New Law Site

Bluefox21

My dads friend was being quoted some crazy figures to get a good website up and running for his law firm. Told him I could do it and this is the product of my struggles.

Hoping to leave a good impression and generate some business so he will give me a traineeship after my degree

www.johnmjoysolicitors.com

Don't focus too much on the content as much of that will be changed. I plan on sitting down with one of the solicitors and uploading some more comprehensive data and staff profiles. Saying that any tips on stuff to include would be really appreciated. He's just looking to get a site which will help bring people to his office and will show up if people google "Clonmel Solicitors" etc. Surprising how there are so few websites up considering the amount of law firms around.

Any tips on how to obtain higher google search results would also be welcomed. Is it worth getting him to pay for google adwords as it is not an e-commerce site?

lil_lisa

On first arriving at the site, I feel like it is a blog more than an actual website. I think the panel on the right hand side gives it that feel. I would consider changing the RSS feed to something else, maybe contact info or quick navigation. Also, I would recommend having a contact email address available.

Regarding the content, I think it would look better if it were centered in the left panel with padding on both sides. Also bear in mind when you meet with the solicitor that you don't always need a lot of text on every page. For different tabs, a couple inspiring/explanatory lines should suffice to let the person know what information is available to them through another link. You don't want to smother the reader in information and I think a lot of time, solicitor websites can feel like that.

I think the key here is to look as appealing and inviting to a prospective client while also getting all the information across.

Also, I like your background image!

Trojan

attached a resized version which is 42kb and 450x405px, same area as current version).

Lisa has some good feedback above, I'd agree with what she's said, particularly about the blog-type appearance.

It looks to me like you used webs.com which is ok but be aware that there are limitations with those kinds of systems, you don't get as much control as you can when you build it up yourself from scratch.

tricky D

The images' filenames also have spaces in them. That's best avoided.

Why so much space above the header and above the footer?

Homepage has no propositions or calls to action.

The rss feed will take users away from your site, you don't really want that even though it opens in a new tab (better to avoid that too).

The typography is very very bland and there's plenty of room here to spice it up and up your SEO game at the same time.

You need more work on locality oriented keywords, more than just Clonmel and Tipp.

Our Team has no team in it! (that's impersonal where being the opposite is expected)

You have a Rates and Specials page which doesn't actually list any rates. Price is fundamental to purchase making decisions, you're indicating that you have a pricelist, then avoid listing them which just annoys users. Don't do that, building up an expectation and then not delivering it. Either have some typical guide prices or omit it altogether. The first consultation free special isn't really very special but despite that, it could be treated much better for impact.

FAQ expected and not provided.

No 404 page.

No case studies, endorsements etc.

Contact and Enquiry pages could be merged.

Use the footer better.

No legal 'stuff'.

Copyright is out-of-date.

flashforward

I'm not going to repeat what others have said but here's just one or 2 more points:

Looking at the shop front the logo of the company is does not match the sites.

Your header banner is very bland, again not helped by the logo. Consider using the style of the shop front:
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2606/bannertest.jpg
No comparison really.

TBH I would restyle the site using the colour scheme of the shop front, strict maroon white and grey and I'd also incorporate graphical elements of it aswel(the curved run off of maroon and grey looks well). Your using multiple shades of maroon and it just doesn't look good.

Bluefox21 wrote: »

My dads friend was being quoted some crazy figures to get a good website up and running for his law firm. Told him I could do it and this is the product of my struggles.

While the site isn't bad it certainly isn't nearly up to the standard of a professional job so I wouldn't try pass it off as that.

That been said I've looked at a few other solicitor websites and none of them look new or fresh:
http://www.gns-solicitors-galway.com/company-formation-solutions-Ireland.asp
http://www.robertsweeneylaw.ie/
http://www.geraghtysolicitors.com/index.html
They all look dated.

Your website will fit in well with these, but if you really want to impress I would seriously consider a redesign.

Best of luck whatever you do!

Bluefox21

Really appreciate all the feedback. Everyone is much more thorough then I expected which is great. Never attempted anything like this before so it is very helpful. You are correct in your assertion that I used webs.com. Wouldn't have known where to start if I was building from scratch tbh! It does limit some of the things I can do in terms of the layout though but it is quite easy to use.

Still playing around with it. I put the side bar in almost just to fill up some space. Going to put a good bit of time into it this weekend and hopefully put all this feedback to good use. As someone mentioned the general standard of solicitors' websites is quite poor so hopefully I can get this one to stand out. All I need is for it to get him even one client

Many thanks again.