Website Development for New Law Firms: 10 Advice from Seasoned Attorneys
Website development can be an exciting frontier for new law firms.
But it can also get messy real quick if you don’t know what you’re doing.
In this post, we aim to help you through your web development journey with proven tips from seasoned lawyers.
But first, here’s a brief overview of law firm websites:
Why Do You Need a Law Firm Website?
Let’s kick things off with a rundown of the top benefits of having a law firm website:
- Establish your authority and credibility. Websites are real estate where you can showcase your expertise and previous case results. You can also highlight positive reviews from satisfied clients to win the trust of new prospects.
- Attract high-quality leads. With the help of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, your website can pull in potential leads with a strong intent to hire a lawyer. It’s all about refining your audience targeting strategy, focusing on relevant keywords, and optimizing landing pages for higher conversions.
- Promote client education. The top law firms often have a library of informative content and other learning resources on their website. Streamlining education builds rapport while making potential clients feel more confident about hiring you.
- Use attorney bios to break the ice. Your official website is the perfect place to post detailed attorney bios, which helps potential clients get to know the faces behind your firm. By talking about each attorney’s experience, educational background, and previous wins, you reassure prospects that they’re in good hands.
Law Firm Website Development Advice from Successful Lawyers
To help you create a successful law firm website, we asked highly accomplished attorneys to share their best website development advice.
1. Ensure Your Website Reflects Your Law Firm’s Values
One of the top advice lawyers talked about is making sure your website aligns with your firm’s values and reflects your legal brand’s identity.
The goal here is to show visitors what makes your law firm different from the dozens they’ve already seen before. And by sharing your unique brand values and identity, you’re off to a good start.
Michael Farah, founder of The Farah Law Firm, P.C., says:
Our website helps build our brand and communicates our values. It’s the first thing many people see, so we make sure it sets the right tone. Your website needs to clearly explain what sets you apart right from the start—this is your value proposition. If visitors see something that matches their needs, they’re more likely to stay on your page.
To give you an idea, let’s take a look at the front page of The Farah Law Firm, P.C.
As soon as the page loads, visitors are met with the firm’s main tagline. The more concise, relevant, and impactful, the better:
The site proceeds to show a photo of the team alongside the firm’s vision. Notice how it focuses on “why” clients should work with them and the firm’s unique advantages.
Ramzy Ladah, founder of Ladah Law Firm, shares similar advice. Only this time, he recommends more emphasis on what you bring to the table as a law firm:
For new law firms, my advice is simple: Make your website reflect your practice’s values and strengths. Remember, your website is often the first impression you make—make it count by focusing on authenticity and clarity.
In practice, take a look at how they structure their homepage and the keywords they highlighted.
2. Highlight Your Expertise
When looking for law firms, clients only need to know one thing:
Can this firm help me win?
One way to show you’re the right fit is to demonstrate your expertise in an engaging and credible way.
A popular strategy is to publish legal blog articles that answer your target audience’s questions. Of course, these should be relevant to your law firm’s practice areas and strengths.
Also, demonstrate your expertise. We use our blog to show we know our stuff, and we list our practice areas to highlight our specialties.
You can go the technical route and conduct keyword research with tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. Or, you can scout the competition and spy on their blog content strategy.
For your inspiration, here’s a look at the content categories on The Ladah Law Firm:
Just be sure you’re writing articles aimed at helping prospects move through their legal journeys.
According to the Legal Consumer Report 2024 by Martindale-Avvo, 92.4% of all potential legal clients conduct in-depth research on relevant legal issues before reaching out to law firms or individual attorneys. And being their go-to resource for complex legal information is a surefire way to earn their trust.
Here are a few other tactics to plan and publish articles that prove your expertise:
- Look for questions on social media. If you don’t have an established following yet, consider joining social media groups to connect with your audience and identify their top questions. Also, consider investing in social media listening tools like Brand24 and Awario to tap into conversations around a certain topic.
- Join online communities and Q&A websites. Another way to find hot topics in your legal practice is to join online message boards and Q&A platforms. For example, “r/FamilyLaw” is a subreddit where members constantly post unique and nuanced questions about the practice.
- Stay on top of local legal news and changes in legislation. Covering local news and changes in your legal practice before anyone else will help establish your firm as a go-to source of information. Just remember that, when it comes to these topics, being accurate and factual is just as important as being fast.
3. Leverage Social Proof
One of the most important website elements for building trust is social proof—pertaining to client reviews, ratings, awards, and other forms of user-generated content (UGC).
According to the Legal Consumer Report, 70% of legal clients stated that reviews are the most useful types of content when looking for an attorney. After all, they may not know or trust you, but they can’t argue with your results if there are verifiable past clients who can vouce for your legal expertise.
As a law firm, there are three primary channels where you can start generating positive reviews: social media, review sites like Yelp, and Google Business Profile.
Focusing on GBP is extra helpful since your reviews and ratings also appear in search engine results.
There are plenty of ways to generate more client reviews on GBP, including but not limited to:
- Share your GBP review link with satisfied clients (via email, SMS, or social media)
- Stimulate your review economy by responding to both positive and negative reviews
- Use review management platforms like BirdEye, Podium, and Clio
Apart from reviews, you can also publish case studies or a “results” section that breaks down the numbers for new prospects. This can be an elaborate, report-style page or a compact row of stats that give potential clients a peek at the kind of service they should expect.
Ramzy Ladah follows a straightforward approach when it comes to showing off the firm’s successes:
One key feature we included was a robust case-results section, showcasing our multi-million-dollar verdicts. This not only built credibility but also gave potential clients a clear understanding of our track record.
Here’s Ladah Law Firm’s strategy in action:
After collecting a convincing amount of social proof, make sure they’re featured prominently in other parts of your website—not just the homepage.
For example, here’s a quick look at how Edward Hones, owner and managing attorney at Hones Law Employment Lawyers PLLC, does it:
When it comes to our law firm’s website, we treat it as a critical extension of our practice—both a client-facing resource and a reflection of our firm’s values.
We also prioritize showcasing our areas of expertise clearly, with dedicated pages for each service we offer, supported by client testimonials and case studies. This not only helps potential clients understand our capabilities but also builds trust from the first interaction.
4. Consider Outsourcing or Building a Hybrid Team
Building a killer law firm website is a lot of work.
Sure, law firms can probably scrape up enough manpower and resources in-house to get the project done. But this usually has a negative impact on the team’s productivity, particularly for members who aren’t profesionally prepared to handle the extra tasks.
That’s why most law firms supplement their in-house team with external agencies and contractors who can lend a helping hand. This is particularly helpful if your in-house crew has glaring skill gaps, be it in terms of coding or UX design.
As Ed Hones explains, it’s not just about making the site look good, either:
In designing our website, we opted to work with an external agency that specializes in law firm websites. Their expertise allowed us to create a site that is not only visually appealing but also optimized for search engines, helping to drive organic traffic.
We collaborated closely with them to ensure that the design reflected our firm’s brand—professional, approachable, and dedicated to workers’ rights.
If you’re still on the fence on whether to outsource or do web design in-house, remember that there are pros and cons in each choice.
Building a hybrid team lets you get the best of both worlds, which is what Andrew Pickett from Andrew Pickett Law did:
My experiences with website design have taught me that while developing in-house offers more control and alignment with the firm’s identity, working with an external agency can bring valuable expertise and creative solutions.
To get the ball rolling, here are some of the best web design agencies for law firms;
- On The Map Marketing
- PaperStreet
- Great Jakes
- Postali
- RedSpot Design
Read more about our web design services or check out our portfolio here.
5. Prioritize Your Audience’s Goals
As web development objectives get checked off one by one, some law firms forget what (or who) their website is really all about: their audience.
Sure, the top leadership in your firm get to make key decisions like brand identity, color schemes, and value propositions. But they can’t make decisions against the interests and goals of the target audience, especially if they want the site to perform well.
Committing to a content strategy that focuses on important topics is a step in the right direction.
According to Andrew Pickett:
As a law firm owner, treating your attorney website as a crucial asset for client engagement and branding is essential.
For new law firms, it’s essential to understand your target audience and create content that addresses their needs.
Andrew’s approach to helping prospects move forward is to de-risk the process of reaching out. More specifically, his firm offers free case evaluations that lower the barrier to entry for new clients.
Remember, people come to law firm websites with the ultimate goal of finding and hiring the perfect-fit lawyer. That’s why most successful law firms tend to be straightforward in terms of adding FAQs and highlighting the key reasons why potential clients should hire them.
Dan Christensen, founder and CEO of DJC Law, shares how his firm builds their website’s design around these principles:
As a personal injury law firm owner, I understand the importance of having a website that not only looks good but also serves as a valuable resource for potential clients.
We made sure to highlight our areas of expertise and the types of cases we handle so that visitors could quickly determine if we were the right fit for their needs. Additionally, we included a frequently asked questions section to address common concerns and provide additional information to those researching our firm.
Consider using your website platform’s native page builder or third-party tools like EasyFAQ to create compact, clickable FAQ sections for your pages.
It doesn’t have to be complex or comprehensive. Just get down to the most important questions and provide direct answers in a few sentences.
For reference, here’s how DJC Law builds and designs FAQ sections:
6. Focus on the User Experience
Next, let’s talk about the user experience—one of the most important factors deciding your law firm website’s success.
You need to go beyond the quality and usefulness of your content. Think about more technical factors like navigation, readability, and loading speed.
For one, don’t expect your website’s lead generation to skyrocket if prospects have to go through multiple, convoluted layers of menus just to find the information and tools they need.
Rock Rocheleau, managing attorney at Right Lawyers, said it best:
Our website emphasizes user-friendly navigation, making it easy for visitors to find the information they need quickly. This includes a clear structure, well-organized practice area sections, and intuitive paths to contact forms or consultation scheduling.
Making everything searchable and accessible in a single menu system is the best way to go. And unless you’re linking to useful, page-specific resources, there shouldn’t be any need to create extra navigation links in sidebars or floating bars.
While ensuring seamless navigation is important, its impact is not as huge as website performance optimization.
Recent data from Statista shows that roughly 28% of website visitors leave once loading time reaches five seconds. That’s a good chunk of your potential clients abandoning your site before you show them the good stuff.
If you don’t know where to start, use tools like PageSpeed Insights to run a quick analysis of your website. Just enter your domain URL, click ‘Analyze,’ and wait for the performance report.
Once the results are in, head down to the diagnostics section to learn more about the detected issues. Clicking on an issue also reveals actionable insights, which will point you in the right direction as far as website performance optimization goes.
If you don’t like getting your hands dirty, another option is to hire a web design agency or freelancer to do the necessary optimizations for you. Just be sure to do your homework and inspect their work portfolio to make sure they can deliver.
Mark Hirsch, co-founder of Templer & Hirsch, expounds on this:
My recommendation to new businesses is to focus on the user experience. Your website should be easy to navigate, optimized for mobile, and should load swiftly. Consider seeking professional assistance if necessary, but make sure your company’s distinct personality is evident.
7. Optimize for Multiple Devices
Speaking of user experience, you shouldn’t ignore website visitors coming from mobile devices.
Mobile users now account for 64.27% of internet traffic, according to recent data from Statcounter.
It’s no wonder marketing-savvy lawyers tie in mobile-friendliness with performance optimization.
Here’s Rock Rocheleau to elaborate:
We treat our website as a vital asset for both client acquisition and establishing credibility. It’s often the first interaction potential clients have with our firm, so ensuring it reflects our professionalism and expertise is essential.
We also prioritize mobile responsiveness, ensuring that the site performs seamlessly across all devices, whether it’s a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.
The good news is, effective mobile-friendliness isn’t hard to achieve, even if you build a DIY website for your law firm. Most modern website templates in popular platforms like WordPress are designed with responsiveness in mind, which means they automatically adjust the page’s layout, element sizes, and positioning based on the user’s screen.
Just remember the following tips to improve the experience of mobile users:
- Avoid using tiny font sizes
- Keep buttons, menus, and links spaced out to prevent accidental clicks (or taps)
- Use white space intelligently to de-clutter your page and improve readability
8. Implement Accessibility Features
Your law firm website should have accessibility features not just because it’s legally required, but also because it’s essential when catering to audiences with specific needs.
This is especially true for lawyers in certain practice areas, like immigration, personal injury, and disability civil rights.
Ed Hones, for example, practices in employment discrimination and disability discrimination laws—both are areas that require close attention to accessibility.
When it comes to our law firm’s website, we treat it as a critical extension of our practice—both a client-facing resource and a reflection of our firm’s values. One key feature we emphasize is accessibility, ensuring that the site is easy to navigate for all users, including those with disabilities.
You can find a comprehensive guide on accessibility in ADA’s official website.
Some of the accessibility features to consider are:
- Text size controls — Give users with eyesight problems the option to increase text size.
- High-contrast settings — Similar to text size controls, high-contrast colors can make content more readable for certain individuals.
- Translations — While not exactly addressing a disability, offering translations greatly improves the experience of non-English speaking users.
If you’re looking for a turnkey solution, check out accessibility compliance tools like UserWay.
9. Invest in SEO
While PPC advertising will help you gain instant traction, SEO is the key to generating sustainable, long-term website traffic. And yes, part of SEO—particularly technical SEO—must be baked into your website development roadmap.
Rock Rocheleau, for instance, underlines the key areas of SEO that every law firm should prioritize:
SEO optimization is another crucial aspect, with a focus on relevant keywords, fast loading times, and high-quality content that answers the questions our potential clients are searching for. Local SEO is particularly important, so we’ve optimized our Google My Business profile and incorporated local keywords into our content.
What’s putting off a lot of new law firms from SEO is the level of depth they need to explore.
After all, SEO has both an on-page and off-page aspect.
On-page SEO includes page keyword optimization, internal linking, loading speed optimization, and meta tags optimization. Off-page SEO, on the other hand, focuses on more elaborate tactics like link building and listings management.
Both sides of the fence can be too time-consuming for lawyers who already have a lot on their plate. And to address this, they simply choose to outsource their SEO needs from reputable agencies.
If you’re looking for a trustworthy lawyer SEO agency, make sure they have the track record to get it done. Click here to see what a solid and time-tested SEO agency looks like.
10. Pay Attention to Ethical Considerations
Finally, attorneys of all people should observe the ethical and legal aspects of creating a website.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) publishes a list of ethical guidelines that businesses and professional service providers must follow.
Fortunately, we’ve already checked off some of those ethical principles, namely mobile-friendliness and accessibility. But there’s still plenty of ground to cover.
Here’s a broad overview of the remaining
- Online safety — No element of your website should deliberately or not suggest the cause of harm to society.
- Freedom of healthy and positive speech — As long as the speech doesn’t go against the principle above, websites should not aim to censor or block ideas, interactions, and collaborations regardless of the topic.
- Online security and privacy — Give users the ability to control access to their personal data (i.e., deciding to decline tracking cookies).
- Integrity of facts — Avoid any attempt to mislead or misinform your audience while pointing to verifiable sources of facts.
Best Practices When Creating Your Attorney Website
In addition to the list above, here are a few additional tips that will help you create a successful and profitable law firm website:
- Build dedicated landing pages — Design persuasive landing pages tailored to your firm’s practice areas and service locations. This will allow you to personalize your content and user experience design for potential clients with specific needs, goals, and preferences.
- Regularly update your content — Updating old content has two proven benefits for SEO: fixing outdated information and increasing rankings through the “Freshness Index.” Adding updates to old posts is also more efficient and less costly than publishing new articles from scratch.
- Track your analytics — Using analytics essentially means letting data show you how to improve your website design and marketing strategy. Tools like Google Analytics will equip you with data-driven insights to ensure your website is positioned for success.
DIY Law Firm Website Design vs Hiring an Agency: Which Should You Choose?
Whether to go DIY or hire a web design agency is entirely up to your needs.
There are pros and cons to each situation. For example, lawyers like Rock Rocheleau started with an agency to ensure they get the website’s foundations for success right:
We initially hired an external agency to design the website, but as our needs evolved, we transitioned to managing it in-house. This change gave us more control over content updates, SEO strategies, and overall user experience, which are critical to maintaining a competitive edge.
To help guide your decision, here’s a side-by-side comparison of building a DIY website versus hiring a professional agency:
| DIY Website | Hiring an Agency | |
| Costs | Low costs, especially if you leverage free tools and barebones website features. | Upfront costs can be high depending on the web development services availed. |
| Quality | Generally lower quality and less stable unless you hire an external consultant with experience. | Better quality in terms of design, UX, and content—depending on the agency you chose. |
| SEO | SEO isn’t included and adds to the overall work to be done. | Pay for on-page SEO as an add-on, which is better for non-technical lawyers. |
| Time | Can take several months to over a year, especially if you still need to learn the web design fundamentals. | Cam take 2-6 months depending on the size of the agency you hired. |
| Control | Complete control over everything. | You have less control, with design and content decisions that will have to go through your project manager. |
How On The Map Marketing Can Help
Think working with an agency is the best choice for your law firm?
At On The Map Marketing, successful attorney websites are what we do.
Positive results are guaranteed, especially if you look at our vast experience and expertise in key areas of website development:
- Professional Attorney Bios: We have the resources to capture striking attorney portraits and create SEO-friendly bio pages that put your team in the best possible light.
- Proven Website Design Services: We’ve worked with countless local businesses and law firms across different practice areas, from personal injury to criminal defense.
- Legal Content Writing: Hire dedicated content writers who know the legal industry and can commit to researching, crafting, and polishing top-quality posts for your website full-time.
- Organic and Local SEO: With our help, law firms across the country reached top rankings and sustainable traffic—even in the most competitive markets.
- PPC Advertising Campaigns: Get ahead of the competition and start pulling potential clients to your website in a matter of days.
Examples of Well-Designed Law Firm Websites
1. Law Offices of Jorge Luis Flores, LLC
2. Law Office of Jack M. Shapiro
3. The Desiah Law Firm
4. Caputo & Van Der Walde, LLP
5. The Women’s Legal Group at Tucker Griffin Barnes
Conclusion
Owning a website marks a significant milestone in your law firm’s path to success.
Not only can it cement your firm’s authority in your space, well-tuned websites also serve as a great source of leads and potential clients.
Just remember that law firm website development isn’t something you should take lightly.
If you choose the DIY route, it can easily be a year-long journey that requires your utmost commitment. And if you decide to hire an agency, it’s your responsibility to pick a team with the talent, experience, and proven results to get the job done.
That’s where we come in.
Contact us here and let’s build an eye-popping, income-generating law firm website.
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