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A LAWYER'S GUIDE TO MAKING YOUR CORPORATE WEBSITE PROFITABLE

This is the text of a three-part article published in the UK Legal Journal New Law Journal on February 1st, 8th and 15th 2002 written by Philip Gegan. The main principles apply to any kind of business website.

Let's start by briefly reviewing how most of us formed our current ideas about the Internet and planned our corporate websites.

There was a lot of hype some years ago that all you had to do was put up a website and your business would double overnight. Bitter experience has taught us that this simply isn't true. For this reason most lawyers and others in business tend to feel let down by this new media, and many feel inclined to lose interest in it.

A commonly held view is that it's just another expense, but since it's here, we have to keep up with other law firms and maintain a website that's fit for our clients and lawyer-friends in other firms to see.

When it all started we engaged a web site design company and they produced a site that reflected our "corporate image". We acquired a ".co.uk" domain name that incorporated the firm name, or perhaps just the initials. Our site had a "flash" presentation, with revolving logos or swooping text to keep up with everyone else. And we had a few other pages with similar features, called "About Us", "Areas of Practice", "Commercial Property", "Civil Litigation", "Wills and Probate", and so on. Getting the text was quite easy - we just copied the firm's brochure.

It was so exciting when the partners all viewed it for the first time. The senior partner nodded in approval, wondering at the marvels of modern technology. The IT partner felt proud that for the money budgeted he'd produced an impressive website.

Information and Profits

It was over all too soon. Everyone went back to their proper work.

Does this sound a little bit like your firm? And your corporate website? Let's take it a stage further.

What happened in the meantime? If the web design company had done its work properly then your site might be listed on Google and one or two other search engines, among the top hundred or so UK law firm web sites. Perhaps you didn't even get that far.

Now for the bottom line. Does your web site actually make the firm a profit?

Many law firms assume the worst, but don't really know. Profits come from visitors, so the first thing you need to be able to do is track your visitors so that you can establish

* How many visitors visit your site

* How long they stay for

* Which page they usually arrive at (it's not always the Home Page)

* How many pages, and which ones, they visit

* From which page most of them leave

And if you don't have a means of capturing their e-mail address then you probably won't hear from those prospective clients again! Yes, they're all prospective clients. And if you give them what they want, they'll be loyal clients for many years to come. More about that in a moment.

True, many law sites have a form page inviting the visitor to send in their legal question, or comment on the site. But that's hardly much of an incentive to cause the information seeker to pause before clicking through to the next site.

With the web site not making much, if anything, in the way of profits, it's hardly surprising that often it is treated as a drain on resources that nothing much can be done about. Further expenditure is kept to a minimum, and updates are rare.

Of course, there are many law firms' web sites that are always up to date, extremely helpful and crammed with free information on a variety of legal topics. Often they have their pages optimised for the search engines and directories and are assured of a steady flow of traffic, and therefore a supply of fresh clients. These are to be applauded. Unfortunately they are very few, and tend largely to be from the big, well known firms, who have the resources to spare for serious on-line promotion.

The fact is, most law firms earn nothing from their web sites. Don't be disheartened, though. At least ninety five per cent of all websites fail to earn their owners a profit, so you're in good company. And making your web site profitable is not that difficult, when you know how.

Why Websites Lose Money

I recently visited and reviewed the web sites of several law firms. Most were competent (though lacking the ability to earn a profit for the firm), some were exceptionally good and probably contribute significantly to the firm's gross income, and some were hopeless. One firm had a site with a name that is supposed to be the same as the firm name, but actually had a spelling error in it. Another firm had its site listed on a leading search engine, but the url (address) of the site didn't contain the "www.", so clicking on the link produced a "file not found" page.

Have you checked your site in the leading search engines lately? When was the last time you did this? Like it or not, the vast majority of new visitors to your corporate web site will come via a search engine. Go to Google or Alta Vista now. Can you find your site? If you've found it on Google then congratulations - your site is one of only very few UK law firms sites listed there at the time of writing. US law firms dominate and easily put us to shame. That's a great pity. Google is one of the most popular search engines, used by hundreds of thousands of people every day.

Have a look at the description next to your site's URL (web address). Would that description prompt you to click on it if you were a prospective client looking for a solution to a legal problem?

How is the site itself? Have you got a friend or neighbour to look at it to give you an unbiased, independent opinion of how the site comes across? Have you looked at it yourself through the eyes of someone who is looking for legal guidance on a particular problem? Will they be encouraged to make contact with you, or is there every reason for them to seek what they want at another site?

How long does it take to download? If it's anything longer than about seven seconds, take action. Get rid of that huge graphic. It might look great, but that's no good if there's no one there to look at it. The average visitor to your site will give you just those few moments, and if at least most of the site hasn't downloaded by then he'll be off to the next one.

If the graphic is mostly writing then replace it with text. Your visitors want answers, not fancy graphics. Some of the most profitable sites on the Internet have just a couple of tiny graphics, at most. If it is a picture you must have, e.g. your firm's logo, have your webmaster "optimise" the graphic, i.e. make it smaller in terms of file size so it downloads faster. There are several tools available on the Internet, many of them free, which enable you to do this without any significant loss of quality.

Are your pages no more than one to one and a half screens deep? If they are much longer, put the surplus on a new page unless it is a reports or advice page on one specific subject. How many pages does your site have? It should have at least 30. What is the "body" like? If it has long sentences with a lot of legal jargon, replace it with a page of sentences of no more than 20 words in plain English. If possible, use bullets and numbered sentences to highlight the benefits that you offer the visitor.

The Power of Free

Do you have any free reports or information that can be downloaded for later reading offline or printing out? Does this free report or information have frequent references to your firm and web site? Is it plastered with the e-mail addresses of all the partners who can help with that particular type of problem? Does it have a list of useful web sites (not competing, of course!) that might contain further information of use?

Does your web site have links to these useful sites on a separate links page? More importantly, do the sites that you link to from your site have reciprocal links back to your site?

The more links there are from elsewhere on the Internet to your site, the more relevance most search engines will give your site, and the higher up it will be listed. Be prepared to pay your webmaster for seeking out non-competing sites with legal content and getting them to swop links with your site. If your site is of interest and contains useful information then most webmasters approached will be happy to trade links, especially if you can show that you have a reasonable amount of "targeted" traffic. This means visitors likely to be interested in their site as well as yours.

Do you distribute a free Newsletter by e-mail (an Ezine)? This is a great way of capturing the e-mail addresses of prospective clients. The Newsletter doesn't have to be very long, but should contain some useful and interesting information, such as your comments on recent decisions or Acts of Parliament, and be sent out about once a month. Your Webmaster can tell you how to do this and how much it costs. Have a box near the top of every page on your site urging your visitors to sign up for your free Newsletter. Once they've signed up, invite them to visit your Privacy Page, where you re-assure visitors that you won't sell or rent out their e-mail addresses, and that they can "unsubscribe" from the Newsletter at any time by sending an e-mail to the address given.

In short, ask yourself why anyone who comes to your site looking for specific information about any legal topic on which your firm can help should actually stay at your site, and not click away to somewhere else.

We're doing well so far, but next week we'll really get down to online business.

Click here for Part 2 - Getting Down To Online Business or here to go straight to Part 3 - A Winning Website - The Final touches

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Copyright © 2002-2008 Philip Gegan, Leicester, England.