Marcus RichardsIn today’s world, there is a lot of competition for legal services, and in order to stay afloat, law firms need to find ways to beat the competition and stand out from the crowd. Creating a website for a lawyer is one of the best and most effective ways.
It’s hard to stand out if your target audience can’t see you.
Potential clients search for legal services on the Internet every day. And to remain successful, your law firm needs a consistent online presence, which a website can provide, as this is where you can showcase your value and experience, and drive traffic.
Before making a decision, the client browses the websites of law firms and studies their advantages, pricing policy, services, and so on. It is the first place that the buyer wants to see before making a choice.
The website of a law firm performs many functions:
- this is the face and image of your company
- it is a platform for promotion and advertising
- this is the place to interact with customers
- the site broadcasts the company’s services.
Functionality principles
This refers to a set of interactive sections and elements of the site that the client must browse in order to find the information they need. More than half of users form an idea of the reliability of the company, based on the design of its website. To avoid a negative attitude towards the site, build it on simple algorithms.
- Convenient navigation
Page titles should clearly state what the page is about. The navigation bar should be at the top of the site. Subpages should be placed in a dropdown menu associated with the main navigation bar.
- Simple sitemap
A sitemap is a visual diagram of all the pages on a site. This helps search engines (like Google) index your site, which improves search engine optimization.
- Search function
Users looking for something specific often turn to the site-wide search feature. Be sure to add this element, which will make it easier to find the information you need.
In this context, you also need to think about the aspect of web accessibility guidelines, for making your law firm website fully compliant with the WCAG & ADA regulations. Else, you might be fully aware of the legal implications that can come in the way for not adhering to the strict website accessibility standards and codes. This can result in a lawsuit filed against your firm. Therefore, you can take the help of specialists like “Accessibility Spark” for knowing how to make a site fully compliant.
Make sure your website design adapts to small screen sizes and looks attractive on any device.
When building a website, you must remove any barriers that prevent you from fully enjoying the site. This includes the accessibility of the site, that is, its adaptation for people with disabilities.
Our advice
- Add alt tags to images
Alt tags are needed when, for example, due to an insufficiently powerful Internet connection, all visual elements of the site are blocked. In this case, you have the opportunity to understand what was shown in the photo from the alt-text. This feature is also required for visually impaired and blind users who use Narrator to browse the pages.
- Use headers
Headings visually break up text and make it easier to read quickly.
- Add subtitles to videos
Subtitled videos are useful for deaf users who want to understand what is being said.
- Add descriptive titles for links
Links within the text should be clear, with a description of what to expect after clicking on them (for example, which page they lead to).
How to fill the site with content
At the outset, develop your law firm marketing strategies or have professionals do it for you. Include all your services, characteristics, goals, and desires in it. And only after that you can proceed to the creation of content:
How to write for the site:
- write compelling headings and subheadings
- use bulleted lists
- highlight keywords or phrases (e.g. bold, different color, link)
- use short and precise wording
- alternative text and images
- Diversify your content with photos, infographics, and videos
- write so that your text is easy and quick to read
Search engine promotion is important, but don’t overdo it. Google has a negative attitude towards the excessive use of keywords, and the text, consisting entirely of keywords, is practically not readable by users.
You must focus on the audience. When writing text, think about potential customers, not about search engine algorithms. Dedicate each page to one idea. If you describe this or that problem in detail and professionally, then the keywords will look natural.
Recommendations
- Don’t overuse complex legal terms
A legal website is a marketing tool to attract customers. It will not fulfill its purpose if you speak in an incomprehensible language, as you do at work. Imagine that you are talking to a friend. This will help to choose the correct wording, understandable to a simple person, far from jurisprudence.
- Follow the rules of ethics
Do not give knowingly false promises, do not mislead. If necessary, expressly indicate that the marketing information on the site is not and cannot be considered legal advice.
Legal advice requires the establishment of a trusting relationship, because in the process you exchange personal documents, and reveal the details of your personal life. For the client to trust you, you must introduce him to the team and describe the profile and specialization of each employee in as much detail as possible.
How to make your site visible?
There are many ways to promote a site, but we want to note three main ones:
1. PPC for law firms
Or otherwise pay per click, this mechanism will help you quickly attract customers for your company. This type of advertising is based on Google queries. It works like this: you place an ad and when a person goes through it to your site, you pay for each click. This method works very well with both local inquiries, such as a lawyer in Chicago, and a specific specialty, such as a personal injury lawyer. The main drawback of the checkpoint is the price.
2. SEO for lawyers
Simply put, the client enters his query into Google search and your site appears among the first pages. All this is possible thanks to SEO. People trust sites at the top of the search more. SEO ranking factors are content and links. The obvious minus of SEO is time, you will have to wait for some time from 2 months or more for it to start working.
3. Email. A traditional tool is to send product information via email to a specific person or group of recipients. If it is set up correctly and the recipients of the mailing list are correctly identified, then this tool can become a fairly effective way of selling.
Thus, we can conclude that the site is currently very important for lawyers. The main thing is to make it competently and with good functionality. So that your potential customers can go to it and find everything they need. A good website will help you stand out from the crowd and drive a lot of traffic. If you understand that you cannot cope with this task on your own, then we advise you to contact a law firm marketing agency. they will help you do all this work or do it all yourself. They will also help you rank your site in search engines.
