Consultwebs.com TechnoLawyer Post - February 18, 2000

 
Thread - Law Firm Web Site Reviews

From The TechnoLawyer Community http://www.technolawyer.com:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Dale H. Tincher, Law Firm Web Site Reviews
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1. DALE H. TINCHER, LAW FIRM WEB SITE REVIEWS

>a. Surprisingly, only three law firms sent us their URLs
>   for a community-wide critique.  Please check out the
>   the following law firm Web sites and then post a
>   critique -- good, bad, and ugly:

The following are our my thoughts on the TechnoLawyer submitted Web
sites.  My hat is off to the brave souls who exposed their Web sites with
the goal of receiving feedback.  This report was conducted using the
analysis criteria listed at <http://www.consultwebs.com/strategy.htm>.

>Web site of Harold Chu <http://hawaiilaw.wld.com/>

INITIAL COMMENTS
The site is conservative.  It is clean and concise and creates a positive
first impression.

The firm should spend $70 and obtain its own domain name.  This will
allow personalized e-mail and provide long-term guarantees of site
ownership. Owning a domain name will also prevent having to reestablish
search engine rankings, a feat that can take months.  (Search engines
often ignore redirects from a prior site.)

SUCCESS
We normally measure success by speaking with firm members, and if
applicable, key clients.  We cannot measure success in this analysis,
however, we can measure search engine success.  We searched
http://www.altavista.com, http://www.hotbot.com and http://www.yahoo.com
for the phrase -- Honolulu Hawaii law firm.  Harold Chu was "not" listed
in the top 50 of any of these search engines.  A search on the phrase --
Harold Chu -- typically resulted in a second-place listing, however the
firm was not listed in subsequent listings.  The firm's FAQ's, Articles,
etc., should rank in search engines, especially when a search is made on
"Harold Chu."

We ran a few random search engine reports with the following results:

Placement of domain matches for Real Estate Law in Hawaii
http://hawaiilaw.wld.com/

Positioning Results: No domain matches were found for Real Estate Law in
Hawaii on InfoSeek.

Placement of domain matches for Legal sites attorney
http://hawaiilaw.wld.com/

Positioning Results: No domain matches were found for Litigation attorney
on InfoSeek.

Placement of domain matches for Real estate broker's in Hawaii
http://hawaiilaw.wld.com/

Positioning Results: No domain matches were found for Real estate brokers
in Hawaii on InfoSeek.

Placement of domain matches for Condominium attorney
http://hawaiilaw.wld.com/

Positioning Results: No domain matches were found for Condominium
attorney on InfoSeek.

CONTENT
Articles Section - Though somewhat sparse (eight articles), the articles
were well written -- in layman's terms.

Attorneys - The Attorneys' section is concise -- a good summary.  On the
negative side, there are no photos.  A "huge" turnoff is that
"Representative Cases" requires a Westdocs password.

Newsletter - The newsletter is interesting and informative, but out of
date. The dates of July - Summer 1999 are listed, as well as Y2k and 1999
bills. Visitors may not return.

Contact Us - The contact form is a functional, basic form.  We like to
include a, "How did you learn about us" entry.  An e-mail option is
wisely provided for visitors who do not want to fill out the contact form.

SEARCH ENGINES
This area needs substantial work.  We were quickly able to determine why
the site is not achieving search engine success.

Title
The current title is .

The title is not descriptive, nor search engine friendly.  A golden
opportunity is being missed.  The title should read something like,
"Harold Chu attorneys at law, a Honolulu, Hawaii based law firm
specializing in real estate litigation, litigation, general real estate
and general mediation and arbitration."

Keywords
The current keywords are

There are several areas in which improvement can be made.  Studies have
shown that the Internet users search on "lawyer", not "attorney."  Use of
a word more than six times often results in that word being disqualified
as spam.  The word "attorney" is used 21 times.  The key words should be
lower case since certain search engines are case sensitive.  Internet
users typically use lower case terms to search.

Description
The current description is This should be
changed to something like, "A cornucopia of information from two
experienced Honolulu attorneys about Hawaii, and its law - filled with
resources, articles and links to databases containing information about
Real Estate Litigation Litigation General Real Estate and General
Mediation and Arbitration"

Home Page content
The Home page has search engine potential.  However, the meta keywords do
not match the Home Page words, rendering the combination ineffective.

AESTHETICS & LAYOUT
The site uses (we assume) local photographs.  This makes the site
familiar and comfortable for local viewers.

Colors and Theme - The site theme is a bit out-dated, however it is
clean, well-coordinated and has white space.

Personality - Other than the local photos, the site is virtually devoid
of personality.  There are no pictures of the firm nor its members. 
Attorneys find familiarity and comfort in text.  However, the public
enjoys photos and enjoys a look at the firm.  Attorneys frequently forget
that lawyers intimidate the typical citizen.  Efforts must be made to
show the firm's caring nature.

Attorney area - This is nicely organized.

Contact information - The firm's location, phone number and e-mail
address should be on all the pages.  We only saw one page that displayed
the firm's contact information.  This hinders search engine success and
confuses visitors who wonder where the firm is located.  The firm's Web
address is hawaiilaw.wld.com (West Legal Directory), however viewers may
not notice the address and will certainly not see a city.

Contact us - The Contact us page is nicely done.  It offers an optional
e-mail entry -- a nice touch.  We recommend adding a, "How did you learn
about us?" entry field for marketing purposes.

CREATIVITY
The site is conservative.  While we do not advocate "flash", a few
mouseover color changes and well-placed graphics would brighten up the
site.

EASE OF NAVIGATION
The site has excellent navigational structure.

BROWSER COMPATIBILITY
The site is conservative, therefore has no browser compatibility problems.

LOADING TIME
There are no problems with loading time.


>Web site of Weston G. Cotton <http://www.westoncotten.com/>

INITIAL COMMENTS
The site makes a positive impression upon entry.  It is colorful and has
an abundance of white space.  The light blue left image clashes slightly
with the navy banner, but not noticeably.

To further soften the appearance, we suggest using a paragraph style,
rather than bullets for the areas of law.  We recommend improving the
appearance of the gavel and placing it in a "table" on the right
side-then moving the text (Elder Law) upward.

The home page does a nice job of quickly defining the purpose and content
of the site.

SUCCESS
As mentioned above, we normally measure success by speaking with firm
members, and if applicable, key clients.  We cannot measure site success
in this analysis, however, we can measure search engine success.

No META tags (key words) are found within the pages of this site.

The Title should be enhanced and a Description should be added.

A search of www.altavista.com for the phrase -- Baytown Texas law firm --
did not place the firm within the top 50 Web page returns.

A search of www.altavista.com for the phrase - Texas estate planning law
- did not place the firm within the top 50 Web page returns.

A www.altavista.com search for the phrase - Baytown Texas estate planning
law - placed the firm at number 8.

A search using the following key words Divorce, Estates Planning, Trusts, Living Trusts, Mediation, Baytown,
Texas> Returned no matches in the top 30 sites found in the following
search engines: Yahoo, Infoseek, AltaVista, MSN, AOL, Hot Bot, Northern
Light, Excite, Snap, WebCrawler

SEARCH ENGINES
This area needs substantial work.  We were quickly able to determine why
the site is not achieving search engine success.

Title
The current title is

. The
title is not descriptive, nor search engine friendly.  A golden
opportunity is being missed.  The title should include more legal terms,
location and area of practice terms.

Keywords
The current keywords are Cotten is not certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization." 
This may be necessary, but it is not compelling.

Contact us - The directions and map are nicely done.  However, a feedback
form should be on this or another page.  The feedback form should list
entry fields for the information the firm desires.  (Visitors should be
prompted to fill out the form correctly.)  The site does a nice job of
displaying contact information on each page.

Attorneys - Mr. Cotton's brief bio is listed on the home page.  We prefer
a photo and more detail on an inner page.

Newsletter - The newsletter has only two entries. They are applicable,
but brief and do not encourage the reader to revisit.

Colors and Theme - With a bit of work, the site has the capability of
being a "show-place" site.

Personality - The text and color combinations work to achieve a
compelling site.

EASE OF NAVIGATION
The site has good navigational structure.

The social security page has no navigation buttons.

BROWSER COMPATIBILITY
We observed no browser problems.

LOADING TIME
There are no problems with loading time.  At one point, we experienced a
one-minute delay, but subsequent loads were faster. (We tested the site
on two PC's from two locations.)


>Web site of Earnshaw-Hobbs <http://www.kctrafficticket.com/>

This site has no apparent theme.  I can't tell if the object(s) in the
top right is half of a bug that was hit by a speeding car (that was
ticketed) or two balls of yarn that were clipped by the same speeding
car.  The tee-pee and other early-American background etchings do not
complement the site.  In the wrong hands, FrontPage is a dangerous weapon.

There is no Title. There is no description, nor are there any search
engine Key words.  The site is not likely to be found by search engines
-- probably a good thing for the owner.

On the positive side, the site can be resurrected rather easily.  The
content is quite good.  It is concise, easy to follow and has links to
further information.  Deleting the background and replacing it with a
white background would make a world of difference.  Reformatting the text
and putting links on the left side will help.

Good luck!

Dale H. Tincher, dtincher@consultwebs.com
Consultwebs -  Web Design & Consulting www.consultwebs.com
Consulting - NCBA - TAP
Phone 919.272.8052; Fax 800-515-3549
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