Especially in today's challenging economic climate, a common question from attorneys I talk to is how they can be successful online with a limited budget considering that many of the firms they compete with are larger and have big budgets.

The answer is that you can and it's quite simple - start off with a narrow focus.

The way that it works is this - the more competitive the practice area/topic you want to be found for, and the more topics you want to be found for the more it's going to cost to get a site to rank well. Now of course if you have a good site and good rankings/traffic you will get a good return on that investment, however that's a mute point if you don't have the initial investment. However if you start off with just one practice area (if it's not competitive) or one matter within a practice area you can create a good presence and do well on a much smaller budget.

One example would be a FindLaw client in Riverside who practices family law which is a competitive area. To get a good presence for family law, divorce etc...isn't easy because it's competitive however we created a site for him which focused solely on father's rights. Because the site had a narrow focus it was quickly on page 1 for relevant phrases, performed really well and generated a steady stream of business. Once the site was bringing a good return on investment the attorney then had the funds to release a fuller website covering every family law matter however that little father's rights website is still around today and still continues to be a revenue producer!

So don't think you need big bucks to compete online - you don't, you simply need a smart strategy.