Lawyers, when was the last time you stepped into your client’s shoes?
When was the last time you stepped into your lay client’s shoes and saw your law firm’s website through their eyes? You may check your business website once a month, once a week, or five times a day, but are you really taking what you see as your prospects see it? Are you being objective enough? Consider these five tips to make sure your website content performs to its full potential and convert those visitors into new customers!
1. Focus on quality and quantity. This may be a great question, but there’s no point in having a lot of articles on your site that aren’t of interest, or even irrelevant, to your potential lay customers. Similarly, there’s little point in posting one or two great customer-focused articles on your site and then abandoning the idea due to lack of time or enthusiasm.
2. Recognize the needs of the specific customers you want to attract. Put yourself in his shoes and ask yourself what you would really like to know if he was just injured in a car accident, if he just separated from his wife, or if he is weighing the pros and cons of moving house. As a lawyer, you may be interested in the broader implications of changes in the law related to these areas (and will no doubt continue to explain these changes and implications to your client at a later date), but initially your client will simply be looking for immediate information, without technicalities, which answers the questions that most press them at that moment.
3. Keep the momentum: keep the content. Many law firms have clearly recognized the importance of having an “articles” section on their website, but after the initial attempt to write one or two client-based articles, enthusiasm for the idea wanes and they are dedicated time to what are perceived as, more important matters. Appoint someone from your company to write the articles on a regular basis, or instruct a legally qualified freelance writer to do it for you.
4. Make the information on your website immediately accessible. Again, don’t push yourself to write wonderful jargon-free customer-based articles if your visitor has to search your site for 5 minutes before finding what they’re looking for. The reality is that if your visitor doesn’t find the answer to their question or the information relevant to their query, within a minute of visiting your site, they’ll move on to your competitor.
5. Make it easy for your visitors. At the end of each of your customer-based articles, make sure your visitor is just one click away from being able to contact you for more information or even to instruct you!
You may have a fantastic SEO company working for you that makes sure your business stays at the top of the search engine results, but if you don’t have any interesting content on your website when visitors arrive, surely this It’s like walking into Tesco and finding that the shelves are all empty! Don’t give your potential new customers any reason to have to look elsewhere for the answers they’re looking for.