Sometimes the partners of multiple attorney law firms decide to split up and go back working as solo attorneys. Making this transition involves important decisions regarding the current website of the firm and the future website platforms needed to support the attorneys who go back on their own. Here are some things to consider:
- The firm's current website may be a valuable asset. Often times the firm's current site gets substantial traffic because of it's size, age and number of inbound links. Unfortunately, it is difficult to split the value of an established website into multiple smaller sites. The original domain name can only be used by one of the new firms. Deciding who gets to keep the original domain name is an important decision.
- Generating traffic for a new website requires, writing substantial content and doing substantial SEO work. It may take a long time to generate the same level of traffic of the firm's current site. More visitors means more phone inquiries.
- Duplicating the content of the current firm's current site on to multiple new sites is not an option. Splitting up the content may be possible, but only to a degree. And splitting the content could result in a net negative traffic flow.
- Websites will need to be created for the attorneys going solo. There may be economies of scale in creating multiple new sites at the same time using the same general structure, but with different color schemes and different content.
- When you make the decision to split up the firm and transition back to solo attorneys, start building the new websites ASAP. Because of Google's Sandbox, it is very difficult to get good search results until six months has gone by. It is important to get the clock started.
- If you have a strong need to generate leads faster for the new websites, you may want to consider setting up a Pay for Click account and buy your visits. With Pay for Click you can turn up the traffic quickly. Of course to do that, you have to donate substantial money to Google. (Clicks can be expensive and Click fraud is real)
The key is planning ahead and getting help from a firm who is experienced in helping Family Law attorneys with SEO and website planning.
