Think open source is unsophisticated? Think again. Take a look at the lengths the WordPress team went to in order to redesign the user interface.

To make sure users get a better interface, WordPress engaged the Ball State University’s Center for Media Design, Insight and Research (CMD, blessedly, for short).

CMD conducted eye-tracking studies, usability surveys, and other research to guide WordPress’s complete redesign of the user interface. You can even check out a detailed report of their findings (PDF).

Usability Testing Report: 2.5 and Crazyhorse | WordPress Blog

A blog is probably the most effective way to drive potential clients to your (virtual) door. Well-written, attractive, and well-configured blogs consistently appear at the top of search engine results, and often result in earned media exposure for the blogger.

What is a blog?

A blog is just a frequently-updated website. It is a simple, easy way of publishing content to the web. Many of the websites you visit every day (CNN and the New York Times, for example) probably have the bones of a blog, but you may not even know it.

Earn great search engine results

Picture your ideal potential client. When faced with a legal problem or a need for legal advice, how will your potential ideal client find a lawyer?

Only a tiny percentage—11% or less—of middle-class Americans use the phone book. Most start with Google.

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Reason #1: You actually blog about what you are doing. Reading your catalog of what you are actually doing throughout your day is boring. For example:

• Just woke up. Making coffee.
• Sitting down with the morning paper.
• Leaving for work. Lots to do today!
• Sorting through the mail. Lots of bills, no checks.
• Eating a turkey sandwich from the corner deli. Yum!

Not reading that.

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Luis Suarez, who works for IBM from the Canary Islands, got tired of wading through piles of e-mail, so he moved most of his communications to social networking tools, especially blogs. To keep up with his co-workers, he used an RSS reader (I use Google Reader for the same thing) to stay on top of their blogs.

Lawyers can make use of social networking tools, as well. A litigation team could make extremely effective use of a blog to track ideas, due dates, documents, and more. It would need to be a non-public blog, obviously, but this would be easy to accomplish.

One of the problems with e-mail is it is sent, received, and then lost. If team members communicated on a blog, that information would be constantly available and frequently reviewed.

I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip | New York Times

Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

Karen Lundquist has built a small, international law practice focused on employment and business matters. Her firm, Lundquist & Lange, has offices in Minneapolis, Italy, Argentina, and Chile. Lundquist maintains a WordPress blog on topics of interest to her as well as the firm’s practice areas.

Lundquist & Lange has been up and running since November 2006, and in that time her firm has tried a number of different marketing strategies, from a radio show to local church bulletins to direct marketing. According to Lundquist, offline networking “is the real way to market. Personal marketing. Who do you know, what does your name mean and how are you perceived?”

Read on for highlights from the interview.

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Every Friday for the next few weeks I will be posting interviews with solo and small firm attorneys who talked to me about their marketing strategies, online and offline, high tech and old school. Of course, I also asked about the tools they use to manage their practice. If you are interested in being interviewed, please e-mail me.

The first attorney who responded was Jennifer R. Lewis Kannegieter, who started her own practice last November. She has a blog loosely focused on family law, estate planning, probate, and similar topics, and you can find her on Facebook and mypractice.

Since Kannegieter’s practice is relatively new, she is still feeling her way when it comes to marketing, trying a few different approaches and waiting to see how they work out. She views her website and blog as one of the most important parts of her early marketing plan, and focuses on raising her profile through online and offline networking through personal relationships.

Read on for highlights from the interview.

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Hosting provider? Check. Website? Check. Advertising plan? Check. Now it is time to talk more advanced online marketing: blogs and social networking.

Starting a blog or participating in an online social network is more advanced in the sense that both require more time and a bit more comfort with online interaction. But blogging and social networking also offer new, more direct ways to reach potential clients.

A static website is just a fancy billboard or calling card. But a blog or a social network profile allow you to meet your clients before they pick up the phone to call or walk into your office. You can establish your ethos with people you have not yet met, so that when they have a legal problem, they are not calling a stranger, but someone they already know.

Many lawyers, however, seem afraid to say anything online (or in public) for fear that it will come back to haunt them. To this I have two pieces of advice: (1) stop saying things that might come back to haunt you; and (2) get over it. If you cannot get over it, then blogs and social networking are not for you.

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WordPress.org 2.5 was released a few days ago, and it contains a number of changes. Some good, some bad. For example, the new Dashboard is nice, but the new image insertion is terrible, and the new Write Post page has become an experience on scrolling on and on to find even frequently-used options like categories and tags.

If you use WordPress.org for blogging or your homepage, you will doubtless notice the changes, as well.

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Okay, so you are comfortable with online privacy issues, you have spent some time on Wikipedia and Google learning about the “geek stuff,” and now you want to get going and market your law firm online. Obviously, you want to start with square one: a website. And a website is the logical next step in online marketing, so let’s get to it.

When I say “static website,” I mean a normal website: a set of web pages with content that rarely changes, and could be described accurately as a sort of dynamic business card and resume rolled into one. Many people will throw in a brochure-y article or two, but the bottom line is that a static website rarely changes. (A “dynamic website,” by contrast, could be a blog, wiki, or other frequently-updated website.)

A static website is online marketing 101. Every firm should have one, almost without exception. Most Americans have internet access in one form or another. Many will get referrals to more than one lawyer, who they will try to find online. The ones they find will get phone calls. The others probably will not.

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I decided the blog could use an updated look. I prefer simple themes, so I adapted “Limau Orange” by Bob Jiwakacau, former owner of blogohblog.com. It still looks fairly clean, allows smooth ad integration, and allows me to use some cool WordPress widgets like the tag cloud in the right sidebar. Let me know what you think in the comments.