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Your Law Firm’s Web Site is Out of Control: Part 1

By Virginia Bisek, BASF Bulletin Contributor

Your law firm’s Web site is out of control. Your team built your legal organization’s Web site because, quite frankly, it was the thing to do—everybody was doing it.

The overriding business sentiment was, “If we build it, they will come.” Since then, your content (content = everything your visitors see) has grown via some decidedly illogical formula. Lack of a clear process has created a Web site that your audience doesn’t understand, and can no longer navigate.

So, you built it, but now what? Nobody shows up, or stays long. Your potential visitors would rather call to discover what kinds of services you offer, resulting in wasted time and resources. You want your audience to call after they’ve had a chance to look you over. On their own time. After all, it is the 21st century.

Here’s the secret formula.

Make a commitment to the Web.
It’s an important medium. Your redesign is not going to result in an immediate rush of visitors to your door, but it will certainly help your image, build brand awareness and in the long run, you’ll realize a big return on your investment. Guaranteed.

Get everyone on board—your staff, your colleagues, and the people who sign checks.
Convince everyone that your firm’s image and brand will get better only by developing a content management process that allows you to create a viable, exciting, and valuable Web site that promotes your information, services and products.

Content Inventory
Okay – here’s the payoff for getting this far. Your next step is to do a content inventory (content inventory = a complete list of everything on your Web site). What have you got? If you don’t know what you’ve got, you can’t know where you’re going.

See next month’s Part 2: Content Is King.

The author, Virginia Bisek, is a writer, content developer and user inter- face strategist. You can reach her at ginger@virginiabisek.com.