LAW FIRM WEBSITE TECHNOLOGY: What Marketers Need to Know.

• Author: Powers, Laura

Today's legal marketers need to be able to juggle numerous aspects of advertising, content curation, business development, public relations, digital marketing and firm communications. When it comes to a firm's website, many marketers inherit an existing website, while some have the opportunity to create a new site from the ground up. In either case, the following is insight into website technologies that can serve the strategic objectives of a firm and the needs of target audiences.

The most critical considerations of website technology are the management of content, the website's stability and security, and the user's experience as they navigate information, functions and features.

There are many website technologies available to us as marketers. This article touches on those the legal industry most frequently encounters.

Content Management

Every professional website needs to have an administrative area--a content management system (CMS)--where text and images can be managed. The information contained in this article is applicable only to CMS-enabled websites.

Content management systems vary in size, scope and technological capabilities. Some are simple editing tools that are used as you view the website, and others are separate administrative areas that look entirely different from the public view of the website.

A robust CMS will include the tools needed to implement an integrative online strategy, including tools for SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, new business development, public relations and news management. A CMS will also assist in the distribution of content authoring assignments to various individuals or practice areas if needed. Some solutions will allow the firm to manage workflows, approval chains and permissions within the CMS as well.

Platforms--Stability and Security

If you have never coded a website before, understanding the wide variety of platforms available or managing a site that uses coded pages can seem formidable. Grouping the many variations of available options into compartments, as provided below, can help you understand them more easily.

Open-Source Off-The-Shelf Packages

Joomla and Drupal are two of the most popular platforms that fall into the open-source off-the-shelf category. However, WordPress also falls in this grouping (see sidebar for clarification). Using open-source code, these packages depend on third-party plugins, known as contributed modules, to enhance and extend the core functions...