Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, so I think I should write about some things I love. But since this blog is about law firm marketing, I need to focus on what I love about legal marketing. Which is tough.

1. Intangibility- Legal services are intangible. You can’t touch them. You can’t hold them in your hands. You can’t show them to your friends. You can’t leave them in the middle of the floor and trip over them in the middle of the night on your way to the bathroom……..

And that’s a good thing?

Yes.

Sure, there are lots of drawbacks to selling something that does not exist in the physical world. But there are some very distinct positives too.

Law firms don’t sell products, they sell experiences and solutions to problems. They sell an emotion. In the majority of cases, clients come to a law firm to fix something for them. You can’t really do that with a product. And when the law firm does a great job, they create an emotional association: These guys are awesome!

2. The Expectation- In legal services, the client is part of the “product”. This is a huge deal. It allows law firms to customize the experience during the process.

If you were in the sweater making business, your clients would only judge the final product. Is the sweater attractive? Does it fit well? Will it fall apart in a week? Is it itchy?

But if you had your clients in the factory (if you could call it that), wouldn’t you do things a bit diffently? You would show them how patterns are selected, how they are fitted, the strength of the material, etc. Througout the process, the client would become educated much more about the final product and why it is the way it is. And when they left with their new sweater, they would have a completely different view of it. They would have an emotional connection, as they have investment in the final product.

But sweater makers can’t really do that. It would take too long, and it is just plain impractical.

But in legal services, involving the client is not only possible, it is essential. Because you can change the final product to meet the client’s needs (at every step of the way), you have some control of the expectation. Now that’s unique!

3. Pride- Lawyers are proud of what they do. One thing that took me a while to understand about attorneys is this: Attorneys do not see their job as a career choice. They see it as an accomplishment. When I first started working with attorneys, a partner was checking his bio for typos before having me put it on the firm’s site. He found a typo and said “I didn’t get to be an attorney by missing errors.”

That stuck with me.

In other industries, people see their job as something they do from 9-5 to make some cash. Attorneys see their job as part of their identity.

When you have someone that is personally invested in their work, and their work is your product, you end up with great marketing potential.

4. Attorneys are multiloquent- They like to talk.

And they like to talk about themselves. And when they see their work as part of their identity, attorneys are advertising their services (and firms) without even trying.

5. Attorneys research- Being an expert on an area of law is crucial. And since legal issues are contantly changing, attorneys are forced to stay ontop of the news. Some of these attorneys decide to share their views with the world on blogs. They’re the ones I like the most!

There are many obstacles to overcome in legal marketing. There are constraints and subtleties that make marketing a law firm seem completely alien to product marketers. But when you understand what makes it so different from marketing anything else, it becomes a very interesting place to be.

Happy Valentines Day. May your clients continue to give you love.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Rumored to start in early February, has already begun it seems. Has your PageRank changed?

Mine has.

On this blog, which previously had a PageRank of 3, the rank slightly increased to a still dismal 4. However, on my personal blog (which is not updated nearly enough), the PageRank took a nose dive….from 5 to 2.

The BigDaddy update is indeed a big deal. Rather than simply tweaking an algorithm, Google is instead switching to a new datacenter. They’re also tackling some long standing issues. Here’s a quick overview:

1. The Big Daddy Data Center- Google has many decentralized servers around the world. By having a decentralized system, Google is able to geographically personalize information for different global segments, and doing so makes the job of sending information much faster. These servers are the ones that spider the web and compare pages to what Google already has in the index.

The new data center has the code for ranking the web. Think of it this way: The decentralized global servers go and get the information and see if the information is already in the index. They then send the information to BigDaddy, which decides how to rank the info.

2. Canonicalization- Hard word, but easy term to understand. Let’s use this site for instance. If you type in http://lawfirmblogging.com, http://www.lawfirmblogging.com, or http://www.lawfirmblogging.com/index.php, you’ll get to the same place: the home page. But to Google, this is a problem, as Google sees this as three separate pages. Canonicalization can make a site like mine appear to be much bigger than it actually is. But an even bigger problem is how Google has thus far dealt with PageRank and Canonicalization.

For instance, let’s say Slashdot links to LawFirmBlogging.com (hey, it could happen!). Since Slashdot has a high PageRank, in theory it would boost this site’s PageRank. However, instead of linking to http://www.lawfirmblogging.com, they link to http://lawfirmblogging.com. In this case, Google would think that my non-www web address is more important than my www. address. So I could have separate PageRanks for the same page on the same site!

3. The 302 Redirect- A 302 Redirect is a method used by webmasters to hijack a page. Claus Schmidt has a good explanation (if you’re interested in the technical side of 302 redirects, check out his article):

1. Hijacker manages to get his script listed as the official URL for another webmaster’s page.

2. To Googlebot the script points to the other webmaster’s page from now on.

3. Searchers will see the right results in the SERPs, but the wrong URL will be on the hijacked listing.

4. Depending on number of successful hijacks (or some other measure of “severity” only known to Google) the search engine traffic to the other webmaster dries up and disappears, because all his pages (not just the hijacked one(s)) are now “contaminated” and no longer show up for relevant searches.

5. Optional: The hijacker can choose to redirect the traffic from SERPs to other places for any other visitor than Googlebot.

6. Offended webmaster can do nothing about this as long as the redirect script(s) points Googlebot to the page(s) of the offended webmaster (and Google has the script URL(s) indexed).

Claus Schmidt’s article does a great job of explaining how 302’s are used, why, and how you can protect your site from 302 redirects. His site also closely tracks what the search engines are doing to combat the 302 redirect problem. In BigDaddy, Google is trying to solve this issue.

Matt Cutts’ blog also gets into the nuts and bolts of how BigDaddy is trying to combat 302’s.

For a Q&A style article on BigDaddy, check out Feedback on BigDaddy Data Center, again on Matt Cutts’ blog.

So, the Google update is underway. I’d be curious to hear from other bloggers to know how the update has changed their blog’s status.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Inspired by Derek Powazek’s great article on A List Apart, I decided to come up with a checklist specific to law firm web site home pages. The original article is a very good one, but it is geared toward membership sites (sites where you need to log in to access user-specific data). I thought it would be useful to come up with something specific to law firm sites.

1. Goal: Tell the visitor what the site is all about.

• Tell the new visitor what the site will offer them
• Tell the new visitor who you are

Design Solutions:

• Use a short phrase to describe who you are and what you do
• Put that short phrase on the top of the page
• Link to a more wordy page that better describes you

When a new visitor comes to a site, they ask “What is this?” You need to tell them who you are and what you do immediately. Users make a decision whether to stay or go in the blink of an eye:

“In just a brief one-twentieth of a second — less than half the time it takes to blink — people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet site.

The study was published in the latest issue of the Behaviour and Information Technology journal.”

2. Goal: Don’t Make Obstacles for Repeat Visitors

• Make it easy for repeat visitors to find the info they’re looking for
• Don’t treat every visitor like a stranger

Design Solutions:

• Make navigation clear and easy
• Allow one-click access to popular pages
• If possible, put targeted repeat visitor content on the home page

Repeat visitors already know who you are and what you do. Your home page should allow them to easily get the information they’re looking for without having to scroll through “getting-to-know-you” content.

Think of this in terms of interpersonal communications. The first time you meet someone, you introduce yourself, maybe shake hands, and have small talk. Every subsequent meeting is different. You already know the person’s name and who they are, so there’s no need to introduce yourself again.

Imagine if every time you wanted to talk to a co-worker, you had to introduce yourself again and shake hands before talking. That would get annoying pretty quickly.

Now put yourself in your current clients’ shoes. What information are you looking for? Some examples:

• Attorney Profiles and email addresses
• New articles and bulletins
• Directions
• A phone number

3. Goal: Look Alive

• Show that your firm is active
• Show off your expertise

Design Solutions:

• Place firm news items prominently on the home page
• Link to events and activities
• Link to recent publications and articles

Your attorneys don’t just sit behind a desk all day, they’re out there doing things. They write articles, they speak at seminars, they win awards, and they do interviews. Don’t be modest: let your visitors know what you’re doing!

4. Goal: Show Your Area of Expertise

• Tell visitors what areas of law your firm covers
• Show the industries you’ve covered

Design Solutions:

• List Representative Client Industries
• List Practice Areas

When a prospective client visits your site, they want to know if your firm can do the work. Answer that question right away.

5. Goal: Make Navigation Clear and Easy

• Get visitors to their information
• Meet navigation expectations

Design Solutions:

• Use “big buckets” for categorizations
• Categorize pages under appropriate headings
• Add a search function

The key for any visitor (new or repeat) is to make navigation simple. Get them to their information.

Popularity: 5% [?]

I talk a lot about logos and design, so I was surprised to see a lot of discussion on how little legal commentators think the logos and “look” matter.

On “What About Clients”, Dan Hull writes “Law Firm Logos are Goofy, Useless, and a Waste of Time and Money.” In the article, Hull goes on to say that “quality service and not logos should be the main event” and “if you don’t have a logo, don’t bother to develop one.”

If your firm is the only one in a market, then maybe I agree. Let’s say you have a firm that specializes in Chimney Sweeping Law. That’s all your firm handles, and there isn’t another firm on earth that does. Then, I’d say you shouldn’t even bother with a logo. Since you’re the only one around, you really don’t have to worry about recognition. In fact, if you don’t have a web site, don’t bother developing a pretty one. Instead, on a white background, just have this:

“This is the site of Soot & Sweep, LLP. Call us at 1-800-CHIMNEY”

Then you’re done.

But if you’re in any other industry, chances are you have lots of competition. And when you have a lot of competition, you need to set your firm apart.

I’m not saying logos are the answer. I doubt there has ever been a time when a client looking for legal services and selects a firm by looking at logos alone.

Instead, logos are just another way to be recognized. Only after a prospect has learned about your firm (and others) would a logo help. It is something that sticks in the back of their mind, associating something visual with a level of service.

Though we might not want to admit it, design is important in our purchasing decisions. While we don’t buy a product or service because we really love a logo, we may surely decide not to buy if we perceive a company to be unprofessional.

Think of a prospect looking for legal services that does not already have a lead. They do some research and Google searches, and get a list of firms that can do the work. They go to one site and see a professionally designed site that projects a feeling of expertise. They go to the next and see this:

My feeling is that if you have great service, you should have great presentation as well. You don’t have to spend a lot of time and money to get that.

Popularity: 4% [?]