Attorney Website Design Blog

Your firm’s website looks great on your desktop but what about on your iPad?

Last week we explored the necessity of testing your website in the four major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari) to ensure cross-browser functionality. Equally important is taking time to ensure that your website is tablet-friendly.

In developing websites for hundreds of law firms, we’re often asked what kinds of disclaimers should be included on a legal website. The answer to this question largely depends on the jurisdiction(s) of the firm and the local Rules of Professional Conduct. We recommend that all firms carefully comb through this information and all ethics opinions when developing a website to ensure compliance.  Some states require a label on all site pages indicating that the site is a form of “Attorney Advertising.” Others are less restrictive mandating that disclaimers may only be needed on certain pages where the information presented may confuse visitors.  

While we can’t get into each jurisdiction’s guidelines in a single post, generally speaking, there are several places on a legal website where your firm should consider adding a disclaimer: 

Every year, Google makes hundreds of algorithm updates, changing the method by which they evaluate and rank sites for any given search phrase. Most updates do not have an immediate effect on the large majority of sites but the last one, Penguin 2.0, announced two weeks ago, is expected to impact millions. Should you be worried about your law firm’s website?

In order to gauge whether or not your law firm’s website is truly effective, you must have insight into visitor behavior.  What are prospective clients doing when they come to your site? Does one page have a particularly high exit rate? Knowing this kind of valuable information can help you to identify problems within your site and make changes to improve your online marketing strategy.   Google Analytics is a free service which tracks activity on your site. We highly recommend that all law firms utilize this tool but as anyone who has ever used this service can attest, there is a lot of information to comprehend and for many, it can be overwhelming.

Over the past few weeks our schedule has been jam-packed; we’ve been hard at work forming new partnerships with various organizations throughout the legal community, have held two successful webinars for the legal community on SEO and Google Analytics, and our development team has been working on dozens of new websites for firms across the country. Here are just a few of the great sites that we’ve launched in the month of April:

Katz and Matz, PC - New York City Real Estate Attorneys

Hutton & Hutton Law Firm, LLC - Wichita, Kansas Personal Injury Law Firm

The Legal Center for Immigration and Naturalization Services, Inc - Coral Springs, FL Immigration Attorneys

Law Offices of Patricia A. Gainer Gaddis - Ft. Lauderdale Family Law Attorney

We have no plans of slowing down in the weeks ahead so stay tuned for more announcements. For the most up-to-date news on what’s happening in and around the Amicus Creative offices, please follow us on Twitter (@amicuscreative).
 

The law firms we work with often get notices from domain vendors offering to sell them highly coveted domain names for a small fortune. These attorneys generally call us to ask if the desirable domain name, which is supposed to be top-notch for SEO, is worth the investment. For many years, having a domain name that was an exact match to the search query essentially guaranteed top placement in the search engine result pages (SERPs). With this great SEO benefit, exact match domain for highly competitive searches like “Chicago Bankruptcy Lawyer” (chicagobankruptcylawyer.com) could easily be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

We’re thrilled to announce that Amicus Creative has been named an Affinity Partner of the Rhode Island Bar Association! All members of the Bar are now eligible to receive a great discount on the design fee for a custom website. This new member benefit will help over six thousand attorneys throughout the state build comprehensive websites at a fraction of the cost. Read the full press release.
 

Tomorrow, our CEO Fred Cohen will be speaking to over 300 New Jersey attorneys at the Fourth Annual Solo & Small Firm Conference which will be held in Morristown.  Fred will be joining 5 other legal marketing experts in a program entitled "The Ethics of Marketing Boot Camp". During this session they'll explore ideas and proven techniques for solo practitioners and small firms to effectively promote their practices.  

We'll also have representatives on hand in the exhibit hall to discuss ways in which a comprehensive website can help you propel your practice to new heights. If you're in attendance, please stop by booth five to say hello and learn more about how you can save big through our affinity partnership with the New Jersey State Bar Association.
 

All attorneys are subject to strict rules when it comes to communication with prospective clients and advertising.  If you’re in the process of developing a new website for your law practice or outsourcing the project to a web designer, it’s absolutely essential that you take the 5 actions outlined below to make sure you’re in compliance with all state bar requirements.