Lawyer Web Design: 3…2…1…Optimize!
February 25, 2008 9:09 am         After all this work to get your lawyer website or law firm website up and running you might think that you’re out of the tunnel. Not yet,
 but you can see the light at the end. Depending on who you’ve chosen to do your lawyer website, a freelancer or a web design company you will either be able to go through them to get your SEO work done or not. For those of you who don’t know what SEO is I will give a brief explanation. SEO is short for search engine optimization, which is basically your website’s ability to be found on the internet through the major search engines like Google or Yahoo. I’m sure that everyone reading this has used a search engine before, the results that come up first on a search have some really good 
SEO work done on them.
         The results that come up first are supposed to be the most relevant to the terms that you put into the search box. It is much harder to be first in the results on the broad terms as opposed to terms that are more specific. With a web design company you will either be offered SEO work to be done on your site or be shown somewhere you can go for it. Whichever way it happens, it SHOULD happen. Having SEO done on your site is going to be the only way that people are going to find you by using search engines and without knowing anything about you. There are probably a bunch of lawyers in your area that specialize in exactly what you do and if you want to be 
found before them than SEO is going to be required.
         Ask your web designer, even if you are using a freelancer, about SEO and if they have any recommendations or tips about it. This way you will know more about it before jumping into it. For more information on lawyer web design check us out at DreamCo Design - Lawyer Web Design. For more information on other types of web design take a look at DreamCo Design - Web Design.
going along there are a few things that you should know. With either web designer you are going to have to give them content that you want on your website. When I talk about content what I mean is all the text and images that are going to be put into your website. With lawyer web design there really aren’t going to be that many images for you to send you web designer. I would suggest having a good picture of you or if the website is for your law firm then a picture of each person on the team. This will help people be able to feel more comfortable getting in touch with you if they actually have seen a picture of you. So make sure that it is a professionally taken picture that makes you look professional and welcoming.
As far as the text on your website goes there are a few options that you have. You can write everything yourself; which really isn’t that much of a chore for a lawyer website. The text should just let people know all the information they want on each page of your website. If you choose to write this text it will be more personal. Think about it this way, who knows more about their own business than you do? Nobody. So writing the text yourself will make sure that the text is accurate in every way. The other option that you have is to use a content writer or having someone else write your text for you.
educated and know their stuff. The other reason for having a content writer would be if you are too busy to do it yourself. Make sure that if you have a content writer that you give them all the information they are going to need to write good text for your site. Any way you think about it the content of the website is going to up to you in the end. For more information on lawyer web design check us out at 
previous posts about the benefits of lawyer web design and how it can help you and your career by showing people where you are and what you do. It also benefits prospective clients that are looking to find a lawyer; you are more accessible to them and therefore will be found easier. I also gave you a heads up on how building a website is an investment. Although this is true it is an investment that you should make, without a doubt. My last and most recent post was about getting together your ideas so that you know exactly what you want when you go to choose a web designer; which brings me to my subject on this post.
There are two categories that web designers fit into, there are freelancers and there are web design companies; both have their own benefits and downfalls. A freelancer is going to be usually less money, which is important to a lot of people but there is a lot that can go wrong with a freelancer if they are not reliable. One being that it’s easy for a freelancer to disappear when they want. You can’t really ever be sure that you have a trustworthy freelancer.
would with a freelance web designer. They are more reliable in the fact that they won’t be going anywhere since they are an established company. Also, they usually have a team of people working for them, making them more versatile in what they are capable of doing. These are just a few of the pros/cons about each type of web designer and you should look into each web designer that you are thinking about choosing. Getting their background and information on who they are is important to keeping your investment safe and making sure it is completed. For more information on lawyer web design check us out at 
start making a list of everything you want from your website; colors, pages, and functionality. You can get all of these ideas by looking at other websites for inspiration. Look at other lawyers’ websites or look at law firms’ websites to get a good idea of what seems to be working and what you like; look at how their sites are laid out and how easy it is to navigate through the pages. The whole time that you’re browsing around you should be writing a lot of notes on what you like and what you want to incorporate into your website.
Because there isn’t really a lot to a lawyer’s website you really won’t have a lot of functions on your site. If you happen to see something on another site that you want as a function don’t hesitate to write it down and mention it to your web designer. Choosing a web designer is a whole other piece of the pie, and we will get into that in a later post. After getting ideas from other websites you should sit down and take a look at your list. There could be some things that you feel you can do without, or something that sparks a new idea to be put down, try to look at it from all angles. If a client is going to be looking at your website, what are they going to want to see?
website built is almost like buying a car in many ways. I’ll be going through each of the steps with out and give you some advice on what to look for and what your role is in the building of your website. Investing in a website is going to be one of the best ways that you can put money into your business or practice. Making a website isn’t the cheapest thing in the world but it really is reasonable depending on what you want out of your site. For a lawyer’s website there really isn’t that much going on in it. If you think about it you really only need a website that is going to represent you and/or your firm.
 By having yourself out there on the internet you can be sure that more people are going to find you rather than if you are just listed in the phonebook or something similar to that. It really helps those in your area be aware of your presence and show them that they have the ability to use you. Think about it this way, if you were to invest in having a website built and one or two people found you on the internet and contacted you for legal help then your website just paid for itself. That just with one or two clients, your website is obviously going to have more than two people looking at it for the length of its lifetime.
