Is your law firm providing legal services, who doesn’t have a website to market or showcase their legal services and consultations? Then probally you keep reading on this guide helping you understand – web design for law firms.
Many potential clients start their search for an attorney online, and your law firm’s website can make it easier for those potential clients to find you, trust you, and ultimately, hire you.
Your law firm’s website makes it easier for you (as an attorney) to connect with the right clients.
Google shared research from its own in-house data and FindLaw to provide a look at the legal market trends. This may help you as a law firm to shape your legal marketing strategies:
FindLaw Legal Needs Survey in 2014 showed that 74% of people beginning a search online end up contacting the lawyers’ office via phone.
Moreover, around 87% of clients contact an attorney online and hire them. Surprisingly, 72% contact 1 law firm only.
According to a survey conducted by Google in 2013, 96% of clients seeking legal advice use search engines. 38% of clients use the Internet to find a legal service.
Here comes a question, what about local law firms?
FindLaw’s survey shows that 71% of people looking for a lawyer think it is important to have a local law firm. That builds trust and credibility.
So being a law firm, it’s important to convert these online searches into leads. Here are a few action steps you should also take:
- Create a well designed and mobile-friendly website
- Have multiple contact options — phone/email/online presence on social media etc.
- Focus on improving your local SEO. Also, ensure your website pops up well in local search market.
Today, 96% of people search for products and services in the virtual world on the internet.
Here is an interesting fact about people and their law-related web searches.
The most searched legal question in the United States was “how to file a divorce.” This question was on top of the list with 12,100 monthly hits with a $ 3.29 cost per click.
What if you don’t own a website to list services relevant to these kinds of interesting facts and questions?
It would be nearly impossible for you to get your potential clients. So, how will you survive, and how will you get new cases?
This article will help you with a checklist on web design for law firms, to get your website generating new potential legal clients. Please note that this is not a difficult task to build a website.
The task is to make it accessible and simple enough so that everyone looks at it and remembers your services to contact when needed.
Being a law firm, you need to display your services in a way that helps people know what you can and can’t do.
This first-time interaction should educate your customers about your manpower and services in the easiest form.
Which makes it very important for you to use your homepage to look like a marketplace where each service is mentioned in detail.
It should also explain what you will be doing for the customer, how that will be done, and also how to book an appointment for legal consultation.
When it comes to making a service-oriented marketing website, all you need to do is pass on your services-related information to the mass population by addressing their key questions to the legal problems they are facing. You can find out the most popular questions being asked online through many resources such as answerthepublic.com.
In addition, there should be easy navigation on your website home page helping the customers to roam around easily.
You, being an owner of a law firm, should know the purpose of your website and understand the pain points of your clients.
If you ask me, your website should be informative, equipped with a subscription option to spread the updates around and let people know of your presence in their neighborhood.
People searched Google for “legal and general relative keywords.” This is searched about 110,000 times with a $ 5.09 cost per click. This is an unimaginable search quantum generated by only these two questions.
Now allow me to ask you this, what if your law firm has the service to answer all these people?
What if you can represent all these people legally? Do these questions provoke you to have your website representing the services you can provide?
I am sure that you have made up your mind to get your website developed by now.
But before I start guiding you on key components for your website, here is another example for you:
There is a person who has been charged with murder. He is looking for legal representation.
He is searching for law firms here, there, and everywhere. Unfortunately, he is not getting anything convincing.
He comes across your website. Then, with simple and easy-to-understand content, he feels comfortable contacting you and booking an appointment. And finally, with the help of easy navigation, he clicks on Book an appointment.
BINGO!
That’s how you get to have new clients without any word-of-mouth advertisement and only a little effort to develop your websites.
So now, without further delay, let’s dive in and understand the checklist for your law firm web design.
5 Step checklist to law firm web design
Website Navigation
Think, your website is running, and also you have your first potential customer.
The first thing he will notice on your website is navigation. That means he will be scrolling on the home page and clicking the buttons to navigate on different sections of your website.
You have to ensure that every button on your homepage is connected to some call-to-action or links to the next page and the routing is 100% successful.
Every button needs to be referenced with a name or title.
These titles should correctly reflect what they stand for. For your ease, you can divide your website homepage into multiple sections:
- First of all, there is your name and contact information. This information should be highlighted and presented at the most prominent location, easy to find for the user.
- Then there should be an action button like book an appointment or call to connect. The placement of this button is very critical. It should be easily accessible by the customer to hit and ensure a booking.
- The third is the register button. This should always be on the right top corner of the website, along with your official working hours.
- And in the end, there are your menu sections. This is the table of content for your website. You should list all the service pages and connect them with a relevant And each of these pages will have specific content related to your services.
The following picture is an example of a simple law firm website with its details.
Home Page Development
Okay, so now we have to see how to plan the home page for your law firm. The home page has multiple sections. For example, your law firm logo, a catchy headline to attract clients, and a call to action button for booking an appointment for legal consultation.
Your logo should reflect your services. If your company logo and services don’t match, the customers will always doubt the authenticity. Plus, your logo helps people to remember you easily.
- Then there is your business headline or the tagline. It has to be the catchiest phrase of the whole page explaining your services.
- Do not forget to add high-resolution background pictures on your homepage. This helps make the page look attractive and colorful, and people have more trust in your services.
- And in the end, you have to ensure to choose a color scheme that is continent for the users to read and understand. Don’t use bright and sharp colors; they look attractive but are very uncomfortable for your viewers to see.
The following picture is an example of a simple law firm website with its details.
Layout Strategies
The looks of your home page should be organized attractively for customer ease. Customer satisfaction is directly proportional to the display of your services information.
Therefore, this look/ layout needs to be organized, in line, pictorial, simple, and easy to understand. All of these features will encourage people to come back to your home page and hit the book an appointment button.
This is why home page design/ layouts are responsible for user feedback. A well-managed layout helps maintain a good amount of recursive customers. There are many layouts out of which you must choose the one that suits your services most.
This layout tells your business stories. These are your expertise and reflect testimonials. Invest some time while choosing your layout. It has been perfect for your business.
Your services
By now, your business website is almost ready. So, now you let your customers know your services and how you provide these services.
This section is a small one which needs to reflect your services for the customers. Every service should have a title and be clickable.
Once clicked, this link should take the user to another page where detailed information about the service is available.
- You have to give an easy to read name to your services. These names should reflect what the services entail and whether they need it or not.
- And if you are introducing new services, you need to market this service as well. Make call-out buttons reflecting discounts, and people referral, and reward point systems. Explain what the service does and let this service serve you as an independent marketplace.
The following picture is an example of how to showcase your services and let the customer choose from them.
Mobile-Friendly
In 2021, research reflected that 68.1% of search engine queries were searched from handheld devices. This means that your website must be compatible with handheld devices; otherwise, the layout crashes. So you need to ensure that.
- Your website has Google maps integrations done, helping customers get directions for your office.
- Your website needs to be compatible for view on different screen sizes, including fonts, colors, and navigations.
- Your website needs to be quick in loading as delays in loading speed and refresh speed annoy your customer. The delays further reflect that you are not interested in serving your customers with good quality content, so you haven’t updated your website.
Bottom line
If you don’t have a website in today’s tech world, you’re missing out on a huge business opportunity.
Word of mouth or referral marketing is the most effective one but is limited to a few people only. And you need regular customers for your business growth daily.
This is why you need to ensure your presence in the virtual world of the internet. Here we have helped you prepare a checklist that you would require to market your law firm online.
Your website will act as your business outlet for people. This is why you have to put a lot of focus on building an attractive website that serves as a one-stop shop for your customers.
Content clarity is very important in the law business field. You have to ensure your website is answering the questions arising in your practice area. You have to address – why should they hire you for their legal problems?
Go through this 5 step checklist and convince me of your reasons for not having your website as a law firm.
Your online presence should make people believe you have enough knowledge and expertise to solve all their legal problems.
And that’s quite impossible if you don’t own a well structured and well designed website.
Let me know if you still believe that you would be able to survive without a website in this technically advanced world.
I will be looking forward to your replies and questions in the comment section, if any.
Focus Keyword:
Law firms Web Design Checklist
