What to Keep in Mind When Designing Your Law Firm’s Website

The world has moved online, and if your law firm doesn’t have an online presence, you’re going to get left behind. You don’t have to create profiles for every social media platform or create advertising for search engine results pages, but the transformation of business enterprise means you at least need a website for your law firm. When potential clients are seeking out a firm to help them, your web pages will display in search engines and direct clients to you.

Creating a law firm website does take some time and dedication, and it’s important to create useful pages that are representative of your business. Knowing what to include can be challenging, especially because different law firm websites may present different information and prioritize different pages. Even so, we have some tips to keep in mind to help make your website as effective as possible.

Why Do I Need a Law Firm Website?

Often, potential clients seek a law firm out for themselves, searching the internet without the guidance of recommendations or referrals. To have a chance of acquiring these new clients, your firm needs a website to direct them to your business and stand out from the competition. This gives potential clients the information they need to know about your firm and encourages them to get in contact with your team to learn about your services.

Your website also provides an opportunity for you to create the first impression of your business, build your brand image, and communicate your values to potential clients. For those who have no awareness of your firm, your landing pages set the tone. Before a potential client speaks to any member of your team, your website already has the chance to communicate your firm’s principles and who you are through the content you include. 

What to Include in Your Law Firm Website

Homepage

In any website design or redesign, you need to pay attention to your homepage, as this is the landing page most clients will arrive at. This needs to establish your law firm name and any essential information that potential clients need to know. From here, it should be easy to navigate to other pages on your website with clearly displayed links or buttons. Your homepage should also give clients an impression of your brand through your logo, images, and color scheme.

About Us

Clients navigating to this page of your website want to know more about your firm and the people within it. Generally, “about us” pages give an overview of a business’s history leading to what you do today. You may also want to use this page to introduce key staff at your firm, including job titles or a short description of their roles. This helps clients to feel more familiar with your firm as they gain some background knowledge, helping to build their trust.

Services

Law firms can cover a range of areas of practice, so including a page or pages on your website laying out your specialties can help direct the right clients to you. Your services could be covered with one page, briefly explaining what each of these includes. Alternatively, if you want to go into more detail, it may be useful to have a page for each separate service or area of expertise available.

Resources

An optional page to include is your resources. This could include templates or reports, showing your expertise and a sample of what your firm does. If you’re interested in starting a blog, this could also be located within your resource pages to provide helpful information for clients and keep your website relevant. Regularly uploading blog posts shows your website is updated and can help your pages to show up in more search engine results. 

Reviews

It’s important to show previous client reviews and testimonials. Reading these can be influential for potential clients deciding whether to use your firm or not. You may want to display reviews on your homepage, so viewers can immediately see what the experience with your business is like. Testimonials can also be included on your about us page, presenting how clients view your firm and the services they have used, or on pages for individual attorneys.

Contact Information

If you want potential clients to become actual clients, they need a way of contacting you. This page should be easy to find on your website, as ultimately your aim is to generate new leads. Typically, contact information should include your firm’s main email address and phone number, and the location of your offices. You can also include links to your social media profiles or enable potential clients to set up an online meeting with a member of your team using cloud communication solutions.

Terms and Conditions

Regulations about how you use and store the data from your website will depend on where your firm is based. Having terms and conditions on your website allows clients to be clear on how you use their information and what they agree to by browsing your pages. You can also provide a privacy policy here, setting out how you use the information and data gathered from your website. This shows your transparency and professionalism.

Other Tips to Keep in Mind for Your Law Firm Website

After you’ve built a basic website for your law firm, you should review your pages to ensure they’re designed to a high standard. This can help to improve the user experience, leaving potential clients with a positive impression of your firm and making them more likely to use your services. You may want to keep the following tips in mind to help you design professional and effective web pages for your law firm's website.

Create a Brand Image

Having the same color scheme, fonts, and presentation style across your pages helps your website to appear professional and unified. Communicate your brand image to web designers, such as by using a graphic design proposal from PandaDoc, to ensure this is tied into images and visuals on your website. Your brand image can go beyond your pages, using the same palettes and styles for social media posts, files, and presentations to make your firm easily recognizable.

Keep It Simple

It can be tempting to keep adding to your website, but this can make it confusing and convoluted. The purpose of your website isn’t to give clients all the information they could need, but to direct them to your firm and encourage them to get in touch. Having this focus can help your website design prioritize the essentials, avoiding overloading clients with information. If they need to know more, they can always call your number or send an email.

Use Intuitive Design

Intuitive design for your website means your pages are structured and presented to be easy for clients to navigate. Group related pages under headings that make sense, and use buttons or marked links to take clients to the pages they want. Creating a sitemap may help in designing your website, listing where each page can be found.

Optimize for Mobile

More and more, clients are using mobile devices to search online and find law firms. Make your website mobile friendly to allow clients to easily find and interact with your pages. This involves ensuring buttons and links are big enough to select on a mobile screen, and adapting your page design to present well. Check how your website looks on mobile and test the various pages, noting where changes need to be made to improve the user experience.

Use SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps ensure that your website appears at the top of search engine results pages. The higher your ranking, the more clients you attract as they don’t have to look hard to find your website. Make sure your pages include keywords in your headings as well as throughout your copy. Particularly on your blog pages, aim to include internal links to your other pages to make them more noticeable to search engines.

Start Designing Your Law Firm’s Website Today

What your law firm website looks like and includes is up to you. The website should accurately depict your business and give potential clients an overview of who you are and what you do, while encouraging them to get in contact with you. How you do this may vary from other law firms, as each business will reach out to potential clients in different ways.

Once your website is live, keep reviewing it and making improvements. What makes a good website changes as the requirements of clients evolve, so look for trends and incorporate them into your website. This could be through adding newer content, refreshing pages with different images, or working on the user experience to attract new clients to your firm.