User experience, often neglected with so much law firm web design, is such an integral aspect to converting visitors into clients, yet it is not understood and rarely applied.
User experience starts with understanding who your firm’s “perfect client” is and speaking to them in a myriad of different ways using diverse mediums as a mechanism to inform and dare I say it, “delight” them.
While the term “user experience design” implies that it starts with design, it doesn’t necessarily mean that if your firm has an existing website that it cannot deploy some nice user experience elements. For example, I’m yet to meet a person who will readily enjoy sitting down reading a 3,000 word post on parenting plans, but I’m not at all surprised by solid traffic that will sit and listen and be engaged by a 10 minute podcast discussion focused squarely on the potential client’s problem.
Another way you can instigate some nice client-centric experiences is by acknowledging that it is typically the case that only between 20 – 40% of all web traffic will come to your firm’s homepage, the rest will find your firm through what we call “long-tail” search and will end up on a content page that relates to their search. Depending how well your content is written in response to this searcher’s problem, will ultimately predict if they continue to garner further information about your firm, through navigating to other pages.
One thing we recently did which is working well, is offering the reader a simple option at the end of the page, “What Should I Read Next.” By doing this, you start to steer the ongoing user experience of the potential client, rather than leaving it up to them. For example, if a person has just read your page relating to fixed fee services you provide, rather than letting them choose a path that may get them lost in other areas of your website, it is far better to direct them in the same way you would transfer a warm lead to a hot lead.
This week, make an attempt to work through your firm’s website in the mind of the “perfect client” and look for ways you can value-add to the experience. Don’t necessarily think of big things, but ask yourself, if I was this potential client, how do I feel after I read this and is there something more that can be offered that would be both useful and of course, encourage this person to engage a little deeper with your firm.
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Dan Toombs
Lawyer & Founder, Practice Proof
Dan Toombs is a lawyer, law reformer and founder of Practice Proof. Admitted in 1997, he built his first career inside the legal profession — practising law, leading legal organisations and driving law reform — before building the marketing, technology and AI practice he has now run exclusively for law firms for 20 years.
In that time, Dan and his team have helped law firms grow from single offices into multi-office and national practices, ASX-listed brands and acquisition targets. That experience gives Practice Proof an unusually deep understanding of both sides of law firm growth: what happens inside a legal practice, and what it takes commercially to make one grow.
Thomson Reuters featured his law-firm marketing advice as early as 2014, on positioning firms to win business online, websites and social media. He is also the founder of FirmRanker, which researches how AI systems discover and recommend law firms. Dan is a Winston Churchill Fellow and Australia Leadership Award recipient, with national recognition for his work in law and human rights.
If you want to know what 20 years of growing law firms could bring to yours, talk to Dan and the Practice Proof team.