During the course of my consulting work with lawyers and other small business service providers, an issue that often comes up has to do with how many web sites or blogs should the business owner maintain. My response: as many as you can maintain.
In my view, the Internet functions as a research tool. This is especially true if you are offering professional services. People go to Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. to learn about a particular topic, not necessarily to choose a vendor or to buy that service right now.
Contrast this to the visitor dynamic in the yellow pages. Yellow page browsers are not researchers. They know that they will not find extensive information about a topic. Yellow page buyers tend to be visual people who will respond to large, dramatic ads. This is why in the lawyer market, yellow page ads work well for practice areas like personal injury, DUI, uncontested divorce and bankruptcy. A significant percentage of buyers for these services are looking for any reason to make a buying decision – price, location, immediacy, social proof.
Internet browsers generally look for more detail. I have had a great deal of success with my bankruptcy sites because I offer extensive information. The people that respond to my bankruptcy web sites tend to be better educated, have more complex situations, and are less price conscious. I have had much less success with personal injury web sites because most people involved in soft tissue auto accidents are looking for quick settlements and they do not perceive that there is much difference between Lawyer A and Lawyer B.
Therefore, before I will agree to work with a lawyer, I have a long discussion with him/her about his market – are his clients people who are looking to research? If so, I will give those clients more information than any other competitor in the market, and my client will dominate this “researcher” part of his market. I use blogs, podcasts, web sites, wikis, forums – whatever makes sense for the particular market.
Fortunately, the search engines also like extensive, relevant content. So, in the ideal scenario, I can map out a multi-site approach that will please both the search engines and the client/researcher and, as a result, keep my client extremely busy with new business.
