Best Law Firm Websites: Streamline Your Law Firm’s Website Management Experiences

Part 4 — A Guide to Peak Performance

In this blog series, we’ve addressed the importance of first-class brand design and exceptional user experience for newcomers, clients and future clients, as well as contacts and advocates for your firm. But we can’t overlook the most powerful aspect of law firm website development and CMS management: You and your team. 

When you invest in a top-tier website with us, we’re there for you every step of the way for the entire lifespan of your website.

Robert Foley, COO, fSquared Marketing

Some of your website’s most important features are ones that never cross your visitors’ minds. But these considerations are of the utmost importance to us, and we know they’ll matter to you as well:

·      Enjoy a User-Friendly Admin Dashboard

·      Protect Your Firm with Robust Website Security

·      Measure Your Success with Analytics

Enjoy a User-Friendly Admin Dashboard 

Top-performing law firm websites CMS don’t just offer a great visitor experience. They empower legal marketing professionals and provide an optimal platform for lawyer thought leaders and rainmakers.

They are easy to update with new content such as lawyer bios, expertise pages, blog posts, events, etc. They also include tools for optimizing on-page SEO (search engine optimization). This gives firms control over their own digital presence and reduces the need to involve an external agency for routine updates. 

Smart websites also make legal marketing and business development activities more efficient. One example of this is smart interconnectivity between attorney bios, expertise areas and posts (e.g., firm news and publications).  Another is the Print-to-PDF functionality which we have integrated into many of the websites we’ve designed. This functionality generates pitch-ready marketing materials or information for proposals from live content on the website.

Great websites also integrate with other marketing and business platforms such as email systems, CRM (contact relationship management) systems, social media, and payment solutions. The best websites give law firms the tools they need to succeed online. 

Protect Your Firm with Robust Website Security

There is a hacker attack every 39 seconds, and being unprepared makes your firm’s website a target.

Website security is one of those things that goes unnoticed when it’s working right but can have real impacts on a law firm’s brand, search engine optimization (SEO), and business reputation when it’s not prioritized.

Despite the legal industry’s reputation for being risk-conscious, many law firm websites are inadequately protected from cyber threats. Only 43% of law firm websites use an SSL certificate, for example, according to the American Bar Association’s TechReport 2022. 

A hack can cause all kinds of nastiness for your law firm, especially if your website collects visitor or client data. Hackers can also hijack your website to infect your site visitors with malware.

The best law firm websites use a “Defense in Depth” (DiD) approach. This provides more robust security than a single system. Just as medieval castles were protected by watchtowers, moats, ramparts, drawbridges, and keeps, a DiD approach protects websites with firewalls, managed host environments, optimized web production servers, and content management system (CMS) protection.

The best websites also recognize and prepare for the reality that most cybersecurity breaches are often due to weak passwords and human mistakes, such as falling for phishing attempts. Approximately 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. Smart websites recognize this and maintain best practices around password creation. In 2022, hackers attacked core infrastructure in the United States, including government agencies, food processing plants, pipelines, and hospitals. In light of these realities, we ensure all our clients’ websites are protected with a multi-tiered approach to limiting risk and mitigating threats.

Measure Your Success with Analytics

Another essential aspect of your law firm’s success is understanding how your users are interacting with your website and online presence. 

Website analytics can help to infuse the art of marketing with the rigour of science. 

With the right system in place for capturing marketing data, and the right processes in place for analyzing and distributing key findings, law firms can understand what is working, what is not, and how time and budgets could be better spent.

Most law firms have a basic Google Analytics installation on their websites. But too many firms stop there. At the very least, firms need to filter out internal traffic from their lawyers and staff to avoid muddying the waters. 

Beyond that, many firms can benefit from setting up goals and event traffic to identify when website visitors do things like complete your contact form, or send an email. These practices offer more insight into which initiatives are working, and allows firms to plan strategically. As Sherlock Holmes said, “Data! Data! Data!… I can’t make bricks without clay.”

Here are some of the insights law firms can clean from website analytics:

• How your content is performing
• Where traffic is coming from: What regions, search engines, websites, devices, and social media posts
• Which advertising campaigns are cost-effective and which are not
• Events (also called conversions) such as contact form completions, emails, and phone calls
• Micro-conversions such as resource downloads, event sign-ups, newsletter subscribes, and more
• How your visitors are interacting with your website

Collecting data is only useful if it is regularly reviewed, evaluated, and used to inform marketing and business decisions. According to the American Bar Association’s 2020 poll, 33% of respondents “did not know who has access to web analytics for their firm.” In 23% of cases, only one lawyer in the firm had this access. Needless to say, it’s important to ensure the right people on your team have access to the right tools for analytics and know how to use them.

Takeaway: Find a legal marketing agency ready and able to support you and your team, ensuring there is a well thought-out process in place for collecting accurate website data. Law firms gain a significant competitive advantage when they have this functionality, along with defined processes for analyzing metrics and leveraging insights.

It Pays to Invest in the Best Law Firm Website You Can Afford

An attractive, fast, secure, and user-friendly website is a tremendous advantage in the competitive world of legal marketing. 

This is especially true when it comes to connecting with future clients. A well-designed, elegant website sends a clear message: This firm is successful, modern, and good at what it does. On the other hand, a law firm with an outdated website will struggle to convince new visitors that they are as good as they claim. In many cases, visitors won’t stick around long enough to learn otherwise. 

The best law firm websites also guide prospective visitors through to becoming clients, reducing friction in the discovery, consideration, and onboarding processes, and addressing questions and concerns. 

A top-tier website also keeps people engaged with your brand, giving your existing clients and advocates every reason to champion your firm. 

Your firm’s website is the face of your firm’s online brand presence and the command centre for digital marketing and business initiatives. It is worth investing in exceptional design. 

Learn More from Our First-Class Website Experts

Passing the test of making a stellar first impression is just the beginning.  During this blog series, Best Law Firm Websites – A Guide to Peak Performance, we’ve provided an overview of how you can invest in your law firm’s growth, and lighten the load of building a top-tier website. In case you missed any of the previous parts, here are the links:

1. Attract Clients through Flawless Brand Design

2. Engage Current and Future Clients with a Friction-Free Experience 

3. Outrank Your Competitors with Compelling Content and SEO

Streamline Your Team’s Website Management Experience

Are you ready to take your website to elite status? Get in touch with our team today.

Lynn
Fitzpatrick Foley

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