How to Tell if Your Law Firm Website Needs a Redesign

Every time a prospective client visits your website they make a subconscious judgement about how the information is presented from an aesthetic perspective, and these judgments can have a serious impact on your website’s performance. For example, according to research conducted by Google, users who have a negative experience on a mobile website are 62% less likely to purchase from that same brand in the future, and other studies have found that users’ judgments on a website’s credibility are 75% based on the website’s overall aesthetic appearance.

As such, redesigning your website can be investment that ultimately helps your law firm’s bottom line, but many of the attorneys our law firm web design specialists come into contact with are unsure of how to tell if their website is due for an upgrade. As a result, our law firm web design team created this post to show you how to tell if your law firm website needs a redesign.

Website analytics for a law firm website

An Abnormally High Bounce Rates

A bounce occurs when a user lands on a web page and presses the back button or takes some other action to leave the website after only viewing one page. Your website’s bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of single page sessions or “bounces” by the number of multi-page sessions. The vast majority of websites and web pages experiences bounces and as a result, have a bounce rate, but when every web page or the majority of the web pages on your website have an extremely high bounce rate, it can be a sign that your website needs a redesign.

Most bounces occur due to a mistake of the part of the user or a search engine the user utilizes to locate a webpage, but if a user encounters a website that doesn’t appear credible or that doesn’t allow a user to find the information they are looking for easily, they will leave almost immediately a large percentage of the time. Redesigning your website correctly can fix both of these issues. The new design can increase the credibility of your website in the eyes of the user, and restructuring your website’s content for ease of navigation will allow users to find the information they are searching for quickly and easily.

Your Law Firm has Grown

When you are a solo practitioner at the beginning of your career, you need a website that is effective and affordable, which is why many solo practitioners use pre-designed templates to build their first website. However, templates come with certain limitations. So, as your law firm grows, your website needs to be upgraded to reflect the size and professional status of your practice. This generally occurs through a custom redesign of your website.

Custom designed websites offer a wider range of special effects, enhanced content presentations, and website features. This type of redesign makes the aesthetic appearance of your website match the level of prestige your law firm has attained through growth. Moreover, according to Google, creating and publishing compelling and useful content is the most important factor that Google evaluates from an SEO perspective. Custom designed websites have the ability to offer compelling content in the most advanced form of web design available. So, your redesign will not only enhance the online experience of your website’s visitors but also increase your website’s ranking on Google.

If You haven’t Gone Mobile, It’s Time for a Redesign

According to Google, more than 70% of online traffic is coming from mobile devices, but there are still a number of business owners that are operating websites designed exclusively for desktop users. When a mobile user attempts to load a desktop-only web page on these sites, they usually experience a number of technical issues such as:

Slow load times
Difficulties navigating web pages or viewing content
The inability to access certain features or content that the website offers

All of these difficulties can have a negative impact on your website’s ability to convert website traffic into prospective clients. In fact, some research has even found that a one second delay in web page load-times can lower your website’s conversion rate by 20%. As such, if your website wasn’t designed to accommodate both mobile and desktop users, than it is time for a redesign.

Does Your Law Firm Website Need a Redesign?

The law firm web design specialists at On The Map Marketing are ready to help! Our web design team has redesigned hundreds of websites, and we are ready to start working on yours today. So, call our office now to find out how our law firm web design specialists can help you.