I just found this report by The Bloom Group concerning the effectiveness of professional services websites, including those of law firms. It is a couple of years old, but do those of us that look at a lot of lawyer websites need a study to confirm that most of these sites are simply ineffective?
The Bloom study found law firms rate prospective clients as their most important audience for websites, which should be true. But, with this in mind, website content that needs to impress potential clients is most often less than impressive. For smaller firms this is the inherent problem as they use static website templates and set them up with very little planning. For all firms it is a problem of failing to think for what exactly are the prospective clients looking to get for a feel for the work performed, the quality of the work perform, and the approach employed by the flaw firm in solving problems.
For most law firms websites are not good lead generators, but lawyers want their websites to be a lead generator. Only 24% of service firms in this study believe their website is their most effective marketing took at generating business leads. When you think about it, in this day and age this is just silly. Why? Because the website is generally the first thing the lawyer client sees, whether they found the law firm on the web or were merely following up on a referral. The website can make or break that retention rate of prospective clients. Clients are not looking for royalty free pictures of people jumping for joy or looking at a document while smiling behind a bank of law books. They are look for content rich sites that can relay to them the information of which they seek.
The good news for small law firms is that the study found that Big Law law firm's are not much better.
The problem for most law firm websites is that they fail to adequately, if at all, describe what business problems the law firm addresses on its homepage. And, when the homepage does this, it it usually in headline form and fails to really discuss the sort of problems or set of problems with which the law firm can deal. According to The Bloom Group, this means that the websites are not "prospect friendly".
Although lawyers are better at this than many professional, websites are bad at providing avenues for putting viewers directly in touch with the experts in their firms.
The point is that websites, or blogsites for that matter, need to be the hub that promotes and sells the law firm. They do not work effectively, therefore wasting money and resources, because lawyers either let a designer organize a website or blog who knows nothing about either the practice of law, or who knows anything about marketing the practice of law. They certainly no nothing of your perspective clients. More often than not, in my opinion, the website or blog is just devoid of useful content to help anybody. Think! Where is the information that can help me, as a consumer of the law firm services and make a decision as to who to retain. Blogs in some respects just simply work better in this regard because you can build that content over time with steady work.
Then of course, websites generally tell prospects little about the lawyers. Who in the hell cares where the lawyer went to law school, or whether he or she was Order of the Coif? That is all about lawyers pissing down on other lawyers, and it means absolutely nothing to most prospects. Consumers would more often than not like to know that you enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch that this garbage. What is it about you that can help them decide if you can help them with the problem from which they are suffering?
Most websites and blogs do not have to be expensive. They do not have to be works of art. I would suggest they do not need to be trashy, however. What they need is content that speaks directly to the audience for which the website and blog is intended. Almost none of them do this.
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