Marketing Yourself on the Internet

Includes sidebar: Internet Marketing Do's and Don'ts

The Internet is a wonderful business tool for court reporters. It provides unprecedented research abilities, transcript delivery methods, and more. It can be one of the most productive marketing and advertising tools you'll ever see. It can also be a giant sinkhole into which you pour time and money.

In this article, we'll take a look at what to do online, and more importantly, what not to do.

Your Web site

In a brick-and-mortar environment, the outside of your building is the first thing people see, followed by the lobby and the smiling face at the front desk. On the Internet, your Web site is usually the first impression you make on people. You don't have to make it large, fancy, cutting-edge, nor expensive. You do have to make it look professional.

There are many ways to build inexpensive Web sites, including many ISPs that offer free sites. Many times, these can be worse than not having a site at all. Since it's free, the ISP must find another way to make money, and that usually means putting advertising on your site. Your visitors will find annoying pop-up ads, floating logos, and other distractions, taking their attention away from your message. You'll also have a Web address like www.big-isp.com/users/flyingfingerscsr rather than a plain and easy to remember domain name of your own, like www.flyingfingerscsr.com.

If you're a freelancer or a very small firm, owning your own domain may not be a worthwhile expense. You can consider using a listing on a directory or a shared site to save money. If you want to look like a top-notch professional firm, then you'll want your own domain name. It will probably cost you $300.00 or less per year to establish your own site with your own domain name, not counting site design expenses.

Should you design your own site?

Would you tackle the creation of a four-color glossy brochure for your business? If you were going to run a full-page color ad in the National Law Journal, would you design it yourself? Did you design your own letterhead and business cards? If you answered yes to all of these, then you're probably a candidate for designing a Web site. If not, think very hard before tackling it on your own.

A Web site designed using a template from a "do-it-yourself" program like Microsoft FrontPage usually looks like an amateur built it from a template. These sites often have technical problems and missing pieces as well.

Then there are the technical issues. To be useful, your site must be accessible. That means understanding the technology well enough to build a site that will work for all of your potential customers. Here are some of the considerations you should keep in mind:

• It must be compatible with both Windows and Macintosh systems. It wouldn't hurt to make it work on Unix and Linux (a favorite operating system for geeks), either.
• It must work on at least Internet Explorer and Netscape. Don't forget Opera, the up-and-coming #3 browser, and some of the more specialized browsers.
• It should look good both on low-resolution (640x480) and high-resolution (1024x768 or higher) screens. Let it expand with the screen, rather than producing something that cowers in the corner of a big screen and overflows a small one.

The KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy applies well to designing business Web sites. Flashy animation, dynamic menus, scrolling headlines, and fancy graphics may look good, but an attorney using a dial-up line from his hotel room doesn't want to wait five minutes for your home page to appear. He'll just click "cancel" and look for someone else. Also, many of these bells and whistles don't work on older Web browsers. The aforementioned Microsoft FrontPage is notorious for creating Web pages that don't work properly on Netscape. Of course, pages created in Netscape's tools don't always work on Microsoft browsers, either.

Remember that the purpose of the site is to sell your services. This is no time to be shy. Tell everyone what you do and why you're the best. Provide a list of all your services, with a short description of each one. If you're a freelancer, include a resume or CV. Pictures are optional. If you include a picture of your self or your partners, keep it professional.

If you want to hire someone to design your Web site, ask other people in the business for recommendations. Look at Web sites you like that are similar to what you want. Most sites have a "designed by" logo somewhere on the front page.

You'll be working with three different businesses when you set up a Web site: the site designer, the domain registry, and the host. Sometimes, companies handle more than one of these tasks, but you still need to make sure all three are taken care of.

Designers build the site. They write all the code, design the pages, and determine what the site is going to look like. Then they hand everything off to the hosting company, which owns the computer where all your files reside. The domain registry connects the name you've chosen to the host company's computer.

If you work with lawyers all day, you probably don't need to be told to put together a contract with your Web designer in advance. It doesn't have to be complex, but it should list precisely what you expect, and cover at least the following questions:

• Payment terms (half up front and half on acceptance is typical)
• Who takes the photographs? If they're not digital photos, who scans them?
• Who writes the text for the site? If you're not experienced with marketing prose, it may be best to hire a site designer that is.
• Who pays for the domain name registration? T his is usually an annual fee plus a one-time setup charge.
• If the designer isn't hosting the site, who will work with (and pay) the hosting company?
• Will you allow the site designer to put a "Site designed by" logo on your pages? If so, where? Most companies allow these logos, but require that they be at the bottom of the page, often in a menu bar of some kind. Some allow only text, not logos.

Promoting the Web site

List your Web site in every free directory you can find. And submit it to all of the major search engines. There are companies that will do this for you. They usually have a basic free service that submits your site to 20 or 30 directories and search engines, and then for a fee, you can get hundreds of listings. Usually, the free service is plenty.

Don't get caught in the paid directory trap. As soon as you have a site, you'll start getting solicitations from online yellow pages companies and directories. Everyone from Yahoo to your hometown Chamber of Commerce will hit you up for paid listings. This can be horribly expensive. Decide on just one or two major directories that are worth paying for.

An attorney or a depo firm looking for someone to handle out of town jobs is likely to check a specialty directory like NCRA's Professional Services Locator. It can be worthwhile to spend a few dollars for an enhanced or premier listing in that type of directory. General-purpose directories, on the other hand, are unlikely to get you any business, so accept the free listing and stop there.

Advertising your site rarely pays off. You can spend thousands of dollars buying banner ads around the Internet with no return. When you have some extra money to play with, experiment with advertising, but it certainly isn't something you should do from the beginning.

On the other hand, you should promote the Web site yourself all you can. Make sure your Web address is on every transcript cover, business card, letter, flyer, and envelope that leaves your office.

Getting the most out of email

The single most important piece of advice I can give you about business email is to check it frequently. You should check for email as often as you check your voice mail or answering machine. People expect that when they send you an email, you'll receive it promptly and reply to it.

Make sure your email looks professional. Whoever sets up your Web site for you can set up email addresses at the same time. An email address like "bob@flyingfingerscsr.com" is easier to remember than "bobffc@aol.com," and it won't have to change every time you change Internet providers. You can switch from AOL to CompuServe to MSN to high-speed broadband, and never have to change your business email if you use the email attached to your domain name rather than your ISP's email.

Similarly, put together an appropriate signature block, and set up your email program to attach it to each outgoing email. Include your name, company, telephone number, fax, mailing address, and Web site. It's okay to include a short one-line slogan for your business, but don't go much farther than that.

Many programs allow you to send HTML email, often known as "formatted" or "styled" email. Avoid the temptation to send email with colored backgrounds, fancy fonts, imbedded pictures, and so forth. They load much more slowly, and don't always work on the recipient's computer.

And finally, don't send out spam (unsolicited commercial email). You have probably received dozens of offers to sell you email lists cheaply. If you buy one of these lists, you're going to make thousands of people angry with you. One of them just might be a techie who gets mad enough to hack your Web site, send you a virus, "mail-bomb" you by sending thousands of emails back, or otherwise retaliate for the spam you've sent out. Or, they might just set their email program to automatically delete any further messages from you.

Your marketing efforts should focus on things that attract potential customers, not things that annoy them.

Be visible

This final key is just as true whether you're marketing online or face-to-face. Be visible. Find out where your potential customers hang out online, and be a regular presence there. Join their bulletin boards or message systems. Answer any court reporting questions that are posted. Write articles for their magazines and their Web sites. Post tips. Make sure they see your name (and your Web site address) frequently. But don't overdo it to the point of being a pain in the neck.

With a surprisingly small investment in time and money, you can create an effective marketing presence online, and it will pay off in the future.