Crucial Website Design Mistakes That Law Firms Make

Reliablecounter Team

In today’s competitive market space, creating a stunning website is crucial for any business, and law firms are no exception. As an attorney, you’ll not only need to be accurate in your practice, but also on how you portray yourself out there. Other law firms have done it and you shouldn’t be left out. Websites have the potential to attract new clientele and convert them into reliable leads. When creating a website, it should reflect your values, agenda, and your professional image. While they can seem like lofty ambitions, they are the basis for establishing trust with prospecting clients.

Modern legal consumers have expectations that if they are not met, they’ll seek services elsewhere and this is bad for business. Of course, you’ll still run into some stoic faces that will not approve of your efforts. This is expected in a fiercely competitive market space and in a fast-paced industry. This, therefore, means that you cannot overlook the importance of a law firm website design. There are, however, certain aspects that can hinder lead generation when it comes to your law firm website. 

In this article, we’ll be looking at crucial website design mistakes that law firms make.

1. Failing to Plan

It’s said that if you fail to plan you are preparing to fail. This statement couldn’t be any truer especially when it comes to your law firm’s website design. Success begins with planning and it’s the only way you’ll identify any potential red flags with your law firm’s website design. You can learn more here about the crucial elements of a website design that need to be well thought through with the initial plan. The failure to this, they’ll ruin your marketing campaigns. And mind you, these are the aspects that are key when it comes to increasing traffic to your website. 

Among the things that need to be included when designing a law firm website include:

  • The Visual Design

We are visual creatures and we tend to be drawn to elements that are appealing and pleasing to the eyes. It only takes less than the attention span of a goldfish to impress a new user visiting your website. But this will all depend on the visual elements included on the website. But then again, most people will go overboard and in the process include a lot of information, images, and videos that only end up slowing down the website. And here’s where web designers come in handy. They have the experience, expertise, and know exactly what you need.

  • Accessibility and Mobile-Friendliness 

By now, it’s most likely that you’ve come across the term mobile-friendliness, right? If not, here it is. The regular design of a website will fit onto a desktop screen perfectly. But in this technologically advanced era, there are more mobile users than there are desktop users. This means that most people accessing your website will do so using a mobile device. A mobile-friendly website is designed to fit perfectly on a mobile screen layout. Failure to design a website that is mobile-friendly means that you’ll lose prospecting clients who are using mobile devices.

  • Intuitiveness 

When planning your law firm’s website design, it’s very important that you also concentrate your efforts on your website’s intuitiveness. This means creating a website that interacts and engages the users.

2. Doing Nothing about Your Website’s Loading Speed

This is a big mistake because people nowadays are not patient. It could be someone out there who’s just been involved in an accident and they are looking for a personal injury attorney to help get them out of a tough situation. Extended load times could be costing your law firm valuable clients. They’ll lose patience, ditch your website, and move on to a different website in a matter of seconds. A poor website design is a major contributor to poor website loading speeds. 

Among the things you can do to improve your website’s loading speed include:

  • Optimize your content
  • Utilize optimized images and video content
  • Minimize the jazz on your website by limiting the plugins

3. Failing to Optimize a Law Firm Website for Search Engines

Most law firms will fail to optimize their websites for search engines. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is still alive and very relevant to your marketing strategies. When a website has been optimized for search engines, it will rank higher, making it easier for users to find it. And in an age where most legal problems are rampant, you want to make it easier for prospecting clients to find you and the services you offer. Among the things that put your law firm website on the map include optimizing your keywords, creating high-quality content, checking the quality of your outbound links, ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly, and the right placement of ads just to mention but a few.

4. Failing to Show an Attorney’s Area Expertise

When a user visits your site, they want to see an attorney’s area of expertise. As an attorney, you want to showcase your experience and the type of representation services you offer. Attorneys have a lot of responsibilities such as filing lawsuits, drafting legal documents, providing legal counsel, and arguing cases. Now, while some attorneys will have a specialized area of expertise, some have a general approach in their careers and will provide varied services. As an attorney, you’ll want to include your area of expertise, whether it’s on regulatory laws, personal injury, appellate litigation, or criminal law on your website. When you showcase your expertise,  provide content that is abundantly clear, and relating to what you do, it will attract users who have an interest in what you offer.

5. Not Including Client Testimonials

Before a client clicks on the “contact us page”, they’ll first ask other users about the quality of services an attorney offers. To make it easier for them, you can include a client’s testimonial page. This way, they can read about what other users are saying about your law firm. Failing to include well-highlighted testimonials will only cause more frustrations to new users. Testimonials are a crucial feature when included on a website as they help to showcase a law firm’s achievement and successes.

Websites are a business marketing asset. Nonetheless, having a website alone doesn’t mean that it will produce the intended results. More needs to be done to ensure that it converts leads into new clients. As an attorney, you want to avoid the above mistakes when designing your law firm website if you are to see results.