How to Fix a Law Firm Website That’s Not Delivering Results with Monica Pitts

Monica Pitts (00:00.544)
I’m Monica Pitts and I’m the owner of May Create Design. I have been building websites since the dinosaurs roamed the internet back in 1998. And I am still a proud builder of websites to this day. And I’m also the host of the Marketing with Purpose podcast.

Karin (00:18.44)
Monica, thank you so much for being here. I feel like we have a lot in common because I go back that far also. And I like to say that it’s not even the same thing. Like technically, visually, pretty much everything about a website that was back in the beginning is entirely different. And I feel like there’s so many lessons in that too, just in life in general. Like if you get too locked into one version of something, that’s a problem. So.

Like that’s where, that’s an interesting place to start, but the title for the show and where we’re going to start is how to fix a website that’s not delivering results. So let’s start by talking about why it even matters if your website, you know, cause I feel like a lot of people resist this idea that the website should be like a salesperson and they feel like it’s too smarmy or something. Like why, why does that matter?

Monica Pitts (01:17.056)
Well, if you think about it, the whole sales cycle has changed. People don’t just walk in to businesses anymore. I mean, I think it’s kind of fun to do that occasionally, but it’s not how most people are meeting other people, right? They have a problem, they’re trying to solve it, and so they go online, and the websites that they look at are like meeting the people that could potentially provide the solutions. So your website these days is like,

Karin (01:30.23)
Right.

Monica Pitts (01:43.84)
an employee, it’s your first receptionist. It’s your first salesperson. It’s your first impression. And so even if it’s not generating leads for your business every single day, that doesn’t mean it’s not contributing to your sales funnel.

Karin (01:58.518)
Right, okay, the sales funnel is like, obviously, if you’ve been listening this year, you know, it’s my favorite topic. And so we’re gonna start by focusing on the top of the funnel. That’s where this episode kind of sits in our conversation this week. And so let’s talk about the top of the funnel can be awareness or interest in the version of the funnel that I use. So let’s talk about, okay, so if your website is supposed to be this functioning member of your team,

How do you do that better? How do you get that either awareness or interest? How do you do it right or better?

Monica Pitts (02:36.992)
Let’s say first you have to understand like where are your clients? Like the people that you work with every day, are they coming to you in a position of awareness or a position of interest? And the way I would define those two things is like, do they know only who they are or do they know what they want? Right? And so some people might be coming to you because they have a problem. They’ve never faced this problem before. They don’t even know what type of law.

or a lawyer like is going to help them solve this problem. They are completely new to it. They only know who they are and the problem that they’re trying to solve. They don’t know any of the words that you’re going to use, period. And then there’s the people who are like, you know, I need a divorce attorney. They know what they’re doing and they know who they need, right? And so making sure that you are connecting with those people by showing them, hey, I know what you’re after and then getting them.

Karin (03:14.646)
Yeah, yeah.

Karin (03:21.366)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Monica Pitts (03:32.704)
that information quickly, I think would be the first trick to making sure that you’re like keeping them on the site and helping guide them in. Because if they’re only aware, then they don’t get it. Like they’re going to come in and they’re going to be like, I don’t even know what that means. Like, I don’t know. And they may not have gotten there either if they were searching.

Karin (03:45.078)
Right.

Karin (03:49.47)
So for the interest part, I’m picturing like an immigration law firm where they will often have a list of like, we do these kinds of visas and that’s kind of what you were describing in that interest where they already kind of know I need a specific kind of work done. Do you do this? Yes or no? How would you describe the awareness? How would that look differently on a website where they don’t really know, like it’s probably a different kind of law.

Monica Pitts (04:04.608)
Mm -hmm.

Karin (04:19.19)
but they don’t really know exactly what they need. But how would you present that as a firm where it’s not just like, okay, it’s this kind of work, this kind of work, you know, A, B or C, is this the one you need? And if it’s not that, then how do you do that?

Monica Pitts (04:37.664)
Think about the questions that people are asking you when they are on the phone with you on intake that will guide what you need to be putting on your website. And I would make sure that I have a blog on that website where I’m answering questions that I commonly hear because that blog is actually will probably guide people into my website more than my homepage does. And then like you just think about that person like what are they facing? What are their fears? What?

Karin (04:47.126)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (05:06.496)
questions do they have and just make sure that you’re going to structure that those pages on your website talking to that specific person a lot like that conversation that you would have with them on intake, you know, so questions. Here’s how we help. Here’s things that you should think about that you don’t even know about picking the lawyer to do this for you. Here’s timeframes, you know, potential timeframes, potential outcomes, potential costs.

Karin (05:32.278)
Yes. Yeah.

Monica Pitts (05:32.416)
you know, because it’s very different depending upon the situation that they’re facing. And so, yeah, it’s like a conversation more in that instance.

Karin (05:41.526)
So it sounds really easy when you’re describing it, kind of laying it out like that, but I can’t tell you, and I’m sure you’ve been doing this long enough that you’ve seen a million versions of, especially when you get maybe a, like when I get an initial inquiry call and I’m setting up a phone call, I pull up their website and I can within 20 seconds have a laundry list of mistakes, things that we could fix, things that are, you know,

Monica Pitts (06:07.04)
Yeah.

Karin (06:10.454)
places of opportunities for improvement if you want to be really nice about it. But tell us what that looks like. All of the things you were just describing in terms of either being in that awareness or interest phase and providing the information or being a little bit broad, what does it look like if you’re not doing that?

Monica Pitts (06:14.336)
Mm -hmm.

Monica Pitts (06:28.416)
you’re going to come to the website and it’s going to feel like a law encyclopedia vomited on the site. And I am not going to understand three quarters of the words that are there because they’re going to be written in some type of legalese that I would have to copy and paste into chat GPT and have it translate for me for me to understand if I can even sign it or not. It’s going to be filled with stock photos.

Karin (06:36.79)
Yes!

Karin (06:47.414)
All right.

Yes.

Monica Pitts (06:54.016)
not of you, not of anyone else on your firm, and it’s not gonna at all feel like your company. I mean, it’s so important. Like, this is the tricky thing. It’s the tricky thing with lawyers, accountants, you know, nonprofits fall under this trap too. They are all trying to project this like super powerful buttoned up image. And what they really need to project is themselves. Because…

Karin (07:19.062)
Yes!

Monica Pitts (07:19.968)
Who are you? What is it like when I walk into your office? I want to be attracted to you so that I can trust you. You’re building the relationship from the beginning on your website with that kind of stuff. So don’t be afraid to sound like yourself and explain it the way you normally would. And yeah, I guess another bad thing would be if it takes forever to load. my gosh. Or, my gosh, this is me freaking out. Or it is actually a desktop website on my mobile phone.

Karin (07:40.114)
yes.

Karin (07:50.71)
my gosh, I had a list of things to like, you know, look at or whatever and mobile was right at the top. And then exactly what you said, speed and performance. It’s like, that’s it though. You know, if you, people don’t stick around. If this website is like spinning and spinning and spinning, first of all, come on. Are you even paying attention? Like, do you even know that it’s that slow? Cause a lot of people don’t. And…

Monica Pitts (08:16.48)
No, they don’t.

Karin (08:19.126)
So first of all, come on, do a quick speed test. There’s so many quick places you can do it in like less than a minute. And those websites are fast. So you can find out if yours is or not.

Monica Pitts (08:25.696)
Yes. Yes. Well, and especially if you are, if you’re not doing business to business, if you’re doing business to consumer, like think about how you, do you really want to look up divorce attorney at your desk at work? Is that what, no, no, I don’t want to, right? I’m going to be doing it like from my car on my phone. So if it doesn’t like.

Karin (08:35.414)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin (08:45.238)
Right? Right. Yes.

Right. Yeah.

Monica Pitts (08:55.168)
Ha, ha, ha. Seriously, you’re going to have a lot of mobile traffic. Your website has to load quickly, especially on mobile, or it’s not even going to show up in search results either. So it’s like there’s so many reasons. Anyway, OK, so I’m done complaining.

Karin (08:56.15)
Yeah.

Karin (09:04.502)
Yeah.

No, and it’s so true and there’s so many areas of law where I know this is gonna sound like sort of a new fresh idea for some lawyers, but this idea of mobile first, which has been around for you and I for years and years, but for the legal industry, they’re a little slow typically. But what that means is that you start your design and your thought process with the mobile design first.

So for example, we work with some DUI attorneys or criminal defense. Those guys are getting most of their calls in the middle of the night when somebody has been arrested, they’re leaving jail. They are not on a desktop, they are on a phone. And so, I mean, all you need to do is look, you don’t need to be a genius with your analytics. All you need to do is look at one screen and it’ll pretty clearly say 90 % of your phone calls are coming from mobile.

And that’s your clue. You need to make sure that your mobile design is more important than your desktop. And that’s just, you know, it’s, that’s a pretty simple thing to be paying attention to. What else? Okay. So we talked about speed, loading fast, mobile. What else are these kind of major things that, you know, I wrote down that you can audit. Like when we go in, to a potential new project, these are the things we’re kind of auditing to set a baseline.

Monica Pitts (10:32.576)
Mm -hmm. So I would also look at ADA compliance, cookie compliance. I mean, you’re lawyers. Let’s be compliant, people. Like, you eat—

Karin (10:37.27)
Yes!

Yeah. And the number of lawyers who, and by cookie compliance, just to be clear, it’s also all your privacy policies, which change all the time. You really need to have something that automatically updates based on your state and location and all of that stuff. And I can’t tell you the number of law firms that just bypass this step, which is so dumb.

Monica Pitts (10:53.12)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (10:59.04)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (11:05.568)
Well, and there’s also companies that are like, well, do you have a lawyer that you suggest to provide our policy or privacy policy? And I’m like, I am using an online service that continually updates them based on where you are. Yes, you have to pay for it every year, but if something changes, they update it. That’s what you pay them for. Right. And so I’m not going to have a stagnant privacy policy. That doesn’t make any sense because the law is consistent. They’re consistently inconsistent.

Karin (11:18.389)
Yep. Yes.

Karin (11:23.83)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karin (11:34.422)
Right, well, and for the same reason you hire a lawyer, so for the same reason that you are in business, you need to have your privacy policies and yourself covered for your website. So I think we probably use the same service. The one I use is called Termigaden and it is solid and updates regularly and it’s one of the co -founders is a lawyer. So it’s all written very well. And actually she was on the podcast in the first year.

Monica Pitts (11:37.824)
Yeah.

Karin (12:04.054)
So I highly recommend it. Yeah. But if you don’t use Termigaden, you need to at least have it on a checklist somewhere to be checking your privacy policy on a regular basis. And so it’s like, how much is that worth of your time and thought process or just have an automated one? Okay. What else should people be paying attention to in terms of, you know, they think their site is maybe outdated or underperforming. What else do they look at to figure that out?

Monica Pitts (12:04.416)
Yay! There you go.

Monica Pitts (12:31.296)
Well, I mean, you can easily jump into Google Analytics and you can see, are people spending any time on the site? Do they ever, like, are there pages that they just never even go to? So Google Analytics can be a wealth of information. You can also use Google Search Console. That’s going to tell you how Google Search interacts with your site. A lot of the times you’ll see that it’s showing up for really weird words and not the words that you want people to find you by. And that’s like a clear

Karin (12:55.35)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (13:01.088)
break in the marketing bridge, right? We want it to be an easy, smooth bridge, not like jumping from like bank to bank.

Karin (13:10.551)
Or having some weird thing that’s totally unrelated, like maybe there’s a word that’s a few letters off from one of your search terms, or maybe like one of your attorneys has a common last name and it’s cross -referencing something wrong, and that’s a signal to fix that.

Monica Pitts (13:27.2)
Mm -hmm. I would say also look at your broken links, because those are really easy things to fix. We already talked about stock photos, my biggest anger.

Karin (13:30.486)
Yes.

Karin (13:36.886)
Let’s talk about that for a minute because I feel seriously like it is, it’s such a thorn in my side too. And everyone tends to think it’s the easy answer. But what’s your philosophy on stock photos?

Monica Pitts (13:52.224)
The only time I’m going to use them is if I absolutely have to. And so I might have like mood setting stock photos. I mean, take my own marketing, for an example, if I’m going to use a stock photo, it’s going to be like birthday cake or confetti or a palm tree, but it’s not people in suits shaking hands. Like everybody knows that that’s not real and it’s not you. And so I would just encourage you to present yourself as a person who is not a stock photo.

Karin (14:11.03)
Yeah, right.

Monica Pitts (14:19.872)
as you are and be approachable because people are scared. They’re in a scary situation sometimes or they really need advice. And so if you can be approachable, like we have a set of lawyers that we work for and they use some really cool stock photos of like antique toys that turned really neat. And then they also they had all their photos taken in their office, which is really neat. It has pretty artwork on it. That’s all original. And then there.

Karin (14:37.558)
Monica Pitts (14:46.848)
They’re wearing their suit coats, but they don’t have ties on. They’re not fully buttoned up, you know, they’re in relaxed seated positions. So they went as far outside of their comfort zone towards being like normal people that people can talk to without being scared of as they were comfortable being, for them, which I thought was great. I thought they did a great job of like bringing it together. Icons are always a great option. So yeah, they, they made them.

Karin (15:02.006)
Right.

Karin (15:05.782)
Yeah.

Karin (15:10.422)
Yeah.

Well, and I always say like, you know, we only work with lawyers and so like there is a certain amount of personality that you can bring to your photos, but don’t go too far. Like you’re, you still are within the box of a law firm. Like you’re not running a daycare. And so you’re not going to, you know, so the branding and the colors and the fonts and the style that you’re going to choose for everything that you’re presenting is still, you know, it has to look like you’re running a professional firm. You know, it’s not going to be like,

you know, like a daycare looking thing, which, you know, nothing wrong with daycares, but they have a very different look and appeal and they want you to think about how beautiful childhood is and all of that, you know. So, you were kind of talking about stock photos and how to make those more interesting and like align with the brand, but how do you overall look at a website and…

Monica Pitts (15:52.896)
Yeah.

Karin (16:07.51)
in terms of like making it more of a team member, but also how do you make it more memorable? I mean, I think in the long term, a lot of times people will land on your site and then they’re not going to decide the very first time. So how do you make it more possible for them to remember like when they do come back a week or a couple months or whenever their decision is being made, how do they remember you?

Monica Pitts (16:32.256)
first start by looking at your competition. Cause remember that’s what they’re looking at. And so if, and I, you know, I hate to be like, well, if everybody’s blue be yellow. but I mean, you can use that, right? And I mean, there’s a plumber that I found out in California where all of his trucks are pink. I don’t remember any other plumber except for that one. I got to say, and let, except for the plumbers that like I build websites for obviously I remember them, but they’re all red and blue. Yeah. How do you.

Karin (16:36.822)
Yes.

Karin (16:41.334)
Yeah, but yes.

Karin (16:49.59)
I love it.

No.

Karin (16:57.718)
And hi to you if you’re listening.

Monica Pitts (17:03.072)
You know, the pink van, the pink plumber vans, I remember them, right? And so, you know, take that into consideration, because you need to just set yourself apart from your competition. And if they are like super cold and wordy, then don’t be that, right? But then also you need to make sure that you allow people to compare apples to apples when they’re on your website.

Karin (17:05.142)
Yeah. Yep.

Karin (17:19.446)
Yeah, totally.

Monica Pitts (17:27.104)
versus your competition’s website. So you really do need to read their pages, read what they’re saying and be like, how do we need to say this? How are we different than this? And I also think that if you can use like photos of human beings, of yourself, if you’re clients, if you’re practicing the type of law where you can have testimonials or something like that, that would be really powerful and allow them to remember you. So just, I mean, you need to be you.

Karin (17:54.422)
And it’s not as big of an ordeal to schedule a photo shoot anymore. There’s photographers and it’s easy to find local people, so much easier than it was even I’d say five or six years ago. And they’re much more reasonable than it used to be this multi -day, especially for bigger firms where they would like come into the office and super, super expensive. And so there was always this like pushback of, let’s just use stock photos. But now it’s become,

Monica Pitts (18:00.288)
Hmm.

Karin (18:23.606)
more accessible, lower price, and you can find great photographers who also are not so stiff. Like it’s not just you, just don’t do the photos in front of the law books. Like just don’t do that. Like find something else. And if you don’t have an idea, defer to your photographer. They’re the creative one and say, this is, let me describe to you, to our firm, here’s our personality, here’s our kind of brand. And then what do you think? How could you make these photos more interesting because,

They are the one with the vision of it. Push it over to them. It doesn’t have to be your idea. Okay. Yeah.

Monica Pitts (18:58.432)
Especially since they’re working with your web designer too. Like I just went through for one of our clients who’s a builder, we’re promoting a neighborhood and I’m like, okay, so on this page, it’s the neighborhood page. I need pictures of people. I want you to go to the pool. I need the backs of children’s heads, not the front of children. I need to like see the people in the chairs. I want to see the Coca -Cola out on the table. Like I want to see that. Like I want to see people walking down the street with their dog.

Karin (19:01.59)
Yeah.

Karin (19:10.902)
Yes.

Monica Pitts (19:26.24)
Like that’s what I want to see here. So get me that. So yeah.

Karin (19:28.854)
Yes. Well, and that’s the thing. Like if you have a whole team that’s working together, if you have your marketing people working with your photographer, not if, you should have your photographer working with your marketing people so that it’s not so random. Like there is a reason and there’s a purpose and they know exactly what shots they need and it all makes sense. And you know, it’s not just guessing. Yeah. Okay. So you mentioned analytics a little bit ago and kind of how to take a look at

Monica Pitts (19:51.776)
Yeah, exactly.

Karin (19:58.774)
certain things and figure out which pages, if there’s pages that aren’t working, if there’s broken links, how else can you figure out what is working? How do you figure out if this whole website is performing other than your phone is ringing?

Monica Pitts (20:14.08)
Well, I mean, you’re going to look at the number of visits that you have on the site, which I wouldn’t look at sessions anymore with Google Analytics for sessions are really weird. They’re not right. But you could look at users and you could look at unique users and then you could see how many people are actually going to the website. If you’re a law firm and people are investigating you to buy, you should have returning users like you.

They are probably going to your website more than once. That would be very normal. Also, if you know that you have really long pages on your website that are filled with information, then you should have people that are on your site for like at least a minute to two minutes, like for the session engagement time on average. And you can actually look at the average engagement time like per page as well. But.

Karin (20:45.238)
Yep. Yeah.

Monica Pitts (21:08.704)
If your engagement time ever is below a minute, I would say you’re kind of not doing justice. But especially if you’re giving people a lot of information, it should be like bopping up higher. Now it’s tricky because some people would be on there for five minutes. Some people are only going to be on there to get your contact information, right? And so it’s all going to balance itself out. But below one minute is a trouble zone.

Karin (21:13.526)
It’s a problem. Yeah.

Karin (21:27.83)
Right.

And it’s going to be different. Yeah. And it’ll be different for certain practice areas. Like I was describing, if you get a lot of clients who are leaving jail and they literally just want your phone number, that might be fine if they’re on your site for less than a minute. And that might be working for you. But the majority of people who, especially if you’re doing a different kind of law, like let’s say you’re doing business law and the decision’s going to be a longer, it’s not just a one minute, you know, kind of conversion. Then they would kind of,

Monica Pitts (21:35.328)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (21:41.952)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Monica Pitts (21:59.008)
Mm -hmm.

Karin (22:00.982)
look at a blog post, you want them to read the blog post, and then maybe they come back and they look at your bio, and then they kind of have this whole psychology of going through the thought process. And that’s also where you briefly touched on some FAQs and the questions, but this is also where that comes in super handy, just in terms of, and it’s not, part of it is for search engine stuff, but it’s also very much for the psychology of what’s happening.

when they’re thinking about calling you. How do you normally approach like those FAQs and the kind of questions and answers that you have on a site?

Monica Pitts (22:42.144)
pair them with the information that they’re relevant to. Some people like to scoop them out and put them in their own section. And I think that’s fine if you build it right. So that way you don’t have to update every place that it’s on the website individually, because that’s very painful. But I feel like think of them like review, like product reviews, right? They need to be with the product that you’re reviewing. And so if you can, you know, you’re going to say,

Karin (22:55.67)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin (23:04.438)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (23:12.064)
hey, this is how this works. And then it’s going to be like, here’s some questions about it. So instead of writing a thesis about it, you’re going to present it like, here’s a big overview of how this works. And then you can have the questions about it. And usually, I would present them in a collapsible, expandable, collapsible format. Now sometimes when they get

Karin (23:30.55)
Mm -hmm.

Monica Pitts (23:33.12)
like they have really in -depth answers depending upon the type of law or the type of question. I would direct people over to a single post page for them to read it like a blog post because that’s great and it means that when people search for it, they’re gonna land on that page and get their answer. So that’s usually how I would handle it.

Karin (23:41.75)
Yeah.

Karin (23:52.31)
Yeah, yeah, we do a similar thing and it once again depends on how much you have to say, but someone I know kind of was describing it one way that stuck with me a while ago where they were talking about it’s you’re overcoming their objections. So they have these kind of in embedded thoughts about,

Monica Pitts (24:10.464)
Yes.

Karin (24:16.022)
you know, kind of like if you’re going to buy a pair of shoes and it’s like, I don’t know. Is that the right size heel? And so if that’s the question, then where’s the answer? Like, I’m scrolling down. it’s this many inches. Okay. No, that is. And so it’s like, bam, there’s an objection. I don’t know. Is this, you know, is this a running shoe or a whatever? Anyway, whatever those questions are that come up, you want to be able to overcome those potential objections. So it moves them through and they get in touch with you more quickly.

Okay, all right, so it is time for the book review. The Thought Leaders Library is a curated collection of top books from our guests. And so Monica, what’s the book you think every lawyer should have on their bookshelf?

Monica Pitts (25:00.0)
Well, every lawyer has to work within a team and our team actually just finished reading The Power of a Positive Team. And it was actually a great one. And I loved it because it wasn’t just about the Pollyanna, like everything’s like perfect and rainbows and butterflies. That really is not what it is to be positive. It’s like to be able to persevere, to be able to hold each other accountable.

Karin (25:08.47)
Karin (25:27.254)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (25:27.712)
the steps that you need to go through to be able to hold each other accountable. And so for us, I felt like it was really good because we had a couple of folks on the team who were just in a bad spot. And what was funny is in the book, they’re like talking about this school who decided they were going to adopt this mindset that is presented in the book. And one of the teachers came up at the end of the year and was like, you can’t turn me into a positive person. I quit. Okay.

Karin (25:31.446)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (25:57.568)
I know, but I had one of my employees that was like, I don’t see how my values align with your guys’s. I don’t know if I should work here anymore. And I was like, whoa. So it actually like kind of, you know, it brought some great conversations to light and yeah, it was a great book.

Karin (26:08.47)
Whoa.

Karin (26:18.806)
Wow, that sounds like a moment for sure where…

Monica Pitts (26:22.56)
Yeah, it was a teachable moment.

Karin (26:24.95)
Well, yeah, and also, if that was the case, who knows how long that might have stayed that way if you didn’t bring it out to, and so maybe that just needed to do whatever needed to happen with that situation, but maybe that wouldn’t have happened. And then it erodes your work, it erodes your client’s trust in you, and people can feel it when they’re working with somebody that’s.

unhappy in whatever they’re doing, you know, whether it’s the checkout person at target or whatever, you can tell if they’re like happy to be there or not. And so, one way or the other, it’s ideal to have a team that’s, that’s all working together and wants to be there. okay. So that we will add that to the show notes and the library and all of that stuff, the power of a positive team. that sounds awesome. So.

Monica Pitts (26:52.576)
Mm -hmm.

Karin (27:19.766)
Monica, what’s one thing that you know that works?

Monica Pitts (27:23.264)
One thing that I know that works for websites or for my life.

Karin (27:26.006)
And yeah, that’s why I, well, that’s why I leave it really open because it’s like, you know, take it however you want to.

Monica Pitts (27:34.08)
Okay, so I would say that the one thing I know that works for me in my life is making sure that I have time for me in my life and it’s not just about everyone else. And so that time for me could be, it could be exercising, it could be doing art, it could be going on vacation, but without those spots, I’m not, I’m not, I can’t, I can’t deliver on all fronts.

Karin (28:02.198)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (28:02.464)
if I’m not delivering for myself also. So.

Karin (28:05.174)
Yes. Also, I feel like my work suffers and then, and every part of it, not just the quality of the work itself, with the interactions with the clients, with my team, with all of that stuff. And so you can’t, you know, I had a operational, what was the class called in grad school, operations management. And it was all, it was much more for the guys who worked in like,

Monica Pitts (28:17.632)
Hmm.

Karin (28:33.078)
major corporations and like how to be efficient. But the main thing for me that I took away is you can’t run any machine at a hundred percent because they all like burn out. And even when you think about your car, you’re never just like floor to the pedal to the metal the entire time, a hundred percent. Like you have to slow down and you can feel when your car is getting overheated and you know, like no. Yeah, exactly.

Monica Pitts (28:56.608)
Put gas in it. Yeah.

Karin (28:58.71)
Like change the oil, do all the stuff, you know, like you don’t want the brakes to be on their last, you know, ounce of whatever. and we are, we’re not machines, but we also cannot perform by just pushing ourselves to every limit. and even to go like, you know, 90 % and only leave yourself a tiny little gap in, you know, that just doesn’t work either.

So I feel like that’s really true all the way around, life, business, all the way around. So what’s a big takeaway for all the stuff that we’ve been talking about with websites and kind of measuring performance and making sure that they’re doing what they need to do? What’s a big overall kind of takeaway you’d like people to get from this episode?

Monica Pitts (29:27.136)
Mm -mm.

It is.

Monica Pitts (29:48.928)
that you need to set aside the time to do the thing that you don’t want to do, which is, okay, so I know that rebuilding your website sucks. I get that. It’s expensive sometimes. It takes so much self -reflection. You’re constantly doubting the thing that you’re putting together. And it’s even worse if you don’t do it. Like the cost, the opportunity cost of not updating it, not having it load quickly.

Karin (29:58.038)
Yeah, yeah.

Monica Pitts (30:16.096)
not giving the right first impression is far worse than the pain of fixing it. So just do yourself a favor and go look at it. Just go look at it. Like, because we don’t, we don’t. I look at my clients’ websites and they don’t even know. They’re like, that’s there? And I’m like, yeah, it is. We should, that should go.

Karin (30:20.95)
Yes.

Karin (30:26.614)
Yeah, yeah. And that.

Karin (30:34.742)
Exactly. Well, and if you haven’t looked at your site in at least the last week or so, that’s a bad sign right there. That’s telling you that it’s sort of like that pile of laundry that you don’t want to look at and you know somewhere in your brain that it’s a problem that you need to fix. And it’s not just that it’s a problem and like you’re going to check the box of fixing it.

Monica Pitts (30:43.2)
Hehehe

Karin (31:00.726)
It’s that it’s going to turn around and make your firm better. It’s going to make your business better, probably bring in better leads and turn things around. So it’s not just like the oil change where you’re going to, you know, you’re sort of taking care of it. It’s, it’s way more than that. It’s like getting a new car.

Monica Pitts (31:19.168)
I feel like too, if you’re like really putting it off, you’re like, I don’t want to do this. Pick the, like, if you just hired a new person, make this one of the first things that they do because they need to learn all about you, right? And so have them go look at your website and then ask you questions based on what they see because they use websites all the time. You don’t have to be a web expert to be frustrated with a crappy website. Like my husband is not a web expert. He is not, he’s a mortgage broker.

Karin (31:28.246)
Yep. Yes.

Karin (31:41.686)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Monica Pitts (31:46.72)
And I cannot tell you how many times he’ll be like, did you know that this website does this? And I’m like, thanks, baby. Thanks. But he knows, like he knows when it’s not ADA compliant because he can’t see it right. You know what I mean? He knows when it’s loading slow because it’s loading slow for him. So when you can’t find the thing you’re looking for.

Karin (31:50.55)
Yes. Yeah.

Karin (32:01.078)
Right. Yeah.

Right. Yeah, you don’t have to be a rocket. Exactly. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know it’s a bad website and to even just visually. You don’t have to be a designer to visually look at it and think, ew, yuck, that’s not good. And, you know, maybe you don’t know how to fix it, but you know that it’s not good.

Monica Pitts (32:10.752)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (32:17.856)
Yeah.

Exactly. You don’t have to know how to fix it. That’s why you hire people to help you fix it. Like it’s not, and hey, the good news is, is that once you’ve looked at it and you’re like, Hey, this isn’t right. Then you can just be like, all right, let’s allocate this to person B and move on and take on a new client so I can pay for it. So.

Karin (32:24.822)
Exactly.

Karin (32:33.238)
Exactly.

Exactly, exactly. And that it should be in theory, it shouldn’t be a huge weight on your shoulders if you’re hiring the right firm to take care of getting the website done. Obviously there’s going to be some work that you have to get involved in, but it shouldn’t be all on you. Like that’s, you know, you should be off being a lawyer and doing that stuff.

Monica Pitts (32:45.28)
Yeah.

Monica Pitts (32:52.192)
No.

Monica Pitts (32:56.032)
Well, and if you’re really like dialed in and you’re a very competitive law firm and, or you have an area of law that’s really specific, like just make sure that you’re working with somebody who can have any clue what’s going on because like some people can make stuff pretty and other people can really understand like who you’re talking to, what they need to hear and think through it and present it to them. And so sometimes having someone with a little bit of experience.

even in your area can be, it can go a really long way.

Karin (33:26.582)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty is not everything. This is not, we’re not just talking about pretty. It’s like, it should look great and it should look like it’s, you know, modern and has been updated in the last 10 years. Let’s just be generous. But that’s definitely not everything. You know, we spent some time talking about the stock photos and yes, that’s important, but for a reason, not just because we want it to be pretty, because we want to connect more and because you want to show this side of your firm.

that doesn’t mean you’re using these kind of questionable, weird looking stock photos that kind of erode trust and authenticity and all of those good stuff, all those good things. Awesome. Monica Pitts is the founder of May Create Design. She also, what is the name of your podcast? that’s so, that’s so perfect for what we’re talking about. Like make sure your website, the purpose of your website is clear and it should be like,

Monica Pitts (34:10.464)
It’s called Marketing with Purpose.

Monica Pitts (34:19.136)
Ha ha ha!

Karin (34:19.382)
a business piece that makes you some, at least leads, not everybody necessarily wants it to be money, but leads. So marketing with purpose, check out that podcast too. But thank you so much for being here. That was super useful and like very, like lots of big takeaways and like good, very good like information. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.

Monica Pitts (34:40.96)
Thank you for having me.