The website for any business has to serve the role of the salesperson who never sleeps—a constant, digital presence drawing in new prospects and customers. Every business has its own unique goals—or “conversion points”—that a website must fulfill.
The website design has to point visitors to achieve those goals. Looking to draw in more clients to your law firm? Here are some web design tips.
Assuming the basics
We’re going to assume the basics are in place—that you have a clean domain name. It doesn’t have a .wordpress appendix or anything else beyond the name of the website attached to it.
We’ll also assume that your website is mobile-responsive. This is such a basic part of digital marketing in today’s world that any developer who builds a site that can’t be easily accessed by a cell phone or tablet simply won’t be in business much longer.
Know your “why”
What is your hoped-for conclusion of a web visit? For most law firms, that would be the visitor either picking up the phone and calling the office, dropping in for a visit or—most likely—filling out a contact form. That means you have to make it very easy for people to do these things.
The phone number and address need to be prominently listed at the top of the website. Don’t make people scroll all the way to the bottom and then click a tiny “Contact Us” link in the footer. Make the information prominent—even better, ask for them to “Call Today for a Consultation” or something to that effect.
Your contact form also needs to be set up “above the fold” for a typical desktop user—that is, something they can access without scrolling further down. Even though you may have a very negative feeling about pop-ups as a user, the marketing reality is this—they work. It’s not hard for a developer to put together a professional-looking popup that smoothly moves onto the screen for any visitor that’s been there for x number of seconds.
Every page is a home page
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of your website like a digital magazine: the visitor is going to page through in a logical manner, starting with the home page, then clicking on the practice area they’re interested in, then clicking on the blog, and so forth. But that only applies to people who visit the home page directly—i.e., purposefully enter the domain into their browser. What about the people who come by organic search?
If you’re producing good content and following best SEO practices, people will find pages of your site via search engines, which means they’re starting somewhere other than the home page. It’s akin to an office visitor arriving in the basement or the restroom rather than seeing your friendly office manager through the front door.
You have to approach every page like it’s the home page for somebody—because at some point, they all will be. Make sure the work you did in showcasing the phone number and address continues to appear on all website pages.
Take the time to embed contact forms within all your blog posts, practice area pages, attorney bio pages—everywhere on your site. We’re not saying the forms need to be huge—but a nice, professional, “Contact us for a free consultation” can be done without getting too “loud,” digitally speaking.
Getting the right design for your website takes time, but once you have it in place, the website will be ready to assume its proper role as the salesperson that’s on call 24/7.
