Dancing Monkeys and Free Snowcones

When helping experts market their practices, we don't expect them to know everything about marketing and especially marketing with a website; that's why we're here and what we do.  However....

We have a folder called the "Expert Witness Marketing Hall of Shame" for situations we just never anticipated encountering with experts, things we never thought we would have to explain.  Now, while every particle of my being would love to show you some of these websites, I can't bring myself to do it.  But I will share some of the top nominees for the "Hall of Shame."  Take these as a caution of what not to do, or a validation that your website isn't so bad after all.

The dancing monkeys.  Seriously.  On the home page, dancing over and through the text are dancing monkeys. Let's ignore the animation challenges and skip to the courtroom.  If by some chance an attorney actually retained the services of this expert, can you you imagine the fun opposing counsel would have with this on the stand?

This next one is just inexcusable.  On the CV posted on his website, in addition to the expert's own birthdate AND social security number, were the birthdates of the his children!  How do you begin to explain why this is wrong on so many levels?

And what I currently consider the leading contender has to be the free snowcones.  If you call for a free! consultation, you will also receive a coupon for a free! snowcone at the local fair.  I.kid.you.not.

Be Careful with Your Expert Witness Website

This is a caution about building and maintaining your expert witness website. As you know, everything you do, say, and write can and will be cussed and discussed and used against you. The added danger of the Internet as opposed to other venues is that once it's there, it's always there and it doesn't matter if you change it the very next day. Check out the Internet Archive and their Wayback Machine. Just type in your website address and you will see every incarnation of every page on your site since its inception and -- so can anyone else!

So what does this mean to you? If you are just building a website, don't just slap something up to have a website. If you have a website, be vigilant about who can add pages, update pages, etc., and proofread everything before putting it out there. Some things you just can't take back.

Are You Visible On the Internet?

One of the services we provide our expert witness clients is search engine optimization. But if you are working on your website yourself and want some pointers, Google just released its SEO Starters Guide with some surprisingly good explanations about how Google ranks websites and steps you can do to improve your website's visibility.

Expert Witness Websites - Contact Info?

I hate to bring this up again, but --- please include contact information on your website! I had a friend contact me recently for help in finding an expert witness in a particular area of expertise. I found four and went to their websites. Two (TWO of the four!) had NO contact information whatsoever. One had a "Contact" form with several lines of required information. Only one had a phone number, address, and email listed.

An attorney is not going to take the time to search for how to reach you; he or she is simply going to move to the next expert on the list. Nor will they fill out a "Contact" form.

The point of having a website is to help potential clients find you when they need your services. If they can't then contact you and retain you, why bother?