Here’s how to turn website visitors into clients
The website: It’s an area where, according to Trey Ryder, a Payson, AZ law firm marketing consultant, “firms spend untold amounts of money for absolute garbage.”
Many sites, says Ryder “are atrocious,” despite the price tags they carry. “If they work, they work in spite of themselves.”
In most cases, a website’s failure stems from the fact that site developers know the technology, but technology isn’t marketing. And the purpose of a site is to bring in business.
Place education right on the front page
When prospects visit your website, there’s not going to be an instant sale. That comes later and only if the site “makes them stick around and learn stuff.”
An effective site has to do more than tell visitors how great the firm is. For that reason, Ryder recommends that a law firm’s home page should reference a large number of educational materials—things people want to know about. Visitors will look at these and will return for more.
“Education is sly advertising,” says Ryder. It shows the firm’s expertise and at the same time holds out a no-pressure invitation to call. The more people view it, the more they see the firm as the expert. Then, when it comes time to hire an attorney, the choice is already made. They call.
To be effective, there must be links to your educational materials on the home page and those links need to carry attention-grabbing headlines, such as:
“9 ways to avoid overtime violations” or “The greatest misconceptions about the EEOC.”
The links behind these articles should all go to the same area, called the “free resource page.”
To take advantage of this tactic even further, Ryder recommends a firm hold back on one article and tell people to send an email requesting it. Call this article a special resource, so your site’s visitors will see it as an added benefit. Then use the email addresses to build a mailing list for the firm’s newsletter.
One of the most effective holdback article topics is how to hire a lawyer. Ryder recommends a title along the lines of “Make sure you read this before you hire an attorney.” Besides the fact that it’s useful, people see it as inside information and trust a firm that’s willing to provide it.
Expand on your service descriptions
Within the site, provide a detailed list of services the firm provides. Most firms limit that to broad areas such as employment law, business law, or complex litigation—and for the sophisticated client, that’s enough.
But for someone looking for legal services for the first time, it isn’t. That person or business needs detailed, plain-English descriptions of what the firm does. With employment law, for example, list the subtopics that apply, such as the ADA, overtime requirements, and age discrimination. Then give a brief description of services the firm provides in each of those areas.
Get even more specific and list the employment law business services the firm can provide, such as writing employee handbooks, reviewing anti-discrimination policies, and conducting harassment investigations.
That kills two birds with one stone. Providing details gives visitors a comprehensive overview of the services you provide and helps your site rank higher in the search engines.
Provide an inviting introduction to each lawyer
Also important is ensuring the link from the home page to the attorneys’ biographies is more inviting than just the word, “attorneys.”
That may seem a minor concern, Ryder says, but keep in mind that people are generally intimidated by the idea of hiring an attorney—and some are intimidated by attorneys in general.
Title the link “Meet our attorneys” or “Meet John Smith,” which sounds more like a personal introduction and less like an encounter with a fearsome lawyer. What’s more, when the prospect clicks on the biography, there’s a sense of already knowing the attorney.
To make the bio more readable, put the attorney’s picture—a smiling picture—at the top left corner of the page. The smile, says Ryder, helps “make an instant connection.”
To establish immediate credibility, list the lawyer’s degrees and specializations directly under his or her picture. And in the biography text, describe which services each attorney provides.
According to Ryder, this tactic is contrary to the philosophy of many firms who don’t want their websites to look personal. “They want to present the entire firm rather than individual attorneys. But every client wants an individual relationship with an individual attorney. No client ever says, ‘My firm advised me to do X.’ It’s always ‘My attorney advised me to do it.'”
In fact, Ryder suggests that it may even be good business to take a more personal contact approach and provide each attorney with a separate website.
Make it clear you want to be contacted and make it easy to do so
And then there’s something few firms have on their sites: A call to action.
Inviting prospects to contact the firm seems like common sense, but most sites don’t, or if they do, they bury it somewhere in the text.
A call to action doesn’t have to be as direct as “hire us.” It could be an invitation to ask a question, to get added to a mailing list, or to request an article.
Let people know the firm welcomes inquiries. “No one should be afraid to call,” says Ryder.
Be sure that potential clients see your invitation to connect. Since people only visit pages they’re interested in, the calls to action should be placed on as many pages as possible, including the home page, the free resource page, the lawyer bio page, and at the end of each article.
In each call-to-action, give the potential clients several ways to reach your firm, including your phone number, fax number, email address, or through any social media avenues, if appropriate. And invite people to use any of them.
Without specific directions, says Ryder, “people don’t know what to do.” And they aren’t going to stick around trying to find out.
Provide testimonials and, yes, discuss fees
The more links on your site, the better. They give your firm credibility.
One page that always gets read is the page with testimonials from clients and other firms. Another is the FAQ page with questions and answers, as well as information on which documents a client needs to bring when meeting with a lawyer for the first time.
This is also a good place to address questions about fees and how they differ by type of case.
The case history page is also popular and a great place to provide appropriate details on matters the firm has handled successfully. [Check with your state bar’s guidelines on what you can and cannot publicly disclose.]
And, yes, there needs to be a page with the firm’s fee structure, although it can list a price range rather than specific amounts. Having a general understanding of how fees are set helps prospects feel more comfortable contacting the firm because they know what to expect.
Design for success
Think of the home page as a full-page ad in a magazine, Ryder says. It has to capture people’s attention and send people where the firm wants them to go.
An essential design point to remember is that people read from left to right and top to bottom. That makes the top left corner the part of the page people see first.
Similarly, put links to the educational articles down the left side of the home page, because that’s where people start to read.
“People may not even read the articles,” says Ryder, “but they see the links and suddenly the firm looks like an expert in many, many things.” What’s more, the site itself looks like a library of information worth coming back to.
Another design point relates to color. Ryder recommends using colors that are easy on the eyes but not drab ones, such as gray or dull blue. “Those don’t motivate people to take action,” he says. “They just put people to sleep.”
By contrast, green reminds people of money and also of pleasant things such as green plants. And bright orange, says Ryder, simply “gets people rattled.”
When it comes to text, make it “black and readable.” Don’t get fancy with reverse type that tires everyone’s eyes. It can be used effectively in a headline, but a paragraph of fancy type is too much for anyone to read.
Avoid these two irritants
The first fail to avoid is files that take too long to download. People want to go to a website and get out of it right away, so be sure any images or files you use are small. Remember, it’s not a grocery store where people are willing to stand in line.
The same can be said about animation and videos. Site developers tell clients they need all that activity to draw attention to the site, but it’s an irritant that distracts from what’s really important on your site and that is information.
If you want a website that delivers you clients, it’s not your graphics or time-sucking downloads that should be memorable—it’s your expertise and educational content.
