January Program Wrap-Up: Web Site Best Practices

On January 23, 2008, Deborah McMurray, CEO of Content Pilot, presented the LMA Capital Chapter’s January program, “Web Site Best Practices: The 2007 AmLaw 100 Web Site Research Study.” In an informative program designed for legal marketers wishing to maximize the helpfulness and strategic value of their firms’ Web sites, McMurray focused her attention on what she has identified as the “Ten Foundational Best Practices for Law Firm Web Sites.” The lunch program was held at Aria Trattoria on 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown D.C.

McMurray opened the program by asking attendees what roadblocks they had faced or were currently facing while working on their firms’ Web site redesigns. Common replies included problems such as insufficient funds in the budget; “design by committee” issues; and the conundrum of keeping Web site content brief yet informative. McMurray also spoke about another typical law firm Web site dilemma: wanting a site that is “different and unique” from other firms’ sites, while still focusing on giving site visitors what they want.    

McMurray stated that in order to implement the ten best practices, legal marketers need to take a “fresh and critical” look at their current sites without defending or rationalizing the current content. She also explained the rationale behind spreading the word about these best practices now— while firms are spending increasing amounts of money on their Web sites, data shows that some visitors only visit these sites once because they are not satisfied with their experience. McMurray stated that it is essential to improve the “user experience” because if a user is not happy with a service you are providing, that feeling can snowball into a negative opinion of your firm as a whole.

The 10 best practices discussed by McMurray included:

1. Communicating your message
2. Graphics and design
3. Navigation
4. Lawyer biographies
5. Practice/Industries and Narrative Content
6. Contact information
7. Web site interactivity and outreach
8. Site search
9. Site optimization for online awareness
10. Site “hygiene”

McMurray said that her study of the AmLaw 100’s Web sites had concluded that law firms had many areas to improve upon. She emphasized that firms must get their message across on the home page, because most visitors (repeat or not) will enter the site there. In graphics and design, McMurray noted that while most lawyers like “classic” images (such as gavels, courthouses, etc.) it is better to think outside of the box and come up with unique imagery. McMurray also noted that users visit the industry pages of a firm’s Web site an astounding three times more than the practice pages. This accentuates something all legal marketers have heard many times before—that clients want to know how well your lawyers know their businesses. In terms of search engine optimization, McMurray advised Web site designers to think about their human visitors first and that optimization for electronic searches of the Web will follow.

McMurray wrapped up her presentation by saying that since Web sites are an electronic medium and impersonal by nature, marketers should be working to “humanize” their Web sites to make visitors’ experiences as personal as possible. Since the average visitor only spends four minutes on any given law firm Web site, marketers really need to take advantage of the opportunity to show visitors a snapshot of our firms’ personalities. More importantly, we need to answer the question users are seeking when they visit our site: “What can this law firm do for me?”

Christine Murray is a media relations specialist at Hogan & Hartson LLP.