Digital Marketing
Law Firm Marketing: 6 Things Your Website Needs for Success
The primary thing that potential clients are looking for when choosing a law firm, according to American Lawyer, is expertise. Therefore, when creating your law firm’s website it’s vital that it conveys a professional look, and that it includes high quality content that showcases your firm’s expertise. To accomplish this, we recommend including the following in your law firm’s website:
Practice Areas – When a potential client comes to a law firm’s website, they want to know the specialty areas. Therefore, having clearly defined practice areas that are easy to navigate to on your website is a must. Furthermore, we recommend breaking the practice areas down into categories with sub-specialties where appropriate (i.e. Criminal Defense – DUI/DWI, theft, battery, etc) as it is a clearer way to organize the information, and it can help improve your rankings with the search engines. This practice is commonly referred to as siloing in SEO terminology, and we will discuss this more in Part 2 of our Online Marketing for Law Firms series.
Lawyer Bios – Potential clients want to know who the attorneys are to see if they believe there is someone qualified to represent them. Therefore, the more information that can be included here, the better. Attorney profiles should include education, work history, high profile cases, win statistics if applicable, contact information, and a head shot. 
Images, Infographics & Video – According to 3M Corporation , 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. If that’s not a compelling enough reason to communicate with your clients visually on your website, how about these statistics: 40% of people respond better to visual information than text, and websites with infographics grow in traffic an average of 12% more than those without. (Source: HubSpot). Images, infographics, and video have been proven to increase online consumer engagement. Therefore, to optimize website conversions of visitors into clients, it’s imperative that these visuals be included on the firm’s website. That being said, remember that the key message law firms need to convey to clients is their professionalism and expertise, so only add videos, images and infographics if they’re done well and provide useful information.
A news section – This should include any positive press that the firm has received, such as articles and videos related to a firm’s cases or attorneys. It is also a great place to include press releases. Press releases give the firm the opportunity to make announcements in their own voice about new partners, practice area expansions, community involvement and the firm’s positive case results. The news section adds credibility to the firm and signals trust and expertise to a potential client.
Client Reviews/Testimonials – As is evidenced by the skyrocketing rise of social media and review sites, people want to know what other people have to say before making purchasing decisions. Testimonials inspire trust and confidence from potential clients, so be sure to include them on the website. We suggest including them strategically throughout the site, rather than on one testimonials page. For example, if you have a personal injury practice area page, have a PI client’s testimonial featured there. Before posting though, always ask your client’s permission to post the testimonial and clarify whether you can use their first and last name.
Informational Blog – We recommend having an attorney write these him/herself or be actively involved in choosing the topics. Why? Because no one knows the most frequently asked client questions or concerns better than the attorneys, and these are the topics that potential clients are searching for online. If you can answer their questions and allay their concerns, you have not only increased the credibility and trust factor at your firm, but as a result the chance of a potential client contacting you will substantially increase.
