Project Overview
The Law Offices of Mark R. Strauss, Esq. needed a website that better reflected the experience, professionalism, and personality of the firm. I designed and developed a custom WordPress website for the Bucks County law firm, replacing a template-driven website with a custom site built specifically around the firm’s attorneys, practice areas, case results, content, and ongoing needs.
The project included website strategy, custom design, WordPress development, photography, content architecture and creation, technical SEO, performance optimization, security, website migration, hosting, and ongoing support.
Website Redesign: Before & After
Challenge
The firm’s previous website had been created and managed by a well-known legal industry website and marketing provider. While functional, the site was built from a managed template used across many of the provider’s other clients. This offered relatively little flexibility in visual design, customization, content management, and future expansion. As a result, the website did not adequately represent the Law Offices of Mark R. Strauss or fully communicate the firm’s attorneys, experience, case results, breadth of services, and personality.
The challenge was to create a website that felt specific to the firm, better organized its information, made ongoing updates easier, and provided a stronger platform for future growth.
Process of Discovery
The discovery process began by reviewing and expanding the content provided by the firm. The material included attorney and staff information, practice areas, firm background, case results, reviews, and other core website content. I worked from that material to refine the language, improve consistency, identify gaps, and reorganize the information so it would work more effectively within the new website.
From there, I created a sitemap to organize the content into a clear page hierarchy. This established which pages were needed, how the primary navigation would work, and how related information would connect across the site before individual pages were designed.
Next, wireframes were used to establish page structure, content priority, calls to action, and the placement of elements. Keeping this stage visually simple made it easier to focus on usability and hierarchy without being distracted by colors, typography, or imagery.
Once the structure was established, I developed a visual mockup that translated the wireframes into the final design direction. Typography, color, photography, spacing, interface details, and the overall visual character of the site were refined at this stage.
Together, the sitemap, wireframes, and mockup served as a discovery process that established the direction of the website before development began. The resulting design feels professional and confident without falling into the generic visual language common to many law firm websites. The goal was to create a website experience that felt distinctly connected to the Law Offices of Mark R. Strauss while maintaining a clear and consistent visual identity throughout the site.
Responsive layouts for desktop, tablet, and mobile were also considered and mocked up during this phase.
Attorney Photography
As part of the project, I also conducted an on-location professional headshot session for the firm’s attorneys and staff. The photography was created specifically for the new website, allowing the portraits to be planned around how they would appear within the site’s layouts rather than adapting unrelated images later.
The result was a consistent set of professional, approachable portraits that could also be reused on sites such as LinkedIn.
Developing with WordPress
The website was built on WordPress using the Divi 5 Theme Builder and supporting plugins as the foundation. Custom HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript were added where more tailored functionality was needed.
The decisions made during the earlier discovery phases became the blueprint for development. The sitemap established the page hierarchy, the wireframes organized the content, and the mockup defined the typography, colors, imagery, and overall visual direction.
Once the content, global design settings, and core WordPress configuration were in place, I built the custom functionality. One example is the Attorney and Staff custom post type, which allows profile information to be managed in one place and displayed dynamically throughout the site.
That same Attorney and Staff data also feeds the contact form. Attorney and staff names appear automatically as recipient options, so adding or removing a team member will update both the website and the contact form without maintaining a separate list. And, since the associate’s email addresses are not visible in the form, the likelihood of those addresses being harvested by bots are greatly reduced.
The technical foundation of the website was addressed as part of the development process as well. Technical SEO was built into the site so search engines and AI tools can more effectively crawl, interpret, and understand the content. Performance was considered through image optimization, caching, responsive delivery, and efficient loading of site assets, while security and maintenance were supported through SSL, backups, software updates, spam protection, access controls, and ongoing monitoring.
Together, these decisions resulted in a website that is easier to manage, more consistent, more secure, and better prepared for future growth.
Launching the Website
The firm’s website and domain infrastructure were moved away from the previous provider and into an independent environment managed by me. That included working with:
- cPanel hosting
- Domain management
- DNS management
- Microsoft 365 / Outlook DNS configuration
- SSL configuration
- Development-to-production migration
- Launch testing and coordination
Having the website hosted on my servers gives the firm greater control over its website and the technical infrastructure supporting it. The new arrangement also provides the firm with direct ongoing support from the same person who designed and developed the website. The knowledge developed during the original design and development process carries forward into ongoing maintenance, updates, and future improvements.
The Result
The completed project gave the Law Offices of Mark R. Strauss a website that better represents the firm visually, technically, and strategically.