For the third year in a row, the Techshow will host a competition between up and coming legal tech start-ups, where they’ll have 3 minutes to pitch their companies, and then be judged by event attendees. The pitch competition, organized by attorney, writer and legal technologist, Robert Ambrogi through his lawsitesblog.com website, started with a large number of companies being submitted to his site as possible contenders. From all of those entries, judges narrowed the field down to their top 25. From there, the final 15 to participate in the pitch competition we’re selected by popular vote through the website.

We’re proud to announce that the attorney timeline software created by Law Father, TrialLine, was selected as one of the winners and is heading to Chicago for the Techshow. As winners, TrialLine will not only be able to participate in the pitch competition, but will also have a table in the exhibit hall in the Techshow’s Start-Up Alley Pavilion.

For more information and tickets, check out Techshow.com. And if you end up making it to Chicago, stop by to introduce yourself and get a demo of what TrialLine can do.

TrialLine: Litigation Timeline Software

TrialLine is an immersive timeline creation tool for lawyers, attorneys and law firms of all sizes, that enables them to clearly and efficiently communicate the important details of a case. A cloud-based tool with an available desktop version, TrialLine makes it easy for attorneys to work on their cases from anywhere they have an internet connection, and on any device. Since all of the files important to the case are securely stored online, they’re always accessible. TrialLine also makes collaboration a breeze. Work with expert witnesses, staff members and other attorneys anywhere they may be.

Contact Law Father Today

At Law Father, we’re passionate about increasing access to the law for everyone, and we’re dedicated to helping attorneys increase their caseload. We have a decade of experience making beautiful and modern, conversion driven websites that highlight what makes a particular firm stand out from the crowd, running effective and efficient PPC and social media marketing campaigns, and helping attorneys win in the courtroom with our trial support expertise, and much more. Call Law Father today at (800) 325-7715 or fill out the contact form on this page to learn how we can help you.

The post TrialLine Chosen for ABA Techshow Start-Up Alley Pitch Competition appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

Visuals are more important than ever to the way we communicate, and since TrialLine is highly customizable, you can tailor your timeline to whatever your visual needs may be. You can set a captivating, informative image or video as the background for your timeline, and you can assign specific images to each individual event.

TrialLine also allows you to attach specific documents to each event, which makes it easy to provide supporting documentation as needed. For maximum impact, you can also attach video files that can be played right there in the TrialLine, so there’s no time spent waiting as your browser navigates to a URL on YouTube or Vimeo.

As an example, took at look at this TrialLine we created based on an article by Slate.com’s editor Jeremy Stahl, in which he lays out all of the different times members of the Trump administration have denied any collusion with Russia:

News timeline made using TrialLine, based on an original article by Jeremy Stahl from Slate.com.

Try TrialLine Today

TrialLine is a powerful storytelling tool, and timeline solution for anyone that needs to communicate information clearly, and engagingly, about events occurring along a timeline. It is completely web-based, and can be accessed and shared through any internet connection on any device. Sign up now to try it FREE FOR 30 DAYS!

The post TrialLine Used in a News Reporting Context appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

Law Father provided a soft launch of TrialLine V1 in January ’17 – extending the product to current clients and associates. In March, TrialLine was opened to the public. Since then, TrialLine has grown 10x over earlier predictions. “That public launch was very exciting,” said Travis Luther, President of Law Father. “TrialLine is something we had been working on and talking about for two years. It was just tremendous to see attorneys paying for the software and to hear about the difference it was making in mediations and trials.” Based on feedback accumulated from the soft launch of V1, TrialLine announced the V2 update on September 1^st.

TrialLine V2 has some impressive new features, including an expanded timeline view for minute-by-minute event stacking and a full screen presentation mode that makes TrialLine even better in trial. “The attorneys we talked to wanted to use TrialLine for openings and closings,” Luther points out. “So we redesigned the presentation slide with more layout flexibility and a sharper, more stylized look.”

Learn More About TrialLine: The Best Timeline Software for Lawyers

TrialLine is not without competitors, and Luther admits there remain challenges ahead. “We have to assure lawyers who currently use programs like LexisNexis’s TimeMap that learning a new timeline program will be worth the reward.” Luther is confident that TrialLine will pay financial rewards to attorneys who buy in. “Trial lawyers know that successful cases are won with successful storytelling. If you look at TrialLine against our competitors, you can clearly see that our software tells a much more compelling story to mediators and jurors. This is especially true when opposing counsel refuses to use any kind of storytelling technology.” Luther adds that, as far as he knows, TrialLine is the only cloud-based mediation, trial presentation and storytelling timeline tool available to law firms. “I don’t see any other legal timeline software on the market that has the ease of use that TrialLine has. You can work on TrialLine from anywhere in the world, on any device. TimeMap doesn’t even work on a Mac.”

Try a Free Trial of TrialLine Today

Law firms interested in trying TrialLine can sign-up for a 7-day free trial at trialline.net. After that, it’s just $9.99 per month per case. TrialLine also creates invoices on a case-per-case basis, allowing law firms to bill TrialLine charges to individual client accounts.

The post Law Father Launches TrialLine 2.0 – Legal Timeline Software for the Future appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

When you enter a URL into PageSpeed Insights, Google’s bot hits it and records how long it takes specific elements to load. Google then catalogs which elements of the webpage are causing delays. At the conclusion of the PageSpeed test, Google returns a score for both the mobile and desktop site. They then make recommendations on areas that could be improved. Scores range from 0-100, with anything over 90 considered “Good” (the top rating).

Some of the PageSpeed recommendations are easy to correct, such as resizing images. Others are a little more difficult, such as CSS adjustments and JavaSript updates. These types of fixes will most likely require a skilled programmer who can repair your site without breaking other areas of the code or functions.

In addition to creating a good user experience, having a fast performing site can move your site higher in the search returns. Google refers to this as the “page speed ranking factor.” When the Google algorithm examines two very similar sites, it must determine on which site would a person have a better experience? If site A has similar content to site B, but has technical problems and takes a long time to load, Google is likely to reward site B and rank it higher than site A. Google’s motivation is simple: keep people using Google and don’t give them any reason to switch to Yahoo or Bing. If Google continuously sends their users to technically strenuous sites, they will eventually lose those users to search engines that can present better search returns. The more technically unsound your website is, the more likely it is to be buried deep in the search returns.

Further, while Google has been slowly incorporating PageSpeed load times as a ranking factor since 2010, it has only been in the last six months that the “page speed ranking factor” has been applied to ranking mobile sites.

If you are unaware, mobile phone searches now make up nearly 60% of all Internet searches. Google has already adjusted to this trend by ranking technically sound mobile websites above traditional websites when users conduct their Google searches on mobile phones. What you need to know is that if your potential client is looking for a lawyer on her iPhone and your website is not optimized for mobile viewing, she is less likely to find your website than she is a competitor’s mobile website that Google has rated as “Good”. However, if she searches from her desktop computer, and your website is optimized for desktop browsing, she’s likely to receive a different search return from Google, one showing sites that perform well on desktop computers, and perhaps more likely to find your site. But since we now know that mobile search exceeds desktop search, it is equally important that both your sites be as technically sound as possible.

If you have run your law firm’s website through the PageSpeed Insights analysis and are concerned about your scores, Law Father can help. We can examine Google’s technical assessment and create a plan to make the necessary repairs and adjustments. In most cases, this work can be completed in 3-4 days. Once completed, we will then send a re-crawel request to Google, asking them to re-evaluate your law firm’s website and update your website’s PageSpeed score. This work can help improve your page speed ranking factor and your position in Google’s organic search returns. To schedule a PageSpeed update, call 800.325.7715 or fill out the contact form on http://www.lawfather.net.

*As an interesting side note, I ran Google.com through Google’s own PageSpeed analysis and found that Google’s mobile site has a few issues of its own =)

The post Page Speed Load Times and Google Search Engine Ranking appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

Check out the full interview.

The post LawFather President Interviewed on Entrepreneur on Fire appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

Trial is coming up.   Your case file contains hundreds of pages of documents and thousand of facts.   It is an overwhelming amount of information to organize and present. A case timeline is the perfect vehicle to organize this information. But, where do you start? TrialLine knows that your case timeline does not start with the design. Your case timeline starts with the facts.

If your case timeline is going to help you present your case to a jury, then you better get used to writing your facts like you post to Twitter: with as few characters as possible.

Here are some bullet points to keep in mind as you create your case timeline:

• Your facts are your headlines.
• They need to be short and sweet.
• The reader MUST be able to understand them without help from you.
• Twitter allows for 140 characters.
• Twitter believes character constraints inspire creativity.
• Google allows for 60 characters.
• Google believes 60 characters are readable and clean.
• Constraints are great for trial.
• Too much info makes it harder to decide.
• This blog was written with constraints.
• You read the whole thing.
• Consider TrialLine.

The post Create the Best Case Timeline for Your Trial appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

How do you know if you are choosing the best law firm SEO company? For many attorneys,  understanding search engine optimization is not one of the primary functions of practicing ‘good law’. This is because most attorneys will tell you that they would much rather be focused on case development than online marketing. Focusing on the law and not the marketing means that law firms working to generate more clients from the internet will have to put their faith and online marketing dollars in the hands of professional search engine optimization companies. But faith and money should never be enough. Do not hire an SEO company based on faith alone. Due your due diligence and take into account the following variables as you work toward hiring the best law firm SEO company you can find. Print this page and use it as a check-list as you interview potential legal SEO companies. (Note: This list is no way intended to cover the over 200 variables search engines use to rank your legal website.  It is a tool for you to use to make sure the SEO company you are considering hiring is prioritizing your SEO plan appropriately and is covering with you all of the most pressing search engine optimization concerns).

On-Page SEO:

_____ This law firm SEO company is familiar with my current design platform and content management system (i.e. HTML 5, WordPress, PHP) and has the technical expertise needed to make updates and additions.

_____ I do not have a website, but this company is proposing a site design and content development plan that creates a domain, email server, website, and original content wholly owned by me and always within my control.

_____ This SEO company has started by evaluating by current site for technical integrity, making sure my current content is being appropriately indexed by the search engines.

_____ This company understands the relationship between my chosen keywords, my content, and my meta-data. They can make recommendations or improvements to help me rank higher for my specific keywords.

_____ This company has legal related media available (photos, videos, illustrations, etc.) for my individual web pages to help improve a user’s experience and keep a user engaged with my website longer.

_____ This company understands that mobile searches now make up over 50% of all searches. The company will provide a mobile, tablet, and desktop scaling for my site.

_____ This company is conversion oriented and has design ideas on how to get more people who find my website to make contact with my law firm.

Competitive Analysis:

_____ This law firm SEO company clearly understands the kinds of cases I want to generate and the common keywords internet searchers use to find a law firm like mine online.

_____ This company clearly understands the specific geography I wish to target.

_____ This company is able to quickly identify my online competitors and name similar law firm’s I am familiar with online.

_____ This company is able to quickly make a surface assessment of my online competitors, providing me with competitors’ page rank, number of content pages, frequency of website updates, and back link profiles.

_____ Rather than quoting me general ‘package’ pricing, this company recommends a budget that is related to my law firm’s goals for growth and the current online competition within my practice areas and geography.

_____ This company has not promised overnight success. They have set realistic, longer-term expectations for a successful search engine optimization program.

_____ This company limits the number of clients they take in a specific practice area and geography. They increase my competitive advantage by decreasing the chance that I will have to compete with their other law firm SEO clients online.

Off-Page SEO:

_____ The blogs, articles, and back links placed on my behalf will be permanent. This material will not be lost or removed when my monthly SEO contract expires.

_____ The company understands what a “back link profile” is and can demonstrate the ability to place high-quality, relevant back links on my behalf while minimizing the risk of a creating a poor link profile.

_____ The company can demonstrate it’s knowledge of relevant social networks and articulate a  plan for engaging consumers and increasing my website’s page rank through a social networking program.

_____ The company understands what “universal search” is and can provide relevant media that can give me multiple opportunities to be found for a single search in the search engines.

We hope this check-list serves as a valuable tool as you find the best law firm SEO company for your practice. As you work towards hiring a search engine optimization team, we would like you to consider an interview with Law Father. We will provide you a free website evaluation and provide you samples of our work. Just call us at (800) 325-7715 or email us through the contact form to the left of this page.

Law Father is a data-driven attorney SEO firm with proven results. Our mission is to quickly grow your law firm through quality leads generated through the internet.

The post Choosing the Best Law Firm SEO Company | Law Father Report appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

The first was in the ‘Visual Effects’ category for a video we recently did for Denver personal injury attorneys Fuicelli & Lee, P.C. The original concept for the video came from Law Father President, Travis Luther: “The work we do at Law Father is meant to combat the negative stereotypes often associated with lawyers. I believe that attorneys stand at the forefront of protecting our consumer rights. Law Father’s focus is to help them do that important work”.

You can see the award-winning video right here:

The second award was in the ‘Public Service and Activism’ category for the ‘Be Aware‘ bike safety program we recently organized, also for Fuicelli & Lee. We made yard signs urging drivers to keep watch for bicyclists and pedestrians, and made them available for free at some friendly neighborhood bike shops (Listed below). For every 15 signs picked up by concerned citizens, Fuicelli & Lee donated one bike to Project ReCycle, a great non-profit that works to get bikes into the hands of deserving kids. It was a very successful campaign, with 20 bikes going to Project ReCycle.

Check out the video we created for the campaign:

Many thanks to our friends at Fuicelli & Lee for being great people to work with, and many thanks to the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts for acknowledging our work.

And a big thank you to our other great partners on the Be Aware campaign:

Project ReCycle

Treads Bicycle Outfitters

Pedal of Littleton

Golden Bear Bikes

Cycleton

Green Mountain Sports

Contact Law Father Today

If you’re law firm is looking to give back to the community it serves, Law Father can help you do it. Contact us today, and let us help you make a difference. Call us at 800-325-7715, or fill out the contact form on our website.

The post Law Father Wins Two W3 Silver Awards appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

If your website is still not mobile responsive – you are losing valuable client leads each and every day. When a potential client accesses your current website from a cell phone, are they presented with an abbreviated mobile app, lacking any significant message about your firm? Or are they met with a clean, sleek, mobile website that is just as rich and robust as your traditional website? 

For many users, lack of a mobile responsive website is frustrating. It feels outdated and makes your law firm seem antiquated. The result? Potential clients move on to other law firms and you’re left wondering why your website doesn’t attract new clients!

Mobile-friendly attorney websites or no longer an option – they’re a priority. Why? An increasing number of consumers are searching the web with their smartphones. Law firms that have not embraced this technology are being left behind in the dust. In fact, according to a recent Google study, in 2015, U.S. searches on mobile devices surpassed desktop searches. Shockingly, at least 65% of all consumers start searching for information on a smartphone. This doesn’t include the numerous searches done on tablets! This is why law firms MUST take a “Mobile First” approach when designing and constructing their new website. And why they must throw their old website to the curb now.

Still not convinced? Here are some interesting mobile related statistics

• More than 6.8 billion people use mobile phones – that’s roughly 87% of the World’s population
• 80% of Internet users own a smartphone
• Google research shows that 72% of consumers want mobile-friendly sites)
• 67% of consumers are more than willing to use a service or sign up for more information on a mobile-friendly site
• Mobile searches often result in immediate action – up to 70% of mobile searches result in action being taken within an hour

Further Reading: Law Firm SEO is a Costly Priority

What Can You Do Now?

There is one easy step you can take now to determine how mobile searches are affecting your bottom line and your firm’s success. Google offers a free mobile checker tool. All you have to do is visit the Google Mobile Checker Tool and put in your website information. Within seconds you will receive an analysis letting you know how mobile friendly your website really is.

If your website is NOT mobile friendly, we can help. At LawFather, we can help you redesign your website to showcase your law firm in a whole new light AND make it mobile friendly at the same time. It’s 2016 – your website should feel fresh and exciting to visitors. It should stand out of the crowd. Your website needs a stronger call to action that tells people right away why your law firm is different from all the others. A bolder approach will cut through the clutter on the Internet. It will speak to your potential clients’ real problem with a more impactful message, solidifying you as someone who they can trust.

Recently, we finished a website redesign for Northern Colorado personal injury attorneys, Hull & Zimmerman. We think it has a bold look, branding them instantly as hard-hitting attorneys that will be instantly in your corner after an accident. See for yourself at www.hullandzimmerman.com.

Take Advantage of Big Savings on a New Website Today

For a limited time, LawFather is offering a steep discount off of our normal website design price. Your law firm can get a new, custom designed, mobile-friendly website, coded for WordPress, for only $4999. That’s a $1000 off of our normal price of $5999. Call us today to learn more about how we can help put your website to work for you.

Contact LawFather for Help Today

If your website is out of date, or isn’t mobile friendly, you’re probably losing valuable customers to your competition. For more information about the ways in which an updated, mobile-friendly can improve your firm’s bottom line, contact the experienced attorney website designers at LawFather today. Call us at 800-325-7715 or fill out the contact form on our website.

The post Mobile-Friendly Attorney Websites Are Now a Necessity, Not an Option appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.

Color Psychology

That is called color psychology, and utilizing it effectively can help you convert browsers into clients. However, capitalizing on that psychology can be tricky, as many factors need to be taken into account. Age, gender, race, all play into color psychology, making it important to base your sites color scheme around your firms client demographics.

But what colors should you choose? Jeremy Smith, a conversion consultant, swears by color psychology, recommending it to his clients. Let’s look at some examples of it in action to see how major companies are using psychology on us every day.

Looking at some of the largest consumer financial institutions, one common theme will jump out. They like their blue. PayPal has a palate based around blue, and Chase bank uses blue as their primary color. Why? Because blue suggests transparency and honesty.

Get a credit card with most financial institutions and you’ll hear about their top-tier card, with extremely high limits or no limits at all. Typically that card is referred to as black, or some version of the color, and is often black in color. This is because black suggest luxury or exclusivity.

Another great color to use is green. Most are aware that green is associated with ecology and nature, that too is color psychology, but it also can be used to trigger a call to action. If you were to make a contact form with a gray submit button and one with a green submit button, for instance, you’re likely to get more responses from the form with the green button.

Men and women see things differently, and are moved to action by different colors. For women, blue is a great color to use as you can see on such sites as Oprah’s website. You’ll also see a lot of purple on her site, another color that rings well with women.

For men, black is a great color to go with. An example of it in use is Men’s Journal, which features a black heavily in image framing.

Both men and women respond well in general to blues and greens, making them a common theme for successful sites capitalizing on color psychology. A perfect example of this would be Facebook, which features lots of blue which not only agrees with both men and women, but also alludes to their openness.

But certainly getting conversions isn’t just limited to color, right? Content also is important, but for different reasons.

Importance of Quality Content

Google somewhat recently changed their search algorithm, the process used to determine how high a site ranks in a given search. It threw most of its old process out the window, when getting a high search ranking could be achieved by little more than back linking and 300 to 600 word pieces of content.

It now takes greater look into the quality of the sites you link, the quality of the sites that link to you, and the quality of content you have on your site. Length and keyword stuffing matters considerably less. Instead, high rankings can be achieved through quality content, written with care by someone who knows what they’re doing.

How the Two Combine to Create an Effective Site

A great website marketing strategy combines both color psychology and content. Content is used as bait, to get the potential client to your site, as well as educate them once they’re there and decided they are interested in what you’re offering.

Making that determination as to whether they’re interested or not is where color psychology comes into play. After they’ve arrived from the search results, the color scheme goes to work on their brain helping them, in 90 seconds or less, determine if they’ll be sticking around or going back to find someone else.

To find out how to put these two to use for your firm to help increase your client list and bring more business in, check out our law firm website design page for exclusive pricing and turnaround times. We’ll help you get your site working better for you.

The post Law Firm Web Design: What Matters More? Color or Content? appeared first on Law Father Law Firm SEO.