Last year you may remember me writing about a project I worked on redesigning and launching a new website for our flagship periodical, ABA Journal. It was just announced that the ABA Journal website has become a finalist in the Law category of the People's Voice section of the Webby Awards (an online award for websites). So spend a little time, vote for the ABA Journal and help us win a Webby! Winners are announced on May 6th. Recently in Web Design Category
Last year you may remember me writing about a project I worked on redesigning and launching a new website for our flagship periodical, ABA Journal. It was just announced that the ABA Journal website has become a finalist in the Law category of the People's Voice section of the Webby Awards (an online award for websites). So spend a little time, vote for the ABA Journal and help us win a Webby! Winners are announced on May 6th. 
This morning the ABA Journal launched a brand new website that fills a void in the legal news space that will be tough to beat. Summarizing 25 to 50 legal news items a day (RSS Feed), the Journal aggregates the legal news world in one spot. In addition to legal news, the Journal editorializes what is the "most important" legal news you need to be aware of by highlighting "Top Stories" (RSS Feed). Not stopping there, the new site brings their print edition online with full access to the current issue as well as archives back to 2005 (with plans to go even further). Finally, the Journal has a blawg (legal blog) directory which currently has over 1000 blogs categorized and more are added daily.
These are just a few of the highlights. In reality, there is a lot behind this redesign that is cool. Some of the "not so obvious" secrets include:
The Slider - an interactive sliding bar similar to what you would see on Time.com or Washington Post.com. It will highlight special features and parts of the monthly magazine.
Advanced Search - Most advanced search boxes take you to a separate page with new fields to check off for narrowed searches. Not this site! Click "Advanced Search" and get an AJAX slider presenting you with some new options for you to narrow your results.
Action Bar - Get directly to comments, Share/E-mail uses a similar AJAX slider feature, Permalink, and Print.
Commenting - Add your opinion to our posts and magazine stories. Comments will be open for 7 days past news items and 30 days past magazine articles. Name and email required as well as filling out a CAPTCHA and agreeing to some terms/disclaimer.
Mobile Edition - Stay up-to-date on the most recent posts with your smartphone. Be sure to bookmark http://mobile.abajournal.com.
This site was a large undertaking and in reality went from memo to launch in just about five months. This was very aggressive when you think about all the decisions that need to be made from functionality, to wireframing, selecting vendors to work with, design/comp, filling with content, beta-testing, fixing bugs, training, and launch. My work with the Journal was specific to translating business goals and functionality into working documents for vendors, developing some beta templates, and providing training on specific functionality and business processes.
The great thing about the web and a website like this is that it is never really "done" and believe me when I say that this site will continue to improve with new features, functionality, and reasons to visit on a regular basis. So bookmark the site (www.abajournal.com), sign up for a newsletter or grab an RSS feed or two and be sure to keep tabs on this site.
On a personal note, congrats to the ABA Journal (specifically to Ed, Molly, Deb, Martha, and Sarah) on a job well done.
Update:
A few other aspects I forgot to point out about the new ABA Journal website:
Daily and Weekly Newsletters & RSS Feeds - Pick your poison, get news via RSS feeds for top stories and daily news, or subscribe to the daily and weekly email newsletters. Daily will recap the last day's worth of content; weekly will cover the top ten posts of the week.
Tag Cloud - Having your topics sorted in alpha order is nice, seeing a tag cloud is better! See how many entries we have pertaining to a topic on the Topics page and on the Tag Cloud tab. Categories are alpha left to right and are weighted against the number of items in each category based on the news items and the magazine content.
Other opinions:
Read some other opinions of the new site:Denise Howell @ Bag and Baggage
Dennis Kennedy @ DennisKennedy.blog [Note: Dennis and I are friends as well as having previously worked together at the ABA, so this one is a little "slanted" in my favor. ]
Eric Turkewitz @ New York Personal Injury Law Blog
Ernie "the attorney" Svenson @ Ernie the Attorney
Mark Obbie @ The Carnegie Legal Reporting Program at Newhouse Blog
For one day, in the advocacy of using proper Web Standards, I've gone Naked today. The regular design will be back tomorrow. Back to regular posting hopefully soon too.
Lots of stuff happening in the Web world lately, but two to note on is that del.icio.us updated their homepage today to include more search options and added thumbnails of the "Hot Now" bookmarks. Pretty cool stuff. Their homepage was updated not too long ago to a much improvement in design and layout. This just continues the trend of great things from del.icio.us with Yahoo! funding. Oh, and a side note is that del.icio.us also has contextual ads now too.
Google opened up the doors on Google Analytics yesterday. I've had a Google Analytics account for a while and found it very useful. I've debated using other types of sources, but my Web host doesn't provide the greatest package out of the box, and I'm not willing to spend the money yet to get something more robust. GA seems to fill the bill for now. Of course I want other features to be added that can help me determine key information about my visitors, but what do you expect from something that is free. Still worth having, so go get your account today.
Recently Google acquired Writely also opened up its doors today for new registrations. The online collaboration tool that allows multiple users to write on a singe document and then export out to RTF or DOC for free is an indispensable tool for those who are not in the same organization who are working on the same document, let alone hate the problems of swapping files in email. This centrally located tool was indispensable for me when working on a recent article with multiple contributors. If you haven't checked it out, you should.
Via: Lifehacker
Larry Bodine reports that some of the clients he is working with are just not getting it right when it comes to their Web sites. In fact, he says 80% of the traffic for his one example came from internal traffic! I've mentioned before here that you must look at your Web site traffic to see where your problem spots are. To review, check out my April 2006 article from LLRX on Is Your Web Site Successful? Tips and Techniques to Get More Out Of Your Web Site.
If you want to learn more about building valuable Web sites, come see me on August 28, 2006 at the Hyatt Regency at the National Business Seminars Internet Strategies for Legal Professionals where I will be discussing Basic Considerations for Marketing Your Firm on the Net which will include a lot about your firm's Web site.
The following are my top five reasons why your Web site will ultimately be unsucessful and be useless stagnant bits and bytes on the Internet.
5. The IS department is in charge of design and content creation/publishing.
The IS department does not know your content better than you, the content contributor. Unless you have a very specific workflow that facilitates the content creation process and how it interacts with your IS dept. for publishing, it will never work.
4. Your content is "brochure-ware", static and stale.
Have you ever heard this in your office?
"Hey Bob, let's just put our brochure up as content on our web site. It is the same marketing copy we would use anyway, so why re-invent the wheel."
This conversation should never happen. If it does, please..PLEASE say "no" and make sure your content for your web site is written for the Web (yes, there is a difference) and it is reviewed on a regular basis if not changes on a regular basis.
3. The majority of your senior managers and middle managers don't "get it" when it comes to the web.
Your management sees the Web site as a something that you "had" to do to keep up with the Jones', but never saw the value in it and will not put more resources to improving it.
2. You have decentralized content creation without standards and rules.
Can you say Silence of the Lambs? Wild, rabid kids without any supervision will fend for themselves which gives you a fractured, inconsistent mess for your visitors to wade through to find the content they are really looking for. Without explicit standards and business rules, decentralized content control and creation can become unruley and very difficult to manage globally.
1. You don't understand your audience and how they interact wit your brand and company.
Rule number 1: Know thy audience and thy will strive. If you don't know who you are providing content/services to how can you build something they will use or come to?
Fellow BlawgThink attendee Michelle Golden has some great tips on phrases not to put on your firm's Web site. Phrases inclue:
- Collectively, we have 2,864 years of experience
- We're large enough to...yet we're small enough to
- We partner with you
There are more as well. One of the common themes with these phrases is that they are of the "we" mentality when in reality to get the best bang for your Web site marketing copy buck is to use phrases that indicate how your firm can help "them" or the visitor. So use phrases like:
XXX can help guilde you through the divorce process....
Michelle also gives a great list of proactive words that avoid the "we" mentality. Remember, content is king and content that engages your visitors to feel comfortable with your company and interact with you is even better.
Rachel Andrew reviews a first look at Microsoft's upcoming FrontPage replacement Expression Web Designer over at Vitamin. The review compares EWD to DW8. Interesting review if you are not a hard-core hand-coder.
Justia's blog has some good tips on how to improve your law firm's Web site. I think these tips go beyond the law firm (as many good Web design tips do) and can be applied to any professional services firm. My favorites:
Skip the skip button. I've got a news flash, Flash intros, while cool, are not great openers to your Web site. Lose them or lose business.
Discover your visitors deepest desires. Gotta look at stats. It is the only way you get to know your visitors. See related post I wrote on Web statistics.
Link properly to other web pages. This is really a key usability thing. Nobody wants to see broken design due to long, dynamic links let alone think they have to retype them back out. Use the words as the link. Much, much better.
[Tips via Larry Bodine]
Web design can be tricky. There are definitely some standard practices that we know work. The best practice though is to continue to analyze what your visitors do on your Web site and make proper adjustments. Getting a good statistics package is very key. Don't be affraid to hire an outside consultant to do an audit on your Web site if you are stuck. Sometimes outside eyes can give you a fresh approach to converting visitors to customers.
I'll be speaking on a panel this fall on Web sites for legal professionals at Internet Strategies for Legal Professionals hosted by National Business Institute Seminars. Here are the details as of now.
I'll be speaking on:
Basic Considerations for Marketing Your Firm on the Net
A. The Elements of a Valuable Web Site
B. Getting Started - Maknig a Plan
1. Selecting a Hosting Company
2. Creating a URL
3. Cost-Effective and Free Means of Attracting Visitors
4. Creating Email Addresses
C. How to Get Visitors Active on Your Site
D. Your Firm's RSS Feeds, Blogs, and Podcasts
Internet Strategies for Legal Professionals
August 28, 2006
Chicago, IL
9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.