LAW FIRM MARKETINGWebsite Development

A law firm website must have a strong foundation because your site will be the face of your firm. Therefore, there are a few elements that must be considered when designing the website.

• Website Structure: It’s critical to structure your website so it is both user-friendly and findable. Many websites lack a clear structure that directs prospective clients to the content they need. A clean site structure also helps Google crawl your site better; therefore, it’s important for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
• Responsive Design: When it comes to a quick search, people usually prefer to browse the web on their smartphone because, with busy schedules and fixed time frames, almost every research gets performed on the go. So make sure that website is responsive; it must look and work perfectly on various devices like laptops, tablets and Smartphones.
• Load Time: Your website has four seconds before the visitor abandons it and never comes back. So keep an eye on the load time of your website; no visitor likes to wait. If you wish to see positive results like online traffic, increase clientele base, and enhance the firm’s reputation because of your website, it’s an essential element to consider.
• Call to action: In your law firm website content, the crucial hinge point is CTAs; you encourage visitors to take action. Whether it is an email, call, or form to fill, you will never capitalise optimally on the visitors you attract if you don’t have the CTAs on your website. For example, a flashing call icon or a form on the homepage motivates the visitors to get in touch with the law firm or solo practitioners for their queries.

Your website might be beautiful and engaging on a laptop, but if the visitor needs to Zoom the screen on a tablet or smartphone to view the website, you can lose that visitor. This is a big problem for any law firm because this somehow affects the reputation of the firm, and potential clients may not find the law firm considerate. And, a responsive website attracts more leads for sure; how?

• The user gets a satisfactory experience regardless of the device. They get easily connected and quickly contact the firm when viewing a website that works perfectly on every device.
• By making the visitors experience an incredible website journey, you build a brand image. And you are making your firm outshine competitors. You need to be more specific and alert when building a website. Responsive websites will surely add glitters in attracting visitors.
• A responsive website works well when you are opting for digital marketing. Your website link gets shared on your law firm’s Social Media accounts – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. So if the user visits the website and gets what they are looking for easily on every device, you have reached the prospective client for your firm.

Law firms or solo practitioners evaluate CMS platforms depending on the requirements. There are many firms that choose the advanced CMS platform but fail to take advantage of all the features and plugins available there.

WordPress is a very popular CMS for small law firms. It offers simple editing and comes with as many plugins and features that can be used easily.

Irrespective of your existing or long-term objectives, there are five elements that every lawyer should utilise to choose a CMS platform.

• Cost
• Level of technical support
• Ease of use
• A usable Application Programming Interface (API)
• Versatility

On-site SEO is also popularly known as on-page SEO. It is the process that makes the website search engine friendly. When you implement on-site SEO, you aim to optimise elements that can help your website rank higher in search results and drive traffic to your website.

The bottom line is that if you ignore on-site SEO, search engines will fail to crawl your content efficiently, and it will be challenging to come on the first page of the search engine. Here are some on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tactics and it’s benefits.

• Metadata optimisation: it helps in the crawling process of the website and enhances the chances of page rank improvement.
• Internal Linking: It helps potential clients to navigate within the website smoothly.
• Page load Time: It keeps your leads happy with lesser load time and improve the chance of generating leads.

Thus, it becomes essential not to ignore on-page SEO because this will help the website shine bright on search engines and increase the visitor count.

Yes! It’s a fact that businesses lose their prospective clients because of page loading time. Loading time plays a significant role for law firm websites because it affects the visitors’ experience when they have to wait for the page to load. Unfortunately, most of the time, we forget about this and add heavy graphics, meaningless website content and new functionality that can increase the load time and let the visitor abandon the website.

Imagine someone is in need to hire an attorney and goes online to search for the best one. In Spite, he found your law firm on the front page but unfortunately had to drop the idea to buy your services because your website took too much time to load. So now you have lost a prospective client and wasted time, money, and energy you invested in bringing your web page to the top position in search engine results. Website speed is more crucial when you advertise your law firm services through Google Ads – PPC campaigns because if they click on your ads and they had to wait long while the webpage is loading, they will leave the page.

The website’s speed is more important than the other factors because prospective clients might not be able to experience the website until and unless the load time is less. Moreover, page loading time is becoming a very significant factor when it comes to the search engine optimisation of your law firm.

• Approximately 73% of mobile internet users witness a slow loading time of websites.
• About 51% of mobile internet users encountered a website that froze, received an error or crashed.
• Approximately 38% of mobile internet users experienced a website that was not accessible.
• Two seconds or less load time expected by about 47% of consumers.
• Approximately 40% of people abandon a website; if any website takes more than 3 seconds to load,
• 7% of conversions reduced with a 1-second delay in page response.

Therefore, it is imperative to keep an eagle eye on the load time of your website if you don’t want to lose prospective clients.

Creating a website is undoubtedly a lengthy process and needs time, effort and creativity. You can hire an experienced web designer, developer and build your customised website if you have a budget, But in case you don’t have a budget, then website builders can be a good option for you.

There are plenty of platforms with in-build design and coding and offer you the option to build your website at a lower price. All you must do is select a theme, drag and drop and personalise the layout, and your website is ready to rock! But this is too good to be true, right? So what’s the catch here? Let’s jump into the pros and cons of website builders: 

• No Expert Coding Skills Required.
• Reasonable and fast implementation.
• Easy and simple to export.
• No designing skills are needed.

• Not recommended for professional business websites.
• Lack the option of custom design.
• Loading time is slow.
• Not very good for SEO.
• Restricted features and pages.

We agree that a website is essential for attracting prospective clients and generating leads. These days nobody goes through the newspaper or yellow pages to find a lawyer; they search online and write a keyword that will give them the results of what they are looking for.

Here comes the role of content in your law firm website.

• Content shares the information in an interesting way to the prospective client that grabs the attention and builds the law firm’s credibility.
• The content reflects the keywords searched by the target audience and will help put your website on the top of the search results.
• Content spreads the information about the law firm, like when it was established, how many clients it has helped, how accessible the firm is and what services and benefits it provides to the clients.
• Content in the website helps in internal linking. This means that law firms can add hyperlinks in the content and redirect them to the searching page. For example, suppose there is a keyword “Divorce lawyer”, and the visitor is looking for this information in detail. He will click the hyperlink and get directed to the Divorce lawyer page.
• Content also helps in offering CTA (call to action) to your audience. For example: request a quote, contact now etc.

Good content helps Search Engine Optimisation for your law firm and educate potential clients about your law firm and its services. In addition, it builds authority and credibility; as a result, there would be a high chance of generating more leads.

Law firms’ websites must look easy to use and have smooth navigation. Visitors should find it simple and receive all the information they require. When you stay focused and take every correct measure in building the website, your website will be easily discoverable in search engines and attract more clients. So make sure you avoid these mistakes when building a website:

• The biggest mistake is there is no website structure. If you fail to plan what you want and how you want on your website, it will make web designers and web developers’ lives difficult, and you will not get the website that generates leads.
• As every agency is not an expert in the legal industry, they lack knowledge. Therefore, not having a strategy for web design, call-to-action, content requirements will not help in building a good website.
• Another mistake that can straight away ruin your website is mobile unfriendliness. Yes! Not creating your website responsive for every device can be harmful to your website.
• Sharing little content about legal services and benefits do not engage well with prospective clients; lack of content might increase the bounce rate on your website.
• No visitor likes to spend a long time filling the form. So avoid having lengthy inquiry forms on your website, as this can send away your potential clients.

Your law firm website is going to become the firm’s face and virtual reception. Without a good website, your law firm online marketing strategy will not work. So, make sure you get the website right in the first place!

It is a misconception that website creation is a one-time investment; updating the website for better engagement and reach is ongoing. It is essential to keep your website updated because your competitors are working on their website already. If your website is outdated and doesn’t have the latest information to offer prospective clients, then there are chances that you will stop generating leads.

If the website is not updated, some repercussions need to beared by the firms:

• The web security issue that may welcome hackers
• Non updated content may lead to increased bounce rate and no client conversion.
• Lack of keyword addition in the content as per the latest search may lead to a lack of enough traffic.
• The non-updated design may not attract potential clients.

Hence, it is necessary to regularly update the website for more traffic and a better conversion rate.