The average visitor spends 15 seconds on your law firm website. If they can’t find what they want in that short amount of time, they leave the site without finding the information that could have helped them. 

The best law firm websites help the people who visit the website. When a person visits a law firm’s website, they are searching for answers. Their primary goal is to obtain information that can help them.

Potential clients are not interested in bells and whistles. They want to know what they need to do to resolve a legal issue – and fast. 

Therefore, the best law firm websites have these five things in common:

1. High-Quality Content

Most people visit a law firm’s website because they are searching for the answer to a legal question. They often enter a law firm’s website through secondary landing pages, such as blogs, articles, and practice area pages. Therefore, you need to have high-quality content that provides answers and information for visitors.

The best law firm websites do not read like a television advertisement. While it is good to highlight the law firm’s accomplishments and reasons why a person should hire the attorneys, most landing pages should be informative and engage readers by providing useable information about their legal issue.

Blogs, articles, checklists, FAQs, and how-to articles are the most popular pages visited on a law firm’s website. Investing in quality content increases the chance that a visitor will reach out to the law firm to schedule a consultation or request additional information. Offering free eBooks and other resources on your website can also improve conversion rates.

2.  Clear Contact Information and Calls to Action 

The goal of attracting visitors to a law firm website is conversion. You want the people who visit your website to reach out to your office for more information and schedule an appointment. Therefore, the best law firm websites make it easy for visitors to contact their law firm.

Every page on a law firm’s website should contain contact information. Contact information includes the law firm’s telephone number, email address, office location, social media links, and contact forms. A clickable phone number makes it easy for visitors to contact the law firm. 

Because you do not want to clutter each page with contact information, many law firms include their telephone number on each page. Along with the telephone number, they use links to additional information, such as office locations, hours of operation, and contact forms.

Because many people prefer to chat with a live person instead of calling an office, many successful law firm websites include a chat feature. Visitors can speak with a person 24/7 to obtain more information. 

The best law firm websites make it easy for people to contact their law firm without being overly pushy. Websites that contain too many pop-ups or aggressive calls to action can result in the loss of potential clients.

3.  Speed, Performance, and Mobile Responsiveness

We have very short attention spans when we are online. Many people consume information quickly and move to the next page or website. Therefore, speed is an essential element of the best website pages. If a user has to wait for images and content to load, they move to another law firm’s website.

Slow websites do not rank as high as faster websites. Therefore, speed is also important to ensure that your law firm’s website ranks well in search results. Website developers optimize the entire site to make it faster, including determining the best size for images and graphics. They use page caching for faster page loads.

In addition to speed and performance, the best law firm websites are mobile responsive. The best websites adapt to all devices and screen sizes. The website’s design allows it to adjust to the user’s device so that the website’s appearance or performance does not decrease when the website is viewed on a smartphone or tablet instead of a computer or laptop.

As with speed, search engines elevate a website’s ranking based on the content being available across multiple devices. Websites that are mobile responsive are prioritized on a Google search. Therefore, your law firm website needs to be optimized for speed, performance, and mobile responsiveness to rank. 

4.  Attorney Bios and Headshots

Potential clients want to know who they will be working with if they hire the law firm. The best law firm websites have good attorney bios with headshots. 

Many attorney bios are boring. They talk about the attorney’s education and experience. This information is essential, but it can be included at the end of the bio in a bullet point list. 

Attorney bios are not resumes. They are short introductions so that visitors can get to know the attorney. Potential clients want to know how an attorney can relate to them and their problems. They want to know what they can expect the attorney to do for them. 

Including personal information and anecdotes can be good. It personalizes the attorney and makes the attorney appear approachable and authentic.

However, you do not want to spend too much time talking about a lawyer’s personal life. Again, focusing on how the attorney can help the client is the best use of an attorney bio page. 

5.  Visual Appeal and Easy Navigation

The best law firm websites are visually appealing and interesting. They use color psychology, graphics, images, and videos to make their websites interesting. The use of videos and graphics makes the websites interactive.

Interesting websites encourage people to remain on the website. The longer the person remains on the website, the better chance the person might contact the law firm for more information or a consultation. 

Things to keep in mind when creating an interesting and visually appealing law firm website include:

  • Focus on clean designs with no clutter
  • Use interesting images optimized for speed without degrading the image
  • Easy-to-read fonts and font colors
  • Highlight important information in bolder colors
  • Divide text with visual cues to improve readability
  • Use headers, simple sentences, and short paragraphs
  • Use bullet points to convey information 

The best law firm websites are also easy to navigate. Include clickable links with drop-down menus to make it easier for visitors to navigate to other web pages. A visitor may leave the website if they become frustrated trying to locate additional pages or information. 

Do Not Forget to Optimize for Search Engines

Designing a law firm website is just the first step in the process of creating a successful website. You need to optimize the website for search engines. The goal is to have your law firm’s website appear in the top search engine results. The higher your law firm appears in search engine results, the more traffic your website will receive. 

Lawyers can learn more about SEO for law firms by researching Google Analytics and Moz’s Keyword Explorer. However, many of the best law firm websites are optimized by SEO professionals. 

Legal website marketing professionals understand the best SEO techniques. They also understand conversion rate optimization (CRO). The goal of a law firm website is to turn visitors into clients. CRO increases the percentage of visitors who take the desired action – filing out a form, chatting with an online representative, or calling the law firm. 

The best law firm websites are also secure. Preventing hacking is a top priority for all companies that have websites. Installing dividers and security plugins increases protection.

Lastly, the best law firm websites ensure that they comply with all legal requirements for websites. You need to ensure that you have a privacy policy and user policy. You must inform visitors whether you collect information, the information you collect, and how the information is used. 

Designing and managing a law firm website can be time-consuming. Many lawyers with the best law firm websites hire professional companies to design, manage, and maintain their websites. They understand hiring someone with knowledge of SEO practices and marketing strategies is the best way to ensure their law firm website meets all goals for a top law firm website. 

If you want a marketing partner with deep knowledge of web design principles to build an engaging online presence, we’d love to speak with you about our attorney SEO services at LawRank today.