Episode 169 – Would You Hire An Attorney Who Is A Dinosaur?

You probably upgrade your office at least every two years (or sooner if your law practice is doing well). Your online presence and your law firm’s website are no different. When was the last time you updated your website? Is your website mobile friendly? Is it user friendly? Is your website easy to navigate? Is the content on your site easy to read? In this day and age technology changes so rapidly, newer and better things come up that can significantly improve your online presence, build your reputation and help you grow your law practice.

 

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I want you to imagine today that you have a legal problem and you talk to a number of attorneys. And there is one that you really like and you are thinking of hiring but they admit to you “I haven’t practiced this area of law in a couple of years so I am not really up-to-date on latest and greatest and the new case law and the new decisions”. You would think “what?” And you would never hire that person for fear that they would do a terrible job for you. Well, guess what? Even though you don’t want to worry about it and it seems like a tacky, nerdy thing, it is important to look at your website and your online presence and make sure that you are up to speed on what’s going on. All the Google updates, all the latest to greatest because if you are not and for instance, your site isn’t mobile friendly, or Google’s new pronouncement of pop-ups having to be modified, the live chat having to be modified taking affect this coming January, if you weren’t aware of these things and you didn’t get them handled and updated, that’s a perception that you are giving to potential clients that you are not up to speed, that you are behind the times and that you are not the one that should be hired. And you may not even know that you’re doing this. So there are definitely a bunch of things that you need to pay attention to. I am going to list a few of them quickly now. There are more but just a few quick ones. One, when was the last time your website was recoded using the latest coding, either WordPress or Microsoft or any of the latest coding methods? If it’s been a few years, you should look at having your website reprogrammed, so it’s the latest and greatest. Is your website mobile friendly, have you looked at it personally on a Smartphone in landscape mode and in vertical mode, have you looked at it on an iPad or a tablet and does it look right to you, are the elements out of order, are things cut-off, is it easier to read, does the website adapt to all these mobile platforms, have you personally looked at it because if you haven’t, you may be surprised at what you see and you may be unhappy with what you see.

Another thing; when was the last time you Googled yourself? When was the last time you put in “John Smith, Florida Lawyer” if that’s what you’re doing, that’s what your name is? What comes up? Do you have rip-off report complaints? Do you have a presence with no reviews in Google, or do you have videos, do you have reviews, do you have tons of listings under your name, does your website even come up when you Google yourself? So very important. You got to look at that too. On your website, go to your own website, navigate for a minute or two. Are there pop-ups or live chat that can be annoying or is that a useful to you? Can you find your way around your own website very easily? If you pretend in your mind that you have legal questions about your practice areas, are the answers readily apparent or do you have to go find them where are they located? Also very important. Another thing is look at you on website and use — and do it from a Smartphone. Let’s say you look at your website and you are pretending, “Okay, I like this attorney; I want to contact them”. How do you do it? Is your contact form readily accessible, do they have to fish for it, do you have a Contact Us page, how about your phone number, is it listed at the top right of every page of your website or is it hidden? How about when you touch the phone number on your website, is it a vanity number that you have to memorize, convert mentally to digits and type in or is it a number that as soon as you touch it, it loads up in your dial screen and you are ready to call that person? Next step. Call your own office and do a quick mystery shop of your own office. Ask for yourself, see how the secretary responds, is he or she loud or are they mumbling? Do they say, “Please hold”, or do they say, “I’m sorry, him or her is not in. You’ll have to call back later”? Do they push you away or are they welcoming and friendly and trying to help you out? So these are at least some of the things that you should be doing to make sure you are up to speed for 2016, 2017, you are not behind the times and you are not outdating and dating yourself and you’re giving that perception to clients that you don’t know what you’re doing and you should not be hired because it could be happening and it could be significantly affecting your results and your ability to get clients.

Now, if you want this type of diagnosis, even more in depth for your online web presence not just your website, we’d be glad to do that for you for free. Just ask for a report, ask for an online presence report and we’ll evaluate you in 10 different ways, all the ways that we know of to let you know of your online presence is optimized or not and give you specifics, what’s lacking, what’s a fix and what to do, not just generalities. So if you want that, email Richard.Jacobs@speakeasymarketinginc.com, or call 888-225-8594. Thank you.

 

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