You’ve set up your law firm’s legal structure and are ready to get clients. When you launch a basic website, you get a few clicks but not any client inquiries. Before you blame websites overall, consider what makes websites for lawyers stand out. That way, you can make sure your website has the right design to help convert visitors into clients. Keep reading to learn more.
1. Build Brand Recognition
One of the most important elements of websites for lawyers is to build brand recognition. The best websites will include the lawyer’s or law firm’s name at the top of the home page to help build your practice online. If your law firm has a logo, you should also include that on your site to help people recognize your brand. Be sure to use your brand colors and fonts when designing a website for your firm. This will help people associate a logo or color with your business. If they see your posts on social media, they may notice it’s your post without having to read the text.
2. Consider Your Ideal Client
Next, you should think about the type of law firm you have and who your ideal client is. Knowing that can help you with the law firm website design to help attract and retain your ideal clients. For example, a business law firm may use a more professional design and neutral colors. On the other hand, a personal injury law firm website may look more personable. You want prospective clients to know what you do and how you can help them. The right website design can convince more prospects to contact you with questions about your services. On the other hand, the wrong design may turn people away who would otherwise hire you.
3. Set Up Pages
When designing websites for lawyers, it’s crucial to set up certain pages. Most law firm sites will have a home page, about page, contact page, and service pages. The home page is a place to share an overview of your law firm and what you do. You can link directly to another page if people want to learn more about something specific. Of course, the about page and contact page are self-explanatory. When writing a service page, consider how many areas of law you practice and if you may want to create a page for each area. That way, you’ll be able to send clients to the correct service page for their needs. If you keep everything on one page, you might confuse clients and lose out on leads.
4. Upload Media
Another critical part of lawyer websites is media, such as photos or videos. Media can help website visitors get to know you and others in your law firm. For example, you can upload a portrait of all of the lawyers and legal assistants. Then, you can include those photos next to each employee’s bio on the law firm about page. Maybe you film and edit a video about your law firm to help prospects learn how you can help. When website visitors see your face and hear your voice, they might feel like they know you better. That can help convince people to contact you or book a consultation where you can really sell yourself and your services.
5. Share Case Studies
If you’ve had clients before, ask some of them if you can write and publish a case study about them. Sharing a case study or two lets visitors learn about your processes and see specific examples of your work. You can share why a particular client came to you and what their problem was. Include how you helped them and how their case went as well as where the client is now. Of course, you can explain how you help your clients. However, showing proof of what you can do is more powerful, and it may help you turn more website visitors into paying clients.
6. Ask for Testimonials
If a client doesn’t want you to do a case study on them, ask if they’ll send you a testimonial. A testimonial can be another fantastic way to prove you know what you’re doing. You can collect and share a variety of testimonials for the different areas of law you practice. The quotes don’t need to be super long, but they should cover how you helped a client. Once you receive a few responses, you should add them to your law firm website. An excellent way to do this is to create a testimonials page where all you share are quotes from current and past clients. However, you may also add one or two to your home page. If you have a testimonial that highlights one area of law you practice, you can add that testimonial to the coordinating service page.
7. Answer FAQs
The best law firm websites don’t only focus on their services. While they include service pages, they also answer common questions people may have about the law either on an FAQ page or in the form of a blog. Answering questions on your website can help build trust with visitors. If you answer someone’s question, they may contact you if they have more questions or need extra assistance. Sharing answers on your website can also help you target more keywords and show up in search results. That way, you don’t have to rely on people searching specifically for a lawyer to find your website.
8. Implement SEO
When writing the copy or content for your website, you should use search engine optimization (SEO). Law firm SEO can help you show up in front of the right people when they search on Google or another engine. SEO is where you optimize a page for a specific keyword or phrase. For example, you might optimize your service page for a keyword such as “business lawyer in Los Angeles” to attract local clients. It’s a good idea to include the area of law you practice as well to show up in front of people who need what you offer. Be sure to include your keyword in the page title, first paragraph, and a section header. Once you implement SEO on your site, you may start to get organic traffic from search engines, so you don’t have to market your firm as much.
9. Use Google My Business
As you figure out an SEO strategy, you should connect your website to Google My Business. This is where you create a free listing that helps show your business on Google when people search for it or for a local law firm. When setting up your listing, it will ask for your business name, location, and industry. Google will mail you a letter with a verification code, which allows you to enter more details. The more detailed you make your Google My Business listing, the higher the chances are you’ll show up in search. Your listing will show up on the side and look bigger than the standard link, so you might get more clicks.
10. Add a Call to Action
Another vital part of all lawyer websites is to have a call to action (CTA). For lawyers, good CTAs include ways to contact you or to book a consultation. You can share your CTA on each of your main website pages or include a button at the top of the website. If you have a blog on your site, you’ll also want to include a CTA within the body or at the end of a blog post. Make sure to choose a relevant CTA for a specific post or page. You can either use a generic CTA for everything or use specific CTAs based on the page or post subject. Think about your goal for each website page when deciding what to use as a CTA. You can also consider your ideal client to help write a convincing call to action.
11. Only Require the Essentials
When adding a call to action to contact you, consider what to include in your contact form. It may be tempting to include fields for everything from the prospect’s name to their specific problem. However, the best websites for lawyers are simple and use shorter contact forms. You can stick to a form that requires someone’s name, email, and a basic message field. This will encourage more people to go through with filling out the form entirely. You’ll be able to follow up via email or schedule a consultation where you can learn even more about someone’s needs.
12. Make Navigation Easy
When considering law firm website design, you should think about how to navigate the site. A lot of websites use a navigation bar at the top of the website. You can include direct links to your about, contact, and service pages. However, try to keep from overcrowding the navigation bar with links to too many pages. Doing this can make your site look complicated, and it can confuse visitors. Sticking to a few options makes it easy for clients to find what they need without the site overwhelming them. You can always link to more pages within the text of your home page. Another option is to use a dropdown menu, so you can include links to various services without adding too much to the navigation bar. If you want to take a deeper dive into the functionality of your website, you can perform UAT testing (User Acceptance Testing) to determine whether your website does what it was developed to do and if it meets your expectations.
13. Link to Other Pages
When writing content for a website page or blog post, include internal links to your other pages or posts. For example, you might write a blog post on what to include in a contract. If you offer contract law services, consider linking to that service page within the blog post. Then, people will be able to learn how you can help them create better contracts to serve their clients. Linking to other pages on your site helps people navigate the site without having to worry if they’re clicking on the right page to answer their questions so you can get more leads and clients. Another way to help clients find what they need is to include a search bar on your site. That allows visitors to type in exactly what they’re looking for, and they can find the right page or post.
14. Create a Mobile Version
Even the best lawyer websites may struggle to get traffic if they only work well on a desktop or laptop. Not only should you design a desktop site, but you should create a mobile version. With more than half of website visits coming from a mobile device, a responsive site is critical if you want to capture more leads. If you help with car accident cases, for example, someone may look for a lawyer when they’re still at the scene of the accident. Some people might ask their friends for recommendations of law firms. The friend may text a link to your website, so the prospect will access it from their phone. If your website is hard to use on a small screen, you can miss out on a lot of traffic. Be sure to account for the mobile site when planning your new law firm website.
15. Prioritize Page Speed
When designing websites for lawyers or anyone, page speed is vital. If your website takes a bit longer to load, you can leave a bad first impression and lose out on a client. Many people are busy and don’t want to wait even a few seconds for a website to load. Be sure to compress images and get rid of any files you don’t need to have on your site. This can help make the site run faster so that people don’t have to wait as long once they click on it. The faster the site loads, the more traffic you can get and retain. Then, you may have an easier time converting those visitors into paying clients.
Websites for Lawyers Made Easy
Designing websites for lawyers requires special skills and knowledge. It also takes a lot of time to implement certain elements, from SEO to page speed. If you don’t want to spend time designing a site for your law firm, that’s okay. JustLegal can build a site for you so that you can spend more time helping your clients. Ready to get started? Learn more about our website design service today.
