Email Newsletter

www.paperstreet.com

With the success of its first newsletter, PaperStreet Web Design is pleased to bring you the second installment of its web design newsletter geared toward law firms, lawyers, and legal professionals. In this newsletter our goal is to help your web site generate a profit. It is a common misconception that web sites should be viewed as advertising loss, rather than cost-effective way to attract clients.

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How do I make my web site attract clients?

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1. Contact Forms

The easier it is for visitors to contact your firm, the more likely you will receive a response. Most web sites simply list a phone number and email link on a single page.

Contact forms allow visitors to send your business more information with less effort. They include fields with the following information: name, business, telephone, and email.

When PaperStreet Web Design redesigned one site to have a contact form on each and every page, the business went from one contact a month to five contacts a week.

Obviously, results will very, but at a minimum your web site should have one contact form. You can place other data fields in this contact form, such as questions, address, and how you heard about us. But remember, the more information you request, the less likely a potential client will contact you.

2. Appearance

Your web site must be professional. Every day we hear bad lawyer jokes and witness cheesy lawyer commercials on the television. Yet, what most law firms don't know is that in most jurisdictions, your web site is not limited to the boring "lawyer in front of a stack of books" form of advertising. Your law firm's web site can be and should be dynamic.

It should not be something that you or your law clerk attempts to do on a Saturday morning. Yet, many firms and solo practitioners attempt to design web sites in a few hours with Microsoft Word or FrontPage. While some of these web sites are designed well, often the web sites appear cheap, boring, and project an unprofessional image. Your web site should not just be text and links. Adding photographs and other graphic design elements enhance to the web site's appearance. In fact, readership studies show people's eyes are first drawn to graphic elements, invoking emotional reactions that lead to split-second judgment calls that often override actual content.

We recommend you hire a dedicated web designer or graphic artist that can assist you in the process. However, if you have the smallest of web budgets, there are plenty of template-based designs that you can purchase cheaply and modify yourself or with the limited assistance of the web designer.

3. Provide Relevant Content

To attract visitors to your web site, your firm needs to offer useful content. This includes articles, newsletters, bulletin alerts, links, statistics, and other information that educates a potential client. Having a firm online firm brochure that lists your firm's credentials, practice areas, and attorney biographies is a start. However, if your firm offers authoritative information about your practice areas, then you will notice a dramatic increase in web site traffic and search engine placement.

Further, being an authority on a particular area of law also helps when potential clients or potential adversaries visit your web site and see that you are well informed about your area of law.

4. Search Engine Optimization, Placement & Advertising

Studies have proven that web users do not look past three pages of results when trying to find a relevant site. If your web site is not within the top 30 results, your firm will not be found. As detailed in our previous search engine optimization article, you can improve your web site's rankings through four basic techniques: having reciprocal links, adding relevant content, editing your meta tags, and registering your web site with search engines.

Additionally, to attract more visitors, your firm may wish to consider an Internet marketing campaign with banner advertisements, key word buying, newsletter links, and other forms of targeted Internet advertising. Finally, your web site domain name should be placed on all forms of your current advertising materials, such as business cards, newspaper ads, telephone book listings, radio ads, television, etc.

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How We Can Help

PaperStreet Web Design has extensive experience developing, redesigning and optimizing law-related web sites. Our expertise can save you time and money while increasing your firm's business traffic. Why have a web site if it does not provide you with the ability to attract clients?

If you have any questions about how to make your web site profitable or if you need help in redesigning your web site, feel free to contact Peter Boyd at PaperStreet Web Design, or 954.523.2181.