When a lawyer is considering a website, there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account. Obviously, you need to make a website that is both good and popular among readers, particularly one that sees them procuring your services, but the question is, how do you even accomplish that? In order to help you figure out the answer, we have prepared three goals that you should aim to accomplish, as well as the methods that you should take to accomplish them.
Three goals to aim for a lawyer’s website
Let’s get this going. One of the three goals is for the search engine optimization (SEO) services to be cost-effective. Namely, you want to ensure that when all is said and done, you got a good return on investment (ROI). This requires that you balance out the cost of your investment as well as ensuring that the quality of the content produced from these services is up to snuff. If you spend too much, or if what you get out of the service is not very good, not only will it not produce results that meet your standards, but you may also be put off of SEO services for the future, despite the fact that SEO is a must for up-and-coming law firms to succeed in increasingly competitive Internet space. Competition is quite harsh, especially due to the fact that no matter how good the content on your website is, if you are not doing a good enough job getting the word out about your website, you will not have a readership who can even read it. What is cost-effective for your SEO campaign, however, is not necessarily going to be the same for everyone. You have to figure out what you can afford to pull off with it, but you also have to make sure that you are not just sinking your funds into the campaign with nothing to show for it, even if you feel like you can afford to throw money into an SEO hole. You should also keep your expectations in check for the results. Sometimes, people expect the world out of an SEO campaign, and even when it does well, those high expectations inevitably fall short. So just make sure that your own personal financial results goal with the SEO campaign is not impossible to achieve in the first place.
When determining how your law firm’s website functions and looks, you need to first figure out you want out of it, and the time frame for those expectations to be fulfilled. Just like with expectations, setting realistic expectations for results in terms of time frame is deeply important. One of the biggest pitfalls that law firms face when trying to employ SEO services is that they have no idea going into it what they want out of it, so make sure to plan ahead for that and that you know exactly how you want to benefit from it. This is not always the easiest thing, however. After all, everyone has their own skill set. Lawyers know law, but SEO, not so much, not by comparison to SEO experts. In order to best come to those conclusions, working with a marketing team that has this understanding can do a world of good, even at this early stage. With that, it can also help out a lot in order for you to be more understanding of the process and mechanisms of SEO, and in turn, more able to participate in the process.
Website design and content are ultimately going to be two huge parts of what makes a website attractive to readership. As mentioned above, a poor-quality website design will do quite a lot to turn someone off from sticking around. This becomes an even bigger problem due to the fact that people who visit law firm websites usually do so because they are looking for their services immediately. A poor first impression will stick around forever. In order to fulfill this goal and ensure that your design encourages your readers to stick around, there are several things to focus on. Use neutral colors, something that is less likely to turn someone off. Make sure that all of your links work and that it is easy to get from point A to point B. Make sure that you use decent imagery, but do not use too much, as this can hurt the load times for your website — a thing that readers truly do not want to have to deal with if they do not have to. Oh, and make sure that your website is optimized for mobile, as mobile browsing is growing significantly more prevalent for people searching for law firms on Google. One of the best ways to succeed at this is to get website design for lawyers services, such that you can have a website which at one turn fits a template that appeals to potential law firm clients, without following that template so closely that it winds up running together with generic law firm websites. Make sure that your website does not stagnate, either. That is something people sometimes forget — the fact that you will always have goals to pursue. Websites will always need to be kept up to date and maintained, you will always need to keep it cost-effective, and you will always want to reevaluate your wants and needs for your SEO campaign.