4 Mistakes Law Firm Websites Make

Web Design

Law Firm Websites Stats Law firm websites are often plagued with more mistakes than other industries. This is most likely due to the fact that they are usually run by older gentlemen who are not educated enough in technology or marketing to make the right decision for their business to grow.

Because law firms have higher paying customers than most industries, they should be able to invest the right amount of resources into lead generation through their website. Unfortunately, this is not the majority of cases. And more unfortunately, law firms are actually LOSING BUSINESS because of these mistakes.

When I say that law firms are losing business because of a poor website, I don’t mean missing out on possible business opportunities. I mean they are actually losing customers that should be hiring them.

46% of consumers consider web design the top factor in a company’s credibility.

That means that 46% of the people who hear about your law firm and check out the website to call you, are not calling. Ok, maybe if someone is specifically looking for your phone number, they’ll call anyway, but they will hesitate in their confidence that you are the best law firm for them to hire. And certainly a large enough percentage is not dialing the phone because of your poor website.

Common Law Firm Website Mistakes

Not having an updated website
Not integrating a blog with your website
Not having social media sharing buttons on your website
Using black hat tactics to try and rank on Google

Not Keeping Your Law Firm’s Website Updated

By not having an updated website, you are negatively effecting two pieces of your business:

Providing information to your website visitors so they can make the right decision to hire you
Keeping your website updated for Google to consider you an authority in your industry and rank you higher than your competitors

If your website is outdated, you will seem unorganized and behind on your business. That’s not what someone who is looking to hire a law firm wants to see. Not having your website updated with current services that you are offering also means you’re missing out on new customers who don’t think you are offering those services.

In a customer’s mind (and Google’s), if it’s not on your website, then it’s not a part of your company.

How do you expect to show up when someone is searching for a legal service on Google and you don’t even mention it on your website?

Not Having A Blog On Your Firm’s Website

People love information, they want to be educated before they talk to someone in their hiring process. When a person is making a buying decision, they are 60% of the way through their education process before they talk to someone who they might hire.

Google loves information, and they love when you educate your customers. They want to rank websites higher for providing value to their visitors.

You can accomplish these things by implementing a blog on your website. Frequently adding more pages about your areas of practice, cases you are winning, and your insight to legal issues will do multiple things for your firm online and offline:

Give you more pages to rank on Google with (including more keywords to rank for)
Give your potential customers the information they need to make a decision so that they don’t have to go look somewhere else (and call someone else when they’re ready)
Raise your credibility as a thought leader in your industry

Not Having Social Media Sharing Buttons On Your Website

People love information. They love showing other people that they know things. When someone shares an article with their circles of friends (online or offline), it’s to show off a little that they are “in the know”. By adding social sharing buttons to your law firm’s website, you will increase the likelihood of them sharing your articles. This benefits your firm in two ways:

The spread of your brand’s awareness in the community will increase the chances more people hear about you and may need your services
Social sharing directly improves your search rankings with Google

Google wants to provide the best information possible to their customers. Without having people to read every single web page from every single website, they have an algorithm that does a lot of this work behind the scenes. But they also keep an eye on social media, because when actual people are sharing your web pages and blog posts, Google will see that as a sign that your firm is an authority in the legal field and should be ranking higher in the search results.

Using Black Hat Tactics To Try And Rank On Google

This mistake is not made by the actual law firm, but by the SEO agency they hire. Because the legal industry is such a high paying one, when an SEO agency is hired, they are expected to get results. The way a lot of SEO companies do this for law firm websites is by trying to cheat the Google system and get higher rankings.

That’s all fine and dandy if it’s working, but the problem is that Google does not like to be taken advantage of. When they catch what’s going on, they not only close the loopholes, but they penalize websites that were using them to rank higher. This means your law firm’s rankings take a huge hit and if you’re ranking for good keywords, a hit to the bottom line of your company.