Top 4 Web Design Mistakes Law Firms Make

Your law firm’s web design creates a lasting impression for all existing and potential clients. Just because your website may look good doesn’t mean it is designed properly. Your website should be easy to find, visually appealing, and easy to navigate. This will allow potential clients to easily find what they’re looking for while providing a comprehensive overview of your law firm’s specialties. The longer it takes for a client to find what they’re looking for, the more likely they are to continue their search elsewhere.

If your law firm website is not designed correctly, you run the risk of losing potential clients which can cost you more than it did to design and build your website in the first place. Investing in high quality web design will create a positive image and ultimately result in more web traffic and more clients.

Top 4 Web Design Mistakes Law Firms Make

Improve your law firm’s appearance on the web by avoiding these top web design mistakes!

1. Not Understanding SEO and Your Target Audience

One of the biggest mistakes a law firm can make is not understanding SEO, who their target audience is, and how to target them. It may seem ideal to target everyone, but not attracting the optimal clients to your firm can be detrimental and waste time and money in the long run.

Knowing what your target audience is looking for, you can change the way your site looks and “feels” to attract a certain type of visitor. For most law firms, you want a website that appears highly professional rather than a website with a trendy style. More importantly, you can tailor your website content to your law firm’s desired audience, niche, or speciality to ensure you’re attracting the highest quality clients.

Most law firms have heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization, but a lot of them are still not leveraging it to their advantage. Optimizing your website with high-quality keywords and content will lead to a higher ranking on Google and more people will come to your website! Knowing your audience will help you optimize your website and service pages to help more clients who are a fit for your firm find you more easily, leading to more clients!

The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule is a concept that can be traced back to the Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who noticed that 80% of Italy’s wealth belonged to only 20% of the population. This concept is still true today, but can also be applied to other areas such as marketing and sales.

The 80/20 rule suggests that 80% of your law firm’s income will come from only 20% of your clients. What this means is that it is important to nurture and create relationships with your clients. If you can retain clients and keep them happy, this will lead to an increase in revenue and in client base as they are more likely to spread your business through word of mouth. To really benefit from this, you can figure out and create a generalized target audience from these 20% of clients. Find out the locations these clients come from and why they have been with you for so long. With this information you can tailor your website to better serve similar clients and create similar positive results.

The 80/20 rule can also apply to your law firm’s practice areas. Find out which 20% services are contributing to 80% of profit. Then, you can tailor your web design, SEO and marketing efforts to highlight these more profitable services and create more high value clients.

2. Not Performing Market Research

Many law firms make the mistake of assuming that because they know who their audience is, they don’t have to perform market research. This is not the case. Performing market research allows your firm to understand how to get your target market to actually use your legal services. It is critical that your website is designed to appeal to your target market if you want to increase your firm’s conversions.

You can perform market research in a variety of ways. The most common is to look into what other firms are doing. You can look at local firms, or firms in other cities and industries to try and find out what is the most important content and features as well as what’s trending in your market. You can then apply changes to reflect these findings to your website. To keep it simple, you want to find ways to show potential clients why your law firm is the best choice for them.

3. Not Updating Content

Your website should be filled with helpful information and content. Not only does this help increase your SEO and drive more traffic to your website, but it also what helps inform potential or existing clients and answer any questions they may have. If your content is out of date, missing information, badly laid out, or uses fancy legal terms, then you might risk losing that visitor’s business.

Out of Date Content

While out of date content may still show on search engines, there’s a lower chance that a potential client will click or stay on the page, which could lead to your website having high bounce rates and low click through rates. Visitors will be more hesitant to reach out to your firm if the only content they can find is years or months old. It’s always good for your practice to add new content and update old content on a regular basis. This shows your law firm is active, increases visibility on search engines, and gives your returning clients something new.

Poorly Formatted Content

Having content that is a huge block of text, hard to read, and/or doesn’t use proper grammar can be a turn-off for potential clients. Your website should be designed in a way that allows your content to be broken up with headings and formatted content blocks to keep your content organized and easy to find. Your content should also be easy to read and scannable so your visitors can quickly find what they’re looking for.

Using Fancy Legal Jargon

Using terms that any regular person can understand will show clients that you are easy to speak with and easy to work with. Many law firms make the mistake of using complex legal jargon that may intimidate or confuse potential clients. Be sure to have content on your website that is both professional and easy to understand.

4. Not Having a Clear Call to Action

The process of hiring a law firm can be confusing and stressful for potential clients. With so many options available in some industries it can be difficult for a client to know exactly what options they have available and the next steps they should take.

What’s the point of knowing your target audience, designing your website to attract their business, and continually updating your content if you don’t tell your visitors what to do next? Your website should tell your visitors how to schedule a legal consultation, or how to get in touch with you to further discuss their case. This will increase the chances of each reader becoming a paying client.

Be sure to have a clear section on every page of your website where you give them the information they need to contact you or take the next step.