Practice Development for Expert Witnesses
Beryl Vaughan, Consultant
Guide to a Great
Expert Witness
Website
By Beryl Vaughan
Guide to a Great
Expert Witness
Website
By Beryl Vaughan
Values and legal obligations guide content on an expert witness site.
- Reputation for impartial opinions
- Defensability on the stand
That doesn’t mean your site has to be dull.
Provide content that demonstrates meaning — in a manner visually and intellectually engaging.
You, like me in this post, will weigh information in the form of text against the time to develop on-point imagery and layout.
If you get bored while reading all the text, it will make my point: visual must accompany text or your attorney-reader will feel the same.
I’ll Eat My
If you read this and don’t walk away with a better website, I’ll eat my hat. (Caveat: I don’t wear hats.)
Examples in Action
Portfolio of 4 sites that serve the personality and practice of each distinct expert witness.
Proof of a Successful Site
A successful site is proven through ROI: Income > the cost to build the site and your time spent writing.
Calls come from the site. On mobile, the “tap and call” feature is used. (Ask me about how to track that data.)
Email inquiries arrive from a clickable button, or use of a form, scheduling interface, or Contact page.
Dwell Time” is high: users linger to read your articles with meaning. Data sources like Google Analytics and Web-Stat record dwell time.
Search Engine Results (SERP). SERP means once sites appear that are relevant to the search, yours would appear, preferably before those of your colleagues.
If the search is a statement like “expert witness [expertise,] a list of sites is likely to appear. If the search is a question, Generative AI tries to answer. This is then followed by a list of real sources with information. This is the hardest spot to “get.”
“I found you Online.” Attorneys tell you they saw you “somewhere online” and went to your website.
What You Can Do Now
Assess your current website and/or that of a competitor whom you admire.
Run a Test
Human feedback is the best. You can do this even if you don’t have a website.
Focus Group of 1 or 2 People
There’s nothing more humbling than seeing someone struggle with the site you built with blood, sweat, and tears. Still, it’s the only way to know how to make it better.
It’s more fun when you do this with a site that isn’t yours and is poorly designed.
Sit down in front of a desktop computer with at least one other person. Optional: if that can be a colleague or attorney, all the better.
Together review the site(s).
- Invite brutally honest feedback, and take note!
- Watch how all of you react.
Frustrated or confused? Reading with interest? - Communicate what you each like and don’t.
If you don’t agree with them, you might learn more about the expert witness market in general.
If you already have a site: creators are notoriously blind to their own design failures. That’s why this process gets more effective if you invite more people to contribute feedback.
BASICS
Contact Info is Easy to Find
Preferably without having to scroll.
Search Tool
Cases can be wildly unique.
A search tool makes it easier for attorneys to find out what they want to know. Don’t make them hunt. Many will exit the page out of simple impatience.
“Return to Top” Tool
Everyone hates scrolling.
Common Problems, Easily Repaired
Is font and layout legible? From a website coding perspective, this can take less time than you spent reading just this section.
Got it?
Do you have to enlarge/pinch-to-enlarge on mobile device?
Is it necessary to click on what appears to be a link, without a result?1
Layout is consistent across devices (phones, tablets, laptops, desktops).
This does not mean mobile looks just like desktop. Desktop design rarely translates. However, mobile can reflect the same sequence of information and building on a concept.
Test your site on as many sized devices as possible: big monitors, laptops, an Android device, iPhone, and tablet.
Design and Content Brings in Cases
Design and content (visuals and writing) do all the heavy lifting on a website and drive every performance metric.
Keep it interesting.
Every 6 months:. Write a new article and update your bio at least every 6 months.
Every 3 months:
- short additions to existing pages and flesh out what you have already written.
- Fresh visuals. Tweak and update your site’s visual design including header styles, color, and layout.
- Replace or add photos, icons and illustrations to enrich content.
- Review and fact-check your content from time to time.
Save time and money. A copyeditor can be a good investment; their rates are less than yours by a factor of 10. They can help with suggestions and save you time.
If your articles are data-heavy or academic in nature, a researcher may be helpful. Research ages out and is replaced by fresher research. Review suggestions.
The nature of expert witness work means a conservative tone. Compared to other websites generally, font is a little simpler, pictures a little less edgy.
Keep it simple.
- re-wording or refreshing a sentence or two
- add a heading
- introduce a new statistic, fact or quote
- link something newsworthy
- answer a common question based on calls you’ve been having with attorneys (also boosts potential to be included in Google’s Generative AI results.)
What’s up with the competition?
I track the sites of your competitors and clients almost every day, and am surprised at how easy it is to outperform other experts’ sites.
Many are unattractive, or confusing to navigate. Information is hard to find. It might even be hard to work out the actual expertise of the person.
And that’s if a site exists at all.
Med-legal sites for physicians, like a forensic psychiatrist, are few and far between.
Frankly, outside of the environment of academia and e-commerce, websites are sparse.
This is good for you.
You have a crucial advantage: it’s hard to find an Expert Witness in any specialty, especially medicine or forensic psychology.
A simple and straightforward site is a relief for attorneys and makes you a more attractive choice.
Boost Performance
SEO. Search Engine Optimization techniques impact how early your site appears in results. If the site has not been updated in 5+ years, Google may drop it off results as “stale.”
Loading speed. Slow loading speeds will “ding” your site’s SEO and annoy your users. Google’s Page Speed Insights tool will show how well your site is doing.
Backend SEO speeds up how fast your site is “indexed” and how “high” it appears. Htags are embedded around key words and concepts to tell Google “pay attention–this is the important stuff on this page.”
Tags on images, are called “alt text.” Alt text is a short description of what is in the image. It is also indexed.
AI is important but it’s not a substitute for meaningful material you write on your website.
AI has been characterized as replacing “keyword search” but that isn’t the case. Keyword search has been around since Google’s inception in 1999. It remains the primary way Google works out what the site is about.
WordPress is the gold standard. In the “olden days” platforms included Wix or even AOL.
Wix and Squarespace are less successful than WordPress as platforms to make unique sites. They are also less “preferred” by browsers for SEO. [Companion article DIY Websites.]
Security. Secure encrypted sites are essential or Google won’t allow access. Older sites may lack these features. The telltale is the url begins http:// not https:// The “s” means the site is encrypted with a free SSL or Security Certificate. Your backend developer can obtain the SSL Certificate through your hosting service. Another way to know if an SSL Certificate has lapsed is the message from the browser window: “Site Not Found” or that the site is not secure.
404. If a link to a page on your site doesn’t work, it will produce the message “404 Page Not Found.” If the page exists, but it was changed, you can use a backend “redirect” tool. You’ll need the old broken link name and the new accurate url. Alternatively, create a 404 page of your own that redirects people to a new alternate destination of your choice. Here’s mine: https://www.forensicexpertpro.com/404/
Update An Old Code Website
This site was constructed with html code, the standard 20-25 years ago.
Current sites use CSS or a hybrid of CSS and html. They adapt to larger monitors, and also smaller mobile screens.
Agile coding wasn’t available or necessary 20 years ago in the era of Blackberrys and flip phones.
Older sites may not benefit from firewall and hacking protection available now.
A visually outdated site communicates an inactive practice. Function fails too. For example, illegible font sizes can be the result of HTML sized for a 15″ Windows XP monitor.
Older sites may suffer from slow load times and illegibility. Another indication is content is off-center, like this one. It may be too small to read and even smaller on a smartphone.
(This is a screenshot from a library of retired websites, thus the blur.)
Cheat Sheet to Excellent User Experience “UX”
Function
Fast loading speed.
click to call actually dials (on cell).
Font is easy to read.
click to email sends an email.
Menu is logical and accurate.
Form
Design, images and color are distinctive and referential to your practice and profession. A color scheme is a good way to keep the site cohesive.
Engaging content; interesting topics, good writing.
Explains your field. Answers questions lawyers ask.
Answers the same questions juries ask.
Demonstrates your ability to communicate fluidly for counsel and trier of fact.
Track Results
Data analytics confirm users are responding positively.
“Calls to Action (CTA)” are used.
Users found the site with logical search terms.
Credible destinations improve your site’s performance, E.g., American Bar Association about using an Expert Witness or Cornell’s Legal Information Institute with laws and Rules of Procedure.
An internal link takes the user to another location on your existing site, like this article about using slow periods as a marketing advantage.
