Is Your Website Helping or Hurting Your Law Firm?
Building and Rebuilding Your Website
We must acknowledge that all websites are not created equal. In fact, most web industry professionals agree that the vast majority of websites suffer from issues in design, deployment, user experience, and more.
If you are one of the firms out there that still has no visible web presence, you’re likely losing business, and perhaps even trust and credibility with potential clients who are looking for legal services online.
On the other hand, if your firm has had a website for years, but hasn’t updated it since its inception, you’re arguably in a worse place than your no-website competitors. Assuming that as a lawyer and business owner, you’re committed to building a great online presence, either as a new launch, or as rebuild of an existing site, you must first consider a few things:
Identify Your Target Audience
As anyone who’s ever worked in marketing can tell you, this is of paramount importance to your message being heard. In the online space where search results are driven by the problem-related questions that users ask, resonating with those users and providing clear and useful information are the things that will ultimately qualify them as leads.
Begin the identification process by writing a list of criteria that defines your ideal client. These can be based on clients’ budgets, the professional legal services that you offer, or the area in which you practice. It’s really about your business objectives, so determine how you want your website to help you target those.
NOTE: There is a very good chance that many of your potential clients will not only be searching for you using their smartphones, but also that they want to find a firm in an area that is local to them. This should tell you that you need to have a responsive website that offers mobile users an easy, hassle-free experience while weighing their options.
Define Your Purpose
This is for the benefit of your audience - let them know what you do and why it is that you do it well. Then, let them know what you want them to do next. Marketers call this a “call-to-action” and understand that without issuing one it can be very hard to elicit a user action of any kind. If you want them to pick up the phone and call, simply ask them to do so!
Consider Your Content
Make it all about your users and not about your firm. While naturally, you want the content you publish to generate attention about the services you provide, it shouldn’t all be a hard-sell. Also, overwhelmingly, your site visitors won’t care about your firm’s structure, board meeting minutes, and the like.
This is particularly true when it comes to content published via your site’s blog. Regularly updated content like this will show search engines that you are committed to providing helpful, relevant, and useful information to users. This will help your site appear higher and higher in related search rankings - but only if the language used in these posts accurately targets the type of language that your potential clients are using to search for the services that you provide.
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Remember, your website is just one piece of your lawyer’s toolkit. But it can be a powerful one, and shouldn’t be neglected. For more digital insights into mobilizing your legal practice, watch this webinar from Amicus Attorney.
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