News

posted 27 Aug 2008

Case study: Web wins

The website was one shop window law firm Withers decided it couldn’t afford to get wrong.

By Claire O’ Connor, marketing information manager, Aislinn O’Neill, marketing information executive, and Nigel Sprunt, global marketing director and head of business development, Withers LLP

A law firm’s website is the most influential shop window it has. It performs many roles, not least by providing credibility to support the firm’s face-to-face business-development activities. In itself it may not win lots of work, but a bad site can certainly undermine other opportunities. It was therefore with a sense of excitement and nervousness that on 24 January 2008 this firm launched its new corporate website at www.withersworldwide.com.

So far, so good. The site has been very well received by clients and contacts, and has achieved independent recognition through the annual Intendance ‘Fast Fifty 2008’ survey, winning an award for the ‘most improved’ law firm website. The awards panel cited, in particular, its usability and use of new technologies. Traffic to the site has more than doubled since the launch.

Background

The previous website was launched in 2000, prior to the firm’s 2002 merger with US law firm Bergman Horowitz & Reynolds. Not only have web technologies changed enormously since 2000, but so too has the firm. We are no longer a UK-based firm with one overseas office, but have become an internationally-focused organisation with offices around the world and a far broader client base. In fact, some 90 per cent of our top-100 clients have significant international interests.

In 2000 corporate websites tended to be little more than brochure-ware; much less the interactive information source they are today. The launch of our previous site formed part of the firm’s rebranding. At that time flash technology was seen both as innovative, and by far the best medium to differentiate our website from those of other law firm websites. As the years moved on, however, it was clear that technology and user expectations had changed, and that flash technology was now holding back attempts to obtain good search engine rankings – as well as becoming unpopular with web users.

By 2006 it was clear to the management of the firm that the website needed a complete overhaul. The next step was to ensure that the partnership bought into the project
and helped determine the strategy for the new site.

Getting started

The project kicked off with a strategic positioning session, attended by 18 partners and key executives representing all the major areas of the firm – both geographically and by practice area. The aim was to examine corporate websites and their role from a number of different perspectives, with the aim of reaching consensus on a number of key issues. The findings of this session went on to form an intrinsic part of our website strategy and the brief for our web agency.

The project itself was run, from within the marketing department, by the web team who provided the day-to-day management and administration of the project. Key stakeholders of the project included our director of marketing, Nigel Sprunt, and managing director Margaret Robertson, as well as
those who had formed part of the strategy session.

Drivers

The defined strategies for the site were that it should reinforce our corporate objectives and reflect the firm’s growing commercial and international nature, as well as illustrating the synergies between business and personal legal advice.

The site needed to be informative, targeted towards the end user and easy to navigate, as well as being accessible to search engines (hence the move from Flash to HTML).
We were also particularly keen for the site to offer a holistic insight into the services offered by the firm, as well as emphasising its integrated international nature and the legal advice we offer. Furthermore, we wanted to make the most of new technologies to enhance the user experience.

Autonomy, in terms of the addition and development of new content, was also defined as a priority. Therefore we chose to have a bespoke content management system built alongside the site to ensure that as many changes as possible could be handled in-house, without the need to be subject to the charges and time restraints of an outside agency. This is a key consideration in making the site as current and topical as possible.

The design process

Our previous website had a strong visual identity and we wanted to retain this individuality in the new site. One consideration during the development process was the feeling among many of our US colleagues that the old site had looked too consumerist; possibly putting off many potential corporate clients. Finally, we were keen to keep the design of the new site as simple and uncluttered as possible.

The end user was always at the forefront of the design brief. We wanted to move them seamlessly around the site, while accessing information quickly and easily. We focused on the content to achieve
this. We segmented our practice areas into business and personal services; allowing visitors to identify areas of interest instinctively. We then broke the content down further by outlining the services offered within each practice area. This was not an easy task, given the scale and complexity of our service range.

We continually sought to build relationships within our content pages. The practice and sub-practice pages contain links to relevant publications, event information, related services and contact details. Each service page has also been designed to be a ‘one stop shop’ of information on a particular service, as well as serving as a feeder to other related pages that may be of interest.

New technology

It was felt that use of the latest web technologies would further enhance the visitor experience and differentiate the firm, and we therefore chose to incorporate some Web 2.0 technologies into the site from the outset. We were careful not to use technology for technology’s sake – which we had previously been guilty of – but to ensure any technology was user-driven, with the potential to add real value. The intention moving forwards is to keep abreast of the ever-changing web environment and to make further use of relevant technologies over time.

The site currently features RSS [Really Simple Syndication] feeds from internal sources (such as Withers’ latest news, publications and forthcoming events) – and external news feeds from sites such as Bloomberg, the BBC and Reuters, to name but a few.

‘Ajax’ technology has been incorporated into the home page of the site so that visitors can customise the homepage with selected feeds by registering with the site, moving the site to become more of a one-to-one communication tool. Increasingly people want to tailor what they see on the site, and we believe content delivered this way is more likely to attract return visitors.

We have used Google maps within the office pages to allow clients and visitors to plan their journey to and from any of our offices. The route can be printed or sent via e-mail.

A facility to apply online to attend our events and seminars was also incorporated, and dates can be added directly to the individual’s outlook calendar. Contact details for our people can also be downloaded into Outlook quickly and easily. Again, it is all about making the end user experience as easy and painless as possible.

Content

Once the design phase was complete, our attention turned to the content, and more specifically to the content for our practice areas section, which would form a large proportion of the site. Web representatives, some of whom had formed part of our original strategy group, were elected for all the key service areas of the firm, and these reps took a hands-on role in identifying what was to be written about and how best to represent our service offering online. They were also asked to determine who should write the content and to see that fee-earners throughout the process were meeting deadlines.

A template was produced and given to the fee-earners to aid the writing process. This ensured a consistent approach was taken by all when drafting content.

Once we had established our service offerings the next step was to consider which related information would link from these pages. This involved identifying the relationship between our services from a client perspective, and understanding which further pages might be of interest to the reader. This stage of the process was vital to one of the key strategic aims of the new site – enabling users to access the relevant information quickly and easily.

All content, once written, was to be reviewed by a copywriter to ensure a consistent voice across the site, and to translate some of the more technical legal jargon into plain English. This prevented internalised terminology from creeping into the text, which may not have been understandable to the average reader. Keeping track of the content at this stage was imperative and each page of the site was separately coded before despatch.

Once edited, the text had to go back to the lawyers again to ensure that the legal sense had not been altered. This was a time-consuming process and one of the major challenges of the project.

The challenges

The complexity and integrated nature of our service offering made the project particularly challenging. Over 262 different service area pages were identified for the practice areas section alone, all of which then had to be written. Co-ordinating hundreds of pages of information, as well as understanding the links between them was particularly challenging.

Although the new site was predominately a marketing project, it would not have been possible without partner buy-in and the assistance of the lawyers in writing the content. This proved one of the biggest challenges, as, understandably, client work took precedence, and it was difficult for busy lawyers to set sufficient time aside to work on the project. Furthermore, as the lawyers have the in-depth legal knowledge, it was important that they were involved in the process of writing the copy. One of the benefits of the approach was, once again, getting lawyers from around the firm to appreciate how integrated their various service offerings were. It’s fair to say that this project has aided understanding, communication and identification of new business opportunities right across the firm.

The complexity of some of the legal areas made it difficult to get the right balance of technical and layman’s language. We didn’t want to speak down to our audience, and yet we couldn’t assume a detailed level of legal understanding. There is no easy answer to this concern apart from continually testing out the copy on different target audiences.

Measurement of success

Using Google analytics we can easily track the number of visitors to our site – and even determine how many people click on a specific page. This makes tracking the success of the site, and particular sections or pages, very straightforward. The ability to refine and improve content continually is key to keeping the site fresh and maintaining high levels of traffic.

One area in which we invested time and resources was the ability for people to subscribe online to events, newsletters and legal areas of interest. An initial concern had been that subscribers wouldn’t fit our desired target markets but we have been pleased to see a high quality of respondents.

The future

We aim to further embrace new technologies in the coming year, so as to communicate with stakeholders in a variety of imaginative and visual ways. While looking at cutting-edge technology, we will also be expanding the use of video across the site, as well as other methods of promoting the firm online.

Moving away from flash to a more conventional HTML-based site is allowing us to focus our efforts on search engine optimisation. Over the next year we will be implementing strategies to increase our rankings for targeted areas, so as to attract prospective clients who may not have heard of the firm, nor be aware of the wide range of services we offer.

Our desire to integrate our firm-wide promotions and offline material will be influenced by our website design. We will increase the use of e-mail campaigns to promote events and send targeted personalised briefings from various practice groups. By increasing our use of e-mail technology we will provide subscribers with up-to-the-minute information, while increasing traffic to the website. Our e-alerts will be designed in accordance with the new website to carry through a consistent look and feel as the recipient clicks through to the ‘withersworldwide’ site for further information.

We will also be developing the careers section and building a graduate recruitment microsite to utilise new technologies for increased interaction with students. We are currently hosting graduate focus groups to determine what will work best. Research with target audiences is an easy way to ensure you give people what they want, rather than what you think they want.

It is fair to say that the website project was extremely challenging, especially as it involved so many
people from across the firm. As always, careful planning was key. Web development is a constantly evolving journey, but the more you plan in advance, the fewer things are likely to push you off course.
At Withers we have been lucky to work with a very creative web agency, which constantly challenges us to be innovative.

Finally, it is often stated that getting senior management buy-in is vital, but we would argue that it is just as important for them to display real enthusiasm. Every project has its darker days, and having a managing partner to keep things moving along is worth its weight in gold.

Claire O’Connor can be contacted at: claire.o’connor@withersworldwide.com