Website Conversion Optimization Tips for Lawyers
Website Conversion Optimization
After spending time and money redesigning your website, creating a strong social media presence and improving your site rankings, you’re still not seeing any tangible results. You hoped to be getting more and more cases by now but you still can’t see an improvement in your conversion rates. What could you be doing wrong? Enter CRO, website conversion rate optimization.
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Website conversion optimization involves getting as many people as possible visiting your website to take a certain desired action. This desired action could be signing up to a newsletter, downloading a tool, purchasing a product or even getting in touch with you. As a lawyer, the desired action is possibly getting as many of those potential clients seeking your legal services.
One mistake that most lawyers and law firms make is to assume that once they redesign their site and work on improving their search rankings, the clients will automatically come in. Some of the changes you make on your law firm website will only begin to bear fruits months or so later. What’s important is to ensure you make the right changes so that they are effective over time.
What works for your law firm website?
What may work for one law firm website may not work successfully on your own. Therefore, CRO involves keeping track of what’s working and doing more of it and then getting rid of what’s not working. Once you know where you can improve and work towards it, you’ll always remain on top of your game. Unfortunately, most law firms don’t pay attention to website conversion optimization. This is actually a golden opportunity to convert the same clients your competitors wish to serve.
You need to know what kind of data can help you to figure out what works for your law firm website. We’ll take a look at some of the numbers you need to be looking at below:
Website traffic
You need to know how much traffic your website is currently getting. Is this traffic being utilized in the best way possible? How long are people staying on your site? If the bounce rate is high, it means people are leaving the site too quickly. You need to provide website visitors with valuable information so that they can stay on your site for longer.
How did clients find you?
You already have a list of clients in your law firm but do you know how they found you? It’s important to keep track of all these sources because they’ll let you know which avenue gives you the highest conversion rates. For instance, you may be surprised to find out that many of your clients are coming from social media pages. It could mean that the blog articles and information you share on social media work to build trust and credibility. Ask clients how they found out about you and keep track of this information. Keep track of the number of people reaching out to you through contact forms, phone calls and live chats.
When do clients decide to look elsewhere for legal assistance? By analyzing the information above, you can quickly determine at which point you are missing out on critical conversions.
Who are your potential clients?
The key to improving website conversion optimization is determining who your target audience is and what they’re looking for in a law firm. For instance, if you’re targeting personal injury cases, think about the questions and needs that these kinds of clients have. Sometimes all your clients need is an assurance that you will be honest, confidential and trustworthy. Provide this information upfront and you’ll see the impact it has on your conversion rates.
We can have generalizations of the different kinds of clients your law firm is possibly targeting. We’ll break it down for you in 4 different categories.
- Results-oriented clients: These are the ones who are looking for quick action because they mean business. They want a law firm that is always on top of their game, shows professionalism and is credible. You can convert this kind of client by providing content that is straight to the point.
- Friendly clients: These ones need to feel safe and know that they can trust an attorney with their case. To win the hearts of amiable clients, you can use things like testimonials and post content that shows you truly care about the people you work for.
- Extroverted clients: These clients can take a little longer to make a decision. In fact, they will discuss their options with other people around their circles before making a decision. You can also use testimonials to convert these clients
- Analytical clients: These are possibly the hardest people to convert. This is because they take calculated steps before making a decision. They will go through your FAQ section in order to figure out if you’re the best people for the job. To convert them, you’ll need to answer the important questions on your website.
What’s the web user’s intent
User intent is a critical aspect. Understanding why certain web users are visiting your site is important if you want to convert them into clients. It’s impossible to find out exactly why each user came to your site. There are those who will come to your website looking for information or to have their legal questions answered. Others will be looking for more information on what kind of lawyers you are and whether you’re likely to fulfill their needs. The easiest customers to convert are the ones with a transactional intent. This means that they are already looking to hire you. You just need to ensure that your site is easy for them to contact you and hire your legal services.
The website elements you choose can also help you to convert most clients. From the banner to testimonials and CTAs, potential clients need to be given the right direction in order to take them through the conversion funnel. We know that getting clients to convert can be somewhat confusing, which is why we offer our CRO service. Get in touch with us today to find out more.
7 Essential Elements Of An Effective Law Firm Website Design
The best law firm website design is one that helps you achieve the main goal of having a site – converting visitors into clients. A good website design can help you to get more cases by taking advantage of different opportunities to convert. For you to come up with an effective website design for attorneys, you’ll need to consider some 7 essential components in your design. Forget about the latest trends in web design or what’s flashy in the digital space. The goal of your site is to help you as much as possible to increase conversions.
Having offered website design for many years, it’s safe to say we know what works well for this kind of business if your goal is to improve conversion rates. We’ll go over a few critical components you have to fine-tune in order to get a fully functional and effective website.
An effective call to action (CTAs)
Call to actions tell your users what step they need to take next. They are usually in form of a button with text. A simple call to action is a “contact us” button that leads the user to a contact page or pop-up. Other common call to action buttons found on websites include “visit website”,” Learn More”, “Subscribe”, “Download” and “Watch Video”.
One thing to always avoid when coming up with CTAs is including too many of them on a single page. It tends to water down the most important CTAs. Additionally, don’t overdo it. For instance, we’ve often seen law firm websites that ask clients to contact their law firm at every point on the page. This can really put off certain users. Additionally, some law firms don’t make their call to action buttons very prominent so users find it hard to reach out to them.
With that said, you need to create a balance. Customize your CTAs to suit your law firm’s design needs.
A few rules to follow when figuring out how and where to add CTAs include:
– Always ensure the CTA is easy to find. Place it in a section of the site where the user’s eyes are likely to gravitate towards.
– Sometimes you only need to use a CTA once on the page. Overdoing it can result in more harm than good.
– The size of the CTA should correspond other elements on the page. If you have a lot going on, on the same page then make sure the button is large enough so that it stands out. Sometimes a button that’s too big can appear distracting to users so try to maintain the regular small size.
– The typeface of your CTA should ensure the text is easy to read and stands out.
– Choose a button color that stands out and compliments the primary colors on your website.
Proper use of images
Images can make or break your entire website design. If you choose low quality and unpleasant photos especially on prominent places such as the homepage banner, they’ll immediately undermine your site design. Make a good impression by staying away from blurry, poorly formatted and low-resolution images on your law firm website.
It pays to invest in professional, original photos that showcase your law firms, attorneys or even the city which you serve if you are targeting local clients. Good images that would work well as your homepage banner such as cityscapes and landmarks are easy to obtain. In fact, this kind of images can add a local touch to your law firm website and boost trust in your services.
There’s certainly no harm in purchasing high-quality stock photos which you can use on your law firm website. You can even get some beautiful images from free sites like Unsplash and Pexels. What’s more important is that you pick these stock images wisely. Remember that the images can create confidence and trust in your brand. Sometimes you can’t accomplish this with stock photos and therefore may feel the need to invest in custom photography in order to truly reflect your practice on the site.
Typography is very critical
Most people underestimate the importance of typography used on their website. The typography used should reflect the content of the website. Law firms need to give users a sense of seriousness when they visit their website. Therefore, keep this in mind when choosing fonts and other typographical features such as the size and weight. Also, remember that the typography needs to be consistent throughout the site.
Make use of whitespace
There will always be new trends and innovations in website design but this doesn’t mean that you need to include each of them on your site. Only add elements that impact on your conversion rate. Don’t just add everything on the page that you think might be useful. When you overwhelm your pages with things like animations, videos, infographics and more, you turn of critical leads. Leave enough whitespace to allow users to focus on things that will ultimately generate leads for your law firm.
Incorporate videos when necessary
Videos will always remain effective because people process visual information much faster than written word. Videos are ideal for attorneys and their websites because they can create an element of trust. There’s so much that you can portray in a video and win the trust of potential clients. From the body language to the tone and even dress code, potential clients will have a good impression of your law firm website design when they see videos of you on the site.
Storytelling
Law firm websites are perfecting the art of storytelling to win the hearts of potential clients. This can be done in the simplest way possible by simply highlighting your personal stories and how they helped shape your law firm website design. It’s actually one of the best ways to build trust. Sharing your story makes you vulnerable. At the same time, clients perceive you as an honest and trustworthy brand that they want to associate with.
Speed
Slow loading pages will hamper your efforts. Sometimes you’ll need to cut out certain things on your pages in order to improve the site speed. Google itself uses site speed as one of the ranking factors because they acknowledge that this will affect users’ browsing experience.
There so much more to consider when building your law firm website. Factors like ease of navigation and site responsiveness should remain your top priorities. We are experts in website design for attorneys ready to provide you with a site that gives you better conversion rates.