Over One-Third of American Adults Now Own a Smartphone

Any more proof that you need a strong mobile site? It should come as no surprise to anyone that more people are browsing the web from their phones than ever before.  For the past few years, not only have more people decided that smartphones should play an integral part of their daily lives, but those smartphones have gotten better, faster, stronger. The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released a new study that shows more Americans now own smartphones than have college degrees. According to the survey, 83% of Americans own some sort of cellphone and 35% own a smartphone – as defined as running on iOs, Android, Blackberry OS or Windows 7. Of those that own smartphones, 87% said that they use it for email or to browse the internet.  68% said that in a typical day they use their smartphones to access the web.  And here’s the big number – A quarter of those surveyed said that they access the internet mostly on their smartphones.  That’s right, for 25% of Americans, the smartphone has virtually replaced the desktop of laptop. These “smartphone mostly” internet users are more likely to be young, non-white women according to the survey. And using a smartphone definitely makes it more likely that a person will use the phone for browsing the internet.  Only 28% of total cellphone users said that they browse the internet daily on their devices. The breakdown of smartphone ownership also has definite economic, racial and generational markers. The more financially well-off a person is, the more likely they are to own a smartphone.  Of individuals earning over $75,000 a year, 59% reported owning a smartphone.  That figure is 48% when it comes to those with college degrees. The people most likely to own a smartphone fall into the age range of 25-34.  Race also plays a factor, as 44% of the African-Americans and Latinos surveyed said they own a smartphone. Only 30% of the whites surveyed reported ownership.  The research also confirmed that African-Americans and Latinos were much more likely to use their devices for internet browsing, games and multimedia content. Finally, according to the study, Android is the most popular platform, followed by the iPhone and Blackberry in a dead heat for second place. What’s the takeaway?  Not only are people using smartphones more and more, but they are using them to access the internet.  Some are even solely using their mobile devices to browse the web.  Having an easily browsable, functioning mobile site will become even more important as this trend continues to grow.   – Source ********* This is a good story and Ive been saying for awhile that your law firm site needs to also be easily readable on a mobile device.   Most sites are readable enough, but its important to have a mobile version of your site that is easy to read, navigate and contact you. We help lawyers create mobile versions of their sites, contact us for further information on lawyer mobile.

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Lawyer Web Design – Practice Area Focus

One strategy you can use with Internet marketing is creating multiple websites in addition to having your main website.  You can create geographic specific sites that focus on one location, or you can create a practice area specific site that focuses on specific area of your legal practice. Sometimes there might be a class action or brand new type of legal matter that you want to focus on right away. Sometimes creating a site that is focused just on that specific area can be a good idea and a good way to come up in the organic search results.  If done right, you might even get multiple sites to come up on the first page of the search results. The latest practice area specific site that we have created is for a Securities law firm that focuses on securities litigation and class action matters.  This new site is for a Lehman Brothers matter.  The firm is  currently investigating claims on behalf of investors in several securities tied to Lehman Brothers.   So we have created a site for the Lehman Brothers UBS matter that focuses specifically on this investigation. The site has information about the firm and then information on this specific Lehman Brothers matter and a way to contact the firm. The goal of this site is to get organic search engine traffic for all Lehman brothers related keywords. The site can also be used as a good landing page for the pay per click campaigns at Google adwords.   Having a landing page that focuses specifically on the keywords your bidding on can improve your Google adwords quality score. Its also best to send people to a specific page instead of just your home page.  People have short attention spans and want to find what they are looking for right away, make it easy for them and they will probably contact you. If you would like us to create a wordpress legal site for your law firm, contact us today.

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Dropbox – Get it!

I posted a few weeks back about the IPad Application of Dropbox. This is much more then an Ipad app, its something you setup and then are able to access your files from any computer, and then also allow others to share them.  Its really a great way to keep yourself better organized if you have multiple offices and computers. Its a great way to keep everything in sync and if you have people who work for you, then you can create folders for them and have them put all their files and work they do in that folder. This way you can keep things organized and an eye on what they are doing in real time! As soon as they make an update to a dropbox file in their folder, you are notified on your computer or Ipad, and can then see what they have done.  Its really slick and its FREE for under 2 GB of space and for most people thats enough. I upgraded and now have 50 GB of space (mr big shot!) but for $10 per month, thats a really good deal. I would think most lawyers could benefit from this program.  Its also really nice to have the Ipad app, because you can then see all the files and if you have the MS office app, you can pretty much open anything and edit it on your Ipad, anywhere! So this would mean a lawyer could work on his brief or argument or pleading or pretty much anything on his Ipad, in ANY location.  Then his secretary or paralegal could do other things such as create letters, other documents and pleadings related to case and put them in a folder for the lawyer to review.   The lawyer could then go home and have dropbox installed on his home machines and could instantly pick up where he left off and see anything new his secretary or paralegal has done.   Then when he goes back to the office on Monday, all the same docs are right on his office computer in his dropbox.  Its a no brainer for every lawyer to do this. Just like its a no brainer for every lawyer to have a web site and to have a mobile version of that website!

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60% Of Mobile Users Click Ads Weekly

More than 60% of mobile consumers click on mobile ads at least once a week, according to new research from mobile ad network Mojiva and InsightExpress. Of that group, about 20% are especially responsive, clicking on ads several times a day. The study, based on a poll of 100 random users on the network, also found that about half or more of respondents would be willing to play a game, download an application, visit a Web site or watch a video as a result of seeing an ad. Less than a quarter (22%) said they would go as far as purchasing a product and only 17% would use an ad’s tap-to-call feature. When it comes to ad units, about 21% on average indicated they would notice normal banner ads, video ads, interactive ads and animated banner ads. Surprisingly, only 2% said they would pay attention to screen takeover ads. The study suggested that’s because the aggressive approach these ads take may alienate users. But even if users find takeover ads a turnoff, how could they not notice them? In terms of ad content, people were most likely to be receptive to ads related to retail stores, weather, restaurants and bars. That makes sense, given that people use mobile phones on the go. Among topics or industry categories queried, ads related to magazines, airlines, traffic and banks had the least interest for users. Roughly one-third said they use their phones mostly “offline” for calling and texting, one-third use phones equally online and offline, and about the same proportion spend most of their time browsing the Web, checking email or doing other things online. In terms of demographics, whites make up almost half (47%) of users, while African-Americans make up 26%, Hispanics 9%, Native Americans 3%, “Other” 4%, and 11% did not respond to the question. Seventy percent or more of survey participants said they are responsible for household purchases in each of the following product categories: groceries, restaurant meals, personal items and/or electronics. For 60% of users, annual household income is below $40,000. The Mojiva network overall had more than 100 million unique U.S. users and 471.4 million globally in April. Source

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11 Year Anniversary!

I have celebrated my 11th anniversary of being in the business of creating and marketing websites for lawyers! The time has gone by super quick and its been a blast! Its easy when you love what you do and dont feel like your actually doing a job.  Thank you to all my great clients for all the support over the years, we look forward to helping more lawyers succeed on the Internet!

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Latest WordPress Blog Creation

We have been very busy these days creating new legal blogs using the wordpress content management system.  Using wordpress has multiple advantages that Im constantly talking about it seems, and the main advantage for any lawyer is that you can easily make updates to the site, as well as easily create new posts and blog. Below is a blog we created for a Tallahassee DUI Attorney.  This is basically both a blog and a website.  It has the posts right on the home page, but it also has different pages talking about what the firms does. Creating a site/blog for your legal practice is a good idea if you have a specific practice area or geographic location that you want to focus on.  Contact us today for more information.

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Apple Ipad Apps for Lawyers

I have been using my new Ipad 2.0 and its a really amazing device that EVERY lawyer should have.  There are so many things that can make your law firm more productive and I will be reviewing some of the top apps here over the next few weeks. One of the first Ipad APPS you should get is DROPBOX – www.dropbox.com You can sign up for a free Dropbox account and it puts a folder on your computer and the free app  on your iPad as well. Anything you throw in Dropbox at your computer shows up on your iPad and vice versa. Install Dropbox on all your computers and all your mobile devices to have a virtual filing cabinet everywhere you go. What’s better, the starter 2 GB of storage is free. If you have significant file needs, you can get more space for a fee (e.g., 50 GB for $100/yr, 100 GB for $200/yr). Dropbox has about 4 million users which means that app developers often include Dropbox compatibility as quickly as possible.

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Why Creating City Specific Sites is a Good Idea

Having more then one site for your law firm is becoming much more common these days.   Many times you will have a main site and then a blog using a different domain name. Creating mini sites or wordpress blogs around different practice areas or the different geographic locations the law firm practices in is a good idea for multiple reasons. #1-   You Can Focus on Specific Keywords – With one website, it can be harder to get ranked organically at the search engines for many different keyword combination’s.  Sure you can get top 10 rankings for your main city and state, but what about the other 10-15 areas that people might do searches in? So having a city specific site that has content focused on your legal practice area and that geographic location, can make it easier to get ranked on those keywords such as Edmonds Personal Injury, if you were focusing on that city for your personal injury practice. #2-   You Can Capture Clients better by showing them Your Near Them geographically – Creating a site site around your location means that your header logo will include your geographic location and your content will have your city name in it multiple times.  So this will instantly let a new visitor know that your highly focused on that location and that you can help  them. #3-   You Can Build Your own Legal Site Network – Getting links to your site is a valuable thing and if you have your own group of sites, you can interlink them strategically.  These sites can then assist your main site. The bottom line is that you only want to create sites that make sense and have some kind of unique content. You also want to do them right and have them look good, be functional and most importantly be listed high in the search engine rankings for the terms your focusing on.

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