Web Page Design

Presenting Yourself on the Web

SLUG chairperson Stuart Home says his most enjoyable recent afternoon was when he visited Michael Nelson at SacWeb, browsed the World Wide Web with him and took in his trenchant commentaries. Nelson came to share some of that fun with SLUG members on November 18 over a canneloni lunch at the Delta King.

Internet Tidbits

Nelson told some salient facts about the Internet. First, it is close to 45 years old, if you count its predecessor, the Defense Department's ARPAnet. DOD needed to preserve its ability to arm its nuclear weapons in wartime by turning two widely separated keys. An attack that cut some wires could make it difficult to find two keyholes still able to communicate. The Internet's topology of myriad stations and redundant paths was designed to keep the surviving stations talking even after nuclear attack.

Second, only three years after the first Web browser (Mosaic in 1995), there are 45 million Web surfers in the world. Two-thirds of these are in the United States. Of these 30 million, half are in California.

What's an IPP? SacWeb is an Internet Presence Provider ("IPP"). Nelson, who once worked as a schoolteacher, explained the difference between an IPP and an Internet Service Provider ("ISP") this way: Your computer dials an ISP's phone number and connects to a modem in the ISP's modem bank so that you can surf the Internet. An IPP, by contrast, has no modem bank and does not help you surf. It designs, builds and hosts your Web site for others to surf.

At three years old, SacWeb is one of the oldest IPPs in town. Another IPP, PageWeavers (www.pageweavers.com), is ancient at four years. (They must run on Internet Time.)

Three years ago, Nelson started SacWeb in business by cold-calling potential clients. Only half of those he called had heard of the Internet. But within the first year, Nelson needed to incorporate, and he called on SLUG chair Home to do this legal task.

Why have a Web page? In response to Nelson's questions, attendees indicated that almost all--as many as had fax capability — had Internet access including an e-mail address. Many had run an ad in the Yellow Pages. But few had their own Web pages, and even fewer had tried to create their own. Nelson gave examples of why a law practice might want to have a Web page.

Many practitioners want exposure. A Web page advertises, like a billboard. Potential clients can walk in and interact, as to a storefront.

Many clients want to check in with their attorneys via the Internet. A Web page can make this easy. (An extranet, accessible to the client, can handle more frequent communication.) For confidential attorney-client communications, you want to encrypt the messages and handle them on a secure part of your site. Depending on the extent of your security needs, this can cost you $300 to $1,000 to set up, and $40 to $100 per month, Nelson said.

Potential clients may want to get a feel for you before the offered 30-minute free initial consultation. Or to learn your specialties. If your Web page tells what is unique about you, the client will not come to you cold.

Many practitioners want niche exposure. Say a potential client needs someone in your specialty, or in your geographic location. Or you want to appeal to clients who want technologically savvy counsel. These characteristics can be handles for the client to grab while surfing the Web.

Professionals like to project an image of competence and attentiveness to detail. Professional design is important to this sort of image.

Some want to disclose a different and surprising side of themselves. McDonough, Holland & Allen, which by Sacramento standards is very large and very old, adopted a surprising jigsaw puzzle metaphor in its Web site (www.mhalaw.com). The multi- colored puzzle pieces say that this firm puts pieces together for problem solving.

Others may want to induce a gut feeling, for example, "cool." Others may need to impart a large volume of information--while avoiding the disadvantages of big text blocks, discussed below.

Some may want to do business on line. Electronic commerce is predicted to grow to one-half trillion dollars by 2000. Egghead now sells its software via the Web only. Cisco Systems, the hot company in the router business, now makes 35% of its router sales via the Web.

Finally, your lack of a Web site can cause you to lose business to attorneys who have one, Nelson said.

HTML Mysteries: Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, is the language of the Web. There's really nothing mysterious about HTML, Nelson said. A page written in HTML is text. Just like WordPerfect's [BOLD] and [bold], HTML uses formatting symbols before and after the affected text to specify color, style, type size and other formatting information.

WYSIWIG ("what you see is what you get") tools insulate you from HTML code. The attendees who had put up their own Web page had used Frontpage, Homepage, or another WYSIWIG Web page writing tool. While conceding WYSIWIG software's ease of use, Nelson said he avoids it. He favors Homesite for close control of formatting and other codes in HTML.

Dynamic Pages: Nelson contrasted "flat" Web pages and sites from "dynamic" ones. A flat page is one that, after you edit and upload it to your Web site, stays the same until your next edit and upload.

A "dynamic" page, by contrast, draws part of its content from a database. Users with no knowledge of HTML, but with permission to use the database, can fill in blanks ("fields") with information to be stored in the database. The information then appears in the Web page automatically.

Meta-Tags: A careful Web page designer pays attention to "meta-tags." A meta-tag is text hidden in a Web page for the use of search engines, such as Yahoo!, Lycos, and Altavista. The engines search on information derived from meta-tags. For example, "real estate law" might help clients locate you by your specialty. Simply "real estate" would not help you because of the large number of real estate brokers on the Web.

Attendee Bonnie Riley asked how to find out how a search engine will respond to particular meta-tags. The search engine's Web page will have a "how it works" section. Then it will break its own rules, Nelson said. Because of the different uses that the search engines make of meta-tag information, SacWeb currently submits nine different versions of each client's Web page to nine search engines.

Web Page Advice: Nelson advocated that everyone getting a Web site test-surf it with a slow modem. (14.4 kbps qualifies as "slow" today. Many on the Internet still use modems of that speed.) If you have to wait more than 20 seconds for a page to download, you will not stay. Slow-downloading pages are a "classic" beginner mistake; no page should be larger than 50k, Nelson said.

Long blocks of text can turn off readers; that's why newspapers put their text in columns. This is especially true on the Web. Even avid readers rarely enjoy reading from a computer screen for long periods.

Maybe electronic books will bring to lawyers and other heavy readers more of the look and feel of a real book. Monitors don't yet do it.

Even when the information glares out from a monitor, you can make it friendlier, said Nelson. You can put a bulleted summary at the top, and you can (at the risk of incompatibility with older browsers) use frames to hold the body text.

While Java applets can jazz up a site with animations or specialized calculators, not all browsers can interpret Java, audio or video clips. They can be useful, but the mission-critical parts of the page should stick to lowest-common-denominator technology, Nelson said.

Some effects are just gimmicks. Blinking text tends to insult the reader's intelligence. Most animations can be improved by stopping the action after one or two repetitions. One exception, Nelson said, was a "contact us" message that slowly and subtly changed shade through a spectrum of blacks and grays.

What about the ubiquitous odometer-style counter? Low numbers prove your site to be unpopular. Even when the numbers are high, the counter says you want quantity, not quality. An attendee called the device "counter-productive."

An obvious Web page error is failing to update information. Another mistake that betrays a lack of professional attention is failing to check e-mail at least once a day.

How can our Web pages invite client communication via e-mail? Try a contact form. Of every 10 persons who fill in a form, six would not respond to a blank return e-mail window, Nelson said.

Nelson clicked on one (non-Sacramento) attorney's Web page to display a multitude of sins. The page seemed to take forever to load. It had two pictures at the top, one of the office building and one of the attorney, neither particularly attractive. (In America, sex sells, Nelson said. The corollary: put your picture there only if you are unusually good looking.) The site was one long page, and it contained long text blocks.

What do we buy when we spend $1,000 to $3,000 for a professionally done Web page? We avoid the above sorts of errors, of course. Professional design means more pleasing use of graphics.

More broadly, a professional will develop the Web site around the practice's goals, and as an integral part of the practice's overall marketing plan. If you wish to target lower income persons, Web demographics do not favor you — unless you aim specifically for visitors to social service agencies. If your target is males earning $40,000 to $70,000, this is the Web's biggest category. Seniors and women are the fastest-growing categories.

Cheaper Alternatives: Finally, Nelson addressed the question of how you can get a Web page for less. He can refer you to "weekend Webmasters" who can design your site for $300-600, or $15-20 per hour.

Reference

Michael A. Nelson, president, SacWeb, 1409 R St., Sacramento 95814, 446-7457, fax 448-2702, www.sacweb.com, mnelson@sacweb.com