Is It Time To Redesign Your Website? Part 2

Originally posted on my LinkedIn profile May 2015

In Part One of this three-part blog series, I reviewed the initial assessment one needs to make before undertaking a website redesign. This is Part Two.

Part 2 -  Groundwork

So, you've determined that it is time to redesign your website, and you have identified the objectives you hope to achieve by doing so (don't overlook this piece - these will be the criteria by which you measure your success). The next phase of this project is figuring out what and whom should be part of the redesign project.

Personas

Start by getting a handle on who your website is serving. There will be multiple audiences, so it is extremely helpful to build out a set of user personas. This exercise will give you clarity into your website visitors, and provide you with a sort of touchstone against which to measure your functionality and content. Personas force you to understand your user objectives, their journey throughout the various pages of your website, how they arrived there in the first place, and what actions they will likely want to take once they get there. The typical visitors to a law firm website will include:

• Buyers of legal services (e.g., In-house Counsel and Chief Legal Officers)
• Lateral partners (attorneys considering working at the firm)
• Media (journalists and media researching and writing about the firm)
• Business professionals (administrative staff looking for positions in marketing, HR, finance, IT, and operations)

You should create a persona for each key visitor type. Here is a subset of personas we developed when redesigning my firm's website:  

Recommended reading: Smashing Magazine's Shlomo Goltz on developing user  personas.

Stakeholder Interviews

Stakeholder interviews are critical to understanding what your stakeholders hope to achieve in the redesign. Work with your executive champion to determine who should be included as a stakeholder, but be sure to include anyone who has a vested interest in the success of your site. For my website redesign, I include the Marketing department (primary content owners), the Human Resources department (our Careers pages are the second most visited pages on the site), and practice leaders. Ideally, you will also be able to interview clients to find out what they need from your website.

Each interview will take between 45 and 60 minutes, so you will need to prioritize your list of stakeholders. If at all possible, I recommend including your designers and developers in this phase, because what you hear and document might be very different from what they hear. (And when a practice leader insists on adding some random element, the designer and developer can help get to the bottom of what the true requirement is and how best it can be addressed.)

I also conducted a firmwide survey with 10 basic questions to suss out what employees (both attorneys and staff) thought needed to be included in the redesign. This goes a long way toward making people feel heard, and taking them on the redesign journey with you.

Recommended reading: Paul Boag on How to Improve Your Site Using Stakeholder Interviews.

Content Audit

This is where you measure and evaluate all of your website assets. Start by measuring the current traffic to the various sections of your website. Be careful about making automatic assumptions about low-traffic areas; maybe it isn't reflective of the desire for the content, but rather the quality of the content.

When evaluating content, ask yourself:

• Does it help you achieve your business goals?
• Does it speak to at least one of your personas?
• Is it consistent with your brand style guide?
• Is it redundant?
• Is it relevant?
• Is it optimized for search engine optimization?

If you are rewriting whole sections of your website, or creating entirely new sections, be sure to prioritize. No matter how well you plan, timelines will get tight and you may need to postpone rewriting certain elements. When that time comes, you will want to know you have been spending your efforts on the right things.And please, if I can emphasize only one thing: pare down. Users don't read websites, they skim them - so don't make them have to work for the information they seek.

Recommended reading: Anything by the Nielsen Norman Group on writing for the web.

Coming Up: Part 3 - Redesign

This will be the final post in a three-part blog series on website redesign.

• Project Kickoff
• Wireframes
• Design
• Build
• Content Population
• Testing
• Rollout

Is It Time to Redesign Your Website? Part 1

Originally posted on my LinkedIn profile May 2015

A hot topic among my peers in digital marketing is web redesign. More specifically, what are the basic steps involved in creating and launching a new website - and how do you know you even need one? In my view, you can break a website redesign project into three phases. This post contains Phase 1.

Part 1 - Discovery

Current State Review

Do you need a full redesign or just a refresh? Start by asking yourself the following key questions:

• Are you achieving the desired results with your current website? This involves looking at your website analytics and search engine optimization (SEO), as well as that of your competitors.
• Has your branding changed recently? This isn't just a design consideration; if your new brand includes a change of tone in how you write about your products / services, then you should revisit all of your content to ensure it complies with the new organizational voice.
• Is there new technology out there (such as responsive design) that will enable you to improve the user experience? If your website is not mobile-friendly, you are missing out on an increasingly large visitor audience. And if your website won't render properly on new browser versions, then I strongly suggest a redesign. Users have no patience for a bad experience, and will move on to your competitors.
• Has your organization experienced significant restructuring? If so, you likely need to change how you promote your offerings.

If the answers to these questions point to "Yes, we need a redesign to achieve our business objectives," then you need to look inside your organization to see if you are ready. 

Capability Assessment

• Resources: Undertake an internal assessment to see if you are ready and able to begin this project. Do you have people you need, such as a project manager, a writer, a designer?
• Priorities: Are there competing priorities? Your marketing team might be leading the charge, but if you also need the support of your IT department then you must make sure they are on board with this effort.
• Budget: Determining the budget for a website redesign depends largely on the number of features you want and what kind of business you are in (ecommerce? blog-heavy? multi-language? etc. etc.) so I can't answer this one. What I will say is that you get what you pay for, so don't focus on selecting the lowest-cost option. I recommend networking with your peers and asking them for ballpark numbers on their last redesign.
• Executive champion: In two words, Get One. You will need to present a business case to the person who signs off on big projects. This person will be your go-to to help clear internal roadblocks. The most important thing you need to do for your champion is manage expectations and deliver on commitments. Don't make your champion look dumb by not keeping them informed every step along the way.

Coming Up: Part 2 -  Groundwork

(Now published.)

This will be the second post in a three-part blog series on website redesign.

• Personas
• Stakeholder Interviews
• Content Audit

Coming Up: Part 3 - Redesign

This will be the final post in a three-part blog series on website redesign.

• Project Kickoff
• Wireframes
• Design
• Build
• Content Population
• Testing
• Rollout

Law Firm Blogging: Types of Posts

I wrote a post last week on how to get started creating a blog for your law firm / law practice. On the subject of training attorneys on how to write for a blog, I mentioned that, as part of my attorney training curriculum, I identified categories of blog posts to help them get off the dime and start doing some writing of their own. Here they are:

The Humble Brag

Have you been quoted in an article? Use this as the cornerstone of a blog post. Include your quote as an indented highlight. Summarize a long article, and provide real-world examples that highlight the issue being discussed.

• Here is an example from attorney Scott Godes' The Corporate Insurance Blog

Personal Commentary

Tell a personal story, something that happened to you. It will make what an attorney does for their clients real, without offering opinions or legal advice.

• Best for a hot-in-the-news topic, such as legal issues that arise from a natural disaster.
• Example: A personal look at the effect of BP Oil Spill on Clam Farmers in the Florida Panhandle by Brian F. LaBovick of LaBovick & LaBovick.

Initiative Awareness

Think of these as “Did you hear the one about…” stories. Point out key legal issues, tell readers why they should care about this area of law. Quantify the risks if possible (share real losses).

• These posts are not case-specific, they promote specific interest areas of the law, and are real world stories (which people love).
• Here's a good example on Steptoe & Johnson's CyberBlog

Case Update

Give an update on the facts and progression of a current case.

• Good example: Vioxx MDL Judge Enters Judgment Against the State of Louisiana in Redhibition Claim by Russell Jackson.

Conference Wrap Up

You attended an industry conference and came away with information valuable to your clients; this type of post can be created whether or not you actually spoke at the event.

• Summarize hot topics, list out key takeaways
• Include a graphic of the conference's logo, if possible
• If you were a speaker, include your slides / video (post on SlideShare and include a link in your blog post)
• Here is digital native and brilliant attorney Erin Webb's blog post, written after a speaking slot at an industry conference (on my firm's Policyholder Informer Blog).

Aggregation

Has there been a flurry of public interest on a topic related to your area of law? Summarize the best / most interesting writing on the topic, providing links to relevant material.

• Highlight important points within a long article that tells the story on a more readable (and relevant to your clients) way.
• Positions you as the go-to resource for topical issues.
• Great example here from my firm's weekly blog post summarizing activities of State Attorneys General.

Client FAQs

Address commonly asked client questions and provide insight on how your practice would handle it.

• Example: How Much Client Contact Should Should Be Expected In Litigation? by Maxwell Kennerly of The Beasley Firm.

Top 10 Lists

These kinds of posts are always popular, and you may find bullets easier to put together than a few paragraphs of copy.

• The end of the year / beginning of the new year are ideal times for looks back/forward.
• Here's a Top 10 in Law Blogs from Jim Walker's Cruise Law News Blog.

Top Influencers

Your blog doesn't always have to consist solely of your own original content. Who are the authoritative resources in your industry? Provide your clients with resources you, the insider, find valuable for keeping on top of the issues.

• Share a post that impresses you or directly affects your clients. Your readers will appreciate the access to a resource that they might not have known about before.
• Be sure to credit the writer and link back, so your clients know where the content came from
• Check out Forbes contributing Editor Ben Kerschberg's Eight Great Law and Technology Resources post.

Legal Industry Insight

When you can help prospects understand your business -- give them sound advice on how to choose a firm / lawyer, explain the finer points of a new law -- you’re building trust and understanding. It's a great starting point for a professional relationship.

• Example from employment law firm Smith & Lo

Obviously these are not the only types of blog posts, but I've found these examples are a great way to make the whole blogging thing real to attorneys.

Law Firm Blogs: Legal Marketers Share Their Lessons Learned

Marketing Technology Forum for Legal, the LinkedIn Group I founded a few years ago, has bi-monthly calls to talk about hot topics that legal marketing technologists are dealing with.

Yesterday,we discussed law firm blogging. It was a great discussion, and Deb Dobson (@debdobson on Twitter) had a lot of insights to share, along with several other participants on the call. Here are our key takeaways:

A partner has come to you, all fired up about starting a blog ("our competitors have one!"). What to do?

Determine the objective(s).

What do they hope to gain? If the answer is simply "new business" then this may not be the vehicle. A blog is more of a long game, and anyone who expects to start capturing new clients with every blog post is mistaken. Blogging can do many things - position your practice as a thought leader in an area of law; increase attorney visibility so that journalists call when needing input on an article; put attorneys on conference organizer's radar so they get more opportunities for public speaking engagements. All these things will hopefully lead to new business, but it is a marathon and not a sprint. Set expectations accordingly.

Gain 100% buy-in from practice leadership.

Without a fully committed practice champion, most practice blogs will quickly wither. Between billable hours requirements and other administrative responsibilities, finding time to write for a blog will slip to the bottom of an attorney's priority list. Make sure the practice leader(s) are vocal about their expectations, and that they follow through on requiring content creation.

Identify day-to-day blog management responsibilities.

Once the blog has been designed and launched, many of us hand the reins for ongoing management for the blog to the practice, where (typically) associates are assigned responsibility for coming up with topics and posting them to the blog platform. If your practice pushes back and wants marketing to manage this role, but your marketing department doesn't have the not-insignificant resources required to do this piece of the program (apologies for the double negative), think hard before agreeing to create a practice blog.

Even in situations where the practice handles the day-to-day blog management, one area that most marketing departments are still involved in is shepherding the blog posts through the conflicts process.

Determine where you will you host the blog.

On your firm website or elsewhere, such as LexBlog? There are different schools of thought on this, neither is "the right answer". Some firms want the traffic that a blog can bring to their website, plus the opportunity to cross-sell the visitors on other website content. Those are good reasons to host a bog on your website. The usual thought behind hosting a firm blog offsite is that you want the appearance of independent thought leadership that a site such as LexBlog provides. If you host your blog offsite (often branding the blog differently from that of your law firm), it can create a more personal feel, like the attorney is speaking directly to you; less like just another page with marketing copy put out by the faceless law firm.

Find your voice.

Find a way to show personality. Maybe this means a blog that looks at otherwise-boring employment law issues through the lens of the TV show The Office, such as That's What She Said, a blog put out by the firm Ford & Harrison. Perhaps an antitrust law blog written from the point of view of a baseball enthusiast, such as attorney Dan Schaefer's Living Competition.

Check out the competitive landscape.

Look at the blog landscape of other firms in your area of law. Try and find subject matter that no other law firm has already taken on. If you are going to go head-to-head with a competitor on the same topic area, be sure you have something additional to say, or a better way of saying it.

Teach attorneys how to write for a blog.

Lawyers have a tough time not writing as though for a brief. One of the biggest hurdles they have is learning how to write as though speaking to a friend at a cocktail party. 

"How would you describe this issue if you were talking to a friend over a beer?"

A good trick I've learned is to encourage an attorney to record his/her (rough, unvarnished) take on a topic. Listen to that recording, and use it as a starting point for drafting out the blog post.

Training attorneys on how to write for a blog is an ongoing effort. It won't happen all at once. A good starting point, I've found, is providing them with a list of types of blog posts. (I will put up a new blog post next week on 9 blog post types for attorneys.) Update: here is what I just wrote on types of law firm posts.

Also, don't forget to leverage resources such as LexBlog recorded webcasts. Founder Kevin O'Keefe is a lawyer, and I often find attorneys respond better when they hear writing advice from one of their own.                            

Other things I find important in law firm blogging:

• Post as often as you like, but shoot for not less than once a week. And if you set expectations (i.e., you always post on Friday afternoons), meet them! 
•  Don't start blogging until you have fleshed out your social media profiles. Once an attorney has created a blog post, they need to share it on Twitter, LinkedIn, via email, maybe even Facebook and Google +. If they don't have these platforms in place, they are wasting low hanging fruit, and will not get nearly the bang out of all that effort that they should have.
• When it comes to law firm blogs, learn from the best. Here are several legal blogs I recommend checking out:

SCOTUSBlog

IPWatchdog 

The Volokh Conspiracy 

Drug & Device Law 

(Note: the Twitter hashtag for this and other Marketing Technology Forum for Legal discussions is #ILTAMTFL.)