More Bright New Ideas for Websites
Keeping a Website Alive and Kicking
by Louise Rutherford of Golds
Golds, based in Glasgow, is one of Scotland's fastest growing commercial law firms and the same energy and passion that we have for the business and our clients is applied to our website. In this, the year of our 21st birthday, we are now on our 4th complete web site revamp.
Our new site is not just an on-line brochure - once uploaded forever forgotten. It is an on-line reflection of the "off-line" firm and follows some basic principles:
* It is designed so that it is easy to navigate and find information on subjects that you are interested in. From the home page you can access every area of the web site.
* We avoid fancy graphics, audio features - anything that adds little or no value to the web site but significantly affects downloading times.
* Wherever possible, we encourage feedback and offer e-mail addresses for every enquiry.
* We do not use cookies, nor will we track our web visitors' journey through our web site or limit access to it
* We have specific "mini-zones" designed to meet the needs of various key client sectors.
Among the mini-zones are:
* Lending Zone: As well as details on the full-range of leading-edge services we provide to the lending industry, our A-Z of Lending has proved a huge success, with one national lender downloading and distributing our guide to every one of its UK branches.
* My Solicitor: this is a mini-zone packed full of useful information and guidance for private clients. Guides explain each stage of the Scottish conveyancing process - in plain-English - and our on-line quotation system gives visitors full costing details at the touch of a button.
At the centre of our website is our E-Update service which provides subscribers with articles on recent case law, business news and the latest legal issues - free of charge and in plain English. We have hundreds of subscribers including commercial and private clients, students, fellow lawyers in England and Ireland and subscribers in America and Canada.
The newly re-launched web site features a new character, Goldie, as well as our very own tartan. We have tried to give it a contemporary feel with use of white space. The site is updated at least once a week and now contains about 1,000 pages of news, information, details about our services, on-line facilities, careers and everything you need to know to encourage our web visitors to visit Glasgow.
To ensure that this effort is not wasted, our website address is given on all correspondence. Every new client is given details and a tear-off E-Update subscription form so that they can choose their preferred subject areas.
Every web page uses meta-tags which helps our search engine success rate. We regularly receive feedback from new visitors who have found us through MSN, Google and other leading search engines.
This encourages more and more new visitors to our site and our ever-changing content, and weekly news service ensures that we have hundreds of regular visitors to the site every week.
We try not to take ourselves too seriously on the web. Our site tries to be professional, informative and truly reflective of a successful commercial law practice, but we try to avoid appearing too traditional. In Our People section, for example, you can find out what books and films they love as well as what they do. Our "Say What?" section contains favourite quotations - from Dilbert's view on reporters to the latest comments on the demise of Napster.
Surprisingly (or maybe not!), the site is designed, produced and managed in-house. This means that changes can be made at the touch of a button. Also, because it is the responsibility of the Marketing Department, the site truly reflects the developments of the firm and is integral to our marketing strategy.
A good example of this was last year's English property campaign. We produced a guide to the differences between Scots and English property law. In addition to an off-line marketing campaign, we launched a mini-zone within the website, dedicated to English companies with an interest in Scottish property - "Heading for the border". Visitors could view and download our property glossary as well as a litigation glossary and order copies of the guide on-line.
Has the site been a success? The answer is definitely yes. We attract hundreds of visitors every week and regularly receive positive feedback on our site. Most importantly we have been instructed by commercial, corporate and private clients on the basis of what they have seen there.
Our site is only part of the story of our on-line strategy. Golds has pioneered on-line services with our award-winning WebLex service. WebLex allows lending, commercial and private clients access to their cases on-line. More recently we launched WebLease, an on-line property trading platform.
Louise Rutherford is client Services Managers of Golds Solicitors. email louise.rutherford@golds.co.uk.
Collyer-Bristow, is a 26 partner London firm
servicing both commercial and private clients, and with a reputation for its distinctive approach
to marketing - including running a commercial art gallery and releasing a CD of tracks from its
music clients.
Regardless of marketing strategy, service offerings, budgetary considerations
and technological wizardry, we were clear from the outset that our site
had to be different to any others that we had seen.
What had struck me about all the sites I looked at as part of my research and
in the course of my work was that although many sites were well designed and
attractive to look at, most were not particularly interesting.
Anyone visiting our site will see straight away that people are a key feature
throughout. The home page features a full-length informal picture of one of our
partners, together with a personal quotation that says something about their
approach to clients and work. The person and their corresponding quote
changes randomly as the page is refreshed or revisited.
Getting partners to provide the quotes was even more difficult than getting the
photographs - many were reticent about "blowing their own trumpet" or were
concerned about appearing flippant.
However, with some gentle encouragement we succeeded and all the quotes
came directly from the partners - this was important, as we wanted to reflect
that just as there is no typical Collyer-Bristow client there is no typical
Collyer-Bristow lawyer.
On every page throughout the site there are images of people - on the main
service pages these will always be one of the two main contacts for that
service. On all other pages, including the homepage, images are randomly
picked from the entire complement of partners. We felt that accessibility of our
people was crucial, so all images link through directly to the full-page profile of
the partner concerned, where direct telephone numbers and email addresses
are provided. The team pages show the full legal team for each area of work,
including associates, assistants, paralegals and trainees. We even have a
support team page introducing mangers of the support functions.
We were keen to emphasise solutions to clients' issues rather than merely
provide a list of our services.
Firstly, areas of work were divided into "business" and "personal", to reflect the
wide client base that we have, with a section for "advisors" that is aimed at all
the other professionals we work with. For each area the challenge was then to
come up with five or six typical issues we are asked to deal with by clients. By
clicking through from these, the next level gives practical information and
guidance on each of these issues, reflecting our knowledge in this area and
what help we can provide. Rather than sticking to strict rules about the format
of these pages we have been flexible and been driven by what our partners
and assistants felt their clients would want to know.
The key to all these sections is that they are written by partners or fee earners
who have taken on the role of web-editor for their section and are responsible
for keeping the information current and up to date. We already had a
considerable library of articles, seminar notes, checklists and guides that is
constantly updated, and decided that we should utilise these. Rather than leave
users to go to a general index, we have linked the most recent relevant material
to each section. This means that a user can visit the section on issues that
interest them and directly from that page access practical and useful
information, articles, guides and links to other pages that may be relevant.
Most importantly, direct email or telephone contact details are easily and readily
available.
The database technology provided by our website designers
Activelawyer enables updates and changes to the site to be made
very easily by any of the business development team.
The site was given a "soft launch" initially, whilst we obtained wider feedback
and continued to check and update material. The feedback from clients has
been fantastic and we know that we have gained a number of new clients as
a direct result of them liking what they saw on the website.
Further developments are planned, and we are now in the process of marketing
the site more widely.
Jackie Reiss is Business Development Manager, Collyer-Bristow. Email
jackie.reiss@collyerbristow.com.
Back to Contents.
"People Buy People"
by Jackie Reiss of Collyer-Bristow
Collyer-Bristow's business development has always been based very much on
the premise that "People Buy People". The personal relationship between the
client and lawyer is essential. This determined our strategy for the website. We
wanted to introduce all our lawyers - not just the heads of department, or the
partners - to potential clients. Most sites do not list anyone below partner level.
We also wanted to give the visitors to the site something useful to take away,
in the form of good practical guidance, or even solutions, that would appeal to
the kind of clients we want to attract.