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SHOULD YOUR LAW FIRM HAVE A WEB SITE?

by Philip L. Franckel, Esq., President 1-800-HURT-911, Inc.

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The answer is absolutely, yes.  However, the reason is probably different from what you think.  Your law firm needs a website as an online brochure, but depending upon your area practice, not necessarily to grab your share of clients supposedly looking for your lawyer advertising on the internet.  The most important aspect of a law firm web site is as a professional looking online brochure.  The second consideration is whether and how much to spend on Internet advertising which includes keyword bidding and search engine optimization.

While printed brochures may still have a use for some law firms, they have little use for a personal injury law firm.   Potential clients, especially people hurt in an accident, shouldn't be kept sitting in a waiting room and therefore shouldn't have time to see your printed brochure.  Personal injury clients with serious injuries are usually in a hospital bed or in bed at home and will call a lawyer they see on TV rather than from a brochure or web site.  Maybe for this reason, many personal injury firms still do not have a web site or have a poorly designed one, but after a client is signed up your client may look at your web site and have second thoughts.

Today, people routinely check out a business by looking at it's web site.  Your web site address should appear on your business card, letterhead, printed brochures and giveaways.  While you're printed brochure was thrown in the garbage long ago, your web site is always readily available.  It is vitally important that your web site look not only professional, but also appealing.  Many law firm web sites look absolutely horrible or childish.  Others look professional, but drab.  Not only will potential clients be unimpressed with a website that looks like a novice built it, but so will competitors, adversaries and in the case of personal injury matters, insurance company claim representatives.  Make sure that you have a competent web site design firm build your web site.  For an interesting look at how a web site viewer's eye looks at a web site see the Eye Tacking Study.

Your web site address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a series of numbers and is commonly represented as a domain name.  A domain name is like a vanity telephone number, it's easier to remember than a string of numbers, but easier to obtain than a vanity phone number.  You must have your own domain name and it must be a .com.  Just as most people will dial 800 when they hear 888, they will go to a .com when they hear .net.  Additionally, many people simply enter the name and press control enter which will automatically enter the www. and .com.  Do not under any circumstances use a free hosting service, since your domain name will not appear in a browser address bar (with a free hosting service it will look like yourlawfirm.freehosting.com).  It looks sort of like typing your own letterhead on a manual typewriter.  If you do not already have a domain name for your law firm, you can get one at 8.95domains.com from Dynaserve for only $8.95/year or free when you get hosting starting at $4.95/month.  If you do not want to spend the amount needed to use a web site design firm, you can choose from 20 beautifully designed law office web sites (on 3 pages) for around $50 (one time charge) or you can customize the template for around $300 at (TemplateMonster & TemplateTuning are both divisions of the same company).  The hosting service I use which has the best 24/7/365 telephone support (if you have some technical knowledge) for only $9.95/month is HE.net.  Below is a table showing a comparison of the different web site services mentioned here.

Don't expect to start a web site and that people hurt in an accident will go to the computer, look on the Internet, find your law office web site, and call you.  First of all, the Internet is a big place covering not only the United States but the entire world, while your personal injury law practice is probably only looking for clients near your office.  Your web site, if it comes up in a search engine at all, may come up in a search by someone in California, although you may be in New York.  If you use a web site design firm, make sure that they optimize your web site for people searching in your local geographic area.  Secondly, it is extremely unlikely that your web site will show up within the first 100 pages of a search result, because lawyer web sites typically only have a few pages and do not have the useful information that the search engines are looking for.  Search engines are programmed to look for good informative content, not a short blurb about your firm, the cases you handle, and some verdicts you won.  Unless you're willing to spend thousands of hours on your web site, like I do on mine, your web site won't have much of a chance. 

To get around the problems with search engines, many law firms bid on keywords which will guarantee you first page placement if you bid high enough.  I recommend keyword bidding only for larger law firms which can afford the cost.  There are several reasons.  One is that there is a lot of fraud due to competitors clicking on your advertising and there are computer robots that click on links.  Fraudulent and robot clicks can cost you many thousands of dollars.  See Click Fraud Roils Search Advertisers By Stefanie Olsen at C/Net News.  A keyword bidding management company can monitor your clicks and obtain refunds that are due you.  I also recommend keyword bidding for larger law firms as another media with which to achieve branding.  My experience is that keyword bidding generally results in your paying for fraudulent and robot clicks, salespeople, lawyers, people with general interest, people who already have a lawyer, and people hurt in an accident but who have soft tissue injuries.  While I did have a case that came from my web site and settled for $125,000, as previously mentioned, I have spent thousands of hours on my web site and the bigger it gets, the more work it needs to maintain it.  Bidding on keywords requires a lot of knowledge if you don't want to waste your money.  I see many large firms bidding on keywords which will not bring them any targeted traffic.  I could write several pages on how to bid on keywords and maybe I'll do that in another article.  If you decide to bid on keywords, I recommend that you use a company that specializes in managing your keyword bidding.  Make sure that they understand exactly who your clients are, what they are looking for, and what you offer.

Tip:  If you list your e-mail address on a web page, it will be picked up by spammer software which scans web sites all over the Internet collecting e-mail addresses.  This is guaranteed to deliver substantial quantities of spam to your e-mail account.  My suggestion is that you do not post your e-mail address on your web site.  Instead, use a form, like mine at www.HURT911.org/contact-us.php , that the sender can fill out and which will be e-mailed to you without exposing your e-mail address.  Alternatively, you can post your e-mail address and mask it.  to find out more about masking and a masking tool See GetNetWise.

Web Site Ethics:  Be sure to read Basic Ethics For Lawyer Advertising

Choosing a Web site Name:  Be sure to read How to Pick A Domain Name For Your Law Firm Web Site

Comparison of Web Site Services

Company/Link	Service	Comment	Price
8.95domains.com	To register domain names	Easy to register, easy to use control panel to manage names.	$8.95/year free with hosting
4.95hosting.com	Hosting	Adequate size for a law practice. Has telephone support, but you may have to leave a message.	$4.95/month
HE.net	Hosting	Adequate size for a very large web site. www.HURT911.org uses the Starter Virtual Host.  If you have a little technical knowledge, HE.net has the best ever 24/7/365 telephone support.	Starter Virtual Host. $9.95/month
	Website Template Custom Changes	They have great law office designs for very little money.  Just get a .com name at 8.95domains.com and a template from TemplateMonster or TemplateTuning can can customize and set up the hosting for you if you want them to handle everything.  They are both divisions of the same company.	Around $50 for a template; $300-400 for custom template. (One time charge)