A law firm’s website should not be designed like any other website. There are best practices and strategies that can turn a law website from just another website into a case-generating machine. By empowering your website with the techniques below, you can turn your site into an invaluable asset and be a crucial component of generating leads. Once your website is set up for success, it’s also essential to activate it via marketing. We’ve outlined strategies at the end of the article.
Four Must-Have Components of an Effective Law Firm Web Design
I. Prominent and Clear Calls-to-Action
It might seem obvious, but generating new clients requires a website design that makes it easy and enticing to contact your firm. Easy ways to do this include:
- Accessible Contact Information: Make your phone number placements as visible as possible across the site, such as in your header or footer.
- Prominently display your address. This will encourage people that are looking for a lawyer in your area to go with your firm.
- Compelling Offer: For most law offices, there offer is a free or low-cost consultation. Whatever you choose to make your offer, ensure it is clearly and prominently displayed on your website. For example, placing a free consultation request form on each page’s sidebar will encourage people to submit their contact information.
II. Social Proof
Third-party validation in the form of online reviews, client testimonials, and other content aids lead generation. According to digital marketing publication Search Engine Journal, “A Spiegel study found that reviews have a much larger effect on purchase likelihood when it comes to more expensive items…When reviews are displayed for higher-priced products, their conversion rate increased by 380%.” Given the costs associated with legal services, incorporating your firm’s reviews and other forms of social proof helps produce more business:
- Google reviews/client testimonials on a Reviews page or built into a site-wide banner
- A team page that introduces the firm’s staff
- Quality photography of your office and team to help humanize the firm
- Expertise highlights and big wins, such as how much money you’ve won for clients, ratings, and awards
III. Content That Addresses Objections
Attracting new clients will also require overcoming issues that make an individual hesitant to contact your firm. A sample of common objections for a law firm include:
- Does this firm handle my case type?
- Do they have a location near me, or do they serve my area?
- How will my attorney handle fees?
- If the firm does handle my case type, how will its attorneys work with me?
To build trust and quell these concerns, develop website content that acknowledges them and is transparent about your case management approach. More specifically, be mindful of your target audience’s way of speaking and aim to match its tone and level of sophistication. Filling your site’s pages with legal jargon may alienate people researching firms and lead to them seeking representation elsewhere.
IV. Easy Site Navigation
Lastly, an effective law firm website entails easy navigation for visitors. Finding information about practice areas, contact details, and the team should require little to no effort. Easy-to-read headlines, proper website navigation structure, and internal linking contribute to an optimal user experience and, in turn, a greater likelihood a visitor converts into a lead.
Example of a custom law firm website built by Duckpin’s team.
Questions to Ask Your Web Design Agency
Now that you understand the essential elements that influence a website’s lead generation success, let’s discuss working with a web design agency. The following questions serve as a starting point for evaluating a design team’s quality and ability to build a platform that produces new business.
- Are they taking basic SEO principles, such as site speed, responsive web design, and other design elements, into consideration?
- Are they rewriting and optimizing the content on the website or pulling over existing content from your website?
- If they are rewriting, ask how many pages and inquire about their goals for the rewrites.
- Fresh content will add cost to your website build or can be handled by your SEO agency after the build.
- What logos, photos, branding guidelines, and other branding materials do they need?
- Will they keep your existing Google Analytics and conversion tracking in place from your old website?
- How will they implement the suggestions mentioned in the previous section?
Costs
Regarding costs, various factors determine the pricetag for a website project:
- Quality of product (speed, security, scalability, accessibility, performance)
- Quality and reputation of vendor
- Custom strategy, design and development vs. one-size-fits-all theme
- Contract type, for example one off project vs ongoing services
- Product purpose (does the website exist solely to provide business legitimacy? Is it intended to generate new business? Is it intended to serve existing customers? is it intended to facilitate employee processes?)
Activating and Leveraging Your Website
After your website’s completion, you’ll need to attract traffic to it. As the adage goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The same concept applies to the digital ecosystem. Even with an existing presence on Google and other search engines, more effort is needed. Ensure your new site gains an audience and provides a return on investment by committing to ongoing SEO, PPC, and other marketing efforts outlined here.
SEO
SEO, at its core, is about improving a website’s search engine rankings, which hopefully encourages more website visitors and actions while they’re there.
Basic SEO best practices to implement include:
- Developing great content, such as blog posts, explainer videos, and informative web pages
- Keyword research to find phrases to have in your content
- Address technical issues like site speed, meta titles and descriptions, and image alt-text
- Local business listings and citations to send relevant signals to Google, including an optimized Google My Business Page
- Lawyer directories with optimized profiles
- Encourage and manage client reviews online
- Backlink building to build authority to your website and its pages
Hiring a dedicated SEO agency or consultant will speed up the process of your website ranking higher on Google and connect those rankings back to your lead generation and business goals.
Pay-Per-Click & Display Advertising
Another way to get the most out of your firm’s new website is via paid advertising. Most often, PPC (pay-per-click) or Display advertising. Platforms that we at Duckpin have used for other attorneys are:
- Google Ads (Search, Display)
- Facebook and Instagram ads
These platforms offer sophisticated targeting options, be it demographics or keywords, and allow firms to test out what creative elements (copy, visuals) and CTAs work best for generating leads.
For easy reference in the future, check out our infographic below.
