Attorney Website Design Blog

As Thanksgiving nears, and people all over the country travel to celebrate with loved ones, we wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the past year and the many things that we’re thankful for this Thursday and every other day that we get to do the work we love so very much.

Among our clients and colleagues in the legal industry, we are known for being a small company that is absolutely fanatical about providing white glove support. Over the past year, we’ve had the great opportunity to add to the Amicus Creative family both in terms of the number of attorneys we work with and our own team of marketing professionals, growing our client service, sales, design, development and SEO teams (you can meet them here). These additions haven’t taken away from our small firm feel; in fact, they’ve allowed us to provide even better service to the attorneys we serve. We know our own growth wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the support of our amazing clients, and they make us want to come to work every day so we can continue to help them propel their practices to new heights.

Our Insight in Motion library, and the number of e-newsletters our clients send out each month, has tripled meaning more referrals and greater visibility for our firms. LegalVault continues to be a potent tool for the estate planning firms we serve, allowing them to provide tangible value to their clients while strengthening their top of mind marketing campaigns. We are so incredibly grateful that these firms, and their clients, continue to put their trust in us and rely on us for access to their most important documents 24/7/365. We take this responsibility very seriously, and we continue to make enhancements to improve the service, and ensure optimal security.

We’ve also had the great opportunity to partner with new professionals throughout the legal industry, and have teamed up with new bar associations across the country as a member benefit partner. Our growing network allows us to provide more value to our clients in the form of educational webinars, white papers, expert referrals and discounts and monthly publications filled with marketing tips.

Whether you are a client, partner or one of our faithful readers, we thank you for the role that you’ve played in our great success over the past year. We are so appreciative of your support, and we vow to continue to bring the same passion, dedication and expertise to legal marketing in the year ahead.

On behalf of the entire Amicus Creative team, we wish you a very happy Thanksgiving filled with great food and cherished time with loved ones!

If you frequently visit our blog, it’s no secret that we’re fanatical about great attorney website design. That doesn’t just mean captivating graphics but also smart content, a user-friendly layout and integrated tools for maximum visitor engagement. Over the past few weeks, we have been hard at work developing and launching websites that feature all of these critical elements for success.

If you appreciate good web design, we know you’ll love these new masterpieces!

Allan Weinberg, an experienced attorney practicing family law in Manapalan, NJ

Carter Pilgrim, a criminal defense and family law firm located in Suwanee, GA

Hankins Law, an Indianapolis family law & estate planning firm

Law Office of David A. Bolson, a Newark-Essex County workers' compensation attorney

Macedonio & Duncan, LLP, a leading Suffolk County criminal defense firm

TrustBuilders Law Group, estate planning & probate attorneys located in Hampton Roads, VA

Allotta Farley Co., L.P.A., a Toledo, OH law firm representing labor unions, employees, and multiemployer benefit plans

To see more great attorney websites, check out our complete portfolio.

Search engine optimization is complex. It requires some technical knowledge, a basic understanding of web development and whole lot of common sense. To make matters worse, it is constantly evolving so as soon as you think you’ve mastered it, something else changes. At Amicus Creative, we have a devoted SEO team because we realize that most of the attorneys we work with just don’t have the time to become SEO experts. But there are some that want to learn more about the subject matter so we’ve compiled a list of helpful resources for those lawyers who want to be informed about SEO practices.

Design is about more than the aesthetics of a website; it’s also about the usability. How easy is it for a brand new site visitor to find the information that they’re looking for? Far too often firm’s focus on the graphics and the copy but they fail to look at the usability of their websites. It’s absolutely essential that your website be structured in such a way that navigating through it is intuitive to the visitor. When it comes to usability, consider the following elements of your site:

If you've done a local search in the past few months, you've likely encountered a number of local listings which are denoted by a single red pinpoint which can then be found on a corresponding map to the right of the search engine result pages. Since most prospective clients looking for an attorney in your community will likely search on a local level by town, city or county, it’s absolutely critical that your firm establish a presence in local searches by creating a local listing and Google+ Page.

Most websites have a sitemap. Simply described, a sitemap is a list of all pages on a website. Although a sitemap is not necessary for a site which is well-organized with a straightforward structure, most webmasters will create one and submit it to the major search engines at the time of the site’s launch. This provides Google, Yahoo and Bing with a roadmap of the various pages in your site which should be accessed by crawlers to compile information for their respective indexes.

At Amicus Creative, all of our sites feature a dynamic sitemap. As part of our Foundational Optimization, we submit these maps to all of the search engines but we don’t stop there. We’ve implemented a sophisticated system which recognizes each time a change is made, automatically revises the sitemap and resubmits it to the search engines so they’re immediately notified of the change, speeding up the indexing process.

Contact us today to learn more about our advanced SEO strategies that have helped countless attorneys reach new heights.

LinkedIn can be a great way to connect with contacts. It can also be an excellent medium to share valuable content and ideas with your professional network. Very often, attorneys add their website and/or blog URL to their profiles and think this is sufficient. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. To effectively syndicate your copy, you’re going to need to be a bit more proactive.

As legal marketing specialists, we understand that you can’t develop an effective attorney website without a keen understanding of the ethical responsibilities required of legal professionals when it comes to advertising. It is this unique insight which has led us to become one of the leading online marketing firms for attorneys over the past few years.

In an effort to further our commitment to creating websites that resonate with clients, colleagues and prospective clients in an ethical manner, we’re pleased to introduce our Ethics Elephant. Our new mascot will accompany short notes placed throughout the Site Manager in hot button sections to remind attorneys of various ethical issues which should be considered. In high-risk sections, our clients will find the Elephant which they can then click on to view a note of warning and general guidelines on best practices to ensure compliance.

To learn more about our helpful ethics prompts and how our advanced attorney marketing system can help you make sure you’re following all the rules when it comes to your online advertising, please contact us today.

In developing and enhancing your law practice’s website, it’s always important to keep your ideal visitor in mind. Depending on your marketing goals, that visitor may be a prospective client, current client or referral source. As you develop your site, make a list of your visitors concerns, needs and questions. Then compile a list of the benefits that your firm offers that helps to address some of these issues. This list should not only be a description of how you’re different from competitors but how you can specifically speak to the emotions of your site visitor.

This week, members of the Amicus Creative team will be headed to the Illinois State Bar Association's Solo and Small Firm Conference held in Itasca, IL. The three day event features a handful of programs to educate attendees on practical information and provide expert technical training that they can put to work immediately. At Amicus Creative, we are also in the business of providing attorneys with resources to build more profitable practices which is why we're thrilled to be exhibiting at this great event. If you are in attendance, we encourage you to visit our booth to learn more about our unparalleled marketing tools. The “ISBA Solo & Small Firm” mobile app is also available to attendees and features our listing with two special reports packed with marketing tips. We encourage you to download the app and review these great resources. We hope to see you very soon!