Website Design and Strategy for Law Firms. Nicola Laver

Transcription

1 Website Design and Strategy for Law Firms Nicola Laver Published by In association with

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3 Chapter 1: Why a law firm should have a website The website is a window into our organisation s soul. 1 Having a first rate law firm website is critical in the 21 st century legal and business world. Technological advances mean law firms need to grasp the opportunities today s technology presents to them, and the first stage in embracing those opportunities is establishing a professional, cutting edge website. That website should unmistakably set the firm apart from the competition, and attract and retain its visitors with the primary purpose of leading to an increased client base. The first law firm website was launched less than two decades ago by US law firm Venable LLP (Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti as it was then). The website was launched in March 1994 and was no doubt a cutting edge website in its day. The firm is now more than 100 years old, has grown to boast a global reach, and is ranked a top tier firm with a website to match. In the intervening years, law firm websites have developed exponentially from basic web pages to websites incorporating wikis (simply, websites allowing users to add, modify, or delete content via a web browser); extranets (computer networks allowing controlled access from the outside); and more familiar items that have become synonymous with the latest modern technology such as blogs and social media. Firms that already have (or consider themselves to have) a tip top website ought also to read this both as a safeguard against complacency and to highlight the breadth of the opportunities a cutting edge website presents. Advances in technology are so fast, a website just months old can become quickly outdated without close attention. Whatever stage a firm is at with its website, there are preliminary issues that will assist in laying the groundwork for deciding how to establish an effective online presence. The underlying question is: Why should my law firm have a website? Is a firm website a critical asset? Just how crucial is a law firm website in generating business? There are two schools of thought here. The first and majority view is websites today are critical in gaining new clients and new leads that could generate new business. The primary reasons are that search engines and websites are most people s (and organisations ) first route to sourcing a suitable lawyer for a specific legal need. Marque Lawyers in Sydney have a striking, modern website which is its only piece of standing marketing collateral and the first point of engagement with the firm for the vast majority of external people. The firm says its website has played a big part in the firm s success. Yet the detractors doubt law firm websites are, in fact, effective in generating further business for law firms. They believe websites are great for providing useful information on the lawyers and attorneys, practice areas and professional expertise, and the firm itself, but they are skeptical of their value as a strategic tool for business development. 1

4 Chapter 1 What is clear is the anecdotal evidence collected for the purposes of this report reveals that all the firms interviewed without exception report that their websites are essential for generating new business, and plays a vital part in their marketing strategies. That is not to say, if you are of the school of thought that doubts the inherent value of a law firm website in harvesting new business your site has no use. Far from it a website can be used in many ways, as discussed in Chapter 4. The common view is that websites do have a clearly important role in a law firm s existence, whatever that role might be; and there is value in both arguments. But there can be no doubt that a website properly considered with strategically placed content, thoughtfully and professionally designed, will attract new business. For the purposes of this report, one of the vital functions of a law firm website is to generate business and secure new clients. Case study: Pannone LLP Pannone is a full-service, 300-lawyer law firm based in Manchester, UK. The firm enjoys a high profile and has cemented its position as a leading regional firm. The firm s website is modern, sleek, functional and well designed. Steve Simpson, director of digital marketing, explains how critical Pannone s website is to its business and discusses how it can be used to its full potential. How important is your firm s website to Pannone s business, both domestically and internationally? Domestically it s key: we get clients that have never heard of us, who don t live anywhere near our offices and this wouldn t be possible through the traditional media world. Internationally, although we don t do as much work, we still get clients both B2B and B2C contacting Pannone as we provide a lot of international services. The goal of the website is to improve our visibility, to try and give people where possible information that could help them and make sure they find Pannone, the firm that they would want to do business with: so it is all three. How important is it for the firm to have a strong and visible internet presence? We get over 30 per cent of our business through the website. It raises brand awareness and communicates to people we could never hope to connect with via traditional media. Digital marketing is key to Pannone and with digital becoming the key media externally, be it SEO, pay per click (PPC) or social media, we need to have a strong presence. How did you choose your website designer and how important is this to the site s success? The design was key to our re-brand. However, brands develop and our website has changed since the initial designs and will continue to develop. I don t see websites as ever being finished: a site can t really be static. Companies change, technology changes and a site has to move with these changes. The big plus with a website is that you can see conversions and, through usability testing and analysis, identify issues and improve the site. What are the implications for firms that don t understand or grasp the importance of a good website? If they don t understand that they need a good website, and realise what users are looking for (which is the most important thing), they ll not be able to convert business through the website. People want to be able 2

5 Website Design and Strategy for Law Firms to navigate to the pages they re looking for very easily. Firms need to make sure that the information on the website is clear, concise and to the point, that they use English that s set for that marketplace. So, if it s a corporate sectio, it s written for that market; if it s a section on personal injury, it s written completely differently it s written for the users needs. A lot of people in the legal industry (naturally) write content for their website from a legal perspective which doesn t help visitors, as most won t be legal professionals. Competition in the legal marketplace Legal business in a post-recession economy is tough. Firms need to be acutely aware of the intense competition in today s legal marketplace. Without this awareness, complacency can and will creep in. A law firm is a player in this competition. The dynamic nature of the legal profession and the provision of legal services is such that the days of the general practitioner have all but passed, and the expert lawyer in niche areas of practice has heralded a relatively new era of specific sector and industry legal services. Until relatively recently, solicitors practiced in a number of different areas of law and maintained a healthy business along the way. The source of the majority of their businesses would have been existing clients and new clients via recommendations. However, legal and professional developments continue at a fast pace. United Kingdom employment law, for instance, is undergoing a massive change: bureaucracy is being reduced to make administration easier for businesses, and radical legislation is being introduced to encourage greater flexibility for employees and to reduce the overall burden of the employment system. The solicitors profession is now affected by the introduction of alternative business structures (ABSs) which enable lawyers and nonlawyers to share management and control of legal services providers. Such radical changes requires lawyers and law firms to adapt their business models accordingly, become less jack of all trades and become more specialised in their chosen field. As a result, niche (or boutique) firms are much more prevalent. At the time of writing, a Google search of competition lawyer, for example, will throw up 5.8m results, and media solicitors reveals 12.7m results with the first page alone listing a number of media law firms. The internet reveals the vast breadth of the competition between law firms, but it also provides a platform for a law firm to compete with the best of them, if not surpass them. With niche areas continually emerging, lawyers are undoubtedly under increasing pressure to win work in those areas and keep those new clients. Furthermore, financial pressures are increasingly an issue for law firms. Firms are cutting back where they can, redundancies peaked during the recent recession; law firm departments have closed down due in part to major withdrawal in legal aid funding and through lack of demand. But technology can help law firms cut their costs in a number of ways such as outsourcing secretarial work and practice management systems. Without dispute, at the top of the list is a law firm website, an invaluable asset for a firm and the source of much-needed new business, and a cost-effective marketing tool. The challenges of globalisation Whilst the domestic competition is acute for most law firms, they face the additional challenges of globalisation. Legal practice is 3

6 Chapter 1 currently taking place against the backdrop of economic difficulties where profits have been low, if not flat; financial institutions have lost the trust of both corporate bodies and individuals; and economies are continuing to flounder. But despite the adverse economic tide, many law firms need to expand internationally whether into a single foreign market or wider afield. Many firms are recognising the need to enter other markets, sometimes doing so via law firm networks, but whether or not they make the business decision to expand beyond the domestic frontier technology will permit such expansion of the business in any event. The internet is not limited to the country in which an organisation has its physical base. The increasing trend for telecommunicating is a distinct mark of globalisation, particularly in terms of legal practice. Lawyers can do their work just as easily from home, from an alternative office base, in Starbucks and at the airport, as they can sitting at their desk, using the latest mobile technology, and/or utilising cloud computing, video conferencing and appropriate network solutions. Globalisation and technology go hand in hand, and an effective website strategy facilitates these modern, flexible methods of working. Conveying your brand successfully Every law firm has its own brand, i.e. its message the firm intends to convey to potential clients. A firm s brand is an important asset, and is essential as to how the firm is viewed by existing and potential clients. A firm s website is one of the primary vehicles available through which to convey a firm s brand: what the firm is about; who and what it is; what services it provides and why it is unique and can offer something the competition cannot. By getting this right, a firm can demonstrate its key point of differentiation and attempt to stay ahead of the game. Communicating brand is best done by ensuring the website is an interactive experience for the visitor and provides both the experience and the information he or she requires at that point. This means avoiding generic information where possible, and targeting content to a specific target audience. If a potential client visits a firm s website but has a bad experience, potential business may be lost. But if the visitor likes what he or she sees, is drawn further into the website through carefully placed images, text and colour, the firm will have succeeded at the first stage. Building personal relationships A law firm s most valuable assets are its clients. This means the relationships a firm nurtures with clients, potential clients and third parties are crucial. Without establishing and maintaining a trustworthy relationship with any of these individuals or client organisations, a firm will struggle to maintain its client work and/or develop new business. Without new business or new clients your days as a law firm are numbered. And without a website, you risk being left behind, because your firm s means of reaching out to those prospective clients are seriously diminished. What is clear is existing clients will only be retained, new clients won and future business developed via a law firm website through building and maintaining trustworthy relationships with the lawyers. In the predigital age, law firms built their business through forming solid, personal relationships built on trust with clients who were won through print media, recommendations from existing clients and other traditional methods. Today, a firm will not build an emotional connection with a website per se. 4

7 Website Design and Strategy for Law Firms Nor will it emotionally connect with a visitor merely through a sleek website design, eyecatching images and historic information about the firm, however important those factors might be. The initial inception of that all-important emotional relationship with a potential client will only be established by content that connects with and engages with the target audience. Lawyers are a firm s assets Do your clients buy your firm or its lawyers? Both, are correct, however a client s uppermost concern is the relationship he or she forms with its lawyer (or team of lawyers), not the firm per se. For this reason, the personal brand of each lawyer is critical to what is conveyed to potential clients and others visiting a firm s website. It is the lawyers the people that constitute the firm with whom relationships are built. This means giving the lawyers a prominent position, and by far the easiest and most effective way to do this in the 21 st century is via a law firm website. Michael Bradley, managing partner at Marque Lawyers in Sydney, says: The static content of our website, particularly the staff profiles, are consistently far and away the most visited pages. An excellent example of lawyer profiles can be viewed on Canadian firm Harrison Pensa ( The firm says its people are the firm s greatest assets and our greatest strength. The firm has a highly visible sliding show of its lawyers on its homepage. This goes back to the need to establish an emotional connection with potential clients. The firm explains that it decided to provide strong visuals of our lawyers, both on the sliding homepage banners and throughout the lawyer profile sections. We wanted to humanize our lawyers and make them accessible to our clients, something that many law firms often fail to do. The sliding banner homepage features a mixture of our talent. Engaging with a site s visitors How does a firm engage with its clients and potential clients? Does it rely on printed brochures and leaflets and adverts in the local paper? The internet offers so much more in the way of digital social networking. Facebook is not just for sharing personal insights by individuals; it is increasingly being effectively used by organisations to spread their message. Twitter is undoubtedly at the forefront of social media, and there are further techniques including blogs, updates and website newsletters that are discussed in later chapters. Utilising what social networking online has to offer so that a firm can proactively engage with its online visitors is a key part of building on the personal relationships it is seeking to achieve with potential clients and other target visitors. It is through strategic interaction and engagement with a captive audience that relationships are built and nurtured. The opportunities technology can offer Few people pick up a Yellow Pages or other phone directory today to look for a business organisation. The internet is today s first point of research for most people. Where the search for legal services is concerned, a law firm s website is generally the first port of call. It is, in a sense, your online brochure (although to be effective it is written and designed very differently). A visit to a law firm website will frequently be preceded by an internet search through Google or other search engine. How Google analyses individual searches and prioritises its search results is considered later in this report, but suffice to say that a website properly written, updated and monitored will feature highly in search engine results. 5

8 Chapter 1 Once a visitor hits on a firm s website, what will his or her first impressions be? As with many things in life, first impressions are critical. If the visitor is lost at this point they will be lost forever. Technology and the latest in design tools provide the wherewithal to establish a sophisticated, professional, inviting website that gives a rewarding experience to the visitor, and builds trust to draw the visitor in further. Your firm s aim is to facilitate a sufficiently good response from the visitor to be rewarded in new business. A substandard, run-of-the-mill website will not achieve this. What firm s need to establish is the wow factor, and some firms triumph in this as the websites of UK firm Thomas Eggar and Marque Lawyers illustrate. In Marketing The Law Firm, 2 Adam L. Stock of US firm Allen Matkins, writes: In evaluating technologies, law firms need to look at several issues: Do the technologies help them win new clients? Do the technologies help them increase business with existing clients? Do the technologies help them build brand presence in certain sectors? Do the technologies help them deliver better service? Where do the technologies fit in with what other firms are already doing? Are they important enough to displace other activities? Do the technologies have an upside? In other words, will the technology get firms more clients faster? Do the technologies have a downside? In other words, will firms have to implement the technology just to maintain their current competitive position? Technology is clearly critical to making decisions about how both a website and associated digital marketing will work best for the firm. Technology also facilitates other elements that should co-exist with a firm s website including: Twitter The micro blogging site; Blogs Often called blawgs in the legal context; News articles Reflecting legal developments, firm news, and so on; Legal updates Following new laws, regulations and court rulings; LinkedIn The networking site for professionals; and Facebook The social networking site. These issues are discussed in detail in Chapter 8. Not all firms will have the resources to utilise each of these to its full advantage, but some are so functionally easily that there is little reason not to have them. The business benefits alone should far outweigh any disadvantages in terms of time and administrative costs. A firm s website enables its lawyers and its legal practice to expand into realms that might previously not have been possible. Technology enables lawyers to work wherever they are, and enables potential clients and other interested parties to research legal services wherever they are. Technology enables an individual in one country to share an important post on a firm s website with the rest of the world. Technology has opened the doors to an abundance of opportunities for law firms, and other organisations and individuals alike. The opportunities should not be ignored by law firms who want to survive in the prevailing legal marketplace. Using a website as a marketing tool A law firm website should be treated as one of a firm s most powerful marketing 6

9 Website Design and Strategy for Law Firms tools. It is a shop window to attract visitors, preferably potential clients. Its primary aim is to increase a firm s client base. Every firm s goal ought to be a modern, cutting edge, professional, informative and trustworthy website that potential clients and other interested visitors will find a worthwhile, beneficial experience. Where this is achieved, visitors will hopefully take the step further in making direct contact with the firm. If a website does not attract new clients something is clearly wrong and a return to the drawing board may become necessary. Google Analytics, and similar web tools to track visitor activity on a firm s website, is crucial to determining the ongoing success or otherwise of the site. It is important for firms not to make assumptions that a website is performing the job they expect it to. Furthermore, firms should avoid the complacency trap: a website may have performed brilliantly in 2012, but advances in technology mean that in 2013 the website is being left behind if it is not altered at all. Where no changes are made to keep up with technology, firm websites will undoubtedly be trumped by competing firms who are ahead of the game. A website is also the firm s platform to share expertise through blogs, social media, and news sections. Reflecting a firm s expertise is a by-product of a cutting edge website. It can be used to shout about its latest achievements, for instance, to publicise awards that have been won; important successful appeal cases and high rankings in legal directories. These are important matters that should be included on a firm s website. An important caveat is the issue that where such information is placed on the website is critical as we shall see in Chapter 4. An effective website is dynamic A cutting edge website is by its very nature dynamic: reflecting changes within the firm, updated to include newsworthy material to enhance visitors trust in its expertise and adapted according to the statistics revealing visitors behaviour. This means a website needs constant reviewing and updating. If necessary, firms should consider appointing a dedicated manager to look after the website. Of course resources may preclude this but if so, a firm is likely to have a website presence on a smaller scale, and keeping a watchful eye on the content and performance of the website should not be prohibitively difficult. There are specific tools integrated into websites to update them regularly, depending on its content management system (CMS). A CMS is a general a software tool used to manage internet sites. For instance, Joomla! is an award winning open source content management system used worldwide. Other popular ones include ModX and RefineryCMS. The details of these issues are, however, outside the realm of this report. The overarching principle to remember is that part of the decision to establish or review a firm s website is the first stage. Thereafter, it needs constant reviewing, updating and refining. Only then can a firm retain a prominent, if not leading, presence on the internet. Measuring the success of a website Having a law firm website has become effectively a pre-requisite to succeeding in the prevailing legal market. However, many firms starting to embrace online technology are unsure how they will measure how effective their website will be. Measuring the success of a law firm website is not always easy and is subjective depending on what its specific purpose is. If its purpose is to get new business, the success can be measured by monitoring 7

10 Chapter 1 traffic and determine how many visitors turned into qualified leads and then into paying clients. Analysing the results will help you assess the success of the firm and enable those responsible to make appropriate changes. Case study: Marque Lawyers Marque Lawyers, 3 as mentioned, is a corporate firm in Sydney, Australia, whose website is markedly different from the typical law firm website: it s quirky but clear on what it offers. It lists its clients in an unusual, striking layout and the site is not burdened by dense text but what it does do is sufficiently convey its message to its audience. It may have its fun and humorous elements but, in the words of Michael Bradley, it gets the business. And that is what it s all about. In this case study, Bradley explains the firm s website strategy and why it works. How important is your firm s website to Marque s business? The website is a window into our organisation s soul. So it s critically important that it s an accurate reflection. It is also our only piece of standing marketing collateral and the first point of engagement with the firm for the vast majority of outsiders. It has definitely played a big part in our success. Yours is a sleek, modern, unusual, and fabulously striking law site a lovely change from the usual! How important was this approach in your website strategy? It has always struck me as bizarre how much all law firms websites look like each other. They re like wallpaper. They completely miss the point of a website s existence, which is to advertise your business (not to disseminate information). Differentiation is Marketing 101. But much more important than the benefits of standing out is the impact of authenticity. Most law firm websites lack that altogether, because they re just full of meaningless words that do not reflect their reality. Our website s content is scrupulously honest in the sense that every word is true. Transparency is also a driving force for us, quite physically (you should see our office). What are the inherent problems in law firm websites today? A few things characterise law firm websites: They all look the same, visually; They are filled with words in every available space; They re driven by the desire to impart as much information as possible; They have impenetrable architecture. You literally get lost trying to navigate; They make all their people sound like incredibly dull technocrats, and even when they try to make them more human they stuff it up (because they re always hedging their bets); and They re desperate to not displease anyone. They make the same motherhood statements, about their relationships with both clients and employees, which reflect their aspirations but not their realities often, literally the same statements in almost identical words. Here are a few randomly selected samples from big Australian firm websites: What makes this law firm different from our competitors? It s technical excellence combined with commercial insight. As well as being high-calibre technical experts, our partners are business-savvy professionals, who provide clients with innovative, commercial solutions. 8

11 Website Design and Strategy for Law Firms We take a fresh, pragmatic, commercial approach to legal practice that focuses on getting the best results for our diverse and blue-chip client base. Our focus is on getting to the heart of your legal needs and delivering practical, commercial solutions. Or these examples, regarding how they treat their lawyers: It s all about being yourself. There is no mould. We are a firm of individuals who operate in teams that celebrate and respect diversity of interests, backgrounds and personalities. Your unique makeup is a vital ingredient to our successful teams. Sharing is something that s really important to us, be it knowledge, skills and enthusiasm or experiences that extend way beyond work. So, yes, they re hiding behind a wall of blandness, but it s not conscious. They just feel safer being the same as everyone else. Small example notice how a few years ago every firm suddenly had a tag line ( Clear thinking, Straight talking ), and then just as suddenly none of them did? Who should be involved in the law firm marketing strategy? I think that very much depends on the context. We involved all the partners quite closely, and the rest of the staff to a lesser extent, but that made sense at the time because we were in start-up mode and being terribly democratic about everything. It helped to get us the right result although undoubtedly did prolong the process. Like I said though, the thing is that the website needs to be an authentic voice for the business, so it s a question of how and by whom that voice is best expressed. I would say it s best to have a single copywriter. How important is it for your firm to have a strong and visible internet presence? It s been massively important, because it aligns with our brand image and has enabled us to reach a much wider audience more quickly than we would have by any other means. We have spent nothing on promotional marketing since we launched, apart from the initial website build. No paid advertising at all. But we re very well known. Print marketing is finished. The only use for printed material now is the occasional hard copy personalised invitation, which we all get quite excited by because they re rare, and perhaps the personal Christmas card (perhaps). But brochures, newsletters, etc., they re done. Was Marque s website design part of an overall digital marketing strategy, or a standalone project? When we launched it, it was stand alone in the digital sense, but part of a wider marketing strategy we called the touchpoint project. That was about identifying every point of engagement we have with the outside world and ensuring that each point is consistent and reflective of our values and approach to business. Social media came later. How did you choose your website designer? That was tough, and we went through two designers. The guys who did the job, Elmwood, approached us off the back of some other publicity and really wanted to work with us. That was inspiring. They did a great job. 9

12 Chapter 1 What was your goal in creating your website? Principally our goal was to extend the brand presence. It s always been equally about marketing to our own industry (for recruitment and general profile raising) as much as for marketing to potential clients. We wanted to give the firm a personality and a voice, and it was the best medium for exposing ourselves as a group of real people with whom anyone can feel a connection. The central idea was to humanise the firm. The static content of our website, particularly the staff profiles, are consistently far and away the most visited pages. That doesn t surprise me it reflects a pretty basic aspect of human nature. We re all attracted to the humanistic rather than the analytic stuff. Pictures, people, humour, short sentences that have meaning. I can t believe we re even having this debate. Go visit the websites of the top 20 law firms in any country and tell me you can find a single point of genuine difference. It s crazy. People visit websites to find a personal connection, to be engaged. I know that s sacrilege, but it s true. It comes back to the fundamental question of how and why people choose their lawyers. It s always an emotional choice, not a rational one. We then go looking for rational justifications for our emotional choice. But what drives the emotional choice is the point of personal connection between us and the brand we choose. Our website is designed with that in mind. All websites should be. Photos and images play a strong part in your website Why? We felt very strongly from the start that we wanted images as a central feature and binding element. We spent a long time looking at stock images before we realised that what we really wanted to use were photos we d taken ourselves. Even if you don t know that, the personal element seems to come through. I m not 100 per cent sure why, but meaningful images have a very powerful impact. Is social media an important part of your digital marketing and website strategy? It is now. We watched social media quite warily for a few years before jumping in ourselves and experimenting. We re finding Twitter to be a particularly effective tool. It s a great medium for giving the firm a voice and a personality, because of the immediacy and informality of it. It works particularly well for a brand with an irreverent personality like ours, provided you re not scared of where a conversation that you start might end up. For us, it s been a really successful means of brand extension and we think we ve found the right voice. We re a little ambivalent about Facebook but will probably take that more seriously soon as well. I think social media is a dangerous place for businesses unless they have a very clear sense of their own identity and what they stand for. Do you keep a close watch on Google Analytics? We monitor Google Analytics only for the purpose of our Website League Table, which is an internal competition to see which of us scores the most hits on our profile page each month. It s very hotly contested. The winner gets bragging rights, but we do have a trophy for whoever comes second last: it s called the Mrs Vartuli Award for Achievement in the Field of Human Excellence (refer to the case study in Chapter 10). 10

13 Website Design and Strategy for Law Firms References 1. Michael Bradley, managing partner, Marque Lawyers, Australia, see: 2. Stock, A. Four Technology Trends Changing Law Firm Marketing And Business in Marketing The Law Firm, Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP, see: 3. Marque Lawyers, ibid. 11