What's in this article?
Lawyers know they need to look the part to instill confidence in their clients and their team.
So why don’t they follow the same advice with their own law firm web design?
I can’t tell you how many law firm websites still have tacky designs and pop-up ads that scare visitors away.
Unfortunately, most law firms lack the personnel necessary to build and maintain a website, which is why they’re still stuck with an outdated or broken website.
Some old-school lawyers may still think that referrals are king and their website is secondary. Well, let’s lay that myth down to rest with some important stats regarding the lawyer’s website:
Statistics from The National Law Review
- 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine
- 74% of prospects beginning a search online end up contacting the office via phone
- 74% of consumers visit a law firm’s website to take action
If you’re reading this, you likely already understand the importance your law firm’s website can have in bringing in new case inquiries to fuel your business.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll cover why every firm needs a great website, the qualities of the best law firm websites, answer some FAQs, and give tips to optimize your site for maximal lead generation results.
Attract more qualified case leads to your law firm with our results-driven marketing services.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but a legal content marketing specialist. Be sure to check your local jurisdiction’s laws before implementing these techniques.
8 latest law firm website trends for 2023
In 2023, the latest law firm website trends have less to do with aesthetics and stylings and more to do with function — mainly improving the user experience of your visitors on your website.
Why focus on improving the user experience?
Because your visitors will be able to spend more time on your website, which means they’ll be more likely to fill out a contact form and become a new client.
Try incorporating these cutting-edge strategies to improve your user experience, improve search engine optimization (SEO), increase website traffic, and generate more case leads:
1. Enhanced accessibility and inclusivity
Prioritize a user-friendly experience for all visitors by following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and implementing inclusive design principles to help users with disabilities and reach a broader audience.
Not only will you be able to help people with different disabilities, but these tactics also help improve your website’s SEO.
Try following these tips:
- Provide text alternatives for non-text content (images, charts)
- Offer captions and transcripts for audio and video content
- Make content adaptable and distinguishable
- Make the website functionality available through a keyboard or keyboard alternatives
- Avoid content that could cause seizures, such as flashing lights or animations
- Offer clear and consistent navigation
- Use clear and simple language
2. Voice search optimization
“Alexa, which trust lawyers are near Detroit, MI?”
Cater to the increasing number of people relying on voice assistants, such as Alexa, Siri, Google, and more, to optimize your website content for voice search.
Focus on conversational language, long-tail keywords, and well-structured content to improve your website’s searchability with voice search algorithms.
3. Mobile-first design
More than half of all internet traffic is done on phones. Is your website mobile-responsive and mobile-friendly? If it’s not, your visitors will leave instantly.
Also, you can’t expect anyone to fill out a contact form on their phone while browsing a non-mobile-friendly website. It simply won’t happen, so if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, 2023 is the year to correct that!
4. Video content
Film short videos of client testimonials, attorney bios, introductions, and educational materials to connect with your visitors on a human level.
Videos can help increase “dwell time” on your website and build trust with your visitors so they’ll contact you.
Did I mention that short videos are also the emerging content trend of 2023? Upload short videos like YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels to target millennials and tap into Instagram and YouTube’s massive audiences.
5. Schema markup
Ever Google a question and see one of those drop-down search results?
Adding a “schema markup” like this could help you get on Google’s first page of search results for your desired keywords.
Not sure how to do this? You may want to consider hiring an experienced legal marketing agency to set up a schema markup on your website for you.
6. Focus on Core Web Vitals
If you want your website to rank higher in Google, then you’ll need to focus on Google’s Core Web Vitals to improve user experience and search rankings, such as:
- Ensuring fast loading times
- Providing quick responses to user’s interactions
- Maintaining a stable layout and avoiding unexpected shifts
7. Content personalization (website, email, social media)
Lawyers can collect personal information from their website visitors to improve the user experience, but they must do so in compliance with applicable data protection and privacy laws.
Gather information about your visitors through analytics, user profiles, and on-site behavior tracking.
Then, you can segment your audience into different groups, such as people interested in personal injury, family law, or criminal defense, to send them different email campaigns or even optimize the website using plugins to show different users different content while browsing your website.
Make sure to follow these general guidelines for privacy such as:
- Transparency
- Consent
- Data minimization
- Security
- Right to access, modify, and delete
- Compliance with specific regulations, including California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in European Union.
If you’re unsure of how to implement content personalization into your website, consider consulting Kaleidico, a legal marketing agency with experience in law firm websites and marketing.
8. Improved site security
Your visitors won’t want to submit their personal information on your website if it’s not secure.
Migrate your website to HTTPS (hypertext transfer protocol secure) to encrypt data transmitted between your visitors and your web server.
Additionally, protect your website from spammers and hackers by installing security plugins and tools to monitor your website for threats.
Why a great law firm website is necessary to get more clients
There are three main ways lawyers find new clients:
- Referrals
- Reviews
- Lead generation through their website’s SEO
What is SEO, you ask?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s a digital marketing strategy that aims to rank your website higher in a Google search than your competitors.
How do most people find lawyers these days anyway? Google! This includes:
- Searching Google Maps for local law firms
- Search Google for questions related to their legal issues
- Searching Google for specific types of lawyers (car accident lawyer, divorce lawyer, malpractice lawyer)
However, if your website’s design and content are lacking, it will never rank high in a Google search.
This will result in hundreds or possibly thousands of missed opportunities because your audience never even considered your law firm—because they couldn’t find it in a Google search!
Instead, let’s tackle this problem today and offer solutions for creating a website that generates leads.
Don’t get buried in the search results. Take action now to improve your law firm’s website design and legal marketing strategy.
What makes a great law firm website?
A great law firm website design needs to provide an exceptional user experience for your visitors.
It should be able to anticipate users’ needs and provide thoughtful solutions to their problems within seconds.
Your website’s intuitiveness, branding, navigation, and content should quickly reassure your potential client that they’ve landed on the right website to fix their problems. They should be able to easily fill out a contact form to get in touch with your firm.
Functional law firm website design
Ultimately, every design choice comes down to figuring out how to get potential clients to your website. And then get them to fill out an inquiry form.
We don’t start from scratch designing a revolutionary website design, because that’s not what your audience is used to.
Instead, we research the online competitor space. We look for:
- Recurring patterns, such as the home navigation arrangement
- Where the contact forms are
- The colors they’re using
- What their calls-to-action are saying
Once we observe what the norm is and what the average user is used to, we craft a clean website design that’s intuitive and easy to use.
In the end, you get a modern law firm website that makes it simple for potential clients to find the information they need and contact your firm.
The impact of user experience (UX) on law firm websites in 2023
User experience (UX) is one of the most important aspects of a successful law firm’s website.
Having a good website design is more than just “being nice to look at,” it’s about meeting the expectations of your website visitors and keeping them on your website long enough to fill out a contact form.
By investing in better UX, you can:
- Reduce bounce rate (the rate of people who leave immediately from your website)
- Improve SEO
- Increase dwell time spent on the website
- Generate more leads
To enhance the user experience on your law firm website, focus on these key areas:
Navigation
Create a clear, logical, and consistent menu structure that helps people find information quickly and easily, such as:
- Company logo in the top left of the page
- Dropdown menus in the top center of the page
- About Us and Contact Us pages are easily findable
Mobile responsiveness
Make sure your website is fully functional and adaptable/resizable on mobile devices, or else half of your visitors will bounce immediately.
Content
Offer well-organized, easily digestible, and well-written legal content (blogs) that answers your audience’s questions and concerns.
Group together several blogs by topic for better findability, also known as “blog categorization.”
For example, if you specialize in “medical malpractice” and have several blog articles about this topic, group those together so people searching for medical malpractice blogs can find all of the appropriate blogs on your website.
Visual design
Use a modern, clean, and professional design that reflects your brand and established credibility.
And please—no more scrolling banner images or cheesy stock photography!
24 essential law firm website design features to generate leads
Your firm’s website will be the central hub to which all of your online content will redirect visitors. But once people get to your website—keep them there.
Your website probably doesn’t need as many features as you might think.
You don’t need to bombard your web visitors with pop-up ads or scrolling banners; those don’t really work that well anyway.
Let’s look at some essential law firm web design features you’ll need to both impress your audience, and make Google index your website into its search results to improve your website’s SEO.
1. A clear mission statement
New web visitors will unconsciously seek out your mission statement, which should be upfront and centered at the top of your website.
Something like “Compassionate lawyers specializing in medical malpractice” or “Defense attorneys getting you the representation you deserve.”
The purpose of these clear mission statements is to confirm your reader is on the right website for their specific need.
If your website is too confusing, or it’s unclear what type of law you specialize in, your visitor will bounce off the website and search for a different law firm website.
2. Homepage
At Kaleidico, we don’t believe in having a cluttered home page filled with rotating banner images and other unnecessary elements.
Your website should be clean and minimal, only showing the most important features, such as:
- A clear and direct positioning statement above the fold
- The company’s logo
- CTAs and contact forms above the fold
- Clear and simple navigation to practice areas
3. Logo
The symbols, colors, and styling of your company’s logo convey a powerful message to your audience.
When you look at your law firm’s logo, how does it make you feel about your company? Does the logo communicate authority, compassion, and professionalism?
If not, you may want to consider doing a quick logo revamp to modernize and stylize your logo.
Place it on the top left of your website to improve brand recognition and the user’s experience. Make sure to use a transparent background so your logo blends into the background seamlessly.
Also add your logo to the top left of your website’s footer and contact page.
4. Mobile-friendly law firm website design
Half of all internet traffic is on mobile phones.
How does your website’s design rack up when you view it on your phone?
If you have to zoom out or resize the screen, I pretty much guarantee all of your mobile traffic will leave immediately.
In the past, web designers had a difficult time creating a mobile-responsive site, but these days most website builders such as WordPress and Squarespace have it built-in.
There’s no excuse for an un-mobile-friendly website in 2022!
5. Typefaces and colors
Color psychology plays an important part in communicating your firm’s mission and values. As do typefaces and font choices.
Traditionally, most law firms have used serif fonts. These are letters that have little “feet” attached to them. Think of the University of Michigan’s block “M.”
However, today sans serif fonts are more popular and have a modern edge to them.
Work with a graphic designer who can go through a branding exercise to learn what your values are, and then present logo and typeface ideas that will “wow” you and your audience.
6. Images
It’s ideal to avoid stock photography and use professional photos of your office and staff instead.
Consider hiring a professional photographer to come into your office one day to photograph your building and headshots for all of your attorneys. These can then be added to the attorney bio pages.
When you do need to use stock photography, Unsplash or Pexel offer royalty-free images.
Add “alt-tags” to your images when placing them on your website.
Alt-text means alternative text, and it’s the words that show up when an image doesn’t load. It’s also used to improve accessibility for visually impaired users.
Alt-tags are also an SEO trick to improve your website’s searchability. If there is a particular keyword you’re trying to rank for, then you can add these terms to your alt-tag so your article will appear in more Google searches.
7. Videos
Videos on your website can boost your traffic and improve your website’s conversion rate. Not only that, pages with videos often rank higher in Google’s SERP.
By video, I mean an embedded YouTube video and not a banner video that plays in the background. Those are unnecessary and can seriously slow down your website.
Videos are harder to produce, which means that other law firms may not have any. Even producing one high-quality video can make a big difference in attracting more traffic than your competitors.
Make sure your targeted keyword is in the title of your YouTube videos, and be sure to add a detailed description.
To get your video shown as a video “snippet” on Google’s search results page, create timestamps for your video for better searchability.
Just remember: auto-playing YouTube videos on websites is super annoying and will likely cause your viewers to leave your site.
8. Contact forms, lead paths, and calls-to-action (CTAs) for every page
Because everything we do is ultimately to get people to give you their contact information, it makes sense to use forms that are non-intimidating and quick to fill out.
Every page of your website needs to be optimized with contact forms and include persuasive calls-to-action (CTA).
Consider using some of the following CTAs to get your visitors to fill out forms:
- Book your no-cost consultation today
- Get financial compensation today
- Download our free legal guide eBook
- Download our case study
- Schedule an initial consultation
- Reach out
- Contact us
- Subscribe to our newsletter
- Give us a phone call
- Get the compensation you deserve today!
It’s best to provide these different contact options to your visitors to increase conversion rates:
- Standard contact forms
- Click to call buttons
- Progressive forms, which are buttons that redirect visitors to a quick questionnaire
- Chat Boxes, just make sure you have a team member ready to answer questions or potentially risk annoying visitors by ignoring them
- Downloadable content, such as free eBooks, case studies, cheat sheets and guides that people must enter their email address to receive
9. Attorney bios
Your potential clients want to learn more about your lawyers before reaching out to them.
It makes sense — lawyers must earn their clients’ trust, and showing your headshot and credentials will give your attorneys more authority.
Also, because you’ve created individual pages for each attorney, any time somebody Googles one of your team’s lawyers, your law firm’s website should be the first or second search result.
This is another law firm SEO tactic.
For a more engaging bio section, consider the following tips:
- Use the attorney’s name as the primary headline.
- Include a high-quality headshot.
- If possible, include a personal video.
- Write what made you get into law. Perhaps it was a family member who was a lawyer or a specific instance that made you passionate about law.
- Talk about your successes, but don’t give out too many details about particular cases.
- List your accomplishments, your school, your background, and special certifications and awards.
- Avoid legal talk and use plain language when writing your bio. You’re trying to effectively communicate with the reader and don’t need to confuse or intimidate them. If anything, you should make yourself seem approachable since you’re trying to work with new people.
- End with a call-to-action to set up a consultation.
10. Contact Us
A contact page is one of the most essential features on law firm websites.
Even though your contact information will be all over the website, including the footer, it’s still good practice to create a specific page for contact information.
People have become accustomed to finding the contact page in the top navigation bar, so make sure it’s there to improve your odds of lead generation.
Google will also be able to pull your address and populate your office into the results of local queries for law firms, i.e., when people search “lawyers near me.”
11. Company “About Us” page
An About page is your chance to write a detailed description of your company, its history, and any high-profile cases you’ve worked on and to share your mission statement.
It’s also another good area for search engine optimization. Use this page to add relevant keywords to your site to increase its visibility in Google searches.
12. SEO and content (blogging)
Law firm websites absolutely need a regularly updated legal blog.
Some people think they can build a website and it will automatically generate traffic. That’s not really how law firm sites, or any websites, work.
If you’re not producing new blogs regularly, then Google will bury your website farther down their search results.
Why? Because they’ll think your company is no longer active because it’s not producing new content.
Google favors new content because it’s deemed “more relevant.”
There are many considerations Google looks for to determine the relevancy of a law firm website for legal-related searches, and some of the most important factors are:
- Backlinks
- Traffic
- Updated content
Blogs are also the main traffic referral source, bringing people to your website.
How do people find your website anyway? Usually, through Google searches, either searching for “lawyers” or searching for specific legal advice.
The more content your website has, the more essential keywords it also has, which makes it even easier to find in Google searches.
To start blog writing, find your key practice areas, and then start writing explanatory blogs related to those practice areas.
Examples of relevant legal blog posts include:
- “How to file bankruptcy”
- “What you should know before filing for divorce.”
- “How long does the statute of limitations last for X?”
- “What to do if you’re being sued for discrimination.”
Attract more qualified case leads to your law firm with our results-driven marketing services.
13. Practice areas landing pages
A good law firm website will need to consist of more than just a homepage, about, contact, and blog — you need individual pages (landing pages) for each of your legal services offered.
For example, add specific landing pages related to:
- Surgical malpractice
- Delayed birth injuries
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Divorce
- DUI
Adding individual landing pages for each of your practice areas will add more important keywords to your site. So when people search for “malpractice lawyers,” Google will find your medical malpractice page and say, “This is a relevant match; we’ll list it on the search results page.”
Besides SEO, your readers need quick access to this information so they can learn more about their predicament and gain trust in your company to help offer them a solution.
14. Footer
Your website’s footer is sort of like the last chance to capture more engagement from your readers, just in case they haven’t already filled out a form or clicked on any pages or blog posts.
Your footer should have the following information:
- Company logo in the top left corner
- A dated copyright notice. Make sure the year is updated, or else your website will look inactive.
- A contact button
- Link to blog
- Phone number
- Office address
- Email address
15. Tone-sensitive language
An attorney’s website copy needs to appropriately match the audience’s mood and situation.
For example, divorce lawyers may be able to tap into resentment or even a bit of anger to provoke a response from their readers to fill out a form.
Those experienced in medical malpractice or sexual abuse, however, need to offer calmer, compassionate language to soothe and reassure their audience to take the next steps.
Make sure to avoid objectionable or insensitive language that can be considered tone-deaf and drive your readers away. Don’t be tacky!
16. Testimonials, reviews, and social proof
Sorry to state the obvious here, but a lot of people are intrinsically scared or distrustful of lawyers. I blame too many John Grishman movies for causing this.
If your potential client had to compare two similar law firm websites — one with social proof and the other with none, which do you think they’ll pick?
Testimonials and reviews add social proof and trustworthiness to your website, encouraging your audience to reach out for additional help and information.
Examples of social proof can include:
- Badges and certificates
- Video or written testimonials from former clients
- News snippets on high-profile cases
- Displaying reviews for your law firm
A word of warning to lawyers: you cannot pay or bribe people to recommend your services or leave positive reviews. This breaks the AMA’s rule on advertising legal services.
If getting more reviews is part of your strategy, which it should be, start with former clients who had a positive experience and simply ask them to leave a review.
17. PPC Campaigns
Technically, this isn’t a website element, but it is a very important part of marketing your website and starting the customer journey for more prospective clients to stumble upon your website.
If you’re looking to get your firm’s website on Google’s first SERP page, and you don’t want to wait days, weeks, or months, then use Google Ads to promote your website above your competition.
Using Google and Facebook ads, you can create online ad campaigns to show ads when people actively search for law firms related to your practice areas, e.g., divorce lawyers, probate lawyers, criminal lawyers, etc.
18. Live chat or chatbot
If your website doesn’t have a chat or chatbot, I’d recommend adding it to your website to capture questions from new visitors.
Usually, a law firm will have a receptionist, a customer support representative, or a paralegal handling the chatbox on a website.
However, here’s a list of popular live chat plugins for law firm websites:
- Drift
- Intercom
- Tawk.to
- LiveChat
- Chatfuel
- Crisp
- Pure Chat
19. FAQ section
Are you receiving the same questions from new leads? Address these common questions and concerns by having a comprehensive FAQ section.
Another benefit of the FAQ section is it will make your website’s search results rank better in Google, especially for voice search algorithms.
20. Free resources and “lead magnets”
Offer valuable resources known as “lead magnets” or “exclusive content” such as guides, whitepapers, eBooks, and checklists that visitors can download in exchange for their contact information, generating new leads for your firm.
21. Internal linking
If you haven’t done so already, make sure to add internal links throughout your site that link to other pages of your website.
This way, when people are reading blog posts, they can click on links to explore related content and increase their dwell time on your site.
22. Newsletter sign-up
Encourage new visitors to subscribe to your newsletter for regular updates and legal insights, nurturing them into potential clients down the road.
23. Social media integration
Connect your law firm’s social media profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube) to let visitors follow and engage with you on different platforms.
24. GDPR/Privacy Policy
User privacy is a big deal, especially for legal websites. Display a clear privacy policy and GDPR compliance notice, ensuring transparency and building trust with your audience.
Content strategy and blogging for law firms
Want to know a secret? It’s probably your website’s blog posts that are bringing in the most traffic in Google searches. And when you write and publish a blog on your website, it stays there forever — known as evergreen content.
While a Google Ad or Facebook Ad will stop showing after you stop paying for it, blogs are forever.
The following are some short tips to create an effective content strategy for your law firm.
Identify your target audience
Create personas for the exact type of person you want to reach, such as specific practice areas, demographics, and industries, and then write blog posts and new web pages around those people and their needs.
Conduct keyword research
Find the exact keywords and search phrases your target audience is using online. Identify these keywords using SEO tools such as Google Keyword Planner Tool, Semrush, or Ahrefs to see popular legal-related keywords and their monthly search volume.
Create high-quality blog content
Write and publish four blogs a month — at least. If you’re unsure what to write about, go to your most frequently asked questions and write “how-to” guides related to these topics.
Use the proper header types (H1, H2, H3) and write articles that are more than 1,500 words, as longer articles tend to rank better in Google searches.
Establish a content calendar
Plan and schedule your content in advance, at least a month, to maintain a consistent publishing frequency.
Remember, every new blog post you publish is a new chance for Google to reevaluate your website and improve its ranking in search results.
Promote your content everywhere
Reuse, recycle, and promote your content everywhere — social media, email newsletters, and other marketing channels to make the most out of your new blogs and meet different audiences throughout the internet.
See how Kaleidico can help you reach lead generation goals and get the best cases.
Examples of the best law firm website designs in 2023
Popular website design styles change every year to keep up with Google’s best SEO practices.
Astute marketers and designers are constantly looking out for Google’s algorithm update to make sure their website is always one step ahead of the competition.
If you’re just starting out looking for design ideas to revamp your firm’s website, don’t worry about the Google algorithm yet.
What’s important is that your website conveys a sense of authority and trust to your reader, and provides them with valuable and free content.
If you can impress your audience with your website, they’ll fill out a form and generate another legal lead for your company.
Let’s look at some of the best law firm websites of 2023 for your inspiration.
Grover Lewis Johnson
Grover Lewis Johnson is a law firm specializing in two fields — medical malpractice litigation and insurance and corporate and commercial defense.
The copy is client-focused, compassionate, authoritative, and features an intuitive case consultation form that’s more accessible and friendly than the standard form.
Here is another example of a quick, simple, intuitive case consultation intake form to generate legal leads.
Compelling attorney profile bio pages with easy-to-access contact information humanize this company and improve its SEO.
Grover Lewis Johnson’s legal blog content helps clients better understand their situation and possibilities. It also builds confidence in scheduling a case consultation.
Odjaghian Law Group
The Odjaghian Law Group specializes in traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injury litigation.
Readers will notice immediately what kinds of results are possible for their specific case. While some law firm websites might shy away from giving exact monetary figures, the Odjaghian Law Group highlights it as a key feature on their homepage.
Check out the powerful testimonials farther down on the homepage. Social proof is necessary to build trust with your audience, and video testimonials are more impactful than words alone.
Aharoni Business Law, PC
Aharoni Business Law offers general business legal services to small businesses, including business law, employment law, and intellectual property.
The website begins with a strong mission and positioning statement using the keyword “business” in its text. This reassures the reader that they are on the right website and that they are understood by the law firm.
Aharoni has invested time and energy to produce educational, informational videos that help clients understand their need for legal counsel and support.
In another smart design move, they have created a FAQ page that asks qualifying questions to ensure their incoming leads are high-quality and usable.
Counsel for Creators
Counsel for Creators provides legal resources and coaching for creative people and their businesses.
Again, another great example of a strong mission statement and nice positioning for their target market. This page is basically conveying “we get you” to its target audience. One necessary step for retaining website visitors on the page.
The website’s design and content are extremely easy to understand. Services and processes are easily found, letting the audience think, “They can advise me on what I don’t fully understand, and it seems simple — no more work on me to figure this out.”
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Davis Wright Tremaine is a major law firm specializing in business and litigation law. They are notable for their work getting compensation for landowners, fishermen, and businesses affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Being a major law firm, its homepage cleverly and intuitively offers navigation to help its audience find exactly the right practice areas and services for their legal scenarios.
If your law firm specializes in multiple key practice areas, take a design approach from DWT’s website.
Andreozzi + Foote
Andreozzi + Foote are civil attorneys focusing on sexual assault cases. If you look at their domain name — victim civil attorneys dot com, you’ll notice they picked very important keywords to improve their SEO. This is a tactic some law firms take — rather than using their business name, they opt for high-value keywords to improve their searchability.
Immediately, you’ll notice strong and empathetic copy and humanizing images of the team.
Compassionate language is an essential value that must be conveyed for sexual abuse cases, over the more aggressive language used by other law firms, such as car accident litigation, or divorce litigation.
Listing key practice areas on the website allows prospective clients to quickly find and better understand their situation so they can confidently schedule a case consultation.
The three kinds of law firm websites: outdated, tacky, and professional
During my research as a legal content marketing writer, I’ve come across tons of lawyer’s websites.
In my opinion, there are three kinds of lawyer websites:
- Outdated websites that look like they were designed in 1995 when Netscape was still popular
- Tacky, modern websites filled with millions of notifications, pop-ups, chats, and annoying dings/whistles
- Clean, modern websites with high-quality copy, a simple homepage, easy navigation, and a thoughtful user experience
Let’s aim for number 3 for your next law firm web design!
The importance of local SEO for law firms
The largest and most competitive law firms try to dominate Google search results nationwide because they want to take on the most high-profile cases they can.
However, most law firms simply want greater visibility in their city, county, or home stage. This is where local SEO comes in. With local SEO, you can target the largest pool of new clients — people who are physically close to your office.
Follow these steps to put your law firm on the map, literally—Google Maps.
Claim a Google Business profile account for local searches
Start by creating a Google Business Profile for your law firm.
Make sure your list is claimed, accurate, and up-to-date with practice areas, contact info, office hours, and photos.
Encourage client reviews on Google, Yelp, and other platforms
Keep in mind the more positive reviews your Google or Yelp profile has, the higher your company’s ranking will be in their search results!
Now, you can’t bribe or encourage people to leave positive or 5-star reviews.
First of all, this is against Yelp and Google’s guidelines and it’s illegal according to the American Bar Association’s Rule 7.2, which states that law offices cannot bribe or pay people to leave positive reviews.
So, how do you get good reviews? I would start by contacting past clients who had a positive experience and ask them to leave a review.
Join local directories
Don’t settle for just a Google Business Account, either. Add your law firm to local directories for more visibility, such as:
- Avvo
- FindLaw
- yellowbook
- Nolo
- Justia
- Lawyer.com
- LawyerLegion.com
Optimize the law firm’s website for local keywords
If you’re targeting “Detroit” or “Metro Detroit,” then make sure to incorporate location-specific keywords into the website’s content, blog posts, meta tags, URLs, mission statements, and more to increase visibility in local search results, e.g., “Detroit law office near me.”
Social media integration and digital marketing for law firms
Integrating social media marketing into your law firm’s website will help you expand your reach to find new clients who are browsing various channels online, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.
Let’s look at a few short tips to integrate social media into your law firm’s digital marketing strategy.
Choose the right platforms
Don’t feel like you need to sign up for every platform. Stick to the most relevant social media channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Create a consistent brand presence
Keep your branding, messaging, language, and tone consistent across your website, social media profiles, and email marketing materials. You don’t want people thinking, “Is this the same company? Why is their Instagram so odd?”
Share valuable content
Every time you write a new blog, also publish it to your social media accounts, and use the right hashtags and keywords to make this content easily findable.
Remember: it can take a few weeks for a new blog post to show up in a Google search, but if you upload it to social media, your audience can read these posts immediately.
Engage with the audience
Don’t be the page that doesn’t respond to comments or else people will think you’re out of business or unfriendly.
Create a sense of community and friendliness to demonstrate you value your audience’s input, and perhaps other people will be inclined to reach out to you too.
Measure and optimize
Track the performance of your social media by using analytic tools to measure how many people are following and engaging with your page so you can continually improve your online presence outside of your website.
5 Law firm website optimization tips for improved results
If you’re thinking referrals are enough to fuel your business and consider your website an afterthought, don’t!
Many times, people will search for a lawyer, perhaps on Google Maps, find the firm’s website, and then click on it.
But if they click on a website that says “Copyright 2013” at the bottom of the page, they’re going to think you’re out of business and will look for another law firm that’s more “current.”
Let’s examine a few more ways to optimize your website for more traffic, improved SEO, and lead generation:
1. Audit your firm’s website
There are many kinds of audits you can run on your website — technical audits, content audits, SEO audits, etc.
A website audit essentially scans all of your website’s pages, content, and site structure to make sure your website is optimized for optimal search engine visibility.
Keep in mind that your website needs to satisfy both humans and Google’s crawler bots.
If a robot is having difficulty making sense of your website and its structure, then you can assume that your human readers will too.
An audit tool will help you identify important issues such as:
- Broken links
- Load speed times
- Conversion rates
- Poor SEO ratings
- Spam or hacked content
- Traffic behavior
- Number of backlinks
2. Improve page load speed
If your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, your visitors will leave and never come back.
Here are some tips to achieve faster load times (which is more important than you realize):
- Compress images to reduce file size.
- Use browser caching to store information on the user’s device (just be careful with tracking cookies).
- Limit plugins and external files.
- Enable “lazy loading,” which only shows images when a person is trying to view them on the page.
- Keep your website’s theme, software, and plugins updated for optimal performance.
3. Don’t overwhelm already anxious web visitors with too much junk on the page
Want to scare your website visitors away? Then, add as many pop-ups, takeovers, and aggressive chat invitations as possible to your website.
In my mind, this is equivalent to going to a used car lot and having multiple salespeople swarming toward you. You’re going to want to get out of there quickly! “I’m just browsing!”
It’s likely your prospective client is already overwhelmed — it’s why they’re seeking legal help. Don’t add to their anxiety by over-stimulating them with unnecessary junk, like animations, pointless sliding images, loud chat boxes, etc.
Instead, you should provide an empathetic, informative, and safe on-ramp for your exceptional legal counsel.
4. Keep your homepage and navigation simple
Most people who visit your website are doing so for the first time — because they’ve just been injured/sued/divorced and need timely information and help.
Additionally, many of these people likely have not worked with a lawyer in their life and are scared to reach out for help.
It’s your job to create an easy-to-navigate website so your readers can quickly find answers to their problems and hopefully contact you for additional help.
Since you’re trying to generate a lead, keep your navigation and homepage very simple to limit your visitors’ options.
Most visitors will have a few objectives when visiting your website:
- Finding out if they have a valid case
- Determining if your law firm is qualified to help them with their legal issue
- Finding a specific attorney they’ve been referred to (and Google searched)
- Learning how much money they can possibly make from their case
Therefore, you should keep your homepage and navigation simple so they can quickly find these answers, or else they’ll leave your website and never visit again.
Try these tips to simplify your homepage and navigation:
- Provide a clear mission statement on what kind of law firm you are
- Offer an easy-to-fill-out contact form to generate a new case lead inquiry (forms, click to call the phone number)
- Easy access to your firm’s practice area landing pages (either in the drop-down menu or on the homepage)
- Easy access to attorney bio profiles in a drop-down menu called “Attorney Bios.”
5. Understand most web visitors don’t start on the homepage
You’d think the homepage would be the top-visited page for any website — it usually isn’t.
Nope, this is because many of your visitors will discover your website through a Google search, either related to a specific question “How do successfully sue for DUI” or a more specific legal search “car accident lawyer near me.”
This is why we place such an emphasis on practice area landing pages (car accidents), blog posts (what to do after getting hit by a car), and attorney bio pages (James H. Smith lawyer).
Most people will find lawyers and law firms in these two ways:
- Searching for an attorney in their area to handle their legal issue – 62% of legal searches are non-branded (i.e., generic: “Phoenix divorce attorney,” etc.)
- Searching for an attorney’s name that they were referred to
How can lawyers set up their own websites?
At Kaleidico, all of our websites are built using WordPress, which is the world’s most popular website building software.
You’ll also find that Squarespace is another good option to build a well-designed website.
Both options provide many widgets, or plugins, that offer additional features to your website, such as:
- Contact forms
- Built-in SEO tools
- Call buttons
- Social media icons
- Content sidebars
- And much, much more
WordPress and Squarespace also provide many free templates and paid templates that can be customized to your liking.
I will say, however, that these “drag and drop” style website builders may seem simple at first, but are more laborious when you try to create custom designs.
If you’re feeling intimidated or don’t have the time to set up a website yourself, consider hiring a full-scale marketing agency that can develop and design the website for you.
Tracking attorney website performance and key metrics
Monitoring your law firm website’s performance and key metrics helps marketers keep track of your online presence, identify areas of improvement, make data-driven decisions, and measure the success of your campaigns.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) that lawyers should care about include:
- Website traffic
- Bounce rate
- Average session duration
- Conversion rate
- Click-through rate
- User engagement
To measure these KPIs, you can use tools such as:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Adobe Analytics
- Clicky
- Heap
- Crazy Egg
- Hotjar
How long does it take to set up a law firm website?
It all depends on the size of your law firm and the type of site.
Of course, larger custom websites will take longer, depending on their complexity and content needs.
As a general rule, we say that most law firm websites can be created in 1-to-3 months or around 90 days.
Learn more
Kaleidico — a law firm web design agency
Kaleidico is a full-scale marketing strategy agency specializing in the legal industry.
We’ve created a proven framework that implements web design and development, content marketing, SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media marketing, and other strategies to generate high-quality and consistent case inquiry leads for law firms and attorney offices.
