Outside of a great education and years of experience, one of the most crucial

parts of successfully running a law practice is having a great website that

professionally represents you and your firm. In many cases, your website will be

the first way that potential clients connect with you, and your first opportunity to

convert prospects into clients. It is an essential piece of your firm’s marketing

efforts. Today’s clientele expect that you’ll have one, and chances are that you

already do. But it can’t just have a “nice design,” some photos and list your

services. Your website needs to do one thing well – convince visitors that you are

the best lawyer for their needs.

Many law firms create a website that they think is well designed, or purchase

a template that is “customized” with their business information. It may seem

like an easy solution requiring little time and effort, but in fact this step is as

critical as choosing your practice areas. Just because it feels easy, doesn’t make

it so. When publishing a website, a common misconception is that people will

just show up. Unlike a personal referral or premium office location where you

may receive walk-in traffic, on the internet over 100 million other websites

are competing for site visitors. Unless you take action to drive traffic, the only

people visiting your site will be you and your competitors.

Enticing a website visitor to call your business is quite literally a science,

something easily done incorrectly. On the internet, people are easily distracted

and are always one click away from leaving your site and visiting your

competition. Every choice made with regard to headlines, navigation, usage of

links, photography and graphics, and color combinations can drastically alter

your websites effectiveness and usability. As well, new and fresh content is

InfinaLaw.com

Next Generation of Website Design & Functionality

Legal Websites 2.0

DESIGN. INNOVATE. PROMOTE.

critical to a website’s success. In a recent study 63% of businesses reported they

update their website weekly. This frequency of updating or adding new content is

critical to success with search engines.

Think of how the majority of potential new clients will find you. In cases where the

situation is private, or the need is urgent, the first place a lot of individuals turn to is

the internet. It’s anonymous, it’s fast, and it’s convenient. A study conducted in 2009

showed that over 82% of people use search engines to find local services, such as a

good lawyer. Online searches by consumers looking for local businesses have nearly

doubled since 2005.

It has become common place for law firms to own multiple domains and operate

multiple websites to help promote their firm, attorneys, and practice areas. Each of

these websites has a different purpose, but in full these sites should be strategically

aligned with the firm’s goals and objectives.

LAW FIRM WEBSITESUnlike many other businesses, marketing a law firm requires walking a fine line between

aggressively promoting its services while still maintaining an ethical and professional

tone. Law firm websites are critical to marketing your firm and are expected by your

prospects. These websites are closely monitored and scrutinized by several governing

bodies. There are strict rules and guidelines that a firm’s website must adhere to.

Keeping up with these requirements can be difficult. Selecting a partner to help you

navigate through these legal standards and industry guidelines is important.

(Sources: Kelsey; Nielsen)

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Legal websites are typically comprehensive and should contain multiple forms of

information. Select a domain that is meaningful and easy to remember. Web domain

names that are lengthy and use commonly misspelled words are less effective. It

is important your firm’s website showcase your practice areas, members of the firm,

successes of the firm, associations and memberships of the firm, and why a potential

client should choose you.

With the continued proliferation of the internet, many law firms are already on a

second or third generation website. With enhancements in technology and increasingly

competitive landscape, many firms find themselves behind. To level the playing field,

firms need to learn from other’s experiences and take advantage of next generation

of website 2.0 technologies. Firms should be utilizing tools to integrate to social

networks, embed videos and podcasts, and take advantage of dynamic forms throughout

their website(s).

More than ever before, the technology your website is built on is an extremely important

decision. At InfinaLaw we recommend and provide a dynamic Content Management

System (CMS) as the foundation for all our clients’ websites. Our experience has shown

this enables our clients to achieve the highest level of success both during the initial

launch and the ongoing maintenance of the website.

The CMS allows our clients to easily update and maintain their own content without

having to know HTML and other complex programming languages. The easy to use

interface makes it simple for non-technical personnel to update the website as often as

desired. This eliminates design and programming expenses and significantly reduces

the time to publish new content. Keeping your content relevant and fresh is a way

to ensure your firm is highly ranked by search engines. Not only do search engines

drive considerable website traffic, almost every search-based visitor is looking for your

specific services. Beyond your websites effectiveness at driving qualified traffic to your

business, the great thing about online marketing is that everything is measurable. When

it comes to balancing marketing funds, having a resource such as your website that can

provide measurable results is key to making better business descisions.

ATTORNEY WEBSITESWith the internet, attorneys can now easily market themselves and build an online

reputation. A first year attorney can immediately start to build a positive presence online,

beyond just their local community or within the law firm. This same thing is true for

junior attorneys, sole practitioners, and partners of medium or large size law firms.

Today with over 1.1 million attorneys in the United States competing for business, we

are seeing more and more attorneys have their own website which in turn promotes

themselves as well as the firm they represent. In most cases these have the same look

and feel as the firm site but provide an outlet to showcase this attorneys education,

Types of LegaL WebsiTes

firm Websites

attorney Websites

practice area specific Websites

Custom online blogs

DESIGN. INNOVATE. PROMOTE.

®

successes, published works, memberships and affiliations,

awards and recognitions, previous employment, and personal

interests. Choosing an attorney is a big decision for most

individuals and providing this level of current detail on the

person responsible for their case is beneficial to the consumer.

PRACTICE AREA WEBSITESMany firms offer their services for many different practice

areas, however there might be a handful they consider their

“bread and butter”. In these cases they might showcase a

practice area on its own website. Also, this is another great

way to drive traffic to your website as the practice area itself is

likely what prospects are typing into search engines.

Practice area specific websites showcase the firms experience

in a specific field and cross-promote the firms strengths.

These sites should have new content and contain relevant

resources pertaining specifically to that practice area. These

individual practice area websites help give the consumer a

comfort level that this is your area of expertise and that you

are the right firm for their case.

GAINING VISIBILITY AND BUILDING CLIENTELE ONLINEChoosing a lawyer is an incredibly important decision—yet

most people have no idea how to go about doing it, and

resources to guide them are scarce. Your website is where

prospective clients, businesses, and the legal community will

rely on getting current information about your legal services.

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