To succeed as a law firm in the 21st century, you’re going to need to create a website. Still, simply creating a site for your firm isn’t going to be enough if you’re looking to maximize the likelihood of bringing in new clients. Although it can seem like a bit of a hassle, you’re going to need to put some extra thought into each element of your website.
While many attorneys will assume that this means you’ll need to focus on your site’s content (which you certainly need to), not everyone will consider another critical element: web design.
Web design can seem like a secondary concern as you construct and maintain a site for your firm. However, this is quite far from the truth. You must be putting thought and effort into the design of your law firm’s site, rather than just its contents. These two facets should be receiving equal attention in an ideal situation.
Don’t let web design become a secondary concern if you’re an attorney. As with any type of business, the design of your site should strongly reflect your brand and the image you’re looking to portray to potential clients. Additionally, not all web design will be practical or user-friendly—if your site isn’t intuitive, then there’s a good chance that visitors aren’t going to stick around for long.
Understandably, web design can seem like a bit of a broad concept, and it could be challenging to pinpoint what the term is referring to. So, what are we talking about when we refer to web design?
In essence, the term “web design” actually encompasses a process rather than a singular idea or action. Through designing your firm’s website, you’ll need to plan, conceptualize, and then set up the visual (and some functional) contents of your site. During the design portion of establishing your firm’s web presence, you’ll need to determine visuals such as font, color palette, web copy, images, layout, icons, and more.
Further, the web design process also includes setting up some functional aspects of your firm’s site, including navigation, user interactions, animations, site structure, loading speed, and ensuring responsive web design across different devices.
To start, if you’re not putting thought and effort into web design, you’re missing an opportunity to create an identity or public image for your firm. After all, your site is often the first impression potential clients will have of you—before they’ve even delved into your legal services, they’re going to be faced with the design and layout of your site.
Branding is about far more than just creating a simple logo for your firm. To establish a clear identity for yourself, you’ll need to consider your overall online presence. Therefore, whenever your firm puts something visual into the world, it’s important to think about how it will impact your branding or identity.
As we’ve mentioned, your site is likely to be one of the first impressions (if not the absolute first) the public will have of your firm. Of course, it was more common to explore legal services by dropping by in-person locations before anything else at one point in time. However, this certainly isn’t the case anymore—and even less so since the onset of COVID-19.
Before potential clients make any commitments to you or your services, they’re likely to browse every nook and cranny of your website. This is, essentially, their first introduction to who you are and how you’d like to portray yourself to the world. Whether it seems reasonable or not, the impression your firm’s site leaves on an individual is going to stick with them and shape their overall vision of who you indeed are.
For instance, if your design makes your site difficult to navigate, this will leave an immediate impression on a visitor. They’ll likely assume that your firm doesn’t put much thought or effort into its services—after all, you didn’t even feel it was worth it to put care into your site. If this is the first impression someone has of your firm, then it’s unlikely that they’ll be coming to you for legal services. You’ve already failed to instill trust in the potential client, and no one wants to approach an attorney they feel is unreliable or untrustworthy.
The more impressive, thoughtful, and intuitive your web design, the better the first impression you leave on visitors to your website—and vice versa.
As you make decisions throughout the web design process, it’s important to consider: How will this choice impact my search engine optimization, whether positively or negatively? Because, like most elements of your website, there’s a strong chance that aspects of web design are going to contribute to overall SEO.
To maximize the online performance of your law firm, you should be putting continuous thought and effort into improving your SEO. Without strong SEO, it’s unlikely that potential clients will find your firm—if you do not appear toward the top of search engines, then people are more likely to select one of the competing firms. For someone to even consider your services, they’ll first need to find their way onto your website.
So, for example, try to ensure that your design utilizes specific keywords based on the services you offer or practice areas you engage with. This is a quick and straightforward way to boost your site’s SEO and rank higher in search queries. But, on the other hand, if you’re not putting care into web design, you may be missing out on some SEO-boosting opportunities.
Your law firm must have competent web design—but what if you don’t have any experience in this area? Fortunately, design isn’t a process that you need to perform on your own. The RizeUp team is filled with experts on web design, all with substantial experience designing high-quality sites for attorneys. Interested in learning more about web design by RizeUp Media? You can get in touch with us through our site today.
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