10 Common Law Firm Website Design Mistakes That Hurt Lead Generation

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Law Firm Website Design Mistakes

Your law firm website is your primary marketing tool, and it’s an always-on salesperson working to attract potential clients around the clock. As a law firm business owner, you want to receive more phone calls from qualified leads. A website that is easy for people to navigate and contact you is key to achieving this goal.

I’ve seen the same common law firm website design mistakes often.

Law firms need to keep up with the fast-changing expectations of potential clients regarding law firm website design. These expectations are influenced by their user experience with big companies like Amazon, Apple, Uber, and others. Standford reports that more than 75% of people judge a company’s credibility based on its website design.

You can no longer count on your brand, market share, or strictly word-of-mouth referrals to help you outgrow and outperform your top competitors. You’ve got to sell yourself through your website design.

It’s important to make sure you avoid law firm website design mistakes. I suggest starting with a list of the top 10 common law firm website design errors that require immediate rectification. Please see below for more details.

Here’s a List of Top 10 Law Firm Website Design Mistakes to Avoid

1. Your Law Firm Website Isn’t Secure.

A website that isn’t secure could be considered one of the biggest mistakes because they see a big red warning site before proceeding to your website.

Your Connection Is Not Private

Potential customers visiting your site are already uneasy because they’re afraid of legal issues, no matter what legal issue it is. It’s even scarier than that. Your personal information and your company’s sensitive information could be compromised.

Most consumers know about online security issues and are smart enough to recognize when a site has been secured using SSL encryption.

Getting more law firm leads from your website must be secure (HTTPS) rather than insecure (HTTP). To get an SSL certificate, you must set up hosting that enables HTTPS connections.

If you don’t have a secure site, you’re signaling to search engines and cautious web surfers that something isn’t right. Search Engi­neers consider website secu­rity a big part of their ranking algo­rithm, and 85% of peo­ple won’t brows­e an unsecured we­bsite. If your website isn’t secured, you must take action immediately, or potential customers will leave for another legal service. Not having a secure site is a big mistake. I recommend getting an SSL certificate from Network Solutions.

2. Your website isn’t mobile-friendly.

This is old news, but your website’s design needs to be mobile-friendly and use responsive design. According to Statista, about 52.2% of these occur on a mobile phone.

How can you tell if your website is mobile-friendly? Run your website through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

3. Your site takes too long to load!

If you want to generate new leads for your law firm, your site must load fast.

People hate waiting. They hate long loading times so much that 53% of them will ditch your site for another if they use a mobile device.

Enter your website address into Google’s Page Speed Insights (PSI) to see if there are any issues with its performance. It will tell you if your site has any issues with loading time and provide some suggestions for fixing them.

Poor law firm website design can cause a slow website. To improve page loading speeds, here are some general web development tips you should consider following:

  • Optimize and compress your images. Larger files take longer to load than smaller ones.
  • Make sure your content is optimized for speed. Fewer page components mean less time spent downloading them. Your files, including images, CSS, JavaScript, etc., should be combined, minified, optimized, and gzipped as much as possible.
  • Limit or delete any inactive plugins. There are plenty of plugins and apps out there that will help you improve your site’s appearance. Make sure to install plugins that are lightweight and load fast.
  • Don’t use too many redirects. Redirects are sometimes necessary, but you shouldn’t have more than one redirect from any particular URL to the final destination. According to Google, because redirects cause an additional HTTP request-response cycle and increase the time between requests, it’s important to minimize the frequency of redirects. 

4. Your website has No Trust Signals or Social Proof That Shows Your Worth.

When dealing with legal matters, people seek out the best law firm. It’s important to show potential clients quickly that your firm can meet their needs. Displaying key information on your website can help ease their concerns.

  • Awards
  • Cases won
  • Achievements
  • Associations
  • In the News
  • Accreditations

If you want some law firm web design ideas, look at Denmon Pearlman Law. They’re good at doing the authority thing. Here’s a list of all their trust signals and social proofs.

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5. Your font style and size are difficult for readers to read or mismatch with the audience.

Remember when Microsoft was using Comic Sans? Back then, everyone used it because it was so popular. Trump’s lawyer, Ty Cobb, recently used Comic Sans, and Twitter had a field day.

Yes, your fonts and typography say a lot about you and your company. Look at these example websites for lawyers. Each site has its unique look and feel and has its distinct personality. Here are some of my favorite WordPress legal template designs.

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Ensure your design elements fit with your brand identity and the overall personality of your law practice. If you’re unsure what you’d like with your site design or don’t know what words you’d like to use for your text content, talk to someone who knows something about web design so you don’t make the same law firm website design mistakes.

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If you are a DIYer, I recommend using Canva, a free-to-use online graphic design tool. Canva has a ton of templates that you can use to help create awesome designs for your website. You don’t need any Photoshop skills to use it, either.

There are many affordable website design builders, such as web.com. If you want a custom website, we’re happy to help you turn your ideas into realities. My website design team has years of experience designing websites from scratch, so we know exactly what it takes to get there.

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6. You may not be aware of it, but your site probably doesn’t humanize it.

Law firms typically use stock photos instead of real lawyers for their web pages.

Don’t use bad photos. You want to showcase yourself and your legal team so that it is more personalized. Take a look at Denmon Pearlman’s hero image, for example:

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Denmon Pearlman Law features its managing partners of the law firm

7. Your website doesn’t contain any H1 headings or H2 subheaders.

Most people read the headline and skip past the rest of the content to see if they want to click through. You want your site to have compelling content.

You probably noticed that sentence because it stands out from the rest of the text. If a website cannot be read quickly for interesting information, it is a poor user experience for its visitors.

You don’t just want one big blob of content; you want headings and subheadlines so the content and topic are clear to the reader.

Most importantly, to help search engine spiders find you. If you want to improve your site’s search engine rankings, one way to do so is by ensuring that your pages contain a content hierarchy that bots crawl.

If a web crawler cannot determine what your page is all about, it will be placed somewhere in the middle of the 10s of thousands of results for your query. Therefore, content matters. See the image below on how to structure content using H1, H2, and H3… 

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Learn more about search engine optimization (SEO) best practices at SEMrush. 

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8. You don’t include videos on your pages.

Incorporating videos into your law firm’s website design is a necessity. Not only is a video 50 times more likely to rank organically in the search results than text pages, but people spend, on average, 2.6 more time on pages with video than without.

Adding videos to your website design can also increase conversions by up to 80%. To earn trust, differentiate your brand, explain complex topics, and get introduced by video on your website, social media profiles, and YouTube channels.

Here are some examples of video content for your lawyer website:

  • Attorney profile videos
  • Client testimonial videos
  • Legal processes overviews
  • Frequently Asked Questions videos
  • Informational videos

9. Your site doesn’t have contact information and conversion nudges up front and center.

When people visit your law firm’s website, they are primarily interested in finding your company’s name, address, and phone number. Including these details is crucial because if they are missing, visitors are likely to leave the website. The main objective of your website’s user experience should be to encourage visitors to schedule an appointment with your firm.

Your site should include your contact info, such as your email address, phone number, and any other relevant. Including lots of conversion nudging, like your website’s calls to action, contact forms, and chatboxes, will help improve your conversion rates. For example, check out Denmon Pearlman’s website:

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10. Your website doesn’t tell a user right away what kind of law you practice.

It’s probably the most problematic. After loading, people form an impression within 0.5 seconds, which is all they need to know to decide whether to stay on your site or return to a competitor.

After evaluating your content, they’ll leave if they don’t feel like they’ve made a rational choice. You should have your service/product in clear view and confidence-boosting features like testimonials, endorsements, and affiliate programs. Avoid clutter, and keep your website design simple.

Lawyers love our law firm website design company because they know we help them stand out from the crowd and get noticed.

Our attorneys value us highly due to the positive feedback they receive from their clients. We are dedicated to helping you achieve the best results from your investment, treating your business as if it were our own.

The success of your company’s website relies on the design and implementation of its web pages. Choosing a skilled designer is essential, as a poorly designed website will not generate leads.

As professionals in the design field, we constantly keep ourselves updated with the latest trends in the industry. Our color palette comprises vibrant and striking combinations that complement our clients’ branding. In addition to website design, we strive to assist our clients in reaching their objectives and surpassing their expectations.

Our team provides everything from custom website designs to copywriting, giving you a turnkey solution for all your needs. When you work with Orbit Local Digital Marketing Company, you can expect the following benefits:

  • Domain and Hosting options
  • Ongoing site maintenance
  • Brand guidelines and development
  • Advanced analytics tracking
  • SEO services
  • Content creation strategy
  • Uploading existing content and import
  • Lead form and call tracking
  • Technical SEO
  • Digital Marketing 
  • And more!

You will have ownership of the website, unlike many local legal web design firms that hold it hostage. Learning how many web designers hide terms in their contracts may surprise you.

Your site should be beautiful, well organized, have awesome content, and focus on lead generation. We can assist with your design project if you need help with your website. Contact us today for a free website design consultation!

Kesar Long

About the author

Founder, Chief Strategist, and head of web development and advertising at Orbit Local–is a certified Google Ads Expert and HubSpot Solutions Partner with over a decade of digital marketing experience. He's earned a BS in Computing Information Science from the University of North Florida and an MBA at the Florida Institute of Technology.

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