$2,000 per month for small law firm website?
Just got off the phone with a law firm administrator in a less than 5 person who volunteered they're paying $2,000 a month for a FindLaw website. Because it wasn't generating the work expected, she said the're calling to cancel. It's not the first firm with a pretty nice looking FindLaw site who's contacted me in search of a more effective Internet presence.
There's got to be firms which have had results from these websites, but that's an awful steep monthly charge. Especially, when there is a significant up front charge.
I practiced law for 17 years and spent a ton of money on yellow page ads. I recall a full page ad cost $60,000/year or $5,000/month. Maybe that's the basis for charging thousands of dollars a month for a law firm website. Law firms moving from yellow pages are an easy target because 2k a month looks like a steal.
What do you guys think? Are other firms getting results from these websites? They look pretty good, but is the return on investment there?
About six months ago I made the unfortunate mistake of making a simple inquiry regarding pricing to three of the "top dogs" in that market. I was hounded for weeks, and I do mean hounded. Three to five phone calls a day from each of them! I was asked to pay prices that more resembled extortion than "affordable" advertising. I worked out the numbers as best as I could, given the flurry of theoretical statistics I was given over the phone. The numbers seemed too good to be true, and like my Pop always said "If it seems to good to be true, it probably is!" No matter how hard I tried, I could not locate anyone who was willing to say that it worked for them. Coming from a small town, I just didn't see how it could possibly justify itself. Needless to say, that was my first rookie mistake, and luckily not a costly one, since I turned all of them down.
First, let me apologize for all the recent comments on your blog. I've developed an unhealthy fascination with it.
Finally (yes, i went from first to finally),
Upon starting my own blog, I found that I had to learn a little HTML to alter it. Sure it was time consuming in the beginning, but the learning curve wasn't too steep.
The reason I mention it is because, after doing that, I don't understand why small firms pay tons of money for a web presence. All it takes is one person in the firm, that is a little tech savvy to get it going. Besides, a lot of the stuff on the bigger firm's sites make it difficult to navigate. I don't think anyone enjoys waiting for some opening sequence to load while they desperately look for the little button that says "skip."
Interesting that they hound you Jonathan. I'd be interesting in getting the names of who you describe as the 'big three.' Email if you wish to.
I come from a small town as well. Before leaving the practice of law, I worked in La Crosse, Wisconsin for 17 years. When I found the Internet in 1996, I did a nice website on which I wrote all the content after a design company did the site graphics and layout at a very reasonable price. Not having a clue how to get content to the net, we employed a university marketing student as an intern who learned in less than an hour how to put content on the web. The results were incredible.
We did not have the large legal publishers doing websites back then. The reason was obvious - they published and sold books. How lawyers were stupid enough to allow these guys to claim the mantle of expertise on Internet marketing is incredible.
Unfortunately for the legal publishers, it's all about money. We have X thousand customers and if we achieve a penetration rate of 5% on a new product, we make X million dollars in incremental sales. The focus is not on value to lawyers. In fact, the publishers are blessed with lawyer ignorance, otherwise the lawyers would know they are getting hoodwinked.