Marketing for Attorneys and the Death of Destination Websites

The marketing for attorneys world should take note of a September 30, 2008 TechCrunch article about whether opening up their portals will save and assist Yahoo and AOL.  According to the article, AOL and Yahoo changed their home pages in September 2008 to include additional links to such outside services as social networks.  For example, AOL's home page now has integration with MySpace and Facebook, as well as links to Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo Mail.  The article notes that Yahoo is positioning itself to become the leading starting point on the Internet.

The TechCrunch article questions whether Yahoo and AOL's strategy will work in the new Internet age where "destination" sites are either dead or dying, and where Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and other services "push" and personalize one's Web information.  The article concludes by noting the Yahoo and AOL are exploring a "combination," but that their open strategies may not make much of a difference in today's Web 2.0 world.

Marketing for attorneys on the Internet needs to account for such changes that are taking place.  Thus, law firm and lawyer websites should find ways to avoid being simply "destination" sites and should instead incorporate "push" and personalized elements.  The age of the destination site in Internet marketing for lawyers is over.

Please let me know in the Comments section below whether you agree.