If you take a close hard look at the anatomy of a successful law website, you will find that its design exudes trust and it makes people want to try out the legal services promoted on the site. It has a persuasive quality about it that is difficult to ignore. It's almost as if the website is everything they were looking for, which means they aren't afraid to click on the call-to-action buttons on the site to perform the desired action. This makes such sites extremely conversion friendly.
Conversion friendly law firm website design follows ten basic principles that make the website what it is. Let's take a closer look at these principles:
1. Displays Clear and Detailed Contact Information
One of the important and often ignored ways a law firm website can instill trust is by clearly displaying the contact information of the law firm. This should include its physical address, phone number and email ID. If there are other ways that the firm can be reached, they must be clearly mentioned as well. At times, legal websites just have a form on their 'Contact Us' page. This is something that doesn't inspire trust at all. In fact, it’s advisable that contact information appears on all pages of the website.
2. Testimonials
The first thing that website visitors to a law website are looking for is assurance that the firm's legal services can be trusted to deliver. Testimonials play an important role in providing this assurance. Preferably, they must be placed on the landing page of the website; but when it comes to a law website, placing testimonials on its services pages will work wonders for its conversion.
3. Services Focused
The focus of the website information must be where the bread is buttered. As soon as visitors land on the site, they must get an idea of the law firm's service offerings. They must be very clear about what the firm does and whether the services offered by the firm are what they are looking for. Remember, your visitors are an impatient lot and therefore the website design must highlight what matters, quickly.
4. Showcase Expertise
Once the website is able to generate awareness about its services, it must shift attention to the law firm's expertise in their service offerings; in this case highlighting some of the success stories or putting forth indisputable facts and figures will be of great help. It's important to remember that your target visitors won't be fooled into thinking the firm's services are the best; the design must do enough to establish the firm's expertise.
5. Well-Written Content
One of the ways a law firm captures visitor attention is through its content. The content must offer the necessary information with clarity of purpose and must showcase the law firm's credibility. It must be used not only as a means of offering information about the law firm's services, but also for upping its reputation in the eyes of the readers. Something else it should be is fresh. It must be updated all the time. Nobody likes stale content, your website visitors more than most.
6. Engaging Design Elements
A focus on textual content is quite natural while designing a law firm website, but that doesn't mean you cannot try to up the ante as far as its engagement quotient is concerned. Try using videos and even infographics to rev up the interest and engagement quotient of your site. What you are essentially trying to do here is taking calculated risks to differentiate your website from its competitors.
7. Clutter Free Design – Focus on Minimalism
An uncluttered design looks professional and more credible. Visitors will be able to receive and understand the messages delivered by the website in its entirety and there will be no scope for confusion. It's imperative with respect to law websites that the information is not lost in translation. This is why there shouldn't be any distractions on the site. Every design element used must have only two primary objectives – enhance the delivery and impact of information on the site and make it easy-to-understand.
8. Well Named, Colored, Sized and Placed Call-to-Action Buttons
A button that says 'Get expert legal aid now!' is much better worded than a button that says ‘Contact Us Now!' when it comes to a law firm website. Proper wording helps your call to action buttons make better impact.
Lots of thought must also go into the coloring of such buttons. You need to put color psychology to good use in order to make the call-to-action buttons work; some colors are persuasive and also allow the buttons to stand out from the surrounding layout and others just make them look very ordinary. So, picking the right color is of importance as is their size and their placement. Their size mustn't overwhelm the design or the website visitors and its placement must be such that it is prominent and easily clickable.
9. Load Quickly
Every website irrespective of whether it's a legal website, an ecommerce site or a personal website must load quickly. If it takes its own sweet time to load, there is a good chance that its target visitors will move on to some other site. Therefore, you must take care that your design choices do not impact the website's loading speed in any way or form.
10. It must have an emotive quality
No creative output works without emotion. Take a look at some of the more successful website designs out there, and you will realize that there is at least a collection of emotions that these websites exude. Some exude passion, others anger, others empathy and there are still others that display sympathy. There must be a few design elements on your legal website that evoke empathy for the visitor's legal problem and also a passion for the legal services the firm provides.
If you get these ten principles right, there is absolutely no doubt that you will have a conversion friendly legal website on your hands.
