Today’s startup legal firm face a very different market to those ten years ago. Not only has technology transformed the way you operate your practice, but it’s also transformed the way you attract and win business.
Simply put, an effective website is a non-negotiable for startup firms today.
Although a number of website development platforms make it easy to get up and running, it's not enough to create a basic website that resembles a digital flyer. A well-designed website does far more than that - it’s optimised to attract the right people, compel them to take action, and act as your 24/7 salesperson.
In this article, we look at some of the essential elements of a great law firm website.
Most people conduct an online search first before engaging a specific law firm. Your website is one of the first places they’ll visit to determine whether you’re the best fit.
Your website can attract, retain, and convert quality leads into revenue as a law firm. Besides the design and content, the website should:
Create and nurture a positive user experience
Boost your website ranking on search engines
Generate a healthy flow of high-quality leads.
Some essential aspects that will help you achieve these qualities include:
Website content plays a significant role in attracting new business. The content on your law firm website should be optimised to rank highly in search engines when your potential customers search to solve their problems. This practice is called search engine optimisation (SEO).
By attracting a prospect from the search engine with helpful content, you then have an opportunity to convert them into a lead through further content offers or contact forms.
Optimising your website content for SEO is an excellent way to generate organic traffic. Most website development platforms have in-built SEO features, templates, and plugins for optimisation.
When creating content, some of the best SEO practices include:
Avoid keyword stuffing on your website pages and posts
A ‘keyword’ is a target phrase that your audience would use to search for your services. ‘Stuffing’ your content with too many of these keywords related to your firm can prompt search engines to penalise your website, lowering your rankings.
Use the correct text formatting
Proper formatting ensures the text is easy to read and that search engines understand the context of your posts and pages, so your website appears on relevant searches. This includes using headings to label important content on your site. A website developer can help you with this.
Use contextual descriptions on the links on your website
Instead of phrases such as “Click here” have a description that helps the visitor understand the content behind the link. It also assists search engines to link your content to relevant sources.
Use anchor text to boost your SEO rankings
An anchor text refers to the clickable text found in a hyperlink. The words in the hyperlink help improve rankings on search engine results, and it also directs visitors to other website pages with additional information.
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the practice of increasing the percentage of website visitors that ‘convert’ into leads and customers for your business. This involves analysing visitor behaviour to determine why potential clients visit your law firm's website.
Some CRO strategies you can use are:
Have text-based CTAs in your posts to encourage the next steps
Integrate lead flows in the content to attract and retain the visitor’s attention
Conduct A/B tests on the landing pages to evaluate button placement, headlines, page layout, CTAs, featured media, and CTA button colours.
Your law firm’s website determines the first impression prospective clients get of you. Search engines also consider how mobile-friendly your website is when ranking you on search results.
You can enhance the user experience by:
Using appealing visuals on the website. Ensure that the main navigation has no unnecessary links and eliminate distractions such as automatic media plays
Having an intuitive design ensures it can resize based on the screen size so that visitors can access the content on any device
Ensuring the website loading time is about four seconds to minimize the bounce rate
Using lead-capture forms helps record the visitor’s contact information for targeted follow-up.
When your target audience reaches your website, it’s important that you speak to them in the language they expect and in a way that paints your firm as helpful and sincere.
It’s also best to ensure that your content delivers a clear message. After reading the content, the visitor should know the next steps to take in the first few seconds on your website.
It should provide answers to questions the visitor might have, not just showcasing your capabilities.
Avoid using complex or official language that is difficult for people without any law background to understand. The content should also have a good flow from one section to another.
Creating a great website for your law firm is an excellent step towards attracting new clients. However, creating an efficient legal practice that delivers great client outcomes is still the key to growth.
This is where practice management software such as mattero can help.
This surprisingly easy-to-use and innovative cloud-based tool has a design that accommodates the specific needs of legal professionals. You’re able to easily manage documents, emails, time records, and tasks for better performance, productivity and compliance.
Sign up for the 14-day free trial today and discover remarkable ways to save you time and effort so you can focus on practising law.