By Deborah McMurray
abc extreme make overResolve to get more out of your Web investment between now and year end. Here are some ideas to better integrate your Web strategy with your marketing and business development plans.
At the firm level.
Is it you? For your Web site to work for you, it must reflect (1) your firm’s unique and differentiating position and (2) your style of doing business. Adding a tagline isn’t enough. Do the research and find out what’s different and better about your firm. Then design/structure your Web site and content to reflect this.
Is it intuitive? Take this simple test.
a. Does your Web site enable visitors to do a global keyword search on the home page (and every interior page)?
b. Tom Jones is a lawyer in your firm. How many clicks away from the home page is his bio?
c. How many clicks away is your litigation practice description—and how many more clicks to find your products liability experience?
d. What industries do you serve and how many clicks until I can find out?
If your answer is more than two clicks (preferably one), your Web site is working against you. Visitors simply won’t waste their time trying to find what they want. They’ll visit once, but they won’t come back.
At the practice group level.
Clients and future clients want to know three things: What you’ve done, for whom you’ve done it and what you can do for them. If your Web site doesn't address these questions early in their visit to your Web site, you are missing an opportunity.
Practice and industries. We know that corporate counsel and business executives use the Web differently. In-house lawyers typically search capabilities by practice area, and CEOs and CFOs first search by industry. If your Web practices are merely stating the administrative groups in your firm, you aren’t reaching your visitor. And, if you are only listing capabilities by practice (corporate, tax, litigation) and not including industry expertise (timber, food/beverage, hospitality), a huge segment of visitors are leaving your site dissatisfied.
Finally, be specific. Answer the who (assuming your state bar association permits this), what, how much, when, where questions. Your work is what distinguishes your lawyers and the firm. Talk about it.
At the individual level.
Lawyer bios should be as specific and relevant as possible.
Take this simple test.
a. Do your lawyer bios link to their email addresses so a visitor can easily reach them?
b. Do they link to the practices and industries that they have listed as specialty areas?
c. Does your content management system enable a lawyer to have three or four different bios, each with a different focus (securities, agribusiness, technology, IP)? And can a visitor access the agribusiness bio from that industry page and the IP bio from the IP practice page in one click?
d. Can a visitor link to articles a lawyer has written from his or her bio? Can a visitor link from a publication in your online library to the author’s bio?
The lesson is to give your visitor access to relevant information in one or two clicks, but also invite them to dig deeper into a topic or subject area—in as few clicks as possible.
Web sites should be interactive and dynamic. You can control a visitor’s perception about you and your firm—and you can even control the experience they have with your site. They just won’t realize it.
That’s when you know your Web site is working for you.
Posted by Deborah McMurray at June 21, 2003 12:11 PM | TrackBack