Legal Websites in Pennsylvania:
This week I looked at all of the websites in the Keystone State. FindLaw like always is the runaway leader with 330 legal websites in the State. That includes 191 custom websites and 139 templates. Wow! I no longer feel bad about taking over 4 sites from FindLaw in 2017. In PA their strength is family law, with several well performing and great looking sites in the suburbs. Hibu comes in a strong 2nd place with 194 Pennsylvania sites sporting their logo. This includes 14 Hibu sites in Reading alone. Scorpion is also very strong in the State with 52 websites that have their logo.
GetLegal, a legal SEO company out of Dallas TX, has a surprising number of sites in PA with 14. This is likely because of Greg Sutphin, their VP of sales, lives in the area and is an excellent relationship builder. Paperstreet, one of the best legal design firms in the business has 16 sites in Pennsylvania and has several sites featured below. In terms of retention, FindLaw struggled in retaining personal injury websites sites in the two main metros, losing 6 PI sites in Pittsburgh and 4 PI sites in Philadelphia. Foster Web Marketing maintains 6 sites in the State but lost 4 in 2017. Not a great retention rate
The best SEO opportunity appears to be Philadelphia divorce law. With my database I am constantly evaluating rankings in various markets and practice areas. Whereas criminal and PI are crazy competitive in Philly and Pittsburgh, family law in Philadelphia is decidedly less so. While we use sophisticated SEO tools to gauge competition, I can also look at the sites and companies that are ranking. For example their is an SEO company that has a site that is ranking on the first page for some family law terms with a very low ARC. This means that throughout the country that SEO company struggles to get consistent rankings for most of their clients.
There are are a number of Local companies in Pennsylvania that primarily market to lawyers or maintain a lot of legal websites:
LISI: This Philadelphia agency has a number of website clients throughout the State. They seem to specialize in building sharp looking professional sites for midsize and corporate law firms. The “measurably better” conceptual design for Margolis Edelstein provides a great example of their excellent design work. I count 18 legal sites in Pennsylvania that bear their logo.
Legal inSites: An upstart legal SEO/Design shop out of Williamsport. They were co-founded by a Louisville PI attorney, so most of their clients are in Kentucky. They build very nice looking sites and are also very good at SEO. Despite being located in Williamsport, they have no clients yet in Pennsylvania.
Majux: They took over Reiff & Beilly from iLawyermarketing in 2012, after they were in the top 3-5 in Google. That site has since dropped but they definitely leveraged that ranking to pick up a number of sites around the country. They claim to be exclusive only working with one lawyer in a market/practice area, but I know for a fact that they were secretly working with another Philadelphia injury lawyer recently. Shady! They do write very good content, but their offsite SEO approach is questionable – here is an example of them using their own client’s website to build links to their other sites. http://www.mcnultytaxlaw.com/resources/ This is the definition of a link network and is clearly against Google’s guidelines. Their best SEO result in PA belongs to Schmidt Kirifides & Rassias who ranks well for workers compensation in Philadelphia. They also have a top ranking criminal site in Philadelphia, but that site, was already #1 for many years with Scorpion.
Epic Web Studios: Not to be confused with Epic Web Results (Colorado) or Epic Web Solutions (AZ), Epic Web Solutions is based in Erie, PA. They have built 7 custom websites for lawyers in Erie, PA including one of the better performing criminal law sites there. They also built the Erie Bar Association website.
Best Legal Sites in Philadelphia:
As of 3/6/2018 here are my favorite sites in Pennsylvania. In December of 2014 I actually analyzed the best looking sites in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. This time I looked at every legal website in the entire site. I have highlighted 20 of the best sites but three really stand out:
- Anapol Weiss: (iLawyermarketing) Beautiful looking site with fantastic video running in the background. Also features some incredible content pieces like this.
- Klenk Law: This site from Paperstreet is easily one of the best estate planning websites in the country. Awesome site with great photography of the attorney and his dog chillin at whats looks to be Rittenhouse Square.
- The Beasley Firm (Scorpion) – This is the best of a number of great Scorpion sites in the State. One of the highlights is an article about the legendary founder Jim Beasley –
Honorable Mention
Schrom, Shaffer & Botel – (Media) – Good looking site that does a really nice job of maximizing content on the home page
Dallas Hartman (New Castle) – A sharp looking PI site that was released by ilawyermarketing in 2017. It gets points for its metoeric rise in Pittsburgh Accident rankings.
Fienman Defense (Philadelphia) – Postali did a great job here and with their Pittsburgh criminal client. While released several years ago, both website designs hold up and continue to rank very well.
Zlock & Coverdale (Langhorne) – My favorite family law design in the State.
Golomb & Honik (Philadelphia) One of several awesome Scorpion PI sites released in 2016.
Berger Lagnese (Pittsburgh) – Nice effort from Next Level, who released seven sites in the Pittsbugh/Erie area last year alone. Next Level is the the Johnny Cash of legal websites. Black is the dominant color on their own site along with most of their lawyer sites:
Powell Trachtman (King of Prussia) – What a cool concept for a corporate firm, a background video of someone solving a Rubik’s Cube.
Rattner Prestia (King of Prussia) – Very slick modern site for an Intellectual property firm in the Philly suburbs. Great use of a hamburger navigation menu – which helps create a very clean look.
Lyons Dougherty (Chadds Ford) – Beautiful business law website from Paperstreet.
Jason Dunkle (State College) – Great looking criminal site in State College. Great feature is the elegant layout of the FAQs on the home page.
Chaffin Luhana (Pittsburgh) The only site from my 2014 analysis to make the cut. Thanks to incredible content like this table saw page, this site really holds up.
Rosenbaum & Associates (Philadelphia) The Philly firm with a leading web presence for personal injury, launched a beautiful new medical malpractice site in 2017
Robert Pierce and Associates (Pittsburgh) – New Scorpion site released in 2018, took over from FindLaw.
Purchase George & Murphey (Erie) – Best looking site in Erie.
Gardner Law Office (Bethlehem) – Very nice family law site with eye catching imagery of families. One of several really nice FindLaw family sites in the State.
Best Small Town Site:
Ginn & Vickery (Wellsboro Pop: 3,275) beautiful personal injury site from Paperstreet. Who said you have to be in a major metro to have a beautiful legal website.
Most in Need of a Redesign
Today I point out sites with old and outdated FindLaw templates like McDonald Snyder in Latrobe or Furey & Baldassari in Norristown or Education Law Advocates PC or Jeff Rosenfeld in State College. Now to be fair these sites, while outdated, still present a professional image. However, if you are paying an ongoing FindLaw subscription you might as well take advantage of their newer template designs. FindLaw has really stepped up their game in terms of template designs. For example check out the website of the Lamonica Law Firm in Scranton or Hampton & McCreary in Pottstown. These templates are an order of magnitude better than their older models. For one the newer models take advantage of the full width of most modern desktop screens. The newer sites are also much more user friendly and easier to read. Take this example below. Older FindLaw templates held to the, now obsolete, theory that everything had to be stuffed “above the fold” , which makes the content very hard to read.
Here is a newer FindLaw template that uses the full Screen. Like most modern designs, the long form style is a byproduct of research that shows how internet users expect to scroll down the page when browsing a website.
Now I am not sure if they have changed their policy, but when I was at FindLaw, switching into a newer template design did not incur an additional cost unless you were upgrading the level of the template. Anyone who is using a FindLaw template from 3+ years ago should definitely schedule a meeting with their local Findlaw rep. Or if you are tired of paying the annual subscription, consider buying a professional looking template from another company. For example in Pennsylvania iLawyermarketing has a client using one of their templates: www.pacriminalappealslawyer.com.
Looking to Upgrade Your Pennsylvania Website?
If so call me. 480-889-4216. I can guarantee you I have probably already looked at your site. Since I track well over 10,000 legal websites, even if your firm is not a good fit for iLawyermarketing, I can help you find a good fit based on your needs and budget. Whether its a website redesign, SEO or PPC I would love to chat.