Getting Personal

Divorce Interactive arranges its content by telephone area code. When our developmental vision is ultimately fulfilled, and we have Members participating throughout the United States and Canada, there will be as many as 300 versions of the site, each corresponding to a specific telephone area code. Visitors from San Diego will see the San Diego version, visitors from Suffolk County, N.Y., the Suffolk County, N.Y. version, visitors from….well, you get the picture!

Our original intent in structuring the site as a dynamic database was to provide geographically-sensitive information to our visitors. We reasoned that not only did divorce laws vary from state to state, but the way these laws were interpreted could also vary regionally within individual states. We thought that, without a dynamic site, information visitors found could be misleading or confusing and that finding appropriate information could often feel like finding a needle in a haystack.

What we didn’t realize was that we had accidentally stumbled upon something far more important. Shortly after Divorce Interactive went “live,” we received an e-mail from an attorney who lauded us for the “local feel” of our site. He further went on to say how much more personal our site was than that of our competitors. We immediately realized that targeting people on our site was far more important than targeting information. In other words, it turned out that one of the most important features of our site was its hometown feel.

When you go shopping, don’t you often feel more comfortable dealing with someone you know or someone who happens to live or work in your community? The same is true in shopping for a divorce professional. This is someone with whom you will soon need to develop a good working relationship. Although many good divorce professionals have built their own web sites or affiliated themselves with other divorce-related sites, most of these professionals are difficult to find on the large, international conglomerate known as the internet. Most often, they are buried behind or disconnected from information that may or may not be relevant to potential clients. Imagine yourself being thrust into a large and strange place, filled with people you will never meet, most of whom have no interest in meeting you. How would you feel? How hard would it be to find the right information in this place and, more importantly, the right person to talk to?

We know of no other divorce-related site that is specifically structured to make immediate contact between potential clients and divorce professionals in their hometowns. In contrast, the first things potential clients see on Divorce Interactive are articles by local Members. These, in turn, are linked to web pages containing additional information about these professionals and information about how they can be contacted. This is the first step in getting personal on our site.