August 22, 2015

4 Tips For Building and Maintaining Your Law Firm’s Website

Creating and maintaining a law firm website are vital components in any law firm’s marketing plan, yet many lawyers aren’t sure where to begin. From designing the layout to selecting content, there are a variety of factors that come into play when creating a website that will entice potential clients, as well as retain existing ones. Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind when building a successful law firm website.

Be Informative

Give potential clients useful information and avoid clutter and fluff. Summarize your firm’s differentiators and strengths in the “About Us” section, focusing on the reasons why clients need your services. Create succinct attorney profiles that mention career highlights and specialties. Many times law firms inundate people visiting their sites with too much information, which can be overwhelming. For topics that require more detail, add a blog to your site to demonstrate communication skills and the ability to explain complex legal topics to lay people.

Make It User-Friendly

In this day and age, more and more people are using mobile devices to surf the web as opposed to traditional computers. Having a responsive web design (RWD) for your website is crucial. RWD ensures that aspects of your website are tailored to different screen resolutions and devices without too much resizing, scrolling, etc. Additionally, remember to run a quality check before you launch to be sure every page, button and link is functional, as well as to rule out any content errors. Frustrating user experiences with a website that isn’t up-to-date or easy to navigate often cause people to spend less time on a site and greatly decrease the likelihood they will return.

Design Matters

Your website’s visuals make a first and lasting impression on potential clients. A clean design, including color scheme, goes a long way in attracting people to your website and persuading them to continue browsing. Imagery is also a useful way to personalize your firm. By adding original photos and videos, visitors can ascertain a law firm’s approach and its attorneys’ demeanor for themselves. Many attorneys quickly find however that developing an appealing design requires a lot of commitment and creative effort. To save you some time, hire a marketing agency that understands your law firm’s long term goals, its unique challenges, and which types of clients you’re interested in obtaining.

Measure Effectiveness

After all that hard work you put into your website, don’t forget to measure the results! Install a web tracking service like Google Analytics that tracks activity and traffic on your website. This way, you can see first-hand what is and isn’t working for your site, and then make changes accordingly.

Most, if not all, of your client base will pay a visit to your website at some point in time. This makes it especially important to ensure that your law firm is being represented online in the best light possible. Having a strong, cutting-edge website that meets these criteria is a great way to acquire new clients leads, in addition to improving your law firm’s brand.