Creating a website that adequately demonstrates your law firm’s expertise and experience can be difficult. Everything from the design to the copy must be carefully created to ensure that every web visitor knows what your firm is about in just a matter of seconds. During the development process, we often see firms spend weeks preparing their attorney profiles and text for their verdicts and settlements page but neglect the information pertaining to their areas of practice.
The end result is often firm sites that have only one page devoted to six different practice areas. These pages are usually filled with bulleted lists and just a few sentences to describe multiple complex areas of law. Needless to say, these pages leave something to be desired and can actually be detrimental to your site’s optimization and more importantly to the visitor.
To ensure that your law firm’s website ranks well with the search engines and resonates with web visitors, be sure to consider the following tips:
- Make your descriptions descriptive: As lawyers, you’ve all been advised to avoid speaking in “legalese” when working with clients. This rule also applies to your website. Use the practice area descriptions to clearly explain what you do. Don’t take it for granted that your clients know what Chapter 13 bankruptcy means or what a guardianship is. Utilize the practice area pages to explain basic concepts and describe how an attorney can help with related matters. Also, keep in mind that your clients may not search by the practice area name so you should use this space to highlight keywords which a layperson might search by to find your practice. If you have any doubts, ask a friend or relative without a legal background to review the copy.
- Devote a page to each: Piling multiple practice area descriptions on to one page can be confusing to the visitor and may make it harder to find. Intuitive, simple navigation is key to any site so be sure to have a separate page for each unique practice area page. To keep the site organized, consider having one main heading for practice areas with sub pages for each main area of expertise.
- Add some personal touches: A basic overview of asset protection or product liability may not make you stand out from other firms in your area which is why you will need to add a few personal touches to your practice area pages. In explaining the services you provide for each area of law, also include your expertise and experience. How many cases have you tried? Do you have an advanced degree or special certifications pertaining to this area of law? By including this pertinent information throughout the practice area pages, you can establish credibility in this area of law and define what sets you apart.
Firms often delay creating a new website because of the great time and energy required to draft new effective copy. At Omnizant, we’ve done a lot of that hard work for you. We have an expansive practice area library that provides thorough, user-friendly copy to help your firm create an informative website. Contact us today to learn more about our many tools available to law firms.