Page 1 Solutions Blog

The first step toward success in Internet marketing is to make sure that you have an effective law firm website. Law firm website design needs to address three major criteria:

• Web Marketing Know-How


• Adequate Content


• Search Engine Optimization Friendliness

Web Marketing Know-How

Your website is not first and foremost a work of art. It is a marketing tool. What good would a hammer made of porcelain be? Any tool needs to be built with its purpose in mind. As a marketing tool, your website needs to be designed with marketing savvy. Sure, a clean, uncluttered website is good, but don't forgo marketing essentials such as a prominently placed phone number, an easy to understand navigation, and a contact form on every page of the site. Make sure that even your content is written from a marketing perspective. Don't let a person finish reading a page without prompting the reader to contact the firm. Make sure that your web developer doesn't miss the point of your website. You need case leads!

Adequate Content

Content is the very substance of your website. If your website's content is shallow and useless, so is your website. That's not just my opinion. That's Google's philosophy: help people find information. Without an informative website SEO is useless. The goal of SEO is to promote your website on the search engines, but if your website doesn't meet the search engines' criteria for a good website, then all the SEO in the world can't help you (or at least won't be as effective). Even if you did manage to get to the 1st page with only a 5 page website, people are naturally going to gravitate to a competitor's website that has more helpful information. When building your website, don't skimp on content.

Search Engine Optimization Friendliness

This is the most unfortunate pitfall that many attorneys fall into. They'll have a beautiful design, a goodly amount of content, but their website will be designed in a way that thwarts search engine optimization. The chief problem is when a website is designed in a database programming language that doesn't support SEO. They'll literally have a one page website that dynamically pulls in content. This means that the SEO specialist only has one page to optimize for all of your keyword phrases. It's impossible to win with a website that isn't programmed for search engine optimization. If you're in this situation, you'll have to rebuild your website using the design and content that you have, but start over with the construction. Better yet, when you first decide to build a website, use a website designer that knows how search engine optimization works.

Once you have these criteria under control in your website, you'll be ready for the challenge of positioning your website on the search engines. It's a tough job, but with the foundation of a good website, you have a competitive edge.