Is Your Website Really What Your Clients Are Looking For?

I promised some insights from the Website Masterclass I attended last week given by Sean D'Souza of Psychotactics.  One thing that was repeated over and over throughout the week was, "It's not what you know, it's what you do."  How true!

We all know that our websites are there for our clients, or potential clients.  But how many law firm websites talk more about themselves than about their clients?  Take a look at your website - is it about your clients or is it really all about you?  Are you providing your clients and potential clients with information that they want, and that they're looking for when they search the internet?  Does your website demonstrate your experience and expertise by providing resources and educating clients and potential clients, or only by listing awards and accolades?  Is your website a place clients can return to in order to get reliable, up to the minute information?  Is it a place they want to return to, or is your website purely an on-line brochure and a place clients can go to get your phone number and perhaps directions to your office?

Here's an interesting tool you might want to try out - to see if your site has too much of the 'wewe factor' and isn't focused enough on your clients - The We We Calculator.  Of course, it isn't perfect - it merely counts what it calls 'customer-focused words' and 'self-focused words' and then calculates some percentages.  And of course, even if your site scores high on customer/client focused words doesn't mean that the content, read as a whole, focuses on your clients, and vice versa.  But it is certainly something to consider.

Your website is about you and your firm, but if you're expecting it to be an effective marketing tool, it needs to convey what matters to your clients - which of their problems can you solve?  How do you solve them differently or better than someone else does?  How does your experience affect your ability to represent your clients?

Most lawyers 'know' that their marketing and their website needs to convey what the benefits to the client are of working with the firm, but it's not the knowing, it's the doing that matters.  Does your website give your clients or potential clients what they're really looking for?