Why content matters on your Web site.

• Author: Groner, Jonathan

"Our Firm's success stems from key strengths: client focus, legal skill, depth of people, experience and resources, team orientation, a one-firm organization."

"We provide clients with seamless global support through a structure of strategically placed offices in the U.S. and Europe."

"Our Firm seeks long-term, partnering relationships with clients, to the end of providing the best total solution to the client's legal needs."

"Clients commend our ability to lawyer ahead of the curve when they tackle tough obstacles and pursue challenging opportunities."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Sentences like these are not hard to find in a cursory search of the Web sites of major American law firms (names are omitted to protect the guilty.) But what do they really say, and how do these words help market the firms that wrote them? What would a potential client learn about the law firm that he or she didn't know already? Haven't these firms missed an opportunity to create a great first impression?

Most major law firms have, quite rightly, begun to pay a great deal of attention to the organization of their Web sites, the technology that the sites use and the quality of their graphics. Since in most cases the site is the first thing that a potential client or referral source will look at in the process of selecting a firm, that time and attention are well spent.

In general, however, major firms have not given equal thought to what their sites actually say. And even in a marketing world that often seems to be driven by video, social networking and other hallmarks of Web 2.0, content still matters. A firm that can show on its Web site, that it can use the English language to produce marketing copy that is clear, succinct and persuasive has already taken an important step to differentiate itself from its peers.

Law firm Web sites need not, and probably should not, contain prose that is as compelling as a great mystery novel or as dramatic as a riveting piece of theater. But a Web site, among other things, is a piece of writing that is intended to persuade, and a site should at least do a good job of that. Lawyers know how to write briefs that persuade judges; law firms should know how to write marketing copy that persuades clients.

Here are a few of the common pitfalls.

[1] Web sites contain language that is full of clichs and buzzwords that clients are tired of hearing.

How many law firms are "client-oriented" or rely on "teamwork" or...