LAW FIRM WEBSITE TECHNOLOGY: What Marketers Need to Know.

Powers, Laura

Today's legal marketers need to be able to juggle numerous aspects of advertising, content curation, business development, public relations, digital marketing and firm communications. When it comes to a firm's website, many marketers inherit an existing website, while some have the opportunity to create a new site from the ground up. In either case, the following is insight into website technologies that can serve the strategic objectives of a firm and the needs of target audiences.

The most critical considerations of website technology are the management of content, the website's stability and security, and the user's experience as they navigate information, functions and features.

There are many website technologies available to us as marketers. This article touches on those the legal industry most frequently encounters.

Content Management

Every professional website needs to have an administrative area--a content management system (CMS)--where text and images can be managed. The information contained in this article is applicable only to CMS-enabled websites.

Content management systems vary in size, scope and technological capabilities. Some are simple editing tools that are used as you view the website, and others are separate administrative areas that look entirely different from the public view of the website.

A robust CMS will include the tools needed to implement an integrative online strategy, including tools for SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, new business development, public relations and news management. A CMS will also assist in the distribution of content authoring assignments to various individuals or practice areas if needed. Some solutions will allow the firm to manage workflows, approval chains and permissions within the CMS as well.

Platforms--Stability and Security

If you have never coded a website before, understanding the wide variety of platforms available or managing a site that uses coded pages can seem formidable. Grouping the many variations of available options into compartments, as provided below, can help you understand them more easily.

Open-Source Off-The-Shelf Packages

Joomla and Drupal are two of the most popular platforms that fall into the open-source off-the-shelf category. However, WordPress also falls in this grouping (see sidebar for clarification). Using open-source code, these packages depend on third-party plugins, known as contributed modules, to enhance and extend the core functions of a website and to customize its various features. For example, a WordPress contact form plugin would allow a WordPress website to manage simple or complex contact forms. When websites using these packages are created, developers often depend on these third-party tools. This means they are essentially allowing a group of people (third-party developers) to build the website. Third-party developers may or may not remain dedicated to maintaining their plugins, and this means the plugin's long-term stability is uncertain.

Drupal gained a lot of industry credibility when it was announced that Whitehouse.gov was running on the platform in 2009. This was considered a "big win" for open-source platforms because of the website's high profile. Even so, Drupal is used infrequently when compared to WordPress and Joomla.

WordPress has become a popular platform that is now commonly modified for the development of both small and large law firm websites. Joomla is often considered a cross between WordPress and Drupal.

These platforms all tend to have a high level of vulnerability due to the nature of their openness, which, of course, is the same thing that makes them flexible. Frequent platform updates are provided to fix critical exploitable vulnerabilities. Between January 2014 and September 2014 alone, WordPress released 16 platform updates. Third-party plugin developers need to keep their plugins stable as these platform updates are made available to the public. If they don't, website functionality can be compromised.

Some of the other lesser-known platforms that fall into this category are CMS Made Simple, ImpressCMS and XOOPS.

Proprietary Platforms

A company that builds your law firm's website and does not work in an open-source solution owns the platform on which they have built your site. Their product is proprietary but provides the ability to edit images and content on the website. It is sold only by them, managed, monitored and maintained by them, and no one outside of the provider can upgrade the functionality of the platform.

Proprietary platforms often include a wide variety of options, tiered at different pricing levels, to serve the needs of solo practitioners, 2,000-attorney law firms and everyone in between. This grouping includes websites provided by LexisNexis[R] and FindLaw, as well as solutions marketed to the general public such as Squarespace and Weebly.

Custom-Developed Platforms

Falling between open-source out-of-the-box solutions and proprietary solutions are custom-developed open-source platforms. These solutions are developed specifically to meet the firm's specifications and are owned by the law firm. The firm must work with a partner that builds websites using open-source programming languages to customize the design, content management and functionality.

Flexible in nature, these sites have the potential for unlimited functions and features. Because anything is possible, the development partner must have a certain level of sophistication and experience to build the various functionalities needed. The developer must also maintain a secure and stable platform.

User Experience Design (UXD or UED)

Before you begin coding your website, it is critical to first determine the ways a visitor will navigate and use the website. There is nothing more important for a website than to provide value to its target audiences and ensure they have a satisfying and easy experience.

The design of a law firm's website should always follow a professional's advice for brand integration, the placement and appearance of critical information and the architecture of the website's content. However, the technology used to design the visual layout is not critical. Even a sketch on paper could possibly be used by a good team to build a website; however, experienced design professionals and strategists are recommended.

Other Considerations

Today's websites offer many powerful features and functions. Here are some of the most popular and useful options for legal websites:

* Repositories in the CMS that hold logs of all information sent through the website's contact forms. These logs are easy to reference, sort and export.

* Integration with customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

* Custom-designed and tailored print functionality for branded and formatted website page printing.

* URL fields in the CMS for custom URL page naming suffixes. For the most part, a CMS will give a new page on the website a URL containing a long string of code to reference a database item. These confuse users, are difficult to share and are not optimized for search engines.

* Request for proposal (RFP) and request for information (RFI) management tools within the CMS.

* Document management and access to historical information.

* Alumni and/or client portals.

* Career portal for human resource management.

* Cross-population of content throughout the website's pages, which are controlled and managed through the database.

Website design and the presentation of site information that automatically responds to various screen sizes and devices. This is commonly referred to as responsive design.

* Blog feeds and social media feeds into multiple pages of a website, allowing content to be syndicated within the firm's website.

* Sophisticated whole-site search tools and accompanying search logs. These logs provide immediate insight into what information users are most frequently looking for when they conduct a search within the website.

* Metadata content areas built into the CMS for the addition of unique metadata each time a new page is added to the website and to edit and update older pages. Metadata helps Internet search engines such as Google understand what is relevant on a website page.

* Intranets.

Event registration capabilities built into the front end of the website and managed within the CMS. RSVPs can be sorted, edited and exported easily.

Summary

If you have outlined the objectives for your law firm's website, and you understand the strategy needed to make decisions about technology, you will be able to narrow down the solutions that will work best. Remember the three top issues are content management (make sure to demo each CMS), stability and security (identify the risks and options available) and the user experience (always start by understanding the needs and wants of the firm's audiences).

Jargon

HTML defines a web page's basic structure, and CSS controls the presentation, layout and style; neither of these is technically a programming platform. JavaScript controls the behavior of different interactive and dynamic page elements. Website programming languages that can be simply mixed with HTML code, or can be used in combination with various templating engines (e.g. Drupal, Joomla and WordPress), include PHP, ASP.NET and Perl.

Two Distinct Products: WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Typically, WordPress.com is advantageous for simple blogs. It provides a limited number of stylized themes that can be slightly modified with different colors and images. Plugin installation for enhanced functionality is not allowed, and all updates for security and maintenance are automatic. WordPress.com is free to use--a subdomain is provided (e.g., RealEstateLaw.wordpress.com) and hosting is included.

Sites developed on WordPress.org can be visually modified in any way. The platform allows custom plugins to be installed, and the site owner is responsible for maintaining all updates and upgrades. For WordPress.org websites, you must own a domain name and pay for hosting services.

Open-Source vs. Proprietary Product

The notion of open-source code supports the exchange of knowledge and information between developers. It allows groups of programmers to develop solutions in an open environment, sharing code and improvements to advance the product. When a company or individual develops a software product with code it wants to protect, the product is considered proprietary. It is exclusive property of the developer or company who publishes it and cannot be altered to perform differently.

Function vs. Features

Functions and features work together. For example, if your site uses animation, it is a feature of your website, but it is controlled by the function of an animation script. If you have the feature of contact forms on every page, it is a script that makes the form function.

Laura Powers is CMO of Furia Rubel Communications, an integrated marketing agency that serves the legal industry. Her role involves managing strategic planning, brands, digital marketing, advertising, website development and SEO on behalf of clients.