Did you know that more than 33% of clients start their quest for legal advice and/or professional assistance online?
Another surprising fact is that nearly 70% of law firms register new cases via website inquiries.
If you own a family law firm or are part of their team, remember that marketing is essential today if you want to sustain and grow your business.
Lawyers in the US were not allowed to advertise their services right up till 1977. In the UK, the Solicitor’s Code of Conduct rules allow advertising subject to rules of the code. The European Union, Singapore, and Australia allow lawyers to advertise. Germany amended its rules in 1990 to allow advertising.
How did legal firms get business in earlier decades? It was mainly through referrals and reputation.
This is the Age of the Internet and if you’re still relying on old-school methods like referrals, or distributing business cards, it’s possible that you’re starving your firm of business. Having a top-quality family law website can boost your credibility and revenues.
Do You Really Need A Website?
Whether yours is a reputed and well-established firm, or you’re just starting out, or you’re a solo practitioner, a website is a vital part of your marketing and customer service strategy. With millions of lawyers and firms competing for business today and the reach of the Net extending across geographical barriers, no law firm can afford to sit back and wait for clients to turn up at their doorstep.
Stay Visible
Most clients who know about your firm or have heard about you would check online to see if you have a website. They would find it easier to get your address, phone numbers and put faces to names.
Communicate
Websites have online forms that clients can use for a call-back, they may have chat-bots and virtual assistants to answer FAQs and perhaps facilities for a quick chat before they visit your firm. Genuine testimonials from satisfied clients give visitors the confidence that you are what you advertise. You can also use your website to give updates and amendments to rules, inform and educate people about new regulations, and important judgments in Family Law.
Trust and Credibility
Having a website today establishes your legitimacy and credibility. A modern, regularly updated, well-designed, and well maintained, the professional-looking website goes a long way in proving that you’re trustworthy and have the right credentials and qualifications.
Online Marketing Tool
Your website is your 24×7, 365-day marketing department that potential clients can visit at any time, from anywhere. Your website can connect with your social media presence and you can keep the site regularly updated with fresh, original, reliable, and authoritative content.
Brand Awareness
Your website ensures that your brand remains visible, recognizable, and memorable across time and geographies.
Provides Options
Some clients prefer to fill in the online form, while others engage with chatbots and virtual assistants. Many clients may like to pick up the phone and talk to a human being. Your website provides these choices.
Analytics
You can track visitors, their behavior, preferences, demographics, time of visit, and reasons. Website analytics helps you to check if your marketing efforts and investments are on the right track.
How to Prepare a Family Law Website
Select the Right Designer
With millions of designers and developers available, it’s challenging to pick the right one for your firm’s website. Keep a few important aspects in mind before you launch your search:
- Get references from trusted sources
- Look at family law websites that you admire and note the pain points and plus points
- Keep a firm budget in mind
- Select a designer who has worked in this field rather than a total newbie
- Go through their portfolio to understand their work
- Make sure they understand the project and your requirements
- Ensure that their work will make your website look and feel professional, yet contemporary and functional
- Involve your team in the search process and get their inputs before you decide
Focus
Before you approach a website designer or developer, do your own homework. Focus on what it is that you really want your website to do. Understand who your target audience is. Think like a potential visitor/client and imagine what it would feel like when you visit a family law website – what would they look for? How confident did they feel about consulting you after the website experience? Did they find what they were looking for?
Informative
Provide the right information about your products and services, areas of expertise on your home page. This ensures that Google understands that any traffic that’s unrelated to your specific practice is not entertained. Search engines can then direct only the right traffic to your site.
Showcase Your USP
Remember that your website is your advertising platform. It’s your chance to show visitors and clients the best of what you have to offer. Design your website so that you can showcase awards, landmark cases, testimonials, and membership of prestigious associations and bodies. Provide updated information about your team with interesting and authentic attorney profiles, qualifications, certifications, and licenses, etc. Include paralegals and other staff if you like. Don’t forget to add their latest photos, along with their education, background, and areas of expertise. You can provide links to their LinkedIn profiles for more effect.
Navigation
Navigation is the focal point of a website and ultimately responsible for UX. No matter how great your content, how attractive the design if a visitor can’t journey through your website quickly and easily, with value at the end, fast loading time, and responsive design, it’s wasted effort. Typical navigation mistakes in websites include:
- Navigation bar with too many confusing options
- Cluttered website making it difficult to find what you want
- Low-quality links in the primary menu
- Not designed for mobiles or small screens
- Noisy with fly-out sub-menus
- Over-long text labels
Content
Ensure that your content can be regularly updated, with editing facilities. This ensures more visibility and backlinks across social media and other sites. You have the potential to become an authoritative source of information through relevant, up-to-date, jargon-free, reliable content. Add a blog that offers case studies, opinion pieces by reputed professionals, trending legal issues, newsmakers in the field, and news about important judgments. Blogs also offer a quick reference resource for clients that they can share and comment on.
Source: https://thomasdigital.com/industries/family-law-websites/.
