Target practice

the client focused (rare – endangered);

the solicitor focused (common);

the unfocused (pest status – culling required for environmental protection).

Help your target hit their target. If you were a member of your target audience could you find exactly what you wanted to know in just a click or two from the main page? If not, it simply ?won’t work.

Contrasts. Older people need, and want, sharper colour contrasts – black or dark blue or even red against white – not dark brown on yellow or dark grey on lighter grey. The same applies to logos and clever art work. Don’t create something stunning for a 20-year-old’s eyes when it is the 60 year olds who you want to be able to figure it out. Think clarity.

Print size. Older people appreciate larger print – 13 point or more. This also limits scope for too much legal verbiage. It’s a good discipline.

The sunglasses test. If you are in the market for older clients ensure your website can be read by a person with a visual impairment. Look at your website through dark sunglasses. Does it all still work?

It’s about them. A website should focus on the interests, issues and needs of the target client group, not things which might interest the people in your law firm. It’s not a vanity site.

Never mention you support a particular football team or have particularly strong commitments in either religion or politics. Unless your target market is exclusively from one particular social group, most of your readers will think that this is irrelevant, maybe a bit sad, or represents a serious lack of judgment on your part. Support and believe what you want but don’t put it on your website. It will act as a psychological barrier ?to doing business with everyone who does ?not agree with you.

Ask rhetorical questions: how can I protect my house from care fees? Is my redundancy pay correct? Have I been unfairly dismissed? Then provide a snappy response and contact point. ?Don’t write an essay.

Spur an immediate client response: ‘call now’; ‘email now.’ Action.

Reply immediately. Call them back right away when they give you their immediate response.

Offer an introductory chat at no charge. Just don’t mention the word ‘free’ as that sends the wrong message. You will be on the slippery road to price competition.

Micro-sites. If you have sub-markets in your target clients, such as the set of clients who run businesses of a particular type, but they are only a part of your firm’s offering, then steer them straight from your homepage to a micro-site which shows your in-depth commitment to meeting their particular needs. Apply the same general principles to micro-sites as to main sites.

Testimonials. A website is not a place to show off but an excellent place for specific testimonials from real live happy clients who have consented ?to be there. This may work especially well in a micro-site. It is almost as good as asking clients ?to refer you to other people they know. Don’t forget to do that as well.

Style. Everything on the website should be of a consistent style to avoid psychological ‘jarring’. Even subtle differences cause that. So you may need to allocate the task to one internal or external copywriter.

Keep it up to date. Out-of-date material undermines confidence in you. It implies ?you are not up to the job.

Personalise connections. Use wording and other mechanisms which create personalised links to you and your firm: ‘call John’ rather than ‘call the private client department’. What is ‘private client’ anyway if you are a lay person?

Analysis of website data. It is important to know who is reading what and for how long. Consider using free Google Analytics. Check out pages ?per visit and the average time visitors spend on ?site to see if they were actually reading stuff or ?just popping by and not reading on. Analysis ?may also enable you to make contact with individuals and groups.

Other things that work: (1) Clearly and carefully define expressions that your target audience will search for. Pay for search engine optimisation to push you up the rankings accordingly. The more common the expressions you use, the more others will be attempting to achieve this as well and the less you will be visible on the ten or so Google rankings that typically populate a search page. (2) Use and pay for those same carefully chosen expressions as ‘ad words’. Strangely enough people do click on these, presumably on the basis that ?if you have bothered to pay for this service you may be better at it than the alternatives. (3) Seek links to other websites to drive traffic to yours. ?(4) Consider using banners. (5) Consider other social networking, eg Twitter, but only if you ?enjoy it, are good at creating and servicing a following and don’t drink alcohol and tweet at the same time. You need to keep very careful professional control of your social network content. Some other social media may not be as useful as a result. In short, do not send out contradictory ‘signature messages’ from different types of social networking. Underlying this is the ?fact that the more ‘conversations’ you have ?of any type the more clients you will obtain ?and retain. It’s the connection which starts ?that relationship thing again.

E-newsletters. These are cheap and really work. They can also be used as a means to provide regular updates for your website and to keep it current in a leveraged cost-effective manner. The content can be outsourced – ready made to cut out the hassle for you.

Database. The new era in legal services is now characterised by the extensive use, segmentation and leverage of the existing database. How is yours looking and do you know what it can really do for you? Most law firms still do not appreciate the database and it is time to change that because it will be fundamental to success or failure, not to mention your value on sale or other exit strategies. Presumably you want to retire someday? n