The primary purpose of your law firm site is to bring more prospects in. So, if your website is gaining a lot of traffic but isn’t getting a lot of leads, or if you’re not gaining any traffic at all, there’s a problem. These 8 web design tips can help you.
Chances are, your website isn’t doing its job.
Remember that users will always make judgments about the quality of a website in just a matter of seconds. Nothing turns off a potential client than a poorly-designed, low-quality website. They will move on to your competitors.
As Ross Kimbarovsky of crowdspring puts is:
Your brand, including your website, impacts your business and your potential to find new clients and grow revenues.
In this post, we’ll walk you through the eight design tips that will help you attract the right target market for your firm.
1. Keep Your Design Simple And Unique
Your website should always reflect your brand. Visitors will already form their first impression the moment they visit your site.
So, if your site has a theme that looks exactly like hundreds of other law firms on the internet, you’re missing out on the opportunity to make a great first impression. How would your site stand out if prospects have already seen dozens of other sites on the internet just like yours?
That’s why being unique is also a good thing.
What impression do you want to make? What message do you want to send to your audience?
Having a clean and simple design helps your audience focus on your web content. People have very short attention spans these days.
You have to get straight to the point when sending your message across. Communicate what you want to say directly.
Here Are Some Practical Tips To Simplify Your Web Design:
- Decrease the total amount of text. Combine the text with images to convey your message effectively.
- Utilize contrasting colors and large headers to make the navigation easier.
- Write simple, easy-to-read sentences.
- Use whitespace to separate the content, and making it easy on the eyes.
- Use a “one-liner” value proposition that immediately tells people what to do.
2. Know The Most Important Pages
You don’t have to put all your information on the main page. It’s alright to divide your content into different pages as long as you have clear links to them.
While Every Website Is Different, Here Are Some Essential Pages:
- Home Page: The homepage helps a client form a first impression of your business. They will stay on this page for a few seconds before deciding to venture further or move on to a competitors’ site.
- About Page: This page shows what you’re made of. What is it precisely that you do? Can you offer something that no one else can? Mostly, this page answers most of your visitors’ questions.
- Blog: Your website’s blog is a platform where you can show off your knowledge and expertise in a particular field. By doing so, you’ll be gaining the trust and the admiration of your visitors. Readers prefer a blog that’s well-organized so they can easily find what they’re looking for. Groupings and headings are also necessary.
- Contact Us Page: The contact us page has the most vital information on your site. Users want to know how and where they can reach you. Your goal is to make them contact you immediately while your brilliance excites them. So make it as straightforward as possible.
3. Improve Your Page Speed
Most users tend to abandon a site if it doesn’t load within three seconds. Slow loading sites don’t just make people leave, but they can significantly hurt your SEO efforts as well.
Remember, Google includes page and site speed in their ranking algorithm. If you want to improve your web load times, choose an excellent website host and try to make your site design simple.
If you want to know how fast your site loads, the PageSpeed Tool from Google is a free tool that you can use.
4. Use Clear And Multiple CTAs
You need to tell your site visitors what you want them to do. For a majority of law firms, this can be a downloadable ebook or to fill up a form for a free consultation.
Ideally, websites should have dynamic contact forms on every single page, making it clear what should users do to know more or to book an appointment.
For this to happen, you should guide them to your site and use multiple CTAs to facilitate the schedule of consultation.
Your CTAs should be used on your homepage and other site pages such as your Attorney Profile pages and About Page.
You should also use your CTA on the sidebar of your blog page or below your blog posts.
5. List Your Services And Attorney Profiles
You’re selling a service to clients. So, see to it that you’re showcasing your service on your home page.
Most prospects are looking for two vital pieces of information when they visit your website: the profile pages, and the list of services that you offer.
Remember that you only have a few seconds to make an impression. That’s why the impression that you make should be as professional as possible.
Brenda Barron also advised to “stress your advantage.” What sets you apart from other law firms or businesses?
Find your Unique Selling Proposition and stress it throughout your website. You can start with the headlines on your site, on your About page, or even on your tagline. Doing so can help your clients relate to your brand and decide whether you are right for them or not.
6. Implement Personalization
Utilizing personalization tools boost engagement and customer loyalty. It shows your audience the content that’s relevant to them, highly optimized for their device.
Surprisingly, a majority of websites neglect personalization. Meaning, a lot of companies are missing out on prospective business opportunities.
Remember that a lot of internet users get a personalized experience almost every day with the likes of Google, Amazon, and Tesco.
Users need to have customized content at every stage of their digital journey whether it’s looking for a family lawyer or finding a legal professional to help them out with a business deal.
7. Make Your Site Mobile-First
Wherever you go, you’ll always see people with their faces stuck on the screens of their smartphones. Well, it’s because that’s how users search the net these days.
Adopting a mobile-first approach will help you stand out from the rest of the competition. Not to mention, it will boost your engagement and appeal to a younger set of audience.
Since mobile audiences are accustomed to the fact that they can get instant gratification with minimal effort, you can’t afford to miss out on this advantage.
Moreover, your law firm site should be tailored and designed in a way that it’s easy to navigate and highly responsive on different devices ‒ phones, tablets, laptops, etc.
8. Hire A Professional Web Design Company
With a lot of free tools available on the internet, it’s sometimes tempting to do everything all by yourself. But you don’t have to.
If you want to stand out from the rest of the pack, you need to hire an expert in web design. That agency should be professional and know good SEO practices, as well as how to code the back-end of your website so that it drives in targeted traffic.
But if you have the budget, you may opt to hire different people for web design and web development. After all, design and development require different skill sets.
You need to work with a company that has the right skills to make the navigation of your site easy and knows how to work their way with design to make it interesting. In other words, you need a professional company that can give your users a good user experience and has a nice sleek look as well.
Over To You
In today’s legal marketplace, the competition for legal services is getting fierce. That’s why it’s getting harder and harder for law firm sites to get noticed.
Even worse, if your site doesn’t look professional, clients will move on to your competitors.
So now that you know the right web design tips for your law firm sites that will attract the right prospects, you may discover that your website has some issues that need fixing. Apply these to your site and start getting the results that you want over time.
Author Bio:
Bryan Mixon is the owner of Amaze Law, the website building for solo and small firm attorneys. Bryan has been building websites since 1999 and has spent his last four years helping companies like HubSpot, Mill33, and LivingSocial. Bryan knows firsthand how difficult it can be for small business owners to get their digital marketing off the ground, so he built AmazeLaw as a super-simple place for solo attorneys to build their sites, collect leads and get on with their days of doing lawyerly things.
