WordPress for Lawyers

Building a Website for your Law Firm

North Carolina Bar Association

Presenter

Jennifer EllisLowenthal & Abrams, PC

&

Jennifer Ellis, JD

@jle_jd

www.LowenthalAbrams.com

www.jlellis.net

Copyright Jennifer Ellis, 2014. All rights reserved.

About Jennifer Ellis

• Legal Malpractice & Ethics Attorney• Also Manage Online Presence for Lowenthal &

Abrams, PC in Philadelphia

• Consultant – Online Marketing for Lawyers• Jennifer Ellis, JD

• Author• WordPress in One Hour for Lawyers

• Available on ABA’s Website

Today’s Seminar

• Choosing a domain name

• Picking a host

• Installing software

• Setting up the basics

• Design

• Choosing plugins

• Adding widgets

• Creating and editing a page

• Creating and editing a post

• Adding media

• Updating software

• Security

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

• Ethics

You Can’t Build a Website in an Hour

• But you can create one in• A weekend

• A week

• A month

• Websites are a continuing project• Keep adding content

• Examine results

• Improve

• Repeat

Why WordPress?

• Easy to install

• Easy to use

• Easy to update

• Great functionality through plug-ins

• Free software

• Supportive community

• Excellent for SEO

Choose a Domain Name

• Your address on the web• Choose carefully

• Branding• First thing people see

• Creates a sense of who you are

• Email address

• Relate to your firm

• Easy to type

• Not too long

• No dashes

• No numbers

Think Through Your Branding

• Firm’s Name?• Initials?

• Law or Lawfirm at the end?

• Area of practice?

• Geographic area?

• Hard to find good names• Be creative

• Use .com

Ask Others to Look

• Bad Examples• whorepresents.com

• WhoRepresents or WhorePresents

• speedofart.com

• SpeedOfArt or SpeedoFart

• therapistinabox.com

• Therapist in a Box or TheRapistInABox

See if the Name is Available

Not Available?

• Add law, lawfirm or lawyers?

• Consider other options

• Be careful about adding S or ing• Especially bad if the other site is a law firm

• Domain available for sale from the owner?• Check for cost

Choose Webhost

• Reliable

• Able to handle WordPress

• One click installation

• Recommend• Web Synthesis

• Bluehost

• HostGator

Purchase Hosting Plan

• Don’t choose the lowest plan.

• Choose an appropriate plan• Business Level

• WordPress specific (if available)

• But….see discussion on Sucuri & CloudProxy

• The lowest level is fine for Web Synthesis

• Note, can register your domain on Bluehost or HostGator.• Not on Web Synthesis

Point DNS

• What is a DNS?• Domain Name Server

• Domain Name System

• Connects IP address and domain name

• Type in domain name, sends it to the right location

• Like a phone book or a map for the Web

Using Same Registrar & Host?

• Will not need to point the DNS

• It should automatically work

• Less secure to use both in the same place

Different Registrar & Host

• Required to point DNS to the correct location

• The steps vary based on your registrar and host

• Sometimes change Name Servers

• Sometimes change IP Address

• Get information from Host

• More secure

Warning – Email!

• Make sure you do not mess up your email when you change your DNS!

• If in doubt, ASK!

Installing WordPress

Setting Up the Basics

• Click on Settings and Access• General

• Writing

• Reading

• Discussion

• Permalinks

General

Writing

Reading

Discussion

Permalinks

Website Appearance

• Theme• Complete website design

• Modifiable • Coding

• Internal options

Finding Themes

• Within WordPress• Free

• External sites• Various prices

• Framework themes• Basic underlying framework

• Theme over the framework

• Hire website designer

Within WordPress

Preview

Install External Theme

Modify Theme

Options Vary

Plugins & Widgets

• Add functionality

• Plugins• Back end

• Widgets• Front end

• Often work together

Recommended Plugins

• Yoast WordPress SEO – SEO

• Askimet – Comment Spam

• Acurax Social Icons – Social Media Icons

• Disable Comments – Hides Comment Box on Pages

• Display Widgets – Controls Where Widgets Appear

• Gravity Forms – Contact Box

• Jetpack – Numerous Tools (including statistics)

• W3 Total Cache – Speeds Up Site

• Advanced Image Styles (control aspects of image appearance)

Using Widgets

Drag to Location

Enter Data (If Needed)

Result

Plugins with Widgets

PLUGINWIDGET

RESULT

Important – Updates!

• WordPress = Microsoft of Web• Common malware attack target

• Update plugins and software as required

• Use security• Sucuri Malware Scanner ($89/year)

• Plugin and external scanning service

• Sucuri Cloud Proxy ($9.99/month)

• Sucuri included with Web Synthesis

Updates

Content

• Pages

• Posts

• Media

Editing

Media

Gallery

Upload

URL

Edit Media - Add Advanced Image Plugin

SEO

• Content matters• What will bring clients?

• What questions are they asking?• Answer the questions

• Good links from other sites• Encourage linking with good content

• Write for sites with follow me links• Follow me = recognized by Google as

providing link “juice”

• No follow = no link “juice”

SEO Tools• Yoast – WordPress Plugin

• On site SEO analysis

• Moz – External Help • http://moz.com

• Education

• Analysis

• Comparison

• ahrefs – Linking Analysis• https://ahrefs.com/

Yoast

• Provides tools to analyze each page and post

• Helps with Sitemaps

• Other tools as well

Yoast

Yoast

ahrefs

Provides detailed information about links

Moz

Analyze your site against others for key words and other information

Choose your key words

Compare Competitors

Google Analytics

• http://analytics.google.com

• Numbers

• Location

• Pages

• Bounce rate

• Mobile versus desktop

Google Webmaster Tools

• http://webmaster.google.com

• Informs if problems with site

• Provide Google with sitemap

• Information about Google searches

Ethics Rules 7.1 et seq.

• Marketing rules apply• Use appropriate disclaimers for your jurisdiction

• Do not share detailed information about clients without permission• Appropriate disclaimer – past results do not guarantee future outcome

• Beware providing specific legal advice• General, educational information

Questions?

• Feel free to contact me

• Jennifer@jlellis.net

• Twitter: @jle_jd

• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/jle.jd