Your law firm’s website is your presentation—your first impression—, and it offers the most significant potential for quality leads. A poor or outdated site is going to cost you prospects, and without leads, you may as well stay home.
Think about it like this: You wouldn’t meet a prospective client at your firm’s door dressed in your pajamas. Sure, they’re comfy—but unless your Law Firm practices fashion law with a specialized niche in sleepwear, it’s just not practical. You might be comfortable with your website, but that doesn’t mean it’s getting the job done. Your current site could be costing you valuable leads.
Ditch the Jammies—Your Website is Your Power Suit.
First and foremost, you need a clean, crisp homepage. Cluttered websites with an overwhelming amount of content stuffed on the front page will send prospects straight to the back button (to search for the next firm in line). In fact, 95% of visitors who bounce from a site never return. Companies like Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress offer thousands of sleek, stylish templates to take your website design to the executive level, and keep potential clients on your page.
Remember, you want visitors to spend time on your website, but the content needs to be concise for bite-sized consumption. The average internet user only spends between 10-20 seconds on a given webpage, unless they find something of value. Give them enough up front to capture their attention and pique their interest, then lead them to the right page. A landing page.
Your landing pages are critical for generating leads and converting prospects to clients. Without them, your power suit is just sitting at the cleaners wrapped in plastic. It’s useless. Effective landing pages should have fewer navigation options (to keep the traffic where you want it) and forms. Yes, more forms—but the good news is that you don’t have to complete them. Your prospective clients do the work for you. On top of that, if you create the forms in PracticePanther (as intake forms) and implement them onto your website, all the provided information will be readily accessible and organized by contact, in your case management system. PracticePanther assigns tags to every contact that was created through an intake form, allowing you to efficiently run email campaigns in MailChimp, targeting all your prospective clients. Check it out for more information on how to embed an intake form onto your website.
Sounds great, right?
Not so fast. Your prospects have to have a compelling reason to hand over their names and contact information. You need to address their unique challenges and needs. Your landing pages need to convince visitors that you are the firm for the job, and that means high-quality, targeted content that reinforces two simple truths:
- You understand their problem
- You can solve it
Of course, as you well know, it helps your case to present evidence. Client testimonials are an effective marketing tool for law firms. They support and strengthen your claims while allowing satisfied clients to speak directly to potential clients. The greatest benefit? They speak the same language. It goes without saying that legal terminology is a foreign language to most people. Testimonials create a sense of trust and personal connection. They put prospects at ease, and this is especially important when you’re asking for their personal information.
Go On: Dust Your Shoulders Off
So, you left your jammies crumpled on the closet floor beside the plastic garment bag and slipped into your best suit. What now?
You’re nearly there.
You’ve got a polished website with a sleek design, lead generating landing pages, quality content, and client testimonials. But don’t forget to optimize your site for mobile devices. Recent research shows that, on average, 48% of Google searches are done from mobile phones and tablets. That’s nearly half of your leads. If your mobile display is wonky or difficult to navigate, you’re back in your p-jams. Follow these tips and keep a clean, responsive layout that displays well across all platforms and you can kick back and relax while the clients come to you.
