First impressions are everything on the Internet. That is why people are quick to leave poorly designed, slow websites that do not provide the information they are looking for.

This is particularly true with law firm websites, as this is such a saturated and highly competitive market. If your website leaves a bad first impression, people know they can find what they want elsewhere.

You need a well-designed website that has been optimized to encourage users to convert. PMP has been designing and building fast, modern, conversion-focused websites for plaintiff law firms for more than 15 years. If you think your website could be better, contact us to learn more about how we may be able to assist you.

Web Design Best Practices For Plaintiff Law Firms

Effective web design is about more than just the words on your website, it is also about mobile-friendliness, layout, speed, the quality of the images, where elements are placed, and much more.

We have compiled a list of best practices for law firm web design, based on years of experience building and optimizing websites to get users to contact our clients.

Create a Smooth, Intuitive User Experience

For better or worse, people’s attention spans are much shorter. They do not want to be forced to think too much to figure out how to use something, particularly an app or website.

Your website needs to be easy to use, particularly on smartphones. These are the devices most people will use to view your site. You do not want people to be confused about how to contact your firm or how to find other important pages on your website, such as:

Navigation menus and buttons need to make sense, as do the words you use for calls to action or to describe your firm.

Optimize For Speed

Site speed is a critical factor in your website’s ranking in Google search results. People do not want to wait more than a few seconds to access information on the internet, especially when they are on their smartphones. Slower sites are likely to be ranked lower on Google than faster sites.

There are many factors that may impact the speed of your website, such as the order of how different elements load. These are all things we have detailed knowledge of at PMP.

Use a Simple, Clean Design

Taking a “less is more” approach is often best. Having too many elements can be distracting and cause your message to get lost.

Images can make a good or bad impression. Using high-quality, relevant images can be attention-grabbing in a good way. Similarly, your images should always be high-resolution. If you use poor-quality images that appear fuzzy or pixelated online, it could hurt your brand. Users may ask themselves: If a law firm does not have enough attention to detail on its website, how much time and effort will the law firm put into the case?

The homepage of your website is the first opportunity to make an impression on visitors about your brand and the services you offer. Many firms add call-to-action buttons here in contrasting colors, so they stand out.

Well-designed law firm websites often contain a hero image of the lawyer with a tagline and call to action. Below that you might see case results or testimonials. When visitors arrive, they can absorb this information quickly, which may make them more likely to stay.

Create a Mobile-Friendly Design

You still need to make sure your website looks good on a desktop or laptop computer, but most people who come to your site looking for legal help are going to be doing so on a smartphone. If your website looks bad on mobile devices, it will not only affect your Google ranking, but will also cause people to go to another website.

One of the challenges with making a website mobile-friendly is ensuring it looks good on a variety of different devices and browsers.

Stay Consistent With Your Law Firm’s Brand

It is often a good idea to state what your law firm does near the top of the homepage. For example, you may want to say that your firm handles personal injury cases. You may also want to give a few examples (car accidents, slip and fall, truck accidents, etc.).

Some websites also include a tagline. For example, your tagline might be something about results. However, you should stay consistent with the way your firm is branded in other advertising, like TV commercials. This means using the same colors, logos and taglines you use in other advertising. Consistency helps to get your message across clearly.

Collecting User Data and Optimizing Your Site Accordingly

Your website is not something you build and leave alone. You need to constantly optimize your website to ensure it is user-friendly and will continue to rank high in search results.

Diving into your website’s data can help you discover how people are interacting with your website:

  • How long do users stay on the site?
  • How far do they scroll?
  • What pages do they visit the most?
  • What pages are people on before they leave the site?

Heat maps are a useful tool that can help you find out where users click or move their cursors when they are on your website. This tells you where users are looking, so you can put the information in those spots on your website.

Contact PMP to find out how we can assist you with your website to encourage more people to contact your firm for legal assistance.