3 Simple Tips for Improving Your Small Law Firm's Website
Update 2024— While we are no longer offering website services, we can help your firm’s marketing and SEO and have recommendations for website designers. Schedule a strategy session with Sarah to discuss growing your law business.
Is your law firm's website not the marketing powerhouse you'd hoped? Is your gut telling you that there's room to improve? You're probably right!
And here's a secret: You can take small steps to drastically improve your site by stepping back and implementing a handful of small changes. ?
#1 Improve your small law firm website by optimizing it for mobile devices (phones and tablets). If you don't, you won't be found when clients need you the most. It's that simple.
Last year, 58% of overall internet traffic was on mobile. What I'm seeing our law firm clients' websites is even higher, usually hovering around 65-75% of traffic being on mobile devices, for both B2B and B2C firms.
This means that if you haven't ensured a pleasant mobile experience, you're missing out on building awareness about your firm.
Think about this: How many times have you been waiting for a meeting to start, at a subway stop, or waiting for dinner to cook, and pulled out your phone and researched that thing you've been meaning to look into all day? It probably happens several times a day, if you're a typical internet user.
Our client's website not only looks great on mobile, it's easy to see exactly who his ideal clients are without scrolling. Mobile phone users are impatient!
Mobile users have a pressing need, and if you're making it hard by having a funky mobile experience, you're turning them off before they've even explored what you offer.
Some common issues we see with mobile styles on law firm websites:
Too small of text
What the firm does is hidden too far down on small screens
Buttons too close to other elements so people click the wrong thing
Awkward, too complex of navigation
Too low of contrast so it's hard to read on small screens
Too many pop-ups making it impossible to navigate on a small screen
These are all easily fixable in most cases, it just requires taking a critical eye to your law firm website.
#2 Make it easy for prospective law firm clients to send an inquiry on your website.
I'm of the belief that it's okay to set parameters for how people communicate with your firm—not everyone has the human resources to be fielding calls all day, not every firm should have a chat widget on their website, nor should every firm has automated consultation booking. Your firm is unique and your inquiry process probably varies according to your business systems.
But, it shouldn't be hard for someone to click "Contact" and send an inquiry in whatever way makes sense for your specific business. Don't hide your contact information in the footer of your website. Have a dedicated page with whatever contact info you wish to share on your website. This gets indexed by Google, so it's extra important if someone Googles "Contact info for [Firm Name].
#3 Weave clear calls to action into your attorney website for a simple, but huge, improvement.
Many marketers think of calls to action as big, bold buttons and headlines, but they can be simple too. Making it clear what the next step is as a potential client moves through your website is crucial.
Why is it important to include calls to action in your law firm's website? Because otherwise site visitors will get lost and confused. Here's an example of a simple, concise and unobtrusive call to action:
A B2B firm makes it clear you can book an inexpensive session to get legal advice.
This call to action (CTA in marketing lingo) simply prompts a visitor to book (and pay) for a one-time strategy session. This small, but powerful, CTA does a few things: it prompts someone to make a connection, it also establishes that this is a firm that's all about transparency in pricing, and it establishes that they are open to small projects (ie, an advice session). Clever, right?
Calls to action can be more elaborate too, such as this example, which leads to a pop-up inquiry form that asks for more information:
As you can see, these are simple, actionable steps any law firm can take to improve their website. We often think of big changes when we ask how websites and online marketing can be improved, but when you step back and take a 360º view on your website, opportunities like this will emerge.
Now here's my CTA:
