With more and more industries and firms making their entrance into the online space, “Law Firms” is nowhere left behind. Today every Law firm needs an attractive, informative, and converting website that is the reason why they look to hire an experienced WordPress website design company. But many times law firms that are creating websites on their own fail to offer attractive, responsive, and engaging websites to their users.
Every user landing on your law firm website will have different expectations from your website. That is the reason why before designing a legal website one should be aware of what they need to offer and how their website can meet user expectations. If you are bouncing from one website to another looking for the best website design tips that can help you to create the most compelling legal website then you have landed on the right article.
In the coming paragraphs, we will be offering detailed ideas about why a law firm should have a fully functioning website and what page a law firm website should have along with some of the best website design tips every law firm website should consider while creating the legal website.
Table Of Content:
- An Overview Of Law Firm Website Design
- Why does a law Firm need a website?
- 7 Must-Have Page That Every Law Firm Website Should Have
- Website design tips that every law firm should consider in 2021
- Conclusion
An Overview Of Law Firm Website Design
With the increase in the number of Law firms, the legal industry has become more competitive. That is the reason why it’s essential for every lawyer to make their law firm stand out from the crowd. The first step starts with creating a website for your law firm so that your potential clients are able to notice your firm in the crowded legal industry. The user-centric website design you offer will help them to analyze whether you are the right fit for them or not. Or we can say the website you offer allows them to get a detailed idea about the skills and knowledge along with the previous work.
Every user landing on your website might have some expectation so the website design of your offer should be in a place to fulfill their expectation. People that are landing on your legal website might be dealing with some of the difficult, unpleasant, or embarrassing situations. Not only that but most people prefer to visit a legal website because of the legal hurdle faced by them. These people who are looking for a piece of professional advice or help might look to check your background before contacting you.
Website is the place where you can highlight every small detail starting from the previous work to the achievement that you have received while working in the legal industry. Because when it comes to legal problems every person looks to reach out to a professional. Your potential clients are very much similar to the business and firm that look for a professional and experienced website design company to help them build the most effective, attractive and converting website design for the business.
The website you create and offer should be able to showcase your firm’s professionalism and confident team of lawyers that will help them to get out of legal hurdles. These types of information encourage visitors to take action by reaching out to your law firm. With lots of website builders and themes out there, law firms tend to create a basic website for their business. But if you are someone looking to stand out from the competition then it’s important for you to think before just using a pre-built template or a simple basic website.
That is the reason why we have created this article that talks about the best website design tips that every law firm should follow to create a more effective, informative, and converting website for their business. Apart from that, we are also going to highlight why it’s important for every law firm to have a website and important web pages that every legal website should include.
Why does a law Firm need a website?
When you wish to find the right restaurant, food, physician, and other professional services, the first place that you turn is the internet and google. Not only you but almost every person who has access to the internet look to google for help. So your potential clients facing legal hurdles and other law-related problems might be searching for you on the internet. That is the reason why it’s important for every law firm to have a fully functioning website so that your services are discoverable on the internet.
If your law firm is operating without a website mainly in today’s technology-driven era then other firms operating with a fully functioning website may take away the potential clients. Today more than 60% of law firms generate new cases from the website and most of the people that are looking for any small information related to legal procedure look toward the internet. That is the reason why it’s essential for every law firm to have a website.
People that are looking to know the various information related to the legal procedure on the search engine might not be aware of how they can get benefited from the services provided by the attorney. The website you offer can help them to discover how they can get benefited by taking up your legal services. By creating and offering high-quality content that addresses the particular question, you are already capturing your potential client’s attention and once they start discovering more about your legal website then it will help you to improve website conversion.
Many small law firms think about why they should invest time and money in creating a website. Well if you are among them then make sure to check the below points as it will offer you a detailed idea about why your law firm needs a website?
1. Helps potential client to find you business
As mentioned earlier most people make use of the internet to find information. There are high chances that your potential client might be searching for your business in the search engine. Not only that but if your existing client is recommending your law firm to their closed ones then they might also look for your business in the search engine before contacting you. Yes, it happens most of the time because every person needs assurance before they take up any services.
Having and running a law firm website can help you to highlight your services, your experience, and most importantly professionalism. These aspects play a crucial role when it comes to converting a potential client into a paying client. Many times people here use the popular name of the law firms and lawyers and instead of calling you directly, they prefer to get more ideas about you and your firm from the search engine.
Having a website helps your potential clients find your firm easily and get detailed ideas about its functioning. So if you haven’t planned to get a website for your law firm then it’s the right time to hire an experienced WordPress website design company to help you create an engaging and converting website.
2. Helps in building trust & credibility
The reason why every law firm should have a website is that it acts as a communication tool that helps in building trust with the audience. Most of the time people that are reaching out to you directly on the phone might not be aware of you and your experience. So the conversation occurring between you and your client may not be productive because the client is totally unaware of you and it takes time to trust someone mainly when the conversation is on the call.
A website is a place where every law firm gets full freedom to display your achievements, professionalism, work, and more which can help your potential clients to gain more trust and credibility in your law firm. The presence of your legal website creates legitimacy at a very fundamental level. In case you are failing to offer a website then a telephonic conversation will never help you to gain credibility. It will result in your potential client taking services from your competitors just because they have displayed every small piece of their work on their website.
In today’s competitive marketplace just having a basic website will not help you to gain credibility until you are offered a well-designed modern website with all the features that can enhance the website user experience (UX). That is the reason why we recommend consulting with an experienced website design company that can help you to create the most effective, engaging, and well-crafted legal website that grabs more user attention and encourages them to perform the desired action.
3. Act as a communication tool
The website you create for your law firm will also act as a communication tool. Wonder how well there are times when people hear your name or your existing client might be looking to offer your details to their friend or close ones. That is when they visit your website to grab some of the important information about your law firms like the phone number, email address, direction, and more.
Your official website can help people to get all the necessary details required to reach your law firm. Even if you make changes like the shift in the office address or phone number or email address you can update the same on your website. Because your existing client might have the old information which will trouble them to reach out to your firm. That is the reason why we said your legal website can also act as a communication tool.
4. Helps user to get a detailed idea about your services
The website you create for your law firm allows the potential client to identify whether you are into full-service practice or one to several areas of practice. People that are hearing your name from their friends and family might look to know more about your practices. The website you create for your law firm can help them in identifying every small detail about your dos and don’ts. You might not be into criminal law but more into equity or corporate law. ‘
When a user lands on your website they should be able to get this information more quickly. They should be able to identify whether your law firm can help them in solving their problem or they need to look for others. This way you are not only helping the site visitor but also helping your firm by getting the calls and email from people who actually need you and fall in your sector.
5. Very few people like to call
Today most of the lawyers dealing with individuals than the business look to have the telephonic conversation. As it can help them to convert their qualified leads into paying clients which is true because telephonic conversation increases the chances of conversion. But only when the person has good knowledge about you and your working or got a recommendation from their close ones.
However not every individual will look to make a call in the initial stage that is when a website can help in starting the initial conversation. Things like contact form, email, live chatbox, and more offer different options that encourage the user to start the initial conversation with your firm. Some of the people feel shy because of the sensitivity involved in their legal matters.
That is why they look for different modes other than calling to start the initial conversation. By offering multiple modes to content your firm you are indirectly helping your business to get more conversions and monthly leads. Make sure you don’t add too many options in the contact form, instead make it short and simple and you can also offer a message box that helps site visitors to leave a small note on why they are contacting you.
If you are hiring an experienced WordPress web design company to build an attractive and engaging website for your law firm then you don’t have to worry about these modes as they will ensure that your website comes with all the features and different contact modes that enhance the user experience.
6. Reach maximum number of audience
A website is not only limited to offering information about your law firm but will also allow your business and services to reach a maximum audience. Earlier when you used to deal with a major case then only people used to know about you and your firm name. But now using social media PPC advertising and other blogging methods you can highlight your authority as well as achievements by reaching the maximum audience.
With the help of online marketing, you can run different paid ads by highlighting the user pain point to get more people’s attention. When a user clicks on your website then it will redirect them to your website. If your website elements are placed more strategically along with the information then it will grab the user’s attention and encourage them to stay on your website. Or else they will bounce back to some other website. So paid ads can help you to reach a maximum number of audiences.
Social media is another popular and most effective way to reach out to the maximum number of audiences. If you have your official legal website then using Facebook, youtube, Instagram, and more platforms you can build authority by driving more traffic on your website from different social media platforms. When it comes to reaching maximum audience then social media can be the key player as you can create different content that solves user’s pain points and share it across different platforms.
You can publish different blogs and articles on your website that relates to your industry and rank them with the help of various SEO techniques. Not to mention but every person comes across legal problems some are minor but most of them need proper legal advice. The content you publish can help them to get a glimpse of how they can tackle these problems and you can also highlight how your law firm has already handled these types of issues. Remember content, online marketing, and social media is the most effective way to increase the reach but for that, you need to have an attractive and conversion-centric legal website for your business.
7. Make your firm available 24/7
Not to mention but every offline business has a closing time so your law firm will have a specific opening and closing time. But a website makes your business available 24/7 without any opening or closing time. Your potential client can visit your website even at midnight. In short your website acts as the front door of your business which is always available to meet and greet new clients and offer all the information that they can get after visiting your law firm physically.
Having a website allows you to offer multiple modes of communication like email, contact form submission through which users can reach out to your business. There are high chances that your potential client might discover your law firm in the middle of the night and look to get in touch with you after getting impressed with the information available on your website. That is when the content form and other modes of communication available on your website will help them to reach your firm.
Different research stated that more than 73% of the content form submission happens after 2 PM-midnight. Make sure to display all the information about your firm and the services you offer on the website. Start thinking from the user’s perspective and determine what information they will look for after landing on your website at midnight. This way you will be making your website more engaging and converting.
7 Must-Have Page That Every Law Firm Website Should Have In 2021
Now must be aware of the reason why every law firm should have an official legal website. Before we start highlighting the web design that every law firm should consider we would like to offer some of the tips on the web pages that every law firm should have in 2021. There are various prebuild templates and website design professionals available that can help you to create a fully functioning and mobile-friendly website. But you should be aware of certain pages that every law firm website should have to offer a positive and the best experience to the site visitor.
If you are someone looking to create an eye-catchy website that generates more leads and matches site visitor expectations then it’s essential to incorporate pages that help the user find the right information. So below we are going to highlight some of the pages that every law firm should have on their website:
1. Homepage
Undoubtedly the homepage of your legal website will act as the front door of your business. No matter whether you are an international law firm or you are a solo attorney, it’s essential for every type of law firm to have a homepage on their website. The hope helps you to highlight your experience, reputation, and most importantly your achievements. If a user is landing on any of your articles through search and if the article offers the answer and impresses the audience, then the first thing they do is look for more information about your firm. That is when the homepage of your legal website will come into the picture.
There are other advantages of the search engine like:
- Helps in communicating what you do and how they can benefit from your firm
- Allows you to grab your potential client attention with attractive images
- Helps in establishing credibility
- Allows you to offer an overview of your services
- Engage your site visitor and encourage them to take action
- Offer Aid by answering their question
- Allows you to offer multiple ways to contact your firm
The homepage is one of the essential parts of every website so we recommend you create a page that allows users to engage with the information and perform the desired action. If your home page is offering all the above benefits then you can jump to the next page or make changes depending on your needs. Or you can also hire an experienced WordPress web design company that can help you to create the most effective and converting website design for your law firm.
2. About Us Page (Our Firm)
As we have mentioned earlier the website helps you to highlight every small piece of information about your law firm. We don’t have to mention the importance of us or our firm page as it helps in sharing the short story about why you are in business and how long you have been working in the industry. Offering this type of information helps in showcasing your experience and expertise in the industry.
You can make use of “our firm page” to add characters and personality so that potential clients are able to think that they are talking directly to the firm. Remember the law industry is an intermediating profession so people facing legal hurdles always look for getting in-depth ideas about the firm before making any decision. When a user checks the “About Us” page then they look for information that can satisfy them and make them comfortable.
Don’t make a mistake by making the Our Firm page as sales pages where you start pitching your services. Instead, make it a page where people are able to get every small piece of information about your firm that they will get after visiting your law firm physically.
You can even add the CTA to our firm page but make sure you don’t end up directing them to the service page instead focus on keeping it limited to the firm story. Or you can divert them to the page that highlights the award and other achievements received by your firm. If you are hiring your website to an experienced website design company then you don’t have to worry about this stuff as they will make sure that your Our Firm is more focused on telling your firm story.
3. Individual Lawyer Biography
As we have mentioned earlier before hiring any firm a client looks to get every small piece of information that can help them to identify whether you are the right fit for them or not. When it comes to law firms, every potential client looks to know who they are dealing with. Highlighting the lawyer profile on your website increases the chances of conversion as your potential client will be knowing the experience and other information about the lawyer.
By displaying the lawyer’s biography you are showcasing their professionalism and previous track record of your attorney. When it comes to building trust and gaining credibility then it’s essential to add a Lawyer Biography page on your legal website. It convinces your site visitors that you are the right fit for them.
4. Service Page Or Practice Area Page
When it comes to creating your legal website then need to add the practice page or the service where you can highlight a detailed idea about the services offered by your firm. Depending on the services you can decide the heading of the menu if you are offering multiple services then it’s recommended to highlight the same in the heading.
Remember to create a dedicated page of every service or practice area because your potential client might be looking for a particular service and if they found one then they will look to explore more about the particular services. Having a dedicated page for each service allows you to highlight every small detail that can answer potential client questions and encourage them to take action.
Apart from that, you might prefer to add a short glimpse of your services on the homepage and place a CTA that can redirect the user to the dedicated practice area page.
5. Sub-practice are page
When it comes to the law industry then most of the areas are specialized and there are high chances that your particular practice is or the service might have a sub-practice area as well. For example, if you are specialized in criminal law or defense then the offense can be subdivided like the failure of driving over.
When creating the sub practice page make sure it is connected to the parent practice area and also has a dedicated page. Adding the sub practices area information with the parent information can confuse your potential clients. That’s why it’s recommended to create a dedicated page for the sub practice page as well.
This particular practice will help you in many ways offer more clear information about the sub-practice area and also improves the navigability and relevance to your audience. When creating the sub practice area page you will be adding content and other information with a target keyword, this way your law firm and your website will be becoming more discoverable on search engines.
6. Resource Page
Another important and most crucial page that we recommend adding is a resource page. When it comes to creating an online presence than the content you create and offer will play a major role in grabbing more potential clients to your website. If you want to showcase your expertise and authority then you need to offer content that can solve the user’s problems.
Whether you are specialized in corporate law or criminal law, you can share your expertise by creating and offering content on your resource page. The resource page can contain all the blogs that you can publish on your website related to your industry, nice, and specialization. Apart from that, the article you publish on the website can also help in making your website more discoverable.
If you succeed in ranking those blogs on the top of the search engine result page then you will automatically start driving traffic. If the people visiting your website start relating with the content you offer or the content starts solving their problem then they will not hesitate to explore more about your website and law firm. So make sure your legal website has a resource page included in the list.
7. Contact Us Page
Not to mention but every website should have a contact us page because that is the way through which your potential clients will reach your law firm. Make sure the content information you are offering your website is updated and should be consistent on every page of your legal website. Most of the time site owners commit a mistake by adding different phone numbers or email addresses on different pages. This way you are not only confusing the site visitor but also creating a negative impression about your firm.
Even if you are displaying your contact information on multiple pages, still we recommend you to have a dedicated contact us page. Because clients who already know about you might land on your website to extract the contact information and if they fail to find one then they may bounce to your competitor’s website. So make sure your website contains a dedicated contact us page with all the basic information that can help your potential client to reach out to your firm.
The contact information you are offering should be consistent not only on your website but across all the platforms like google my business, different social media accounts, directory listing, and more.
If you are someone looking to create an attractive and conversion-centric legal website that relates with your site visitor expectations and encourages them to explore more about your brand and business then we recommend you to consult with an experienced WordPress web design company for your law firm.
Website design tips that every law firm should consider in 2021
1. Start with creating an organized website
When creating a law firm website the first thing that you need to consider is creating a well-organized design. People who will be visiting your website must be facing some legal hurdles and they will look for the best law firms for the consultation. Having an organized website for your business indicates the professionals and reputation of your law firm.
When we say organized then we mean your site visitor should be able to easily navigate to different pages and easily find the information that they want from your website. There are high chances that your potential client visiting your website might be someone who doesn’t have any knowledge about the law. With an organized website you can offer them information that is easily accessible. In short, your website will be able to offer a well-organized, simple, and navigation-friendly browsing experience.
The organized website helps users to get a clear direction on whether they have to take action. Make sure the services you are offering have a dedicated web page and the link to those pages is on the homepage. So the user can easily click on the button and land on the page they wish to access.
If you are looking to improve your website navigation then make sure to check our blog on
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2. Make use of multiple calls to action
The attorney website is similar to a standard service-based website, so the goal of every legal website should be to encourage site visitors to take action on the website. These actions could be requesting a consultation, a call back, and more. To ensure that users landing on your legal website performs the desired action you need to guide them by offering multiple calls to action buttons on your website.
This way you will be guiding them on how they can get in touch with you or schedule the consultation. When it comes to CTA design then we recommend selecting the right set of colors and keeping it consistent so that users are able to recognize what the button is about. Sparta the CAT from the crowd so that it is easily recognizable.
Make sure your homepage and other action-driven pages contain the CAT that redirects users to other pages like the practice area page, contact us page, sub practice area page, about us, and more. You can also place the CAT in the sidebar, blog page, and another individual blog post.
Remember the website design you offer should not be only limited to highlight your law firm details and other services. It should be created with a goal and also helps site visitors to accomplish the goal. That is the reason why we recommend you hire an experienced WordPress web design company that can help you to create research-based and goal-focused website design.
3. Be consistent with the color
One of the best ways to make your website stand out from the crowd is by selecting a color and using it on your firm board as well as on your website. Even if you are using a made theme for your website then also make sure to maintain consistency in the brand color. This way more and more people will be able to recognize your law firm. You can make use of brand color as the background color, the call-to-action button color, and more.
Not only that but you can also use the color as the section divider. If you are using a website builder for your legal website then you don’t have to worry about changing the color as they offer a bunch of customization features using which you can easily make changes. Even if you plan to get your website built by an experienced website design company then also you don’t have to worry about the color. Because an experienced website design professional does a lot of research and it includes selecting the right set of colors and maintaining consistency.
We recommend incorporating the brand color in the different sections of your website so that the site visitors are able to remember your website and engage with it. But make sure you maintain sufficient contrast between the color so that it grabs the site visitor’s attention.
4. Create a Responsive and Fast Website
Your potential client might access your website from any device like mobile phones, tablets, and desktops, So you need to ensure that your website is responsive on all types of screens. Mainly with an increase in the usability of mobile devices, you can expect more site visitors from mobile phones.
Today people look to access the information from the devices close to them and mobile screens are always in the hand of every user. But many times websites fail to load on mobile devices or tablets that give rise to a bounce rate. If you don’t want your potential client to visit your competitor’s law firm just because they waited long to see your content and other elements and failed to access the web page. Then we recommend improving your website speed keeping responsiveness as the first priority.
Your website and web page should be able to resize depending on the screen size or the devices it is getting viewed on. This way your site visitor will be able to access and engage with content and other elements regardless of the screen size. Apart from that make sure your website loads faster on all types of devices.
Because today users are impatient if your website loads slowly then no one will wait for long to access the content, instead they will abandon your web page and look for some other option. You can test your website speed with the help of online page speed test tools like Google Pagespeed Insight, GTmetrix, and more.
5. Craft the best logo for your website design
When it comes to building brand recognition then it recommends selecting the best logo that helps your potential clients to recognize your law form on different platforms. Even if they come across any post or add online as well as offline they will be able to recognize it immediately. Instead of using symbols and signs, we recommend using the full name of your law firm and you can experiment with the letters used inside your logo. Apart from that, you can also make use of your firm name and the practice area name in the URL.
Conclusion
By now you must have a good idea about why your law firm needs to have a website and what pages you can include in your law firm website. Above we have also highlighted some of the best website design tips that you can consider while creating the legal website for your business. If you need further assistance related to website design and development then you can always reach out to our award-winning WordPress website design company with more than 12 years of experience in creating website designs for different industries.