Wednesday, September 05, 2007

8 Point Checklist…For Lawyer Websites!

MarketingSherpa has an interesting checklist of eight improvements worth testing on your web site.  The post isn’t written specifically for law firm web sites, so I thought I’d take that extra step.

1. Refocus Your Home Page

I think this is probably the biggest mistake that solo practioners make when it comes to their website.  Most lawyers simply don’t ask this basic question: “who is my ideal client?” Your homepage should be geared toward that (hopefully) small group of people.  Young (meaning new) lawyers might have the urge to appeal to a broad range of prospects in the hopes of securing a client base, but as the old-adage goes, “if you want to broaden your appeal, narrow your focus.”

2.  Move Your Useful Links to the “Small Window Fold”

The idea here is to have your key links in the place visitors will most likely be looking—the upper-left hand portion of your page.  Not everyone expands their browser window to accomodate your site design, so you want key links to appear in the portion that’s most likely to be in view.  Key links for lawyers include the profile pages (firm and lawyer) and contact us links.

3.  Use Your Most Used Links for Navigation

If your site has been up and running for some time, you should have internal search reports that include the most commonly used site search terms.  If a large majority of your visitors are searching for “age discrimination” it’s probably a phrase you want in your “nav” bar.

4.  Don’t Use More Than Three Columns

I don’t have the evidence to support this claim, but Sherpa swears it’s true.  90% of the sites I visit have three or less columns, so I’d bet that more isn’t very useful.

5.  Dump Adsense

Some lawyer sites (particularly blogs) have started running banner ads in order to generate some extra income.  I cannot imagine that these ads make any significant amount of money and it sends the wrong message to prospective clients.  Would you hire a lawyer that needs extra cash from banner ads?

6.  Use Bigger Typeface

It makes sense, but I think the underlying message is: make your site easy to understand.  Your prospects should know within 90 seconds whether you can help them.  Bigger typeface might not help, but if you can’t fit your current text in 12 point font, then you probably have too many words.

7.  Fast Load Times

There is no reason for a lawyer’s home page to load in more than 10 seconds, no matter the connection speed.  To me, graphics are just wasteful (particularly flash) because clients don’t hire lawyers based on visual presentation.

8.  Sell The Sizzle

Your home page has to answer one basic question: how can you fix what’s broken?  It may seem simple, but people need lawyers because they have a problem that they can’t fix on their own.  Your home page needs to convey that sentiment - that you are the person who can solve their problem.  A prospect doesn’t really want to know that you handle sexual harassment cases, she wants to know that you can stop her boss from making unwanted sexual advances.  So write about your clients first and then let them know how you can help them.