Having a professionally designed website for your law firm is essential if you are going to win the confidence of your new clients. Here are some useful tips that will help your website work harder and stand out from the competition.
1. Make sure your site looks professional
Take an objective look at your site. Does it look professional? Are the graphics visually strong and clear? Are the fonts, font sizes, and font colors all used in a consistent way? Does your site contain:
- Poor quality photos that are squeezed or stretched out of proportion
- Multiple elements on the page that are blinking, bouncing, scrolling or turning in circles
- Different styles of type used for headlines and body copy
- Coloured background graphics or textures that make your website difficult to read
- Background graphics that are irrelevant for the content of the site
- Text blocks that are out of alignment
First impressions really matter and, the first impression your site makes should be one of professionalism and appropriateness for the markets you serve.
2. Don't use the name of your company as the web page title
Every web page has a title bar. The title that appears in that title bar is determined by what you include in the title "tag" in the html code for the page. You or your web site designer may want to make the name of your company the title of the page. This is not a good idea because search engines look for, amongst other things, the words in your title bar. Like the text on your page, the closer the text in the title bar matches the term a client might be looking for, the higher your site will rank when the results of the search are displayed.
3. Don't let your home page be a flash presentation
Flash is a technology that allows you to put animated presentations and graphics on your website. Design agencies like to use Flash because it is visually very dynamic (and it commands a higher design fee!). The trouble is, Flash can make your web page take a long time to load, search engines can’t read Flash and so it contributes nothing to helping your site gain more visibility and it often annoys visitors who are searching for information rather than entertainment.
4. Focus the home page and services pages on your customers' interests - not yours
It's tempting to write a lengthy description of your firm's accomplishments and run it on your home page with a big photo of your employees and building but prospective clients aren't coming to your site to learn about all the great things you've accomplished. They're coming to your site to find out if you can help them. Get their attention with benefits-oriented headline and text. For example:
We are a leading independent law firm specialising in X, Y and Z With over X years of experience, we provide legal advice and representation to private and public companies, investors and individuals on their often complex affairs.
Our commitment to our clients involves:
- In-depth expertise
- Effective and responsive advice
- Absolute discretion
- Flexible services tailored to the individual
- Consistent track record of success
- Avoid a cluttered look
Your firm may provide many services. It is important that they are all visible but don't try to squeeze dozens of images or service descriptions on a single page. The page will look cluttered and make it difficult for visitors to find the products or information they are looking for.
Instead, create dedicated pages for each area of expertise you provide. Legal services are specialist services delivered by experts and your clients will expect the presentation of your services to be of the highest standard.
6. Minimise graphic sizes to make sure your website pages load quickly
Photographs and other graphic images can make your web pages look appealing and help illustrate the services you provide but don’t let the file size of the graphics slow down your site.
7. Included important supporting information
To turn visitors to your site into clients, you will need to provide enough supporting information about what you do and how you do it to your potential new client feel confident in using your services.
8. Be sure that your contact information is easy to find
New clients will not only want to know what services you provide and who you are, but they will want to know how to contact you.
They will inevitably have questions and will want to know how to contact you. Avoid losing a new client by making it as clear and as easy as possible for them to contact you. You could for example, including your contact details on every page.
9. Share links with other businesses in your community
New business development has as much to do with who you know as what you do. Talk to business owners who provide different services to you but who serve the same market. Help each other to get your pages found pages found by swapping links and giving each other referrals.
10. Get the experts in
A 'do it yourself' approach to your website can be a false economy. Some firms have excellent in-house expertise but unless you are in that position, your site can soon look like a poor reflection of the excellent professional services that you provide. It is vital that the outward appearance of your brand is a true reflection of the quality of the service you provide. Often, the only way to achieve this is to engage the services of a professional who will have come across the issues you face many times before.
