Lawyer Web Design & Attorney Internet Marketing
Your law practice website is the most important marketing asset your law firm has. The age-old adage: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is even more critical when designing and deploying a law firm’s website on the Internet. Statistics prove that website visitors will make a snap judgment about your law practice website within the first three seconds of landing on your site. A properly designed and legal web design effort should present a unique and professional impression of your law practice while not falling into the trap of being a cookie-cutter copy of your competitor’s sites.
Your new or makeover website should be great looking, technically current, extremely well SEO’d, reasonably priced, and simple to update by you and your staff if you choose.
No Strings ~ No Obscure “Mystery Maintenance Fees”
Your new or makeover website should be all yours —with no strings, no required services, no recurring “mystery maintenance fees” designed solely to fleece your bank account, no limits on the number of pages or other resources you might choose to make available to your potential new clients.
Simply having a website address on your business card is no longer sufficient. Presenting anything less than a stellar and professional web design might be harshly judged by prospective clients and colleagues. Law firms must have a solid Internet presence that is great looking, up-to-date, and meets the litmus test of professionalism.
The Yellow Pages have gone the way of the Buggy Whip – These days, Your Website is ALL Important
Potential clients are shopping you against your competitors for a particular legal section or matter and your website is your first opportunity to present and differentiate your unique skills and experience. Whether you are a seasoned veteran with a renowned career, or a new lawyer, fresh from passing the bar, it is in your best interest to paint a clear picture of your skills and strengths so potential clients can seriously consider you for their short-list. If you are long on experience we can help you convey your successes without seeming haughty, arrogant, or out of reach financially; and if you are new to law we can grab on to a niche law section you might want to leverage and help get your cash flow started. We are experienced web designers who have worked exclusively with lawyers for 13 years. We will create a totally custom website for your law practice that will grab the attention of your website visitors and help convert those visitors into new clients and cases.
Unique Custom Design, Prominent Contact Visuals and Calls-to-Action
In addition to having a unique and professional law practice website design, it is also critical that your visitors don’t have to guess or hunt around when they decide to contact you. We always make certain there are multiple and prominent ways to contact you by phone, chat, email, or contact form —no matter what page of your website they might be reading. Moreover, we will engineer eye-catching calls-to-action which visitors expect and appreciate when they cross that tipping point and become convinced that you are a strong candidate to be their new lawyer.
We’ve Been taking on Law Practice Marketing Projects since 1998 – The Same Year Google Started
All of our Law Practice Marketing Projects are crafted from the ground up: no templates, no cookie-cutter approach —ALL custom designed and “branded” to give you and your practice a unique look.
In 1998 Google was just starting out and “Internet Search” was in its infancy. At that time the design and deployment of Law Practice Websites was all about design, graphics, content and a professional look – there were no big searchable indexes of websites yet. Not anymore!
In today’s web environment our law practice projects are intricately planned and designed with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to advance your site’s visibility and take on your competitors as a major priority. We begin by getting an understanding your firm, where you want to go with your practice, what law sections or niche markets you want to be found by new clients for, and then the careful researching of your competitors so we can develop a comprehensive Internet marketing plan. Comprehensive Lawyer web design must, by definition, use the most potent web tools available, consider all Internet Marketing paths, and explore all web opportunities important to the growth your legal practice including:
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Your Website needs to be visually appealing, easy to navigate while showcasing your strengths
All great lawyer web design projects will have certain common traits. You can have a unique “look and feel” to your site while still adhering to current technology and expected design elements such as clearly accessible navigation options, easy to find contact options, appropriate calls-to-action to guide visitors to the “next step,” and well-written content that is pleasantly presented and easy to visually scan with titles, sub-titles, and plenty of white space. Statistics tell us that we have only a few initial seconds to showcase your unique strengths and capture a visitor’s attention. Consider too, that visitors to your website will be mentally comparing your website to other law firm websites they’ve looked at recently, so we want to do whatever we can do to make your website as appealing as possible to ensure we are poised to turn a website visitor into an actual client and case.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – We are experts
Just as important as a visually impressive website with the proper design elements, is making sure that your website is engineered to be “search engine friendly.” Because much of our expertise is centered around search engine optimization upgrades for existing law practice sites, all of our ground-up lawyer web design projects are engineered to be optimized to dominate specific keywords and keyword-strings that bring the clients you are looking for to your site. Our task is to ensure that your website is designed and deployed so that the major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo will index your site for the target audience that you desire to be connected to. We are proven experts and experienced at building law practice websites sites that consistently receive high rankings on Google and other common search engines. Other Reading: “SEO For Lawyers”
the more luck I seem to have.”
–Thomas Jefferson
Satellite Sites: Who says a Law Practice can only have ONE Website?
Law firms need a least ONE “corporate” website for their online Internet presence, for their business cards, for stationery and invoicing, and as a portal for connecting with associates, staff and clients. That said, there are numerous reasons why a “corporate” website is horrible at recruiting new clients. You might consider deploying one or more “marketing” websites for the heavy lifting needed to capture the interest of a prospective new client in a particular law section or niche market.
Purposes of a Corporate Website
If you attend a fancy soiree or cocktail party where you might mingle with judges, court staff, District Attorneys & ADA’s, perhaps some of your old law school professors, you will want to hand them your business card that has your “corporate” website address on it. Should any of these scholarly individuals (who no longer have to search out new clients) look you up the next day, your corporate site will be professional, high-brow, and as just as stuffy and boring as their web presence in their current paid-by-others bureaucratic position…
No matter HOW a new client finds you, following your first face-to-face meeting, they too will have your corporate URL on your business card should they wish to refer you to a friend or need to visit your site to make payment or upload documents. Clients might have found you from a satellite “marketing site” but will likely never remember nor care what Internet marketing path led them to your law practice. On your corporate website will be your attorney bio and those of any partners, associates, paralegals and staff. The site will have all the appropriate content covering the varying law sections for which your firm handles clients, cases and matters. There might be a client portal where clients can use their credit card or bank check to pay your retainer or progress billing. Your contact information, office address(es) and perhaps a handy Google Map will be accessible to refresh clients memories. But this site will probably not be a site that will be any good at converting strangers to clients – as it’s just too BORING and mostly text-based for the aforementioned legal industry colleagues and existing clients.
Purposes of a Marketing Website
Prospective clients react to visually pleasing websites with distinct and focused messages. “Marketing Websites” focus on ONE law section or legal niche where your message is clear and concise and addresses a specific legal need. You don’t want a site designed to attract car accident victims and on the same Home Page share how good you are at Probate Administration and Revocable Trust Drafting. Your message will be foggy and diluted and visitors will be gone in a heartbeat to find a law practice where they perceive that the attorney on THAT site is more-focused on the prospective client’s immediate need: not a “Jack-of-all-Trades.” Your corporate site can list all the law sections you are experienced and skilled in, as existing clients already believe in and trust you no matter your varied skill sets. Moreover, a marketing site can be VERY direct and clear; have potent Calls-to-Action that you might need to effectively compete for clients against competing sites.
Finally, a marketing site gets you a string of new clients on the one hand, but that you might feel a bit squeamish about sharing in high-brow circles, won’t be the website printed on the business card you hand to the newly elected County DA at a local bar event.
Other Reading: “Marketing Websites for Attorneys”
Get Professional Web Design and SEO from lawSITES.PRO
Don’t leave your website design and critical SEO in the hands of an amateur. If your law practice website hasn’t been getting the job done, then your practice is suffering and missing daily opportunities. Get the clients and cases you deserve with professional web design from lawSITES.PRO.