Rob Timmermann

5 Tips for Improving Your Law Firm’s Website Design

A law firm or lawyer’s website can be the difference between landing a new client and being passed over, and it is a must-have element of any effective legal marketing campaign. Completing a conversion can be helped along by a few factors, and these web design tips will help potential clients find your site, get the information they need, and decide if your firm is the best solution for them.

Focus on UX

The first design aspect of a website that will capture a potential client is a quality user experience. Can a potential client easily figure out what areas of law are practiced by your firm? Can they find info on the lawyers? Are there blogs to prove expertise? Videos to help “humanize” lawyers? Testimonials from previous clients to prove authority? Each of these pieces of marketing plays an important part in providing information to a potential client who is deciding whether or not to hire you or your law firm.

It’s also entirely possible that some people trying to find a lawyer aren’t the best at navigating the internet; the easier your site is to use, the better.

Add Videos

Videos are an opportunity to show that lawyers are real, likable people who have the knowledge and skill to navigate any potential client’s case. Remember, this is essentially a marketing tool, and can later be used in a social media marketing campaign to spread your reach even farther.

Provide Client Testimonials

Much like videos, testimonials can help push a potential client to choose your services. Seeing other satisfied customers shows that you are able to do well in court, helping to increase your trustworthiness.

Combining videos and testimonials is even better. It shows that a real person cared enough to leave feedback for your law firm. Plus, it can also be used as a universal marketing tool, posted on social media to show that you leave clients satisfied.

Generally, you want a testimonial to address what the client’s problem was (especially if it was unique) and how your law firm solved it. The subject should touch on how your firm communicated with them, and what type of rapport was established. Finally, they should answer whether they would use your firm again.

Write and Maintain Your Law Blog

While many businesses find that keeping a blog is a hassle and often let it fall by the wayside, it’s actually the perfect marketing tool for organically proving your expertise and authority. Use your firm’s blog to discuss new laws, laws that might be hard for the average individual to understand, or to dissect cases. The key is to present high-quality content that informs a potential client. Provide resources that a potential client could actually use, and they may keep you in mind when they need representation.

A blog is also the perfect place to use internal links, which is an essential part of sound on-page SEO. Utilizing proper SEO on the blog can help elevate your entire site, and eventually rank higher than competitors in your legal niche.

Be Mobile-Friendly

There’s a good chance that a potential client is browsing your site on a mobile phone. After all, someone trying to help a family member with a DUI on-scene isn’t likely to have access to a desktop. Or, someone may be embarrassed about their recent DUI, and will want to perform a discreet search on their phone so it does not show up on a larger monitor.

Being mobile-friendly is also important to local search, as the majority of local-based searches are performed on phones. This means optimizing for a small screen. Viewing the full page on a phone is a hassle that will put off any potential client; the site needs to be easy to navigate. It also means the site needs to load quickly.

Improve Load Times

Load times are one of the factors Google takes into account when judging SEO; the faster, the better. Plus, a client who needs immediate help is likely impatient, and if your site isn’t loading, they will move on to the next lawyer that appears in a search. Improving your load times means potential clients are less likely to bounce off-site, and are one step closer to becoming an actual client.

Some of the most common reasons for slow load times are:

  • File or image sizes are too large;
  • Files and images are not compressed;
  • Improper caching;
  • Too many server requests;
  • Unoptimized code;

Allow Scheduling Appointments Online

Your website never sleeps, but your receptionist does. If a potential client is on the website at 4 a.m., they should still be able to schedule an appointment online. A landing page that facilitates this type of micro-conversion should be easy to access and linked to across the site, so the potential client does not have to search the site for the option to meet with someone and discuss their legal problems.

This can also help with people who have anxiety making phone calls. Instead, they can schedule an appointment online and then simply meet a lawyer face-to-face.

Track Important Web Metrics

Trackers like Google Analytics and other tools can help you understand how viewers are interacting with your website, and what you might need to change to better fit potential client needs. Using the correct marketing analytics, it’s possible to identify opportunities you might be missing and then capitalize on insights gained from the data.

By studying these analytics, you can determine where your potential clients are from, their demographics, and whether they are following your calls-to-action. These insights can also help inform the future of your marketing campaigns.

Improving your website is valuable not only for boosting rankings in search engine results pages, but can also lead to more conversions and clients. The right structure, design, and features will help effectively communicate that your lawyers are knowledgeable, trustworthy, and, ultimately, the right choice for potential clients.