5 Tricks on How to Convert Your Law Firm Website Visitors Into Prospects

According to the American Bar Association, there were over one million practicing attorneys in the U.S. in 2018, and regardless of what area of law you practice in or which state you operate out of, one thing is clear: the amount of competition in the legal industry is growing at a rapid rate. And due to this, the modern day attorney has to market their services effectively in order to ensure that their practice attracts a healthy amount of cases each year. As a marketing agency that specializes in law firm web design, our experts meet clients every day who are concerned that they won’t be able to effectively compete due to a poorly planned or non-existent marketing strategy. Many of these same clients, however, also realize that the days of advertising their services on billboards and bus benches all over town are quickly coming to an end.

Most attorneys realize that the majority of their business comes from online advertising, and they allocate an extensive amount of time and resources to maintaining a dominant online presence for good reason. With Google processing 5.5 billion searches per day and social media platforms like Facebook maintaining over one billion daily active users, lawyers have come to realize that an effective website is the key to a successful practice in the modern era. However, many legal practitioners find themselves struggling with being able to build a website that effectively converts website visitors into prospective clients, which is why the web design experts at On The Map Marketing have five compiled five tricks that will help you transform your website into a lead generating machine.

1. Simplify your Website’s Contact Forms

Most clients want to give attorneys a limited amount of information prior to scheduling an initial consultation. As such, the contact form for your website should be as simple as possible. The goal is to entice the user to contact your law firm, but overly complex contact forms can be a big deterrent for potential clients. So evaluate, and if needed, restructure your website’s contact form to make it as simple as possible.

In the example above, the contact form has been reduced to only the most essential information, name, email address, and phone number. The last field is open-ended. Meaning, a prospective client can type in any information they want to send to your office. This ensures that your law firm isn’t asking for too much information.

2. Tell Website Visitors What They Should Do Next

While this trick may seem straightforward, it is often overlooked by website designers across all industries. Website visitors need to be clearly instructed on what action you want them to take. This technique is referred to as incorporating a “call to action” into each web page’s content, and it is very effective. Examples of a call to action include statements like “Call our office today for a free consultation” or “Contact us now by completing our contact form.”

This technique is used by companies all the time because if you don’t give a visitor clear directions on what action you want them to take after reading or viewing your website’s content, they will often leave after they get the information they were looking for. Moreover, you should structure each web page in a way that entices the user to complete the command you are giving them. Most of the time, this can be accomplished by including a call button or contact form at the end of each web page.  

3. Structure your Website for Easy Navigation

Most of the prospective clients who visit your website have a legal question or problem that they are trying to solve. As such, each visitor usually has two goals when they visit your website:

• Obtaining legal information
• Hiring an attorney

But if a visitor cannot find the information they are looking for easily, the chances of them leaving increase exponentially. So, you need to evaluate the structure of your website to ensure that common users can find information quickly and easily.

The example above is a demonstration of how your website can be structured to ensure that users can locate the information they are searching for almost immediately. Each practice area leads to a drop-down with separate subsections for each particular area of law, and this information is found in a logical location, the practice area drop down. Any client, regardless of their level of technical proficiency should be able to locate the information they are searching for in a relatively short amount of time.

4. Incorporate an Instant Messaging Feature into your Website

As you may have noticed, most of the techniques you can use to convert website visitors into clients involve the facilitation of communication, and incorporating an instant messaging feature into your website is no exception. Moreover, this type of feature is quickly becoming a standard practice in the legal community. This is demonstrated by the fact that even the American Bar Association endorses the incorporation of this instant messengers into their member’s websites, and why wouldn’t they? If you consider how your website is viewed through the eyes of a potential client that is evaluating your practice, clicking on an icon that looks like the one below in order to get a general question answered or schedule an appointment makes perfect sense from a convenience perspective.

Moreover, most instant messengers are either free or very cheap, and they are designed to be simple enough for anyone to use. Once the user clicks the link above, this is what appears on their screen.

The primary benefit of an instant messenger feature quick, easy communication, but it does offer a secondary benefit. It allows prospective clients to contact your law firm at any time, thereby eliminating the constraints of normal office hours. As such, instant messengers are an affordable feature that can increase the number of website visitors your website converts into paying clients.  

5. Incorporate Prominent Call Button and Directions Link into your Website

According to Google, more than 70% of online traffic comes from mobile devices, which means that many, if not most, of your prospective clients will view your website with a smartphone or mobile device. As such, you should have a prominently displayed call button and directions link incorporated into the structure of your website.

These features ensure that mobile users can easily locate and call your office if they are using a mobile device to view your website, and the majority of your existing clients will continue to use these features throughout the life of their case, which can give your website a nice boost from an SEO perspective.

Do you Need Help with Your Website?

The law firm web design specialists at On The Map Marketing are here to help! Every example you have seen on this post came from websites that our team has built. We have helped attorneys all over the country develop effective, successful websites, and our web design specialists are ready to start making improvements to your website today. So, give our office a call now to find out how our web design team can help your law firm.