Designing A Website For Your Law Firm? Here are Some Law Firm Websites Design Tips

A Client-Friendly Experience

The best law firm website designs put the needs of clients and potential clients first. High-performing legal websites educate, create trust, and facilitate contact. Your website plan will either help or hurt this process.

Your law firm’s website should eliminate the need for your potential clients to think about anything other than their problem and your solution. They should instantly understand how your website works, how to find the information they need, and how to contact you.

There’s a way to do this that’s:

• Objective – It’s based on objective data, so there’s no need to guess.
• Cost-effective – It costs less than a novel website design.
• Reliable – It performs more predictably because it’s based on science, not novelty.
• Flexible – It’s easy and safe to make design changes without risking performance.
• Transparent – It’s easy to identify performance problems and opportunities because the website is based on an extensively tested and monitored framework.

Positioned Brand

Your potential clients need to understand how your law firm differs from your competitors. They won’t try to figure it out, so your website needs to make it obvious. This is called “positioning.” Positioning is defined by:

• What problems do you solve or prevent?
• Who you do it for?
• Where you do it?
• What differentiates you from your competitors?

When your law firm’s positioning is precise, it’s easy to make the best website design choices. Three website design variables influence your average client’s visual perception of your firm:

• Your logo
• Website colors
• Your images

Most lawyers want their website to reflect the unique personality and brand of their law firm. This natural inclination leads them to “custom” website design, where objectivity is subordinate to taste.

This is a mistake. For law firms, website design is not a prime driver of positioning (which happens in your clients’ brains).

That said, your logo, your colors, and your images will give your website a unique look and feel. These help your potential clients visually distinguish you from your competitors, but without sabotaging the vital business objectives of attracting website visitors and converting them into clients.

A Compelling Emotional Connection

When viable potential clients visit your law firm’s website, they decide whether to contact you at a subconscious level. Most are unaware of the emotional drivers of their behavior. When asked, they will often cite an intellectual justification.

Also, curating some top-notch lawyer SEO company -style content and listing can help your website reach a potential audience.

There are three primary emotional drivers your website should always address:

● Self-esteem

Does your website make them feel better or worse about themselves? If your website makes potential clients feel good about themselves, it’s more likely that they will contact you.

● Security

Does your website make them feel vulnerable or secure? If your website makes a potential client feel confident, it’s more likely that they will contact you.

● Trust

Does your website help them feel that you care about them or their matter? Does it help them feel that you want to help them for the right reasons? If your website makes them trust you, it’s more likely that they will contact you.

The design of your website works with your content to strategically influence your potential client’s emotions.

Website design elements that influence emotion in your favor:

• Local images.
• Inviting office images.
• Strategically placed, humble photos of you and your team that are not overwhelming or make the website visually focused on you.
• Photos of real or example fictional clients. (If you choose stock images, they should be images of people your potential clients can identify with.)

Clear Conversion Paths

Your law firm’s website design must make it easy for potential clients to contact you and compel them to take action. There is a science to this because your potential clients consume information and make decisions online in a predictable way.

There is a right and wrong place to put phone numbers, addresses, contact buttons, and forms.

The positioning, shape, colors, contrasts, and consistency of these website elements — combined with the content and other website design choices — will make the difference between a website that occasionally converts visitors and one that does so regularly and consistently.

Conclusion

Law firm website design should start with a scientific approach to conversion paths and work backward from there. While conversion paths will look visually different depending on the device and screen size each potential client uses, the above guidelines apply to all visitors.

The best law firm website designs follow the above conversion path conventions and don’t try to get creative with turning visitors into leads.