1:3 What law firms should bother having a Website?
Hey Lawyers, it’s so great to have you here enjoying my content today.
This is part one of a 3 part series where I’m talking about websites – specifically “Which Law Firms Should Bother with a Website?” caveat … of course we build beautiful custom wordpress websites and if you’re curious about websites this is a great place to start.
In this series I’m talking about all things websites. This is “Which Law Firms Should Even Bother with a Website?” and I’ll give you a brief history lesson how Howard Stern and a porn star accidentally bombed my website leading me to completely learn and understand search optimization which has benefitted all my clients. That little story will also make this a longer episode and I’ll put chapters so you can skip around.
Part two of this series is “What are the most valuable elements for a law firm website?” and part three is “What Law Firm Websites Cost and Why.”
In this episode, I’m breaking this into chapters. Chapter One is a brief history of websites telling my weird story for learning SEO, Chapter Two is what works today, and Chapter Three, is what kind of law firms should even bother having a functioning website.
My short answer to “Which Law Firms Should Bother with a Website? All law firms should bother with a website, but there are ways to get clients without one.
But do not bother if it’s a mess, has broken links because you don’t maintain it, or you’re expecting that just having one will magically bring in a steady flow of clients.
Let’s dig deep into law firm websites today in 2022. But first a little personal note:
PERSONAL
I’m doing this video low-fi because I’m on the way to see Mike Sullivan (Sullivan Law) in Kentucky. We’re filming about 20 TV and Online video spots. He’s the best!
- TIPS FOR STARTING A SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY OR LONG TERM DISABILITY PRACTICE (With Mike Sullivan)
I promised myself I’d come to you weekly for a full year with educational content hoping we can work together! This is me — keeping my promise to myself… even though I’d rather be filming with the crew and better lighting and sound! 🙂
The History of Lawyer Websites
The earliest law firm website I could find was Heller Ehrman (1994). Part of my research today was from a well written 2012 article on Lawnext which I will link below. (Robert Ambrogi, 2012)
- https://www.lawnext.com/2012/07/the-first-law-firm-ever-to-launch-a-website.html
As for me and law firm websites, in January 2009, I was asked to speak at the fabulous, fun, friendly and informative M&L Legal Marketing Management Seminar (shout out to all my friends there), because Micki Love found my website that I had carefully optimized for Google Search. By that time I’d been SEO-ing websites for a few years.
But the state of law firm websites at that time, were not at all in sync with what clients needed. They were mostly a mish mash of elements leading to a difficult user experience, forget branding, and it was hard to figure out what they were trying to say.
In fact, the law firm websites often didn’t know what to talk about, sometimes on law firm websites you’d find dessert recipes and other unrelated content.
So when speaking at the M&L the first time in January 2009 to a group of about 50 law firms in a circle around me, I talked about video, wordpress websites and what content to create… which to this day hasn’t changed much. I was a nervous little so-in-so used to only presenting as a lead guitarist or singer… not law firm marketing.
So how did I learn to search engine optimize WordPress websites and videos so early?
Chapter One – Howard Stern and The Porn Star (My lesson in Search Optimization)
I have a weird story about all that. God works in mysterious ways.
In 2006, before they called it “Search Engine Optimization” – I was teaching guitar to young guitar students from my local church, when something weird happened.
I am a lifelong musician and you may have guessed I love teaching. I had built myself a WordPress Mary Cary website for my guitar students at MaryCary.com. Note the spelling. And no… I no longer have that website.
I woke up the morning of August 18th, 2006, to an email from my web hosting company, that I owed hundreds of dollars for “overage” for my website.
I could not imagine why my website had gotten hundreds of thousands of visitors overnight. To my further surprise, I was getting piles of really gross and downright creepy emails.
What was going on? Later that day, someone I knew called me and told me a porn star named Mary Carey was on “The Howard Stern Show”. So I looked for the replay on old-school TV.
Sure enough, a porn star named Mary Carey was running for California Governor. After she put her head in the toilet on the air, Howard told his massive audience “… to get in touch with Mary Cary “visit her website at MaryCary.com. That’s M A R Y C A R Y dot C O M.”
Yup… he misspelled her domain. Mr. Stern told the porn star’s fan base (and his), to visit my little guitar student musician’s website where the young girls from local schools came for guitar lessons and hand-outs.
Even worse, almost immediately the porn star’s website popped into Google’s first page search results for my name, and it was above my website.
My next thought was “ahhh… my sweet little guitar students!” A porn star website was full of… well… porn was on the top of the Google Search for MY NAME. This was not good.
No one had yet heard of “search engine optimization”, but I remembered that links from other websites that directed to my website brought my website to the top of my favorite searches. When I had a live show, or press of any kind they linked to my website, my website would dominate Google.
After only a week of utilizing keywords in the right places, and scrambling to get links connected from other sites, I had the porn star’s website on the 2nd page of Google (where no one looking for guitar lessons or the real Mary Cary would find it).
They always say “If you want to hide a dead body, put it on the 2nd page of Google! No one will find it there.” …Bullet dodged (((whew))).
Since then, I’ve built hundreds if not close to a thousand law firm websites. So let’s jump forward to today.
Chapter Two – What Works Today with Websites for Lawyers?
Today, Search Engine Optimization is an entire field of study and boy have I had a deep dive.
With Google as it is now, you want your website search optimized to match your Google Maps listing. Google Maps has replaced what we used to call “Natural” or “Organic” Search results. They have also replaced blogging.
True “Organic” listings have moved below Google Maps, and usually only one firm shows up there. People choose the law firms in the Google Maps 3 pack.
If your law firm is not in the Google Maps 3 pack, you best be sending interested people to your website with some sort of marketing.
So what kind of law firms should even bother having a functioning website?
CHAPTER THREE: “What Law Firms Should Bother Having a Website?”
In this section I’m addressing 3 kinds of law firms:
- All law firms
- Law firms who never had a website
- Law firms with old websites
All Law Firms Should Have a Website
First, I believe all law firms should have a functional website. No matter what your practice area, your website should be given out to new and potential clients with all your educational materials teaching them what they need to know about your practice area.
Your website doesn’t have to be outward facing only. Smart law firms use their WordPress websites to house forms for intake, include client educational sections, and so much more.
But no matter your practice area, these days you need to have a plan for people to see your website.
Firms Who Never Had a Website
If you haven’t had a website, you need to think long and hard about the cost of building it, and how you’re going to get people to see your website.
I can’t make this clear enough. Your website, no matter how beautiful or educational, will not get you clients without some sort of plan to put it in front of people.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Will you be “search optimizing” your website with your Google maps listing?
- Will you run advertising campaigns to get visitors?
- Who will host your website?
- Who will keep it updated and maintained?
The pricing of these things vary greatly and I’ll get into that in Episode 3.
Law Firms with Websites that are Not Maintained Regularly
Many firms who have had a website for a long time, might have a huge website with many 100s of pages, blog articles, broken links and other problems. When was the last time you went through your entire website or at least the most obvious pages and made sure it’s functioning? Please do that asap!
Letting your website disintegrate without weekly maintenance is a huge problem frustrating your visitors, sending them to your competition, and eventually black listing your website on Google.
One way I like to cure a big law firm website mess, is building a new website that includes the old content, going through your and fixing all those broken links, and only keeping the articles where you paid someone to write them (if those are worthwhile). With old websites I don’t want to confuse visitors with lots of content. I will keep that content live, but archived.
Because only 1 law firm normally shows up these days below the google maps listings. You also need a plan to send visitors to see your website. Maybe you’re running TV ads, or handing out your business cards.
In short, all websites need a plan for getting them in front of the right people. What is your plan?
RECAP
What you learned today:
- Search optimize your website to match your Google Maps listing
- Make sure your content is regularly updated with maintenance on the front and back end.
- Don’t have bad links.
In the next episode about websites, “What are the most valuable elements for a law firm website?” I’m going deeper into this subject for those thinking about modernizing your website or starting fresh, this will help you know how your website can bring in new clients.
If you need help modernizing your website or building a fresh new website, let me know. I’d love to hear your ideas. My name is Mary Cary and my email is Mary@GoMediaMarketing.com
