• 159 deaths in Phoenix, AZ, down 23% from 207 fatalities in 2006.
• Florida traffic deaths in 2007 were 3,093 v. 3,195 in 2006.
• Deaths in South Carolina rose 2% to 1,064 from 1,040 in 2006.
• Iowa fatalities will number at least 426 in 2007.
• For the first time in 17 years traffic deaths in Virginia surpass 1,000, up from 961 in 2006.
• Missouri deaths in 2007 will fall below 1,000. Stand at 958 on December 28th.
• 355 traffic deaths in 2007 in Kansas, down from 468.
• Oklahoma road fatalities number 711 in 2007, down from 764.
• 118 perish on Delaware roads, the lowest number since 1999's 114 deaths.

LOOK FAMILIAR?	Do You Recognize Elements From Your Own Web Site?
COURTHOUSES	SKYLINES
FURNITURE	BUILDINGS & INTERIORS

By Dean Rotbart

Having reviewed hundreds of top personal injury law firm web sites for the Law Firm Online Marketing Association (LFOMA), I can tell you that the vast majority of web sites – contrary to proven marketing stratagems, are way way too egocentric.

As a rule, here are the Top Five Most Common Mistakes we find among the “best” personal injury law firm web sites.

1. The law firms talk all about themselves and little, if at all, about their clients.

2. The sites are devoid of compassion.  It may, in the end, only be about money, but we suspect for many personal injury victims it is also about spiritual recovery and vindication.

3. Almost all the photos (other than of the partners) are canned, stock photos.  Here is our building.  Here is our city skyline.  Here is our conference room.  Here is our courthouse.  Please!  People like to see people, not structures.

4. Name us a personal injury attorney that doesn’t offer a free consultation?  Yet, each site plays up this feature of their firm as if they invented it.  Why not just invite accident victims to call you to discuss their experience and their legal options? 

5. Either law firm partners are the least photogenic people on the planet or they all share the same photographer who has yet to learn to shoot subjects in other than formal poses. 

Instead of everyone standing around a board table or some other stoic fixture, why not show your partners out in the field: investigating accident sites; making hospital visits; plowing through public filings; even playing ball with their kids?  Come on.  Many of your clients will spend years of their lives working with you – so let them know you are more than your formal headshot.

To date, I’ve not found ‘the perfect’ personal injury law firm web site, but I am on the hunt.  And I invite you to contact me if you think your firm’s web site has the right stuff.

The bottom line is simple.  You want the folks who come to your firm’s web site to put their valid cases in your hands.  Their first and most important impression of you will be what they find at your web site.  If your site is cold, impersonal, egotistical and off-putting, well you very likely are sending away some terrific potential cases that rightfully belong in your capable hands.

Great lawyers are not necessarily great marketers.  But they should be.  For their sake and for the sake of their clients.


=================================================================================

Dean Rotbart is an award-winning journalist and former columnist for The Wall Street Journal.  Rotbart has advised hundreds of companies and law firms on how to communicate more effectively with their constituents. He is the founder and executive editor of NewsBios.com.

To nominate a law firm for review by LFOMA, email our director, James Stewart, at JStewart@highvip.com. 

Las Vegas, NV (PRWEB) December 20, 2007 -- The Personal Injury Newswire has selected You, Here, Now! to optimize its new web site for maximum exposure in the so-called 'organic' results of major Internet search engines.

Personal Injury Newswire (PIN) provides news and information to individuals who are considering the use of a personal injury attorney. Launched in December 2007, PIN includes articles about the judgments obtained in recent personal injury lawsuits; key accident and injury-related facts; and profiles of lawyers and law firms.

James Stewart, PIN's editor, said he selected You, Here, Now! because of the SEO firm's strong emphasis on editorial quality to boost the page rank of its clients. "While most SEO firms focus on meta tags, key word ratios and all sorts of technical gibberish, You, Here, Now! wins search engine placement the correct way - by creating compelling, pertinent copy focused on the subject at hand."

You, Here, Now! is operated by writers, researchers and journalists whose job it is to create web content and blog posts that attract Internet attention and hence the attention of the major search engines.

"This is the method the search engines themselves recommend," Stewart says. "Rather than trying to manipulate the results and 'trick' the search engines, just do a better job on providing visitors the content they most desire."

You, Here, Now! is one of the nation's fastest growing search engine optimization companies, now powering more than three dozen popular web sites.

For more information on the Personal Injury Newswire, contact James Stewart at 702-987-6046. To learn more about You, Here, Now! visit its web site (www.youherenow.com) or email the company at seo @ youherenow.com. You may also phone You, Here, Now! at 213-596-8364.

The firm’s web site is dense, dense, dense with text. 

The only photos on A&G’s home page are at the bottom right hand corner, which features nine black-and-white headshots of “some of our partners.”  The headshots look like something out of a 1950s high school yearbook, including the stoic-looking Martin Gerel.

“We’re a big time law firm devoted to helping the little guy,” the web site proclaims.  But we “little guys” would be more than a little intimidated by the content of the site.

The Ashcroft & Gerel sight reminds us of commercial fishing nets, designed to haul in as a large a catch as possible.  Thus A&G lists 1,001 (or so it seems) types of claims it can handle right on its homepage, including:

-- Defective Medtronic Sprint Fidelis defibrillator leads.
-- Babies injured because their mothers took Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors during pregnancy.
-- Salmonella contamination of peanut butter.
-- Dangerous drugs including Avandia, Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra.
-- MRI dye skin disorders
-- Etc., Etc., Etc.

The A&G website comes across as the ‘yellow pages’ of pain and suffering.  But we doubt visitors really want to try and digest all that A&G has to offer.  More likely, they have a specific injury or ailment and they just want to know what A&G can do directly for them. 

By trying to be all things to all personal injury victims, especially on its homepage, A&G is really not much to anyone. 

Our recommendations:  Play up your overall experience and the advantage of size.  Don’t “itemize” all your capabilities on your homepage.  Add some recent color photos of your team in action – not just headshots.   Help potential clients visualize themselves working hand-in-hand with your firm for justice and financial remuneration.

A&G may truly be one of the nation’s best personal injury law firms.  But you’d never know if from its website.

Come on Farzam & Co., the people coming to your site are seeking more than just money.  They are seeking justice and seeking understanding.  In this regard, you are only battling one for three.