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Brand Building in 15 Minutes Recap – Website Redesign: The Good, Bad and Necessary

April 4, 2022 |

Builden’s Founder Jocelyn Brumbaugh and Project Manager Sara Goddard outlined steps to launch a law firm’s new website and provided tips for ensuring longevity, improving the user experience and supplementing brand standards in the latest installment of Brand Building in 15 Minutes.

Sara shared key characteristics of a successful website redesign process such as identifying a team of decision-makers, auditing web updates for accessibility and, above all, developing a plan to keep the process moving.

Watch the full webinar here:

The Brand Building in 15 Minutes webinar series gives attorneys, marketers and legal administrators practical tips for efficiently executing marketing and business development efforts in a bite-sized timeframe. The program topics focus on process-driven best practices that raise law firm profiles.

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Video Transcription

Jocelyn Brumbaugh (00:01):
Hello everyone. Good morning, good morning. Thank you all for joining us today for our latest installment of Brand Building in 15 minutes. I’m Jocelyn Brumbaugh, founder of Builden Partners, and I’m so happy to have you joining us today for what is undoubtedly the most daunting part of law firm marketing, the website redesign. But first, you know us. We are Builden Partners. We do marketing strategy for law firms and only law firms because you’re special and also because our senior team, we all grew up in large law firms, so we get it. But there’s one person who gets it most of all, and that is Sara Goddard. Without Sara’s guidance, your law firm’s website redesign is going to be a soul-crushingly terrible process. She’s going to be mad at me for saying this, but she and her team recently conducted a full website and brand redesign in 90 days…90 days… and the partners at that firm are all still friends. How on Earth did she do it? You are about to find out in just 15 minutes. So, Sara, tell us all your secrets for website redesign, the good, the bad, and the necessary.

Sara Goddard (01:19):
Thanks Jocelyn. So, I’m really excited to talk about this because we all know your website is the center of your firm’s digital ecosystem. Everything you do in the digital landscape should serve to drive traffic and engagement back to your website. We also all know that website redesigns can be complicated, multilayered, it’s a big investment for your firm, and they can get messy at times. When you’re revamping your firm’s website, there are numerous tactics you can employ in order to make the process smooth, engaging, and hopefully as painless as possible. So, let’s get started.

So where do we start? It’s normal to be overwhelmed at the onset of a project this large, but it doesn’t have to be daunting. So, for step one, establish your key stakeholders. Think through who’s going to be responsible for making decisions. This is really key to a successful redesign. A key tip here: this is not the time for large committees. Too many people and you’re never going to gain traction and everyone’s just going to be spinning their wheels.

(02:25)
So think three or five people max. Also, ensure the individuals you select are empowered to make decisions. This is really key. You need those people that can make decisions on behalf of the firm, on your team. Also, make sure to include those people who are going to be responsible for updating and maintaining the site after it’s launched, whether that be someone from marketing or IT or admin or a paralegal. You need that person engaged and onboard from the beginning to help ensure your keeps progressing once launched. Also, and this is really important, select people who are willing to give you feedback, both positive and negative. We all

love our champions who love everything we do and always say yes, but “yes” people aren’t going to help you make good decisions in this point. You need people that are going to give you constructive real feedback.

(03:21)
Step two, spend time reviewing as many sites as possible, both law firms and non-law firm, and come up with a list of sites that you like, and sites that you don’t like, and make sure to include features that you like and features that you don’t like. Clearly outline what is and what is not working on your current site. This is going to allow you to go into those kickoff meetings with the background you need in order to make traction. This is a great time to figure out what content needs to be rewritten and what content you need to start from scratch. Start a tracking document, assign responsibilities, and make sure everyone is on the same page before you can get started. This is also a great time to start gathering and reviewing your website analytics, so you know what pages are being visited, the traffic patterns for your website, what words visitors are using to get to your website.

(04:16)
This is going to help you establish who your target audience is and help you understand if you’re utilizing SEO to actually reach those target audiences. Side note here, I’m wondering how many of you don’t even know if your site tracks analytics. If there’s one action item you leave with today, whether you’re doing a redesign or not, check into your website analytics. There’s a wealth of information there that can help you in a lot of different ways.

Okay, step three: clearly outline your goals. What are you looking to achieve and be realistic at this point. Again, make sure all of your stakeholders are on the same page and understand what the goals of the process are going to be. Step four: know your brand. Having a strong brand identity in place before you start your website redesign will guide your decisions throughout the project and result in a site that accurately represents your firm image and then can leave a strong positive impression on visitors. This is about more than just colors and fonts, although that is important, but this is the time to clearly define who you are, what you do, and how you do it. And again, make sure everyone is on the same page. So, these four steps, they seem like they’re going to take a lot of time and to be honest, they really should take some time, but the more prep time you spend, the smoother your whole redesign process is going to be as you get going into the next steps.

(05:48)
All right, so now we’re started. We’re in the thick of it. What can you do to make the process progress smoothly? Step five: in every decision, be user-focused and user-friendly. When working on your pages or your content, focus on answering visitor questions easily: “Who are you? What do you do and how can I reach you?” Those are the key concepts of visitors looking to discover when they go to your website, so don’t make them have to look hard to find them. Also, this is a great time to focus on more of “what can we do for you?” and less of, “we’re the best” look to always provide insight and value to visitors. Step six: when in doubt, keep it simple. Don’t make it difficult or confusing to find the basics. Don’t hide text and overly complicated imagery or try to get super creative with your navigation to the point where the site is too complicated to even maneuver clean and minimal and avoid flashy distractions are always going to win the day.

(06:48)
Again, we’re trying to achieve a goal and we do not want to make it harder for clients or prospective clients to hire you. A good key tip, leave plenty of white space or breathing room within your pages and your site architecture. This is going to allow for more longevity of your website. Say if next year you need to add three new practice area, pages or a career page, or you need to make changes like that. If you’ve left that room, you’re going to be able to do that seamlessly. Another key tip, try to use darker fonts. It’s going to make your site be a little bit more ADA compliant, which is really important to focus on. For example, if you’re looking at the screen right now, you might notice that my numbers are a little bit lighter than the actual words which might make them a little difficult for some people to see, so make sure you’re always focused on all of the font colors.

(07:33)
Step seven: spend some attention on your bios, which are typically the most visited pages of a website. Make sure this content is updated. A redesign process is a great time to focus energy on updated and current bios. This is going to be time-consuming. Even if you only have 10 attorneys it’s still going to take them a long time to do it. So, spend time developing a template and style guidelines. If needed, interview the attorneys so that you can glean more information and try to include dates where possible. Again, take the time to highlight your strengths as a firm. Also, this is a great time to integrate consistency in brand guidelines. Doing this from the start is going to help you with that compliance in the long run when you’re updating or adding new bios in the future.

(08:27)
Step eight and this is one of my favorites: invest in modern realistic photos. I do not want to see a photo of an attorney from 2010 on a website redesign. Honestly, I don’t even want to see one from 2019 at this point. This is a great time to also go back to that conversation of “who are we?” Are we suits and ties? Are we a little more casual, and we can be a little bit more approachable? Make sure your photos are who you are and key: that they look like you. Another great tip, try to include a gallery landing page on your website. This is a great way to demonstrate diversity without screaming “Hey we’re diverse.” It’s also a great way to make it easier for visitors to find someone whose name they might not remember. I might not remember John Smith’s name, but I’m going to remember how he looked possibly.

(09:21)
A really great key tip here. Take three quarter length or full body photos. Attorneys are going to balk. They’re not going to like this, but in the end, it’s going to give you more layout options for your website. It’s also going to give you more options to manipulate the photos in the future. For example, you need a headshot for an article placement. You’ve got it. You can crop it out. You need an ad, and you want to put five or six people together and make it look like they’re standing in the same room, you can easily do that if you have the larger photos. Another great tip, provide information on what to wear and what to avoid. Your photographer should provide you with some tips, but some really great examples are, encourage people to choose colors that contrast with their skin, not necessarily white or black.

(10:10)
So for example, fair-skinned individuals are going to look great in darker or deep colors. While dark-skinned individuals might want to avoid bright white shirts or really super dark colors like black or navy. Everyone should avoid large scarfs or cowl necks. They look great in person. They don’t translate well to photography, avoid heavy prints or contrasting prints together. It just is distracting in the photos, and everyone should avoid makeup or products that are going to give you a dewy shimmery look. We all love that in person, but they don’t look great, they don’t translate well into photography. Another hot tip, we always talk about wearing sunscreen. This is not the time. Don’t wear sunscreen or makeup of SPF. You don’t see it in the mirror, but when the lights of photography hit it, it can give a chalky appearance, which people don’t really love. So, these are not all deal breakers, but if you incorporate some of these tips, you’re more likely to have a person like their photo, which is really important to get their buy-in, and it’s going to make the whole process smoother and people happier in the end.

(11:21)
Okay so, we’re in the thick of it. It’s a week until launch. It is going to be stressful; I promise you, but if you’ve put the time and effort into the planning and implementation of steps one through eight, you’re going to have a lot done and you’re going to be in a great place. But step nine: you want to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly and responsive. With people working remotely and from virtually everywhere and from all types of devices. You want to make sure that your site is responding as it should. So, make sure you check it before launch on multiple browsers, safari Chrome, Firefox, and on different devices. Have someone check on a large monitor, on an iPad, on a laptop, on your phone. Make sure you check it across all those devices and that it’s looking the way you want it to look.

(12:08)
Hot tip, find the person in your organization that has an Android and make them your best friend. We often find that there are a lot of issues with websites translating properly to Androids, so have that person on your phone list and call them and have them check those sites constantly. Step 10: soft launch page your launch date just a little bit. It can take up to 24 hours for a site to fully launch globally, and this is sometimes hard for attorneys to understand. So, if you’re launching on March 29th and you tell them March 29th, I guarantee you’re going to get phone calls every five minutes of “Where’s the site? Where’s the site?” So do yourself a favor. Tell everyone you’re launching on Tuesday, March 29th and launch on Monday, March 28th. That’s going to get you two things. If there’s any issues, you’ve got some wiggle room, time to fix things.

(13:00)
Number two, if you do launch on March 28th and everything’s live, you are the hero and people are going to love you. So just pad it by a little bit. All right, now for the bonus round: left-justify your text. Attorneys love justified texts and computers hate it, and every redesign project we’ve handled at some point, someone asks me why we’re not fully justifying text. So mainly unlike in Word documents or in print, it’s really difficult for coding systems and algorithms to properly space words in a justified manner when you go from different-sized screens, so you end up with large white spaces from a desktop to a phone. If you left justify, you’re not going to have to deal with that. It can automatically put those spaces at the end. There’s also an element of ADA compliance here as visually impaired users tend to use magnifiers and justify text does not respond well in those scenarios.

(13:53)
Again, our goal is to make sure that we’re making this easy for everyone’s viewing technology and their use, so just left justify that text. Say no to group photos. Again, attorneys love these. They always want to put everyone on the homepage in a big group photo together. HR people hate these because it’s a guaranteed way of showing you 1, 2, 3 of those people, they’re not going to be there in a year. Don’t waste the time or money on large group photos. This is a little hot tip for me, my little kind of personal pet peeve. Let’s try to get away from those black tops, black suit coats, everyone in black. It’s dated, it can make your site look dark, I guarantee if you go look at some websites, they’re going to look like some fraternity or sorority photos where everyone’s in matching black. This is the time, add a little personality. You can have a small pop of color.

(14:39)
And finally, click every link. When you’re testing your website before launch. Don’t do it yet. Like a user try to break it. Click every link on every device. All right. So, to sum it up quickly for you in the most basic way, plan, plan, plan, the more time you spend planning and organizing, the better your process is going to be. Put together a really great team. Know your brand and make sure everyone is on the same page. When in doubt, always focus on your user and what they need and what they’re looking to make a decision. And hire good people, whether that be developers, designers, or project managers. Hire people that know law firms. This is not a consumer product. You need people who have done this before and know what they’re doing. And finally, get the most out of your launch. This is a great moment for every firm, so just enjoy it.

So, thank you for joining us. I hope you learned a little something and that we were able to remove a little bit of that web redesign fear. Remember to mark your calendars for April 27th for our next Brand Building and buckle up for all things legal operations in our new normal.

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