Law Firm Websites Lag: Spend More, But Think First, Experts Say
Although law firms are far more focused on the Internet than they were a few years ago, experts say many still have a lot to learn about marketing themselves online, and that their websites could use improvement.
Some law firms, for instance, feature streaming video, podcasts, RSS feeds and law blogs on their websites as a matter of course. But a surprising number of major players don’t, lagging considerably behind the marketing efforts of their corporate counterparts, reports the Am Law Daily.
And it’s not just the medium but the message that often presents a problem:
“Most law firm sites are like law firm brochures—they’re all about the law firm, they’re not very client-sensitive,” says Charles “Biff” Maddock of the Altman Weil legal consulting firm. “In most cases, they’re pretty boring. And they really don’t give you a reason to come back over and over again.”
Part of the issue may be the money involved. Forget about expecting to spend a mere $50,000 to create an appealing law firm website, Jeff Yerkey, a founding partner at Charette Communication Design tells Am Law. A reasonable price range is $80,000 to $1 million, depending on the size of the firm and the scope of its marketing efforts, he says.
But Stephen Roussan, president of the Web development firm ICVM, puts the price tag at a more modest $10,000 to $200,000. He says that the first step, before spending a lot of money, should be figuring out what message the firm is trying to convey. Otherwise, the firm runs the risk of winding up with an expensive, visually impressive site that looks much like other such sites.
“The single most important exercise,” he says, “is to have an introspective discussion about what your firm is about and what makes your firm different from other firms, and really present that as part of your brand.”
