Standing out in a crowded online landscape

A website means business for a law firm – from first contact with clients to keeping them on board and satisfied. Scott Brown from Accesspoint Media Services explains how to optimise this journey.

With the new digital era in full force, perhaps now is the time to ask yourself: How much is our website and digital branding contributing to the overall goal of standing out in a saturated legal market and providing that all-important client experience?

Take a moment to imagine your client’s journey, from the moment they realise they need help with legal services to the moment their case begins. The first thing that a person will do is search for a firm that can offer them help in their specific area. How easy do you think it would be for the prospect to find your firm? Remember, many firms are offering the same services as you, so what exactly puts your website at the top of the list and entices someone to visit.

Seach engine optimisation (SEO) plays an important role in ensuring your firm is visible to anyone who may be looking. Without an effective SEO strategy on your side, countless opportunities may be missed and any resources that have gone into your website could become void as visits to your website are few and far between. Imagine it like this, you’ve planned an amazing party without sending out any invitations – how will people know to show up?

One thing to keep in mind – SEO is a very delicate tool, and all too often firms find themselves unknowingly doing their website a disservice by assuming a full page of content. This may rank highly on search engines, when in reality it could be the downfall of firms. Many popular search engines have become more sophisticated and capable of detecting websites that simply house lots of buzzwords without any meaningful content. Your SEO strategy must be concise, informative, and constantly revisited.

Consider partnering up with a legal marketing specialist, as the level of ongoing maintenance and research may become too much for an already busy firm to take on. The right marketing specialist can truly benefit your firm by developing smart goals to be achieved for the long run, allowing your firm to see dramatic improvements in the amount of traffic going to your site, the target audience being reached, and the chances of a prospect being turned into a client.

The next thing to consider is the fact that as consumers are faced with a range of options, the decision making that goes into staying on a website or leaving now happens much faster. Your website has only a few seconds to grab the prospect’s attention, so ideally no time can be wasted on poorly designed layouts and old-fashioned functionality. Think about how your site could be aesthetically pleasing without being cluttered, and incorporate colours and images that reflect your overall brand and way of thinking.

A word of advice – avoid using rigid website templates, as this can make it much harder to customise on the go and adapt in the future. An effective website should have a flexible template such as WordPress that can face ever-changing market demands and host the various integrations that clients expect, thus providing them with a seamless online experience.

A specific integration that is becoming more essential seems to be web forms, as they enable a secure and fast stream of communication between the firm and client. Many software developers that understand the importance of smart working have gone one step further to create web forms that are joined up with your PMS – creating the ability to automatically inject the data from your website enquiry forms and create a prospective client directly within your PMS. The possibilities don’t stop there, as valuable data will be within reach in a matter of seconds, automated tracking and analysing from reports can be made to provide your firm with an in-depth look at conversion rates from prospect to client, along with the revenue made from web forms.

This reduction of admin time and increase in data-driven efficiency, as well as improved performance for the team and clients, is what makes web forms the perfect place to start when looking at integrations.

Consider exploring new ideas and innovative marketing suggestions for your website and branding – it could be the difference between your firm outshining the competition or getting lost in the crowd.