5 Web design tips 2022 – A Guide to web design for law firms

Firstly, let me give you something to think about. When you want to find the best anything (shop, restaurant, mall or any service provider), where do you go to? More often than not, you’ll search on the internet/online. We can say the same with your potential clients. A well-designed website is essential for marketing the brand’s services. This is why designing a good and effective website is critical if you want to grow your firm and clientele.

Website development is more challenging now than ever. With so many websites, it has become nearly impossible to stand out. Any modern website must be fast-loading, mobile-friendly, user-friendly, and appealing. These are just the basic requirements. This article will look at critical areas to consider when designing a website for a legal firm.  Some of these factors covered include:

• Website development.
• Branding & Professionalism.
• User-friendliness and ease of navigation
• SEO for driving search traffic to your website
• Copywriting tips for the web for law firms for effective communication

This article will look at What makes a good website with the case of designing a law firm website. Whether you want to build a website for your law firm or increase your current website’s visibility, I hope this post will guide you. Read on to learn the must-dos of designing an effective law firm website.

How Your Website can grow your client base

A good law firm website allows your clients and potential clients to connect with you online. According to Nat Law Review, 96% of people seeking legal advice use a search engine. Therefore, your law firm’s website needs to be modern, professional, user-friendly, and rich in legal content. The website is the most preferred way of getting that information whenever someone is looking for legal services, legal updates, or legal opportunities.

1. Web design and development

When you have decided to invest in your law firm website, the next thing to consider is how you will set it up, how it will look likes and the cost implications. Some of the critical considerations in website design and development are:

• How long does development take?
• User training.
• How content will be updated
• Availability of support.
• Search Engine Optimization.
• Mobile and tablet responsiveness.
• Domain and hosting.
• Privacy policy and GDPR

Therefore, when designing the website for your law firm, it is important to use the following best practices:

1. Keep the design clean, simple, and unique.
2. Use Standout imagery but don’t overdo it.
3. Keep the website text conversational and easy to understand, with short sentences with a focus on SEO
   keywords.
4. Showcase your legal services and team profiles.
5. Keep easy navigation (no digging into link after link and definitely no clever maps).
6. Make your website easily accessible across different devices and browsers.
7. Consider the domain name and avoid domains that are too long. Preempt how the URLs on your website will look to search engines and users.

2. Branding & Professionalism

Projecting a strong, clear brand for your practice is very important in designing a website for your law firm. Your website must reflect your brand language, colors, font, and imagery. Therefore, the images used on your website need to look professional. Law firms are all about reputation. In other words, having a professional-looking team page and website images helps build trust with your potential clients. (See our Corporate Photography work here)

3. User-friendliness and Ease of navigation

Navigation and access to your website are influenced by factors like ease of navigating through the pages of the website (use call to action to attract the attention of visitors to take specific actions.), mobile friendliness (accessible on different mobile, tablet, and desktop devices), cross-browser compatibility (loading on all browsers), loading speed and content organization.

4. SEO for driving search traffic to your website

Most people have no interest in searching for a lawyer until they need one. A legal issue must arise for the person to begin searching for one. Therefore, your website design strategy must focus on appearing at or near the top of Google search engine results. Therefore, your website content needs to answer to what your website audience and potential clients are looking for. Law firms need SEO to improve their visibility in Google Search. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. SEO is about driving more traffic to your website by enhancing its position in search engine results. (Read more here).

5. Copywriting

Your law firm’s website must look great. However, it is more important that your website is easy to read and engage its audience. This is why good copywriting is vital. You want a legal firm website that records high session durations to keep your clients reading around and convinced to get in touch with you.
Whether you’re editing existing copy, writing a new document, or hiring a professional to register for your website, here are some tips for a compelling copy that converts.

Law firm website design tips and best practices

• User/Client-oriented – a good website for a law firm focuses on providing the clients with exactly what they are looking for.
• Make your contact information easy to find – 74% of prospects beginning a search online end up contacting the office via phone. Therefore, Make them prominent to give visitors multiple options for getting you e.g., email, phone number, and social media pages
• User-friendliness – make your website easy to navigate with clearly laid out services.
• Consider key website pages – These include the about page, contacts page, blog/legal update page, and testimonials.  A part from pages or sections for specific practice areas, these pages should be included to tailor your website to your firm.
• Client Profile – Consider having Logos of the clients you have served as a slider or a grid. This builds trust when the website visitors can see clients they recognize in your portfolio.

Case Study: Wamae & Allen Advocates

Wamae & Allen Advocates is a premier full-service law firm offering great expertise, depth, and value to the practice of law and service delivery to clients. Over the years, the firm’s wealth of experience and innovative and collaborative approach to legal issues has contributed significantly to its growth. Wamae & Allen had developed a law firm website with a local agency. Still, despite the firm’s success, the website traffic was minimal, the design was not user-friendly, and the content was outdated. Faced with these difficulties, the firm contacted us to see what could be done to improve the situation.

Revamped website – fast, easy to use and on brand

We improved the overall site architecture and navigation, created a more user-friendly UX/UI, and created a highly usable, searchable and browse-able database of advocates and publications pages. We reorganized and expanded the firm’s practice areas for enhanced search and browse-ability of content, implemented a fully responsive solution backed by WordPress CMS and secured the website with an antivirus and anti-hacking solution.

Visit wamaeallen.com