When their website isn’t working, most lawyers realize it: they aren’t getting as many leads or new clients as they’d like. A lack of business is a compelling reason to make a change. However, if your website isn’t driving new business to your firm, it’s important to make sure that you’re changing the right things.
If your law firm website is underperforming, there are generally only two reasons why that’s happening:
Either your site isn’t attracting a sufficient number of qualified potential clients, or your website isn’t converting viable potential clients into leads. Sometimes it’s a combination of both of these.
In this post, we discuss what to do in either of these situations as it relates to your law firm’s website.
What to do if your law firm’s website isn’t attracting enough clients
If your law firm’s website isn’t attracting qualified potential clients, this problem is usually related to buying into the wrong online client acquisition methods, and/or poor search engine optimization (SEO). It results in many of your firm’s viable potential clients finding your competitors’ websites before they find yours.
Focus on the things that will move the needle for your firm in terms of client, revenue, and profit growth while ignoring the things that don’t.
The goal of every law firm website should be to make it easy for clients to find you, like you, contact you and hire you. Instead of spending time and money on the wrong online acquisition methods, take the time to understand how search engines work and how your potential clients use them to find attorneys. The most cost-effective way to attract new clients is to leverage free search engine traffic. (If you’re a LawLytics member, we’ll show you how to do this efficiently.)
You can leverage free search engine traffic by creating website content that educates your potential clients and answers the questions that they have about their case or matter.
To learn more about content creation for your law firm’s website, see:
- How Blogging Can Be a Difference-Maker for Law Firm Websites
- How to Create an Effective Content Plan for Your Law Firm’s Website
- Podcast: Creating Law Firm Website Content That Potential Clients Understand, Use, and Act On
What to do if your law firm website receives visits from qualified potential clients, but they’re not contacting you
If your website does receive visits from qualified potential clients, but they’re not contacting you, your law firm’s website is failing despite itself. When a website fails to convert potential clients, the site design, the website’s content, or both are often the problem.
If the site design is the issue, your website’s design may be sending the wrong message to your potential clients. Your site should signify that you are competent — but it also needs to make an emotional connection with your potential client. The wrong site design may signal to your potential clients that they’re going to have to work hard to find the information that they need, or that you’re covering up a lack of substance with bells and whistles.
Your design should respect your potential clients’ intelligence, dignity, and time. If your fancy website design is underperforming, there’s a good chance that it’s sending the opposite message.
If the website’s content is the issue, it could be that there isn’t enough content to instill confidence in your web visitors, or your current content is too general to drive a connection with the potential clients who find it.
Get specific about how you can help your potential clients. Your potential clients want to know what to do next, and whether you’ll be able to help them.
Your law firm’s website should make it easy for your potential clients to find the information they need to see how much you care about their case or matter, and that you’re an expert.
This means having an intuitive navigation menu that makes it easy to consume proof of your competence in the form of substantive legal information, as well as social proof such as past successes and recommendations from former clients.
LawLytics software’s intuitive menu structuring, case results, and recommendations features make this extremely easy, so you don’t need to worry about the mechanics of how to deliver this content.
Content is the most crucial part of converting visitors into leads.
Content problems are the common denominator in most underperforming websites. Your website’s content is the most crucial ingredient in SEO. It’s also the most crucial part of converting qualified visitors into engaged leads. It’s so important that law firms that won’t commit to content are unlikely to achieve any lasting success online.
To learn more about the importance of content, see: “Google’s Latest Advice: Focus on Quality Content.“
