Having a beautiful, functional website for your law firm is great, but it doesn’t have much real-world value if it doesn’t generate qualified leads. Learn how to design your law firm’s website for lead generation here.
What Does My Law Firm’s Website Need?
The basic rules of law firm website design are simple. Your site should:
- Look modern and professional
- Function well
- Provide information about the firm
- Tell the visitor how to contact the firm
Technically, that’s all your website really needs to be adequate…
…but “adequate” doesn’t exactly motivate clients to contact your firm.
For your law firm’s website to encourage visitors to hire you, its design needs much more than the basics. Read on to discover some of the must-haves for a lead-generating law firm website design.
5 Design Elements of a Lead-Generating Law Firm Website
Here are five of the most important aspects of a law firm website that’s designed to get leads:
1. Your Phone Number—Everywhere
The #1 most important element of your law firm’s website design is your contact information. It needs to be everywhere. When your phone number is constantly visible on your site, you increase the chances that the prospect will call you at the exact moment they’re most motivated to take the plunge and hire a lawyer.
Make sure you have a way for prospects to get in touch with your firm—whether that’s via phone number, email, a contact form, or a chat function—on every single page. It’s vitally important that your contact information is visible at all times during their visit to your site. For example, no matter how far down the page a visitor scrolls, they should have a way to contact you—don’t make them scroll all the way up or down a page or hit the back button to find out how to get in touch.
Consistently visible contact information for your firm can be accomplished with headers and footers that stay put while the visitor navigates through the website. Another option is to have a contact form in a sidebar. (Keep in mind, though, that this option may not be as effective for those browsing on mobile.) Live chat functions, which are increasingly popular options for law firm websites, can also provide a way for potential clients to get their information to you so you can follow up on their case.
2. A Clean & Modern Layout
When it comes to good website design, simplicity is key. However, it’s even more important for a legal website to be simple because the users visiting the site are often overwhelmed, frustrated, or scared. The less friction a potential client experiences on your website, the better.
Make it easy for clients to find what they need from your website with a straightforward, intuitive layout that clearly lays out the information they need to know. They should not have to scroll through gigantic images or pages of lawyer-speak just to find out whether or not you can help them with a DUI charge in their county.
When you’re on your website, ask yourself this: can a prospect make an informed decision to contact you within about five clicks? If the answer is no, there’s an issue. Every click that doesn’t help a prospect along their journey of getting help is another chance for them to get fed up and leave.
3. Plenty of Whitespace
Have some empty areas in your web pages? Don’t panic! When used correctly, these empty spaces—known as “whitespace” in the web design world—are key elements of websites that are aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate.
“Think of whitespace like a volume knob for site distractions. More whitespace equals less noise, making it easier to focus,” explains Jon MacDonald of UXPin. “When a site strikes the right balance of whitespace, it’s easier to process and comprehend text, easier to decipher icons and images, and provides a better overall user experience.”
Whitespace can be used to organize information and links into categories. It’s especially useful if you want to offer multiple calls to action in the same area. For law firm websites in particular, whitespace is a way to give the visitor a “break” from information overload, which is important for visitors who are feeling overwhelmed by their legal situation.
In the same vein as whitespace, be sure to break up the text on your law firm’s web pages with paragraphs, headers, and lists. FAQ pages, for example, are great pieces of content because users can easily find exactly what pertains to them. Just don’t cram all the questions together without a break because that quickly gets tedious and frustrating to comb through.
One option for an informative but not overwhelming FAQ page is one that features drop-down options for each question. That way, clients can get to exactly the information they need without being distracted by answers that aren’t relevant to them.
4. An Immediate Sense of Trust
To instill confidence in your law firm, display accolades you’ve won on your homepage. You can also include awards your attorneys have won on their own biography pages.
Testimonials are another great option for reassuring visitors. Testimonials from past clients explain, in layman’s terms, exactly how your lawyers helped regular people like them. This is a great opportunity to include video on your law firm’s website. Video is much more compelling than text, and seeing happy past clients makes nervous prospects feel better about the idea of hiring you.
Videos do a lot to inspire trust in visitors to your law firm’s website. For example, video is the perfect medium for humanizing your law firm by showing your attorneys’ personalities and expertise. That sort of thing is invaluable, especially in legal situations where a prospect is worried about feeling judged or demeaned because of the circumstances of their case.
Putting videos on your law firm’s website is great for engagement, too. According to a 2017 study by DepositPhotos, adding video to the landing page of your website can increase conversion rates by 80%. And Blue Corona reports that people spend, on average, over two and a half times longer on pages that have video than on pages that don’t.
5. Compelling Calls to Action
In places where you want the prospect to take an action—such as calling your office, booking a consultation, or submitting case information—call-to-action (CTA) buttons are very effective at getting clicks.
However, you need to put some thought behind the design of these buttons. Here are the basics of creating CTA buttons that are the most likely to get clicks:
- Contrasting color. It doesn’t have to be neon orange, but the most effective CTA buttons are a color that is different from the colors surrounding it.
- Compelling copy. Use a strong verb such as Learn or Start—they’re much more incentivizing than Submit. Also, consider writing in first person rather than second person (i.e., Book My Consultation instead of Book Your Consultation). Prospects love feeling a sense of personalization.
- Clear intent. Make sure it’s completely obvious what clicking on your button will do. (For example, don’t have a button that just says GO if you haven’t very clearly described where the link will take the user.) If there’s any question or doubt, people won’t click.
Design Your Law Firm’s Website to Get More Leads
Now that you know five of the most important design tips for your law firm’s website, it’s time to start optimizing it to get more leads.
Whether you’re interested in updates for your existing website or need a whole new one built from scratch, Kirkpatrick Creative can help. Our team rigorously measures the effectiveness of everything we do, and we don’t stop until we’ve found the best choices possible for your law firm’s website. It’s part of our philosophy of creating advertising that’s engineered to work.
Ready to get started? Contact Kirkpatrick Creative today.