Your law firm’s website is the most important part of your online marketing. When you create your law firm website the right way, it becomes an appreciating asset that you own and control. When it’s done right, it will fuel your firm’s growth without increasing your overhead as you grow your practice.

If your current website isn’t performing as well as you think it should, consider these three elements to improve your website.

#1: Evaluate Your Law Firm Website Design.

When you’re improving your law firm’s website — and, in fact, when you’re starting a new law firm website — you’ll want to avoid doing things that don’t move the needle, or that move the needle in the wrong direction. One area where we see attorneys often struggle with is their site design.

Many attorneys believe that a website design with lots of bells and whistles is key to attracting new clients to their firms. Unfortunately, a lot of the design features that help marketing agencies win awards are the same designs that turn off your potential clients.

A lot of attorneys are too focused on fancy law firm website designs without considering how their potential clients perceive those designs. Most bells and whistles are not only unnecessary, but they also tend to confuse, distract, or frustrate potential clients who visit law firm websites.

One of the easiest ways to improve your website’s performance from a design standpoint is to put yourself in the shoes of a potential client. What are their goals when they visit your site? What information are they looking for, and how are they looking for it? What are they trying to achieve, and what do you want them to do? What impression does your website need to give the potential client to make them like you, trust you, and compel them to contact your firm?

Design is important as it relates to how your website functions, but it becomes a liability when fancy elements and animations get in the way of usability and experience.

Examples of unnecessary and distracting elements can include (but are not limited to):

• Uninstructive animations
• Image hover effects
• Fancy or huge fonts
• Background videos
• Fancy menus

Carefully evaluate your current design and ask yourself what purpose each design element serves. If you find elements that are not related to how your site functions or to what your potential clients need, consider removing them to make your site less complicated and more user friendly.

#2: Start Writing Client-Focused Content for Your Law Firm Website.

Improving your law firm website is about prioritizing what works and making sure that you’re clear about how you want your website to contribute to your firm’s goals.

For example, attorneys start new websites with LawLytics or move their existing site to our platform with goals that can range from starting a brand new law firm (and bringing it to financial viability) to expanding the reach of an already dominant law firm and everywhere in between.

If your goal is to drive more traffic to your law firm website and convert more website visitors into clients, the best way to do so is through regular content creation.

Attorneys often get caught up in ineffective (and often dangerous) search engine optimization (SEO) strategies in an attempt to make their websites more visible and attractive to potential clients.

However, world-class SEO for attorneys really comes down to three things:

• Creating high-quality content for your potential clients
• Making sure that content is well structured
• Ignoring everything else

When you create high-quality, client-focused content for your law firm’s website, it helps potential clients find you when they’re conducting internet searches related to their case or matter, because Google prioritizes high-quality content and will try to return quality, relevant results for searches.

Once potential clients have found your website, the content you create educates them about their problem, builds their trust in your expertise, and guides them to the conclusion that they should reach out to your law firm when they’re ready to do so.

If your website lacks content, it can be difficult for potential clients to find you, trust you, and have the confidence to reach out to you.

If you haven’t written any content yet, start is by writing content that answers the kinds of questions that your potential clients have during consultations with you. How do they describe their problems? What do they want to know about their case or matter? What additional information do they need to know about?

Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a natural writer, if you pay attention to how your clients talk to you when you meet with them or talk on the phone — and observe how they respond to your answers — you’ll have a blueprint for what to say and how to say it.

Over time, you can develop this content into a library of information that drives new traffic to your site, educates your potential clients and encourages them to contact your firm.

#3: Double-Check Your Website’s Forms & CTAs.

Let’s say your website has a user-friendly design and lots of great content. Your potential clients can easily find you, they feel confident in your abilities, and now they’re ready to reach out to you.

Do you make it easy for them to do so?

Having easy-to-use forms and clear Calls to Action (CTAs) can make a big difference on law firm websites.

Tell your potential clients what you want them to do, then make it easy for them to do it. Consider using action verbs in your CTAs and be specific about what you want the potential client to do.

When it comes to forms, make sure that your forms are easily accessible on your site. Use the fewest possible number of form fields to collect only the information that you truly need. The more work a potential client has to do to reach you, the more likely it is that they’ll leave your website before they have an opportunity to engage with your firm.

Get a More Effective Law Firm Website in 2019

If your website isn’t performing as you’d like it to, it’s likely that the problem can be traced back to one of a few common and specific causes. At LawLytics, we help attorneys take control of their online marketing by showing them what works and giving them the tools and the infrastructure to grow their online marketing — and their practices — the right way.

If your website is failing to produce the results that you want, there’s no better time than now to assess and correct this problem.

Victoria Blute is the Director of Education at LawLytics. She is passionate about legal marketing and helping attorneys learn what works for law firms on the web.