The attorney’s checklist for updating your website

Let’s face it. We can’t get by anymore with a website that is mediocre. With all the competition between lawyers these days, and the fact that people do almost all their shopping online including for their legal needs, we need to stand out from the crowd and that means having not a “good” but a GREAT website. ​

Here is a list for you to work on to make sure that your website is awesome.

Simplify

When we say “simplify” we mean it in so many ways when referring to your website. 
 
We mean the imagery, we mean the font styles and sizes, we mean the navigation menu and the content. The more you can simplify the customer experience on your website the better chances you will have to convert them into clients. Make sure your imagery is professional and as personal as can be. It should not be too distracting from the content. And make sure if you have text overlaying an image, the image is simple behind the text otherwise it will be too distracting for the viewer to read the text. Make sure it is themed and that each photo or image goes with one another. Your font should be consistent with H1 headings a larger size and the body text a smaller size. Make sure it's large enough for everyone to read. And the font style should be the same everywhere on your site. It is too distracting and frankly not simple at all to have multiple font styles all over your site. That includes italics and underlining. You may once in a while bold an important keyword but please don’t italicize or underline things on your website unless it's a hyperlink.

Links

Speaking of hyperlinks! The pages on your site should flow continuously from one to another depending on how relevant the content is. For example, if you have a blog about a certain legal topic you are discussing, have a word in that blog link to your services page where you actually offer that same legal service and then link to a video about the same topic. From there it may branch off into another topic leading back to another blog. Your blogs should always link to other relevant blogs or pages on your site. You can also use external links where you link to other reputable websites that offer great content relevant to yours. So think of other websites that you can link to and sometimes you can even ask them to return the favor from their site linking to yours and you can increase your backlinks. All of this linking helps you rank higher on the search engines.

Tailor your message to your target audience

Before any creation of messaging you MUST KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE WELL! Conveying your message in a simplified way, speaking to your audience and pointing out that you have the perfect solutions to their problems is exactly how you want to create messaging for your website.  If you need help on where to start, here is an incredible book by Kate Dileo called Muting the Megaphon that will walk you through how to best develop your brand messaging. Make sure to identify your target audience first by pointing out their pain points and their needs on your website. Be as specific as you can so that they know exactly who they are when landing on your website. For example, “Going through a divorce?” “Are you in pain from an accident you were just in?” Hook them with similar statements, so they say, “yes that's me!” Then present your solutions to those problems. Ask yourself why you are different and better from your competitors and highlight this on your home page. Why should they use you and not the attorney down the street? Then move on to your value proposition statement. What do you offer that is like no other? Be clear and concise and knock their socks off!

Have great CTAs

CTAs are call to actions on your website. Essentially it is, what you want your website visitors to do before they leave the site? This could include filing out your contact us form for a free consultation, downloading a pdf, registering for a webinar or event, purchasing a service package, buying a product, clicking to call or clicking on an email address. There are dozens of CTAs you can choose from but be sure to think them through and make them very clear on your site. Think about the journey of the prospect when arriving on your website. What did they just read and what should they do next? Then come up with your CTAs and make sure they are all over your site. Not just on one page or the contact us page. Have them at the top, the middle and the bottom of your pages. Scatter them throughout your blog content. 

Contact information displayed clearly

How frustrating is it when you are on a website where you are looking for the phone number or an email address and you can’t find it anywhere? It boils my blood! So don’t allow your prospects to face these same frustrations on your site. Make sure your phone number and email address are clearly visible on EVERY PAGE OF YOUR WEBSITE. Have it on the header and the footer and have a contact us page to boot.

Make your website fast!

Speed is truly a thing these days when it comes to websites and there are hundreds of published data proving that even 1/100 of a second can mean millions of dollars either lost or gained in your business. We are a very impatient society and that means we don’t want to wait for anything including the images to load on your site. So make sure to do an SEO audit on your website and you will learn how slow or fast your site loads. Then you can fix anything that needs fixing. If you don’t know how to audit the speed of your website we can do that for you. 

Build up your content

Just because you have a nice simplified, easy to navigate site doesn’t mean you can leave it alone and start reaping the benefits. The higher ranking websites on Google are the ones that are rich with fresh relevant content frequently. This means you should be blogging, creating videos, adding testimonials to your page, free pdf downloads or reports and any other content you think your target audience may be interested in. The more relevant content you have to your target audience the higher you will rank on the search engines.
 
These are a few of your foundational components to create or optimize your website for the best possible outcome. If you check all of these items off your website list your firm will be killing it.