Does Your Law Firm Website Need a Redesign?
Rob Rosasco
Founder & CEO at Too Darn Loud Digital Marketing | Award Winning Law Firm Digital Marketing Agency
Your website is one of your law firm’s most powerful marketing tools. A great law firm website can quickly gain trust, establish credibility, and dramatically increase your website’s conversions. According to research from Google, potential clients are forming first impressions about your law firm in as little as 50 milliseconds. Whether your website is hitting on all cylinders or missing the mark, it certainly deserves your attention as a vital part of your legal marketing strategy.
When your website isn’t performing as it should, it’s time to start thinking about a redesign. This can be a tough decision for many law firms. Maybe you dedicated hours of thought and development to your current website and found the process exhausting. But having a site that misses the mark with current visitors can truly hamper your marketing efforts. So, before taking on the important task of a redesign for your law firm’s website, here are a few things you need to know.
What is a Website Redesign?
A website redesign is a high-level overhaul that substantially changes elements like the code, structure, visuals, and content of your current website to improve the visitor experience. A great website redesign tends to lower bounce rates, improve search engine rankings, and boost revenue.
A website redesign isn’t quite the same thing as a refresh, which generally leaves the core functionality and structure of the website untouched as other minor elements are changed. For example, small changes such as the typography or color palette might be adjusted with a website refresh. While a good interim solution for some, a refresh may only delay the need for an eventual redesign.
8 Signs Your Law Firm Needs a Website Redesign
When potential clients knock on your digital front door, you want them to be impressed by what they see. That vital first impression will influence whether they pick up the phone, send you a message, and ultimately choose your firm to represent them.
More than ever, today’s consumers will spend more time doing online research about businesses before making that first contact. If your law firm’s website doesn’t reflect its brand or seems outdated, those prospects will likely move on to someone else.
So, how do you know if your law firm needs a website redesign? Here are several common signs:
Most law firms change over time. They bring on new associates, move to new location, open a new office or add/remove key areas of practice. When these events happen, your website should instantly reflect them. If it doesn’t, and your website is years out of date, it’s a good idea to consider some changes before you confuse and alienate potential clients.
Remember, Google indicates that consumers are making decisions about websites faster than they can even think about what they’re reading on your page. First impressions are everything when it comes to website design.
Ask some friends or colleagues to go to your firm’s website and provide an honest opinion about their first impressions. If it isn’t unique and compelling, you probably need to reevaluate with an expert who can show you how to color, text, video, and images to capture your visitor’s attention.
Putting mobile-first is no longer something you do just to accommodate visitors. It’s a requirement for success on Google. Mobile devices are now considered primary search tools, so optimizing your site for mobile shouldn’t be an afterthought.
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Google now crawls websites for mobile-first, so your website rankings will be impacted if you don’t have the right functionality that fits images into the frame, eliminates large walls of texts, and provides clear navigation.
One of the vital parts of your digital marketing strategy should be a continuous commitment to content marketing. Blogging allows your firm to showcase its knowledge and establish your attorneys as authorities in their fields. When you don’t post on your blog, it gives the impression that you have nothing to say, that your website is dated, or you may no longer be in business.
Today’s consumers have short attention spans. Research shows that 50% of web searchers will abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. If your law firm’s website is too slow to load, visitors are probably going to hit the “back” button and choose one of your competitors.
Just as important, Google now uses page load speed as a website ranking factor. So, a slow-loading website will also perform poorly in terms of SEO. If your site is slow, it’s time to work with a qualified website developer to create something new that is also fast.
At the most basic level, your website is a tool to drive conversions. If you built your website a decade ago when people just used the internet to look up phone numbers and addresses, it probably served its role as a digital brochure well.
But today’s website visitors want to learn about what your law firm does, get some questions answered through your blog posts, read testimonials from prior clients and get to know the attorney that may represent them. And all of this should be in an easy-to-navigate and visually-appealing package.
If you’re still unsure about whether your law firm’s website needs a redesign, dig into your key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics will be able to give you vital data about things like traffic, bounce rates, conversions rates, time on site, etc. If those metrics are trending down, this is probably a sign that it’s time to take some action.
As a law firm, you should take pride in your website and the impression that you make to online visitors. If you’re embarrassed to give out your website address to colleagues or potential clients, this is a clear sign that it’s time for a redesign. When you partner with the right digital marketing team, you’ll get a modern, visually-appealing website that you’ll be excited to showcase.
Call Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing to Explore Redesigning Your Law Firm’s Website
Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing is a full-service digital marketing agency that offers results-based solutions to law firms throughout the United States. If your law firm wants to add more or better clients and unlock more revenue, we can help you explore the strategies that will achieve the best possible results, including a law firm website redesign. We customize our solutions for each client, so we encourage you to contact us today for a free consultation. Our number is (800) 649-1764.