10 Things Great Law Firm Websites Do Right

Trying to keep your website functioning at its highest potential is no easy task with everything else you have on your plate. That’s why this short list of important things to adjust can help you quickly home in on what’s most important.

Most websites fail until they methodically test and correct the following:

1. Headlines and Taglines
2. Intro Text
3. SEO Copy
4. Unique Selling Position
5. Readability and Layout
6. Pictures (Images)
7. Usability and Navigation
8. Testimonials and Reviews
9. Calls to Action and Offers
10. Guarantees and/or Policies

Let’s take these one at a time.

1. Headlines and Taglines

As mentioned earlier, magazines often have full-time headline writers. All they do is study the headlines that have increased sales consistently. If you are not A/B testing or at least trying different headlines on a regular basis to make them the best that they can be, your website will not stand out from the crowd.

Consider using the free Google Optimize A/B testing platform, Optimizely, or Visual Website Optimizer.

If you want to learn more about headline optimization, see the book Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich by David Garfinkel.

2. Intro Text

The introductory body copy of your website can make or break whether or not people continue to read on, or bounce off to another website.

Are you leading with empathy and addressing your customers’ pain points or simply saying we do this great and we do that fantastic, etc. Make sure that you are writing in a way that is customer-centric and puts your customers’ needs first.

3. SEO Copy

Search engines like to see important keyword phrases high up on the page and preferably at the beginning of the first sentence. So not only do you need to make a persuasive argument for why you should be hired, but you also need to think about other factors like search engine robots.

One of the best ways to figure out how much SEO-friendly text you should have on your homepage, practice area pages, and blog posts is to look at the top 5 or 10 ranking websites in your field. See what they have for word counts on these pages and how they position their firms.

If your website fails at either intro text or SEO copy on any of your pages, both your rankings and conversions will go down.

4. Unique Selling Position

Are you clear on why you are better than your competitors? If not, do some thinking on what truly makes your law firm a better firm to hire.

If you describe your firm as “America’s premier intellectual property law firm,” can you back it up? Make sure that you not only add a value proposition or unique selling position, but that you back up your claim with some details so it is more persuasive.

You can mix these statements into headlines along with keywords to cover both important factors at the same time.

5. Readability and Layout

People don’t always have time to read all of your text. Longer and more in-depth content can be both great for search engines and for convincing customers who need a lot of information, but it is really critical to make the text easy to scan and skim. 

Try not to use too much industry jargon and use more conversational language instead. Keep sentences short and limit paragraphs to three to five sentences.

Using bullet lists and numbered lists is not only good for the user, but Google appreciates it as well.

6. Pictures (Images) 

Having high-quality photographs shows that you care about the presentation of your firm and implies that you are more likely to care about your clients. Boring stock photos don’t tend to work well, but they are better than poor-quality candid photos shot on the fly.

Make the investment in hiring a professional photographer to get high-quality photos of your key attorneys, a team photo, and even some quirky office photos to show a bit of the firm’s personality. Good photos can go a long way toward warming the hearts of prospects. 

7. Usability and Navigation 

If your website is hard to use, people will exit quickly. Conversion experts agree that usability is often at the foundation of many big conversion wins.

The way that people navigate your pages and menus should be well-thought out. You can try UserTesting.com to have people review your website and give you feedback on what is working and what is not. HotJar can be used to figure out where people are clicking, moving their mouse, and scrolling as well as where they are having trouble filling out a form.

Don’t leave your website improvements to chance. Go beyond the basics of looking at Google Analytics to improve your website. 

8. Testimonials and Reviews 

I recently read a great book called Story Brand, which says that the smiling faces of your customers are your best marketing. Most firms just have a few testimonials and don’t spend much effort on getting more.

However, having testimonials specific to your firm’s different practice areas can really increase the persuasiveness of those pages.

Adding video testimonials and case studies and getting positive reviews of your brand are the core components of making sure customers coming to your website from any marketing channel turn into leads. 

9. Calls to Action and Offers 

You need really clear calls to action to make a website win consistently. Remember, 95% of the people who visit your website are not ready to fill out your free legal consultation form or call you, so it’s important that you offer downloadable guides like e-books or white papers. If you can, add a live chat option to interact with site visitors.

Having calls to action mapped out to the different stages of the sales funnel (awareness, consideration, and decision) will mean that you get considerably more leads.

If you want to learn more about this topic, see Brian Eisenberg’s book, Call To Action. 

10. Guarantees and/or Policies 

If you offer a professional service guarantee or a customer satisfaction guarantee, it can go a long way in removing a prospect’s resistance to working with you.

Let people know up front what your policies are and prospects will appreciate it.

Takeaways

Are you testing or guessing what elements on your website should be there? There is no sense in reinventing the wheel when it comes to making a website work better.

Conversion experts have long been studying how to turn visitors into customers, and if you follow these guidelines, you will be proud of your website and how fast your law firm will grow.

Everyone wants the best website, but did you know that conversion experts all use analytics and various types of tools to systematically improve lead flow? Read the next section on analytics and you will never again do marketing without first using data analysis.