The following six top tips are provided to assist attorneys and law firms in improving their online image and reputation:
• Express yourself – be more confident and expressive in the design of your website. Use imagery, color and visual elements to communicate size, geographic reach and stature. Keep your visitors engaged and intrigued enough to explore. Build a dedicated image library that is contemporary and inspiring.
• Key messages – generate a set of key messages that have been signed off by all key shareholders. The messages should describe your business and what makes you stand out from the competition and should be qualified with key facts and statistics
• Write for the web – generate copy specifically tailored for the web and allow for the screen layout of the site. Ensure longer reports are available for download in printer-friendly formats.
• Segment your audiences – think about each of your audiences and consider the needs of each segment which may lead you to organize your site around these groups. Your audience can be both potential clients as well as other attorneys and law firms for referral, hiring and reference.
• Measure your progress – monitor your success by developing a web based goal framework using benchmarking, web statistics and page popularity to track performance. As the results will not necessarily be evident for a number of months, plan for the long term.
• Keep your site up to date - don't build a great site and then let it become dated, ensure that a process is in place to regularly update and refresh your website content. Keep those counters off your page and ensure , if you list dates of trials and articles, that you are not more than a few months old as best.
Most companies choose to outsource website development and management to an agency that focuses on website design for law firms as this not only gives them access to the latest thinking online, but also offers a cross-resource team where marketing strategy, design and IT resources work closely together to make sure text and imagery work in harmony and technical constraints can be anticipated at an early stage of the process.
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