Your law firm website plays a critical role in attracting leads and converting them into paying clients. In fact, a professional, well-designed website can help you boost your credibility, build trust with prospects and serve as a lead generation tool - which can lead to increased clients.
To be effective, your website must have several elements that all work together to provide a great user experience. Here are some of the key factors that prospects will be looking for:
Top 5 Elements of an Effective Law Firm Website
1. Clear Navigation
There’s a good chance that your prospective client is strapped for time, and needs to find important information as quickly as possible. Make it easy for visitors to navigate your site by allowing them to access key pages, such as practice areas, attorney profiles and contact information, in the navigation or menu bar. Also, be sure to use plain language so visitors can locate the information they need at a glance.
2. Responsive Design
This is the technical term for a website that changes how it is displayed based on the size of the visitor's screen. It ensures that your website looks good whether visitors are using a desktop computer, a smartphone or something in between. Since 52% of web pages were served through mobile devices in 2018, it’s important to ensure your website looks and works well on all types of digital screens.
3. Quality Content
Creating quality content that meets your prospects’ needs can help drive business, position yourself as a trusted expert and build your reputation with current and potential clients. For a law firm, this typically entails content that focuses on your specific practice areas and provides information that will attract your ideal clients. Publishing good content on your website also supports your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, which helps your site rank in organic searches based on keywords included in your content.
4. Clean Design
It can be tempting to go overboard with the "bells and whistles," but this can be overwhelming for website visitors. Keep your site's design simple and straightforward, with just enough embellishments to capture visitors’ attention. This is important, as 94% of negative feedback about websites is related to design. Therefore, it’s worth the time and investment to build a clean, well-designed website.
Some simple changes to clean up your site's design are to increase the use of white space, remove animations and flash graphics, eliminate auto-playing videos, and avoid pop-ups and other distracting elements that can drive potential clients away from your law firm website.
5. Lead Capture Form
You need a simple way to collect leads in order to convert site visitors into paying clients. That’s where a lead capture form comes in. This is usually a simple web form that allows people to fill in their names, contact information, and even give you a quick overview of their legal needs. The key is to pair the form with helpful, downloadable content and to include strong calls-to-action (CTAs) that compel visitors to click and share their information. These lead capture forms can be located throughout your law firm website to capture leads on a variety of pages.
A professional, well-designed website is essential for a law firm in the modern age. It shows that your firm is relevant to the needs of today's clients, who will often visit your website before calling your office or walking through your doors. Make sure your website includes the elements above, or if you need help creating such a site, hire a professional website design team to do it for you. This can greatly improve your site's ability to convert visitors into clients, thus driving business for your law firm.
