7 Quick Fixes for Your Law Firm Website to Make It Look More Professional

Everyone has had that feeling where they look around their house and notice that it’s gotten a little shabby. The same can be said for your law firm website. Sometimes all it takes is a bit of effort and organization to obtain significant improvements.

If you’ve had your website for a while and can’t remember the last time you’ve looked at it with a critical eye, it’s likely time for some touch-ups. Don’t worry, these are (mostly) simple and easy fixes that can be done relatively quickly without “reinventing the wheel”.

1. Make your bio photos bigger and better

Your lawyer bios should be the highlight of your website, and the star of the lawyer bio is the lawyer photo. Make sure it’s a show worth seeing. We discuss best practices in this post about lawyer photography. The worst mistake you can make with lawyer photos is to have small bio photos that have little or no impact on the site user. You might think you’re coming off as classy and subdued, but having the main focus of the bio be a long block of text can be off-putting to the visitor. Make bio photos as big and prominent on the page as possible. This will allow potential clients to feel a connection with the lawyer, reminding them there is a person behind all of those achievements listed on the page.

2. Update the site copyright to the current year

This is a tiny detail that many website owners overlook, not just law firms. Keeping the copyright year current is crucial in making sure that your law firm website looks professional and up to date. No one likes to waste time contacting a firm that is no longer in business, so checking the copyright year is the fastest way for those in the know to determine if a firm is active. Or, at the very least, active enough to keep their website up to date.

3. Add fresh content

Make sure you are actively adding new content to your website on a regular basis. Carrying on from the previous point, potential clients may interpret a lack of new content on a website as a sign that the firm is either a) dormant or b) less active in the legal industry than other firms. One of the quickest ways to breathe life into a comatose website is to post relevant blog posts. Post some firm news such as new associates or students joining the firm or have a lawyer write an opinion piece on a topic that they find interesting. It doesn’t have to be overly long or all-inclusive, just something that will show visitors that you are an active firm with keen lawyers who are ready to take on their legal needs. Bonus tip – adding more content on a consistent basis will greatly improve the SEO of your site and increase your chances of showing up on Google.

4. Remove all stock photos featuring the scales of justice

Nothing says, “I made this website with Wix!” like stale photos that look like they came with a stock template. Using these photos will give the impression that your firm is small and can’t be bothered finding unique photos. This might make visitors question, subconsciously or otherwise, what else your firm is cutting corners on. At the same time, photography is key to engaging website visitors. It is vitally important to make sure the images you use resonate with your audience, support your content, and ultimately your brand.

5. Fix all broken links

There’s nothing more annoying than clicking on a link that goes nowhere. When this happens more than once, annoyance can quickly turn to resentment. Take some time to go through your site and click through all the links if your site is small enough to make this feasible. If, not, there are tools you can use to automate this task. Either update or remove irrelevant links to keep your site an easy-breezy experience for your visitors.

6. Add video

It’s no secret that video is the way of the future. Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to the Internet every minute. The world’s appetite for video seems to be insatiable. Adding a simple video background to your homepage slider or landing page is a great way to modernize your website. You can also create content for social media like LinkedIn or YouTube, and post them to your site as part of a blog post. Bonus Tip – Video can also enhance your SEO results.

7. Make your website accessible

Accessibility has been a frequent topic of discussion for the last few years. If your website is still not accessible to people with disabilities, your law firm not only appears behind the times, but you could also get in trouble for not following accessibility laws in your country, province or state. Here is some further reading on making your website accessible for all. A good place to start would be to increase the font size across your whole site for all paragraphs and titles.

Most of these tips can be done quickly and easily without calling your web developer. But of course, it all depends on what level of access you have to your site, whether you have the permissions required to make the edits, and your level of comfort making them yourself. While replacing images or changing the copyright year might be super simple, making your website accessible would be a much larger project.

When the changes are outside of your purview, having a knowledgeable, dependable web management team is essential to ensuring that your updates go as planned.

We’re proud to say we’ve designed, developed, and maintained, many award-winning websites for law firms big and small, so if you need a hand please contact us. You can learn more about fSquared Marketing’s web services for law firms here.

Robert
Foley

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