Top Five Elements That Drive Website Conversion

Convert Your Law Firm’s Website Visitors to Clients

In today’s competitive legal landscape, law firms are spending (on average) five to fifteen percent of their total revenue on marketing. Of that amount, half of that is typically going toward the firm’s digital marketing efforts. Because your firm’s website is so crucial to capturing leads and converting visitors to clients, it is essential to consider which elements and marketing efforts are most effective.

If you haven’t evaluated your website or considered which elements are most effective at converting visitors to clients, you’re missing out on a golden opportunity to optimize your marketing efforts, spend your budget more efficiently, and (most importantly) provide a better experience for the prospective clients who visit your site.

So, how do you optimize your law firm’s website for better conversion rates? The following are our top five tips that we recommend for any law firm of any size.

Tip 1: Make Your Site Visually Appealing

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and this is especially true when it comes to web design.  A confusing, unattractive, or unusable website will immediately turn visitors off and will make them leave your page (known as “bouncing”). You’ll want to keep the user’s experience in mind at all times when designing a new site or evaluating your current website.

Consider your color schemes and use of color. In general, using both primary colors and secondary colors will give you a strong palette to work with when it comes to different elements on your site. Using too many colors can be distracting, so most modern designs (think Apple, or Amazon’s website) use a single background color and a major accent color. By keeping the color scheme simple, your visitor can focus on the content on the page.

Be sure that your logos and photos are high-definition and are not grainy or awkwardly sized or cropped. Using professional, custom photos are almost always preferable to stock photos, which have likely been used and re-used across the legal landscape and gives off a generic feel.

You want your site to look and feel authentic, personal, and professional. It is an extension of your firm, and it should communicate your approach and your values to anyone who visits it for the first time.

Tip 2: Focus on the User’s Experience

Aesthetics aren’t the only consideration when it comes to optimizing your site for conversion. How the user interacts with your website is crucial to capturing their information and turning clicks into paying clients.

This means creating a simple to understand and easy-to-use website for your visitors. Don’t fall victim to web designers who want to do something “radically different” to be unique, or who want to showcase their visual design skills over usability. You don’t want to confuse your visitors, and you never want them to question who you are or what you do. “Is this a law firm or an experimental art gallery?”

Instead of designing a website that you or your web designer like, consider what your prospective clients would like. For better usability, your website should immediately answer these questions for the visitor:

• Who are you?

• Are you in my area?

• Do you handle the type of case that I have?

• How do I contact you? (Provide as many options as possible here, including phone, contact form, live chat, social media, etc.)

If your website can answer this information quickly for the viewer, you’ll be more likely to get a phone call, an email, or another contact method.

Tip 3: Make Crucial Information Easy to Find

You’ll want the user to instantly be able to find the information they’re looking for. In general, the more a person has to hunt for information, the less likely they’ll be to convert. In fact, a recent study showed that humans (thanks to modern technology) now have an attention span of only eight seconds, which is less than that of a goldfish (which are believed to have an attention span of nine seconds)!

This means that visitors to your website are looking for answers and solutions, but they need to be able to find the information they want almost instantaneously.

For legal websites, this means:

• Putting a list of your practice areas on the homepage

• Making it easy to navigate to subpages. This can be done through drop-down menus and intuitive inter-linking

• Having a clear site map and a well-organized site structure to hold vital information

Tip 4: Make Sure Your Content Will Convert

If you’ve paid attention to digital marketing trends over the past decade, you’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase “Content is King.” This is only partially true. Content is the vehicle that will establish your brand, answer your visitor’s questions, and demonstrate your firm’s unique value proposition, but only if it is done with skill and forethought.

Generating content for the sake of publishing something likely won’t be as effective as a targeted piece of content with a well-defined goal. There are currently more than 6 billion indexed pages on the web today, so it’s always a good idea to consider what new or interesting information you’re providing when creating and publishing your next piece!

Quality content that converts will have one or more of the following elements:

• Specific information about you or your team

• New or insightful information about a topic that your visitor is interested in

• A strong call-to-action or unique value proposition that urges the reader to call you

Tip 5: Establish Trust

A well-optimized website will establish trust and build loyalty with the visitor right away. There are several ways that your law firm can do this effectively, including:

• Featuring recognizable industry logos and badges (Million-Dollar Advocates, AVVO star ratings, SuperLawyers, and others)

• Promoting notable verdicts and settlements to demonstrate a track record of success

• Publishing testimonials from satisfied clients to provide “social proof,” an increasingly valuable trust signal to savvy web shoppers

A website that is optimized for conversion will build immediate trust with the visitor. You’ll want to immediately show them why you are the right choice for them and that others have done so with success in the past. For many established firms, this information is readily available…it just needs to be featured in a strategic way.

Looking to Optimize Your Law Firm’s Website?

If you’re looking to get the most from your marketing dollars, be sure to consider your law firm’s website and how it converts. If you’re looking for expert assistance with writing legal content, from webpages, conversion-oriented blog posts, or geo-specific news articles, our team will be ready to help.

We have specific experience writing for law firms, and our team features multiple attorneys, medical professionals, financial experts, and many more specialized experts who can craft interesting, compelling content for your site’s visitors

We understand that the digital marketing landscape is ever-changing, which is why we strive always to stay ahead of the curve. We provide our clients with intelligent, collaborative strategies, focused execution, and data-based enhancements and updates.