The Law Offices of Schneider and Stone had a website which was bland, boring and ugly (see third image, right), and it was certainly not competing well on the search engines. I was approached to give a visual face-lift, provide additional functionality to allow easy content editing (CMS), and get their website found on search engines. They were willing to have a paid internet marketing plan, but wanted strong organic ranking, as well.

When I met with the attorneys, I asked what differentiated them from other lawyers in the neighborhood. Most people looking for legal counsel have no idea what to look for in a lawyer, and will likely go with gut instinct. They want someone knowledgeable and assertive, but have no idea how to determine if those traits are present. I was told that what set this law firm apart from others, is the lawyers really take the time and effort to explain things, answer phone calls, and be there for their clients.

My Approach

I started by looking at the competition. First and foremost in this project, was the importance of organic ranking. Since people in general will try to call and see who they're dealing with before hiring an attorney, the number one goal was to be found. I decided it would be near impossible and pointless to try to compete for "greater Chicago area" since there are probably thousands of lawyers to compete with. Instead, we focused very locally, Skokie, Illinois, and will slowly add surrounding suburbs to our campaign. Also, we picked 4 specific practice areas to focus on, as well. A highly localized and focused approach will be much easier to work with, as well as reel in more targeted customers.

The next step was determining the look and feel. Both myself and the client hated the clichéd imagery found on most law firm websites. We hated the gavel, scales, and american flag photos as they say nothing whatsoever about the firm, and mean nothing of importance. We were determined to stay away from that.

Schneider & Stone do a lot of bankruptcy and divorce law, and one can only imagine the stress and anxiety someone going through all that must feel. On top of that, they're looking for someone to trust to help them out. I decided that a great way to make the site feel more approachable would be to use pale blues, yet bring it down to earth with browns and neutrals. A deep red and wide sans-serif (Univers Extended) added the level of authority one wants to see in a lawyer. (I felt Copperplate is too overused for lawyers, and a sans-serif is a bit more modern-looking.)

The slideshow was a nice touch to the home page which has some inviting imagery and clear messaging. Test reactions to this was very positive, and the lawyers are even able to add and delete their own slides using the Drupal back end!

Functionality

The home page has a number of nice features brought to life by Drupal as the content management system. The slideshow is MonoSlideshow powered by Drupal Views to create the XML file. I created a custom block and theme for the Flash movie, and a custom content type for the slides. Adding new slides is as easy as clicking "Create Content > Marketing Slide." Add a title and an image, and there you go! The system automatically resizes and crops the image and adds it to the front page! (See image)

The home page also features a blog feed, which is fresh content the search engines love! There's a block about the law firm at the bottom of the page, and quick links to information about practice areas also help out SEO. I took the standard Drupal contact form, which is normally a separate page, and placed it in a block to encourage new contacts and leads with minimal effort. A testimonial block at the bottom of the page takes a random testimonial (another content type) on page load.

An issue the law firm had with their old site, was there were only two lawyers at the time, but the "meet the lawyers" page had two small thumbnails. Their previous designer wanted to leave things flexible in case they added new attorneys to their practice, but it just looked silly with only 2 on the page. So, instead of thumbnails, and instead of just dumping the content on a regular content page, I created a new content type for attorney profiles. I then used Views to make a custom display and theme. If they want to add a new attorney, they simple add a new content type and it will automatically appear on the page. If the list get's too long, it will only require changing a single theme file for that view, or even just editing the view to display a grid, or something else! Drupal views is awesome.

The client was happy, and the site looks and works great!