When a lawyer or law firm is looking to construct a website, they have a number of questions to ask themselves, and choices to make. Unfortunately, they often ask the wrong questions and make the wrong choices.

One of the first bad questions is “Do we need a website?”. Of course, I’m biased in this matter, but with reason. I have the facts on my side. Yes you need a website. Over 90% of your potential customers look for goods and services online as their primary method. To not have a website, and expect to get customers is a bit of a stretch these days. It was different 10 years ago, but today? Things have changed. Even if you hope for referrals to hear about your firm, one of the first things those people will do is look for your website. If you don’t have a website you’ll be seen as illegitimate. What sort of law firm doesn’t have a website? If someone asked you to consider their product or service, and you asked them what their web address was, and they said they don’t have one, and they were using a yahoo.com email address, would you give them the time of day? It’s unprofessional to not have one.

Yes, you need a website. Yes, you need a domain of your own. Yes, you need an email with that domain name on the end of your email.

After that comes another bad question: “Why do we have to spend any money? Get a $5 site from Godaddy.” Again, I’m biased by the facts, but think about it yourself. Someone is looking for a lawyer, they have a website address and everything. They look at it and it’s a plain page, with a phone number on it. Maybe a home page on a generic template, no logo, no real content, an about us page, and a contact page. Maybe a poorly placed photograph that’s completely unrelated to what you thought the business was, or some stock photo….Are you going to contact that lawyer? Most people won’t. They’ll bounce, ie they’ll leave your site as soon as they got there.

The bounce rate of a website should as close to 20% as you can. You MIGHT get lower, but you can’t expect to. 20% is about the base of people going somehwere they didn’t want to go. If you’re looking at a 40% bounce rate on people coming to your site, that means 1 in 5 people might actually have come to you for legiitimate reasons, but left immediately. Why? One of the main reasons is design. People see the website, think it looks bad, or unprofessional, or illegitimate, or confusing, and they’re gone.

And even after people don’t bounce, a bad web design can harm you. Often people need to be convinced to buy something, and a poor website is no way to convince people. If you need to choose between two or three lawyers or law firms, and one is well designed, professional, with in depth articles and a knoweldge base on the legal issues you’re facing, and the other websites are 3 pages of static plain generic content, which one are you more likely to choose to meet with? If you’re the only lawyer in your specialty within 100 miles then maybe it doesn’t matter, but most lawyers have competition. Alot of competition. Your potential clients need incentive, and a poor website will incentivize them to keep their money in their pockets or give it to someone else.

High quality web design is very important. The design has to be appropriate to your club, your character, who you are, and be visually pleasing, and designed with usability studies in mind, so that you keep your bounce rate low, and have a better chance at capturing new customers. On top of that it needs to continue to be good, and to grab the user, so that they see your businessl as looking good, professional, high quality.

A low quality looking site says you’re low quality. A high quality looking site says you’re high quality. (A non-existant site says you don’t exist)

A cheap template design, on a low functioning website is essentially asking to lose half your prospects within minutes of seeing your site. 20% or more will bounce immedately, with the same, or double to bounce within minutes, never to return.

oLawoffice offers each of our clients a custom high quality web design made specifically for their law firm. One that keeps usability and conversions in mind, to help make your business successfull, and to not send people away as soon as they come in your doors.

Does your law firm need a website? Yes. Does it need to be high quality? Yes. How do we get that for a reasonable cost? oLawoffice.