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Marketing your firm online is no longer cutting edge, it’s required. People turn to the search engines for answers before the Yellow Pages, television, or radio. Heck, when someone is looking for a bankruptcy lawyer they will often go online before asking even their closest friends.
So what do you do? You get a website, right? A nifty, royal blue website that lists you accomplishments and has pictures of your city or town. Maybe a few pictures of you standing in front of a bookcase, looking serious.
You launch the site, get excited, and pass the domain name to your friends and colleagues. Universally, they congratulate you on a fine job.
Then you sit back and wait for the phone to ring, confident that you’re going to need to hire more staff to handle the deluge that will manifest. After all, who wouldn’t want to hire you? Your website is so darn snazzy – everyone says so!
Sadly, nothing happens. First days, then weeks, then months. This sucks, you think to yourself. My site is awful, I need a new one!
Rinse and repeat, as the saying goes.
Why isn’t your law firm website bringing in clients?
- Design. If your design doesn’t reflect your prospect’s tastes, it’s a turnoff. One of my coaching clients launched a lovely website targeted to an African-American demographic. On the front page was a lovely picture of smiling people. They were all white, save for one elderly African-American woman who stood behind all of the others. Can you guess why the site didn’t really resonate with his target market?
- Content. Your site must be filled with useful content in order for people to get a sense of the range of your knowledge and experience. Don’t hold back. Put up pages related to every aspect of your practice, and make sure that each page speaks about only one single thing. Mushing it all together confuses people and impacts readability.
- Language. If you’re targeting consumers, drop the lingo. It’s off-putting. If you’re targeting older people, don’t use current slang. You get the point.
- Call to Action. Tell the visitor what to do. If you don’t do so, and do so clearly, they won’t do it. Period.
- Tractor Beam. Are you offering something of value to your visitors, something they can get in exchange for nothing more than their name and email address? Doing so brings people into your sphere of influence and allows you to continue your marketing message over time.
- Navigation. Make it easy for people to find their way around the site. Make categories and pages clear, keep your buttons clean, and overall make it so simple they can’t help but find the right place to go.
- Contact. Give your visitors a way to contact you, and let them do it in as few clicks as possible. Ideally this will mean a contact form on every page of the site, along with your address and phone number. If it isn’t simple to get in touch, they won’t.
These simple tips for improving your law firm’s website will help to begin process of making your online marketing efforts more successful.
Photo courtesy of Julep67
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You're points all good. Our web site was put up several years ago, and needs a face lift. We just started to do just that. I think every year or two years at most we should change it even tho a lot of substantive material needs to stay the same.
Martha, the facelift is important to remain relevant design-wise, but the most critical aspects of a site that makes money and gets clients are content and the tractor beam approach to lead generation. It pains me whenever I hear about a firm that gets hundreds of unique visitors a day and only 4-5 clients a month from their website.
Hi Martha. If you are looking for a website upgrade please consider http://www.theperformancegroup.co.za. We have extensive website design experience and experience in marketing Law Firms online.
Hi Martha. If you are looking for a website upgrade please consider http://www.theperformancegroup.co.za. We have extensive website design experience and experience in marketing Law Firms online.
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