A Look inside an ALAME Article Gary Weitzel’s Commentary on “Web site Marketing: the Basics.”

Disclaimer:  This article is commentary on an article written in the ALA Management Encyclopedia.  The views expressed are Gary Weitzel’s and any quotes from the article are in italics or within quotes. 

Introduction:

Most Atlanta ALA members are familiar with the ALA publication ALA Management Encyclopedia (ALAME), an online resource found on ALA’s portal at http://thesource.alanet.org.  However, many members have not read the articles in this growing collection of issue-specific articles written by leaders in the legal management profession.  To provide a look inside the quality articles in the ALAME, Gary Weitzel, ALAME’s first editor-in-chief, provides commentary to industry expert Micah Buchdahl’s¹ article “Web site Marketing: the basics” released on October 25, 2005 in the ALA Management Encyclopedia, the online resource.   Weitzel notes that Buchdahl writes a comprehensive, well organized and utilitarian article about the relationship of a modern law firm Web site to both marketing and communication; marketing to prospects and communicating with clients, members of the firm, and the public in general.

Because of the scope of this article, Weitzel will present commentary in three parts on this article. 

Part One, published in Winter 2005 by Atlanta Chapter of ALA, provided commentary on the basics of Web site planning, budgeting and the Web site's relationship with marketing in general. The author recommends that you review Part One, as the concepts discussed are amplified in this article.

Part two reviews and comments on return on investment (ROI) of Websites and search engine optimization (SEO). This commentary may be especially informative to Executive Directors, Office Managers and marketing staff because Buchdahl speaks directly to:

1. Electronic marketing core services,
2. Web site development,
3. Content development & management,
4. Web site and search engine optimization, and
5. Strategies that managers and administrators must consider as they plan and budget for Web site development. 

About Buchdahl's Article

Buchdahl's article opens with this reminder:

It is hard to believe that day-to-day use of Web sites in law firms is approaching its ten-year anniversary. Some firms are working on iteration four or five, while others are still tweaking their first site. Regardless of a firm's size or practice, its Web site is an important and necessary component to the firm's business operation.

The marriage of marketing and technology exists throughout law firms - with the use of CRM (client relationship management software), intranets, proposal centers, market research databases, in-house graphics and publishing capabilities, knowledge management, out-of-office accessibility (BlackBerries, virtual private networks (VPNs)), electronic billing and client access. This article focuses on basic concepts of Web sites and related services, including Web sites themselves, extranets, e-mail, referral services, blogs (Web logs), sponsorships and banner advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO).

The article is not intended to address specific ethical rules concerning lawyer advertising and marketing, but to present the concepts of Web marketing.

Buchdahl advises that:

Every firm regardless of size, practice or industry served needs a Web site, not as a sales strategy, but as a key component to the business operation of the law firm. 

Synopsis:

Website Return on Investment (ROI)
Websites are usually considered an element of firm marketing, as opposed to a strictly Information Services function. Many firms use their Website as an online brochure, mimicking their print presentations (articles, brochures, flyers, newsletters, etc.) and enhancing attorney profiles with internal links to firm specialties, practice areas, publications, decisions and other areas to enhance the overall collection of experience and expertise areas.

Buchdahl contends "in most lawyer marketing efforts, determining ROI on advertising and branding investments is almost impossible." His view is confirmed in a recent survey to senior marketing and management professionals. Although measuring marketing efforts is difficult, marketing experts Larry Bodine and Suzanne Lowe contend "Measurement obstacles are largely self-caused, and are related to myopia, inertia, and avoidance of accountability." The study further suggests strategies to improve marketing efforts in ways that can be measured.

As law firm leaders track the firm's marketing spending and plan for future expenditures on marketing campaigns, ROI becomes a significant measure of program performance. The problem of course is that most marketing efforts are hard to structure with clear measures of marketing success, as the return for marketing campaigns may not be immediately evident. Buchdahl acknowledges that ROI is especially difficult in most lawyer marketing situations. That's the bad, but correctable, news.

The good news is that measurements of traffic specific to your firm's message to the cyber community can be quickly gathered using statistical tools from the firm's internet provider or from software companies specializing in Website analytics. Even If other marketing efforts may not lead to a clearly determined ROI, leaders can present a credible Web site ROI report using analytical Website traffic reports.

How to Plan for a Meaningful ROI Report

Consider these questions as you develop your plan:

1. What does ROI really mean for your firm? Is your Web site investment significant enough to require a report?
2. What exactly do you want to measure and how will you track marketing efforts?
3. Can the ROI report control costs and influence upcoming budgets? Which is most important?
4. Is your chart of accounts able to measure hard and soft costs consistently and clearly? Are you able to clearly define these costs when producing reports?
5. Are you considering a measure of effort (staff and consultant hours) to maintain and grow the Website? Does this include time for attorneys to build content by writing articles, news releases, client alerts, etc.?

Website Analytics and Suggested Strategies

Once the firm leaders decide their marketing strategy and the Website's role in the strategy, Buchdahl suggests tracking these important analytics:

1. Page views: Page views are a better measure of readership than hits;
2. Visits: Be sure to remove visits from within the firm and track who the returning visitors are;
3. Most visited pages: Are your most visited pages the pages you intend to be? Are visitors finding or navigating to your most important Web pages? Include information about the specific practices, offices and articles. Note the frequency of downloads from these pages, such as PDFs, Microsoft® Word files, Microsoft®PowerPoint slide shows, etc.;
4. Referring sites: Identify and count the number of visits from other Web sites, such as search engines and common links (i.e. Martindale.com, Monster.com). These statistics should identify the host domain of the visitor and the search term that brought the visitor to the firm's site;
5. Browsers/Platforms: Gather information on the types of browsers and platforms used by visitors. This information will help developers keep the site accessible and remain designed for those who use it the most; and,
6. Route: Track entry and exit pages. Create a map of visitor's "route" through Website and test whether the visitors "route" includes the Web pages you identify as the most important.

SEO 101

The Buchdahl article helps the reader understand the basics of Search Engine Optimization and suggests ways to improve your firm's ranking in search engine returns when your selected key words are chosen by the user. Buchdahl suggests concentrating on the three major search engines to determine search term rankings, Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

Here are the basics concepts to keep in mind as you evaluate your present situation:

1. Determine your rank against your competition using logical keyword searches. This is a basic strategic opening. If the returns on your selected keywords are poor, editing your Web page content and associated metatags is needed;
2. Automated search engines send spiders to Websites to gather text from the site's Web pages and return the content and metatag information to the search engine database for indexing. When search engines "crawl" your Website, they ignore images and flash, but may look at text in <alt></alt> tags. All the search engine cares about is the TEXT on your Web pages and the TEXT in your metatags; Buchdahl advises: "The most effective way to have the firm's web site retrieved by a search engine is to make sure the site contains strong content."
3. An alternative, or in some cases an enhancement, to strong content is paying for better placement using a sponsored link, which may guarantee higher rankings in relationship to selected keywords. Despite this seeming advantage, Buchdahl cautions: "…Many educated Web users ignore sponsored links and focus on the natural search results." Therefore, strong and relevant content and Web page title and heading tags are the keys to improved search engine returns; and
4. Large corporate firms with large budgets and plenty of Website content (articles, newsletters, client alerts, announcements of victories and deals, etc.) may not need to hire a SEO specialist. Their content and traffic will likely drive search engine results to a satisfactory placement, such as the top ten returns for specific keywords determined by the leadership. Consumer-oriented plaintiff's firms are likely to have "… less substantive content to attract traffic. SEO may be much more important in helping Web users find that type of firm. An SEO specialist may be helpful in creating strategies to increase traffic."

Given Buchdahl's articles and the synopsis presented in the first two commentaries, if your stats are not returning an acceptable number of page views, it is likely that an SEO strategy is necessary to improve your rankings. As stated in the first article and above, "content is king" and a thorough review of your Web pages is needed, along with reworking your title and other metatags.

Six Tenets of SEO

1. Understand your prospective client - Assume they are trying to find you and effective diversified (print, media, Web, email) marketing let's them know your name, skills and reputation;
2. Select the appropriate keywords - Anticipate how a prospective client will likely use keywords and phrases to find you using Google, Yahoo! and MSN. The keywords you choose will be the base to build your SEO strategy. So choose well and consider asking clients and associates how they would search for your firm if they did not know your business name or URL. Once the keywords are identified, build or revise your content, title tags and headers around these keywords;
3. Acknowledge how search engines index Web pages - Search engines are only interested in text. They could care less about design elements. So if you are contemplating an image rich or a flash platform, be sure to use keywords in the <alt></alt> fields. Further, be sure the images conform to the message on the Web page they are displayed on;
4. Optimize, at a minimum, the five most important web pages on your Web site - Every page must have a title <title></title> related to the text on the page and your selected keywords. <H1></H1> tags should also relate to the title and, of course, to the content on the Web page;
5. Every Web page should contain between 200 and 400 words with keywords related to your Web page title tag <title></title> and header <H1></H1>; and
6. Improve navigation and provide a map for visitors by displaying a Web sitemap linked from your Home page. Many experienced visitors will navigate to the sitemap to see the relationships between Web pages and the content on the pages.

Conclusion
Micah Buchdahl's article is a must read for law firm leaders who are interested in electronic marketing or responsible for overseeing Web site development. Readers are encouraged to contact Rosemary Shiels, Esq., ALAME's editor-in-chief to learn more about the management encyclopedia's no-risk trial offer and discuss the quality of articles in this collection of 100+ legal management articles.

Return on Investment (ROI) for Web sites and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are the subjects of this commentary. ROI strategies can be used to evaluate the return on your firm's marketing spend after setting clear and measurable goals for marketing campaigns. The good news is that Web site analytic tools can help firm's understand Web traffic to make the ROI process easier to measure.

For SEO and overall user satisfaction, this motto still applies; "content is king." Relevant content on your Web pages should be between 200 and 400 words with good keyword density and a strong relationship to your title and heading tags. Every page must have a title specifically related to that page and its content. Search engines are interested in text, not images, graphics and flash. All said, the "content is king" motto must be followed to improve the success of your Website. As recommended by internet marketing expert Amy Campbell, "add/update content frequently. (Write dammit!)"

Copyright 2006, Gary W. Weitzel, MSLA.  All rights reserved worldwide. Reprinted by AALA with permission of author.

Footnotes

Editor: Marianne M. Lawhead (mlawhead@sheastokes.com) (This publication is the property of the Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators. Reproduction or reprint without prior permission is strictly prohibited. Click here to request reprint permission.)

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