is a much more useful number.  Similarly, page views tell you which pages are attracting the most traffic and which ones have fewer visitors.  This is important information as it tells you which pages are working and which ones need work.  Another important statistic is Referring URLs which tells you what other sites are sending traffic your way.  The better your site, the more sites that will link to you and the more traffic that will find you via search engines.

Conclusion

As a final test, or even if you already have a website, you should periodically try to find it with Google, Yahoo! and every other search engine you can think of.  Try your keywords or search for your name.  Assuming you find your site, are you satisfied with your ranking?  If not, I hope this article has provided you with enough useful information to set your site on the path to greatness.  With a little effort, you can put your site to work bringing in quality clients and generating revenue, instead of costing you money.

This article was originally published in the May, 2006, edition of the Wisconsin Law Journal in the special Law Firm Marketing section.