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Law Firm Web Design Shouldn’t be a Rip Off

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If your law firm’s web designer can’t provide robust answers to the following ten simple questions, fire them. Today.

  1. “How much is the right amount to spend on my website, and why?”
  2. “How much traffic will I get, and what’s the average earning per visitor?”
  3. “When will I see a return on my investment?”
  4. “What will you do to maximize my ROI and minimize my risk?”
  5. How do you know the new site will do better than the old one?”
  6. “How will you make my site perform better over time?”
  7. “How will you research my competition and my prospective market?”
  8. “How viable is my proposition against other firms?”
  9. “How will we prove the viability of this project?”
  10. Should I invest in content marketing, social media, video, mobile, pay-per-click, local SEO? Why?”

You see, there are two kinds of web designers:

  1. Those whose goal it is to make your website make YOU money.
  2. And the rest, whose goal it is to make money for themselves.

The latter represents the vast majority of web designers out there.

They don’t understand that web design is marketing, and – to be honest – they don’t understand marketing either.

They’ll charge you as much as they think you’ll pay for a new website, without considering how valuable the website will be to you. Perhaps they think that a sexy design is valuable in itself. It’s not.

At Item-9, we believe web design shouldn’t work like that.

A Better Way: Strategic Web Design

We practice “Strategic Web Design”.

That means we’ll only take on any project when we are confident that it will generate profit for our client.

Phase One: Internal and Competitor Research

How do we know? We do our research. We’ll consider all sources of traffic, and the cost of that traffic. Then we’ll estimate the likely earning per visitor, which helps us assess the potential viability of the project.

What does this cost? Just $999.

$999 is a small price to pay to know whether your web marketing project is likely to make you money (and how to go about it), or whether you’ll be better off investing your marketing budget elsewhere.

After reviewing the results of the research, if we agree to proceed, we’ll continue to watch over your budget very carefully. In fact, we tell our clients that we treat your money as if it were our own. So we’ll only invest in any exercise that we’re confident will generate a positive return.

Phase Two: Proof of Concept

Before a producer invests big money in a stage show, they’ll test it on audiences in smaller theaters.

Before a car maker invests in plant to build a new model, they’ll build prototypes to make sure it works as intended, in every way.

So, if you’re going to invest in your online marketing, why not insist on similar proof of concept? We think you should.

The second phase of Strategic Law Firm Web Design is just that – the proof of concept phase.

We’ll create a rapid prototype website, applying all the best practice we’ve accumulated. Here’s what’s radically different between the Strategic approach and the old-fashioned web design model…

A Strategic designer knows that, whilst sexy graphics can help a website to convert visitors, the core success factors are all down to content.

What’s your law firm’s position, who’s your market, what urgent problem do you promise to solve, why should people trust you?

These questions make the difference between success and failure.

So, if you want to know exactly how viable your project is, you need to prove it, by investing some time in creating marketing messages that include great content. Sexy design can often come later, but to invest days in graphics and production early on is a high-risk approach. (And we don’t like high risk.)

We’ll put a heap more effort into what matters: researching your competition, crafting your position, your unique point of difference, your offerings, your guarantee, your proof, etc., and much less effort into decoration.

That means you’ll get a bare-bones prototype solution. Now, that will often be a WordPress-based website, but it could be an e-commerce site, a Facebook page, or an email campaign… Whatever it takes to prove the concept!

The goal of the POC phase is to generate a baseline profit forecast. Put simply, that means, “Even with just the bare bones in place, we know we can generate $x per visitor.”

Remember, at this point, you have still committed less investment than you would have done by engaging an old-world web designer, who’ll charge you thousands up-front for a website, with NO IDEA when you’ll see your money back.

Why is the baseline profit forecast important?

Well, it will tell you how viable your project is right now. And with minimal investment required. That means you know (no guessing – you know) how much money you’ll make if we can increase traffic or conversion rates by 10%, 20%, 1000%…

Phase Three: Growth

Here’s another distinct difference between the old approach and the new, marketing-led Strategic approach.

If you work with a Strategic design team, you’ll enter into what will hopefully be a long-term relationship. Every month, it would be your design team’s goal to grow your profits, consistently and reliably.

There are really two ways we do this: by driving more qualified traffic, and by converting more of those visitors to customers.

That’s what we do at Item-9. We have a whole tool kit of tried-and-tested methods that we can confidently predict will generate more business and more profits for you. Every month, we’ll apply those methods that we think will generate the most growth.

Of course, as responsible marketers, we’ll test every change we make. Nobody knows for sure what will work for any particular market sector. So you have to test. Always.

You may have heard of the Japanese principle of kaizen. This means continual improvement. And it’s the approach we’ll use for your website.

Every month, we’ll try various techniques to attract more visitors, and to get more conversions. We’ll keep every change that works, and we’ll ditch any that don’t. Then we’ll try again.

What Does Strategic Web Design Cost?

Just like traditional old-fashioned design, it depends. If you worked with Scratch Web Marketing, you could invest anything from a few thousand dollars.

But here are two key differences.

Firstly, you’ll commit to spending less than you would with a comparable traditional designer. Why? Because our methods are more efficient. We know where to invest time and energy.

Secondly, you should expect to see profits sooner from a Strategic web project, so further monthly investments are just that – investment, not cost.

Every dollar spent should generate more than one dollar for your law firm.

If it isn’t, you’re doing web design wrong.

Fire your web designer, and let’s treat your law firm with the respect it deserves.

Should We Scrap our Website and Build the New One with WordPress?

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From a customer:

After reading Convert! by Ben Hunt, I was wondering about the site and would it be beneficial to start over with WordPress or get a program like Dreamweaver and reformat on the website we have now? Thanks!

–Jen

Answer #1: Dreamweaver Sucks

Great question! Although not really related to WordPress, Dreamweaver is not a fun or really, a useful tool to use for building websites. Never use it.

I do recommend starting over with WordPress or WordPress.com, though. In doing so, try to focus solely on keyword/awareness ladder marketing and sales writing. Your writing doesn’t have to be boring, but it does need to be strategic.

Answer #2: Invest in Strategic Landing Pages

You’ll likely want to create landing pages (these can even be blog posts) for every topic you can successfully pitch to (decent search volume and low competition), making sure each landing page either leads to the next step in the awareness ladder or collects user info in exchange for something of value.

Here are a few additonal landing page resources:

Note that the reason you’re starting over is to get rid of everything on your site that doesn’t lead to a sale–basically replacing YOU information with CUSTOMER information. Really, everything on your site must be geared toward your ideal customer. Talking about the business by itself will turn your customers away immediately.

Always ask yourself: Is this page solving my customer’s need? If not, what can I do to help them? Also, the bonus element of investing in strategic landing pages is that you now a highly-testable target to send your advertising traffic.

Conclusion

You can see that this is not your typical web design advice. Instead of focusing on the business biography or something superficial–such as the look of the website–I suggest that Jen invest in sales marketing and advertising to increase her business’s traffic and conversions.

If this sounds like something your business could use or if you have any questions about these tactics, please let me know. I’d also be happy to refer other professional marketers and writers. Thanks!

Who is Right? The Client or the Developer?

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If you were a plumber, would you let your customers dictate how to install piping? No? Then, why should a web marketing allow an advertising novice to dictate how a website looks and behaves? That sounds like a disservice to both parties.

You are now a mouse cursor inside a graphic design program. From: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Damn You, Mr. Right.

I read an article in Freelance Advisor today that  mentioned a freelancer type called, “Mr. Right”. I admit that I fall into this category more often than not. Do I need to listen to my clients more? Absolutely–and that’s a quality I will continue to improve. That doesn’t mean that I’m beholden to my clients’ opinions once the project begins, though.

Although it’s rarely acknowledged, the test of a web project’s success (or that of any advertising endeavor) is whether the new medium attracts and converts into revenue at a better rate than its predecessor (that’s why advertising has a cost to begin; it is supposed to have inherent value). Every other aspect of the project must lead to this end–including functionality, usability and especially design (or lack thereof).

I’m sorry if conversion rate is a lot harder to sell than “fun and attractive”, but it doesn’t make the above statement any less true. If you understand this idea, then guess what? You are the one responsible for leading the marketing project!

Opinions Are Like Assholes. Everyone Has One.

Too many client vs. developers arguments center around bike shed color arguments. No, the color of the site’s background probably doesn’t matter. Even if it did, how do we know which one converts best without first testing? Assumptions and best guesses have no place in a high-quality marketing campaign. Forcing opinions down your marketer’s throat is also a great way to strain your delicate relationship and tank your project.

Web developers and other marketers owe it to themselves and the client to explain this fact up front. If you start with a quantitative goal, nine times out of ten, the client will gladly get out of your way. You’ll both know the project’s objectives (and be able to measure them analytically) and best of all, you won’t have so many bike shed arguments, either.

You Are a Professional. Act Like It.

Quantitative revenue goals might be a tougher road (they actually require results, after all). They’ll probably also cause you to take on less clients; you’ll be less likely to take money to advertise a product or service that is unlikely to succeed.

In the end, though, you’ll undoubtedly land repeat business and you’ll actually have a portfolio that you can sell to future clients. You’ll also be able to charge for the value of your work (which is only limited by the amount of money you can make for your client), rather than a static hourly rate (which is highly limited by your peers and the marketplace).

Of course, therein lies the fundamental difference between an advertising professional and an outsource (and the difference between a rich developer and a poor one). At the end of the day, which one would you rather be?

An Example Small Business Online Marketing Report

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A few weeks ago I began taking dance lessons at a local dance studio in Chicago. I loved what I was learning so I volunteered to put together a list of online marketing suggestions and notes my instructor could use in growing her business.

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Roles & Responsibilities of a Web Marketing Team – From SEOMoz

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From SEOMoz:

These people’s roles really depend on the channels that are working for you and the channels into which you want to invest. You might have a full-time person who just does video content. You might have a full-time person who just does blogging and they do very little else. That could be a content marketer. You might have multiple people who are managing your community because you have so many people following you and interacting with you on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, through your own social sources on your site if you have a social platform, a high level of community contributions, user generated content, those types of things.

The nice thing about how this whole platform works is that it can organically grow. It can build off itself, and you develop strengths in all the areas without ignoring any channels. Early on in your stages, these people and then these people are going to be experimenting with all types of different channels. As you get here, you have specialists who can perform in those channels, leaving the CMO, the VP, the director free to explore new channels and find places where they might want additional specialists.

This video breaks down exactly who it takes to build a web marketing team (hint: it’s not just one dude with a laptop). Business owners, you need to start realizing that it takes a team to do good work. Invest in your brand and it will come back around ten-fold.

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