Secrets of Law Firm Website Development – What the Big Developers Don’t Want You To Know

What developer should you choose for your law firm’s website development needs?   Below are eight factors to consider when choosing a website developer for your law firm.

# 1 – That Seemingly Low Monthly Fee is Going to Cost You – Big Time

As a sole practitioner, the monthly fee of $600 or more may seem cheap compared to paying $4,000-$6,000 for your own website.  However – in less than a year - you will have paid more on the  monthly costs to lease your own website than if you had paid with the one-time cost.  This is when the website becomes really expensive, as even at the $600/month minimum level, the 3 year cost is $21,600 (the 5 year cost is $36,000).

# 2 – You Can’t Take it With You if You Want to Leave

Say you want to leave the company after 3 years (and after spending over $21,000) – can you take your website with you?  While you may be able to take some website files and content, you’ll need to have a new website developed, as you will not be permitted to use their website platform.   So, you’ll be back to paying the $4,000-$6,000 you were trying to avoid.

# 3 – Few Clients Search For Lawyers in that “Must-Be-In” Directory

Before being concerned with whether you need to be in the “Must-Be-In” directory that company is promoting, consider whether your clients even know about (much less would search for) an attorney in that directory.

The overwhelming search choice for law firm clients is the same as for any other product or service – Google.

# 4 – You Likely Will Have a Template-Based Website

In many instances, companies start with simple website templates that have been used for many other law firm websites.  Then, a designer changes colors, pictures, and other aspects.  The result is that many personal injury law firm websites, for example, have nearly the exact same layout.

# 5 – You’re Going to Get Stilted Content Written for Search Engines, Rather than for Real People

Here’s an example of the type of writing - “Our Chicago personal injury lawyers focus on providing personal injury services to help those injured in accidents.  If you’ve suffered a personal injury in Chicago, our legal team of Chicago personal injury attorneys are here to help.”

Does this appeal to potential clients?

# 6 – They Won’t Do Any Effective Branding or Copyrighting for Your Website

Look at examples of their websites.  Do they personalize the firm and its attorneys around any unique attributes to differentiate the firm from its competitors?  Or do all of their personal injury firm websites, for instance, have nearly identical content?

In most instances, if you look at several personal injury firms, their content will appear to be virtually identical – only the names of the firm, the lawyers, and the city have been changed.  If you choose them, this is the same type of content that will be developed for your website.

# 7  – You’re Going to be Stuck with the Limited Website Functionality They Provide

Many of our competitors use their own proprietary website platform.  Relatively limited functionality is built into these platforms, and the only development done is by a handful of website developers.  In most cases, you will be limited by the functionality that they choose to build into their platform.

Instead of building our own platform, we chooe to develop on WordPress.  WordPress serves as the platform for more than 50 million websites and blogs, including those of companies such as CNN, The New York Times, Sony Playstation, Ebay, Yahoo!, and more.  There are more than 17,000 plugins/applications that can be used to extend the core website functionality.  These include applications for items such as social networking, Google Analytics, contact forms, video, search engine friendly links, and much more.  Both the use of the platform and nearly all plugins are free – there are no license fees.

# 8  – Additional Development May Be Expensive, Assuming It’s Allowed at All

If you want to have additional website functionality, chances are that it won’t be allowed or that it will be very expensive.  You likley won’t be able to choose your developer, as they will not permit others to develop on their underlying code.