Most series or movies about lawyers tell a similar story: A newly appointed (state) attorney grinds his way through a bunch of low-level cases. None of them bring any glory or recognition, but there isn’t any choice.  And why would somebody who HAS a choice trust the new guy? The consequences of a botched case are significant, more often than not. Better to hire somebody more trustworthy.
Trustworthiness, or lack thereof, and steep competition aren’t the only issues marketers or law firms face when advertising in this field. Depending on their area of practice, most lawyers won’t be able to generate demand. Nobody goes to a lawyer because there’s a good deal available. That makes their marketing situation unique – and arguably harder compared to most other industries. An interesting challenge to solve with a website.
So what happens when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable situation that requires legal counsel? If we don’t happen to already know somebody and don’t get a recommendation from a friend- we search for a lawyer. And when we search for one, we won’t find an Instagram or Facebook profile – we will find a website, or a google business listing/ad leading there.
I analyzed more than a hundred websites belonging to the most successful law firms in their respective areas to see how they solve these problems and turn the tables on this unfavorable marketing situation. Here are the methods I found that we can implement in the website creation process to increase conversion and convince not just any clients, but the right ones. I combined my findings in a concept site for visualization purposes. You can view it here.

Building trust by having a high-quality website

Most of the time when we need a lawyer, it means we’re in an unpleasant situation. So to stop our viewers and clients-to-be from moving on to the next listing, we need to keep their attention and generate trust. Thankfully, websites are quite good at that. If they’re done right. If they’re not done right, they are equally as good at robbing you of your trustworthiness. Good marketing costs less than bad marketing in the end.
How can we generate trust? The first look matters. One thing I found while reviewing lots of attorney and law firm websites is that they’re quite bland – or of low quality altogether. Even big firms with tens of employees, which caught me off guard, to be honest. Having a website that oozes professionalism from the start will distinguish you from a lot of competition – out of the gate. Even if they do decide to keep looking, this will create a lasting impression and make them more likely to come back for you. Especially if your target customer group is among the younger generations. They can tell. (Surprisingly) big opportunity here. 
When dealing with personal matters, personality matters. An important part to win over clients is to present your firm, yourself, and your team in a relatable way.  A well-set-up page that introduces you to the people whose issues you will be handling is essential. Professional photographs and well-written texts are also a must. Most attorneys present a little bit of their private life also. In most cases this was reserved for hobbies, some went as far as to include values, like family, religion, etc. How you end up presenting yourself, of course, depends on your target audience and how you want to make them identify with you. And must be decided on a case-to-case basis. Good opportunity for storytelling here as well.

Include testimonials on your website

You can’t afford to not have these on your website. Lawyers deal with important issues and most times there are no second chances. And when there are no second chances we tend to choose the safe option with predictable results.  Nothing sows trust like you being right in the past and clients telling about their positive experiences. 

Present the solution

The very best way to create trust is to make people believe you have the solution to their problem. Since we already established they are in an uncomfortable position, the results of this will be amplified in this context. 
On your website, present not just an overview of your practice and what you do, but offer written content on how similar cases went, what to expect, and how to behave. Psychologically, we fear the unknown the most. You don’t need to give away the solution. Take away the fear from your visitors and they will love you. And will more likely dial your number or fill out that contact form. 

Generating organic traffic

Posting long-form written content has another advantage: It helps your search engine ranking. 50%+ of traffic generated through google is organic traffic, so don’t be fooled into thinking paid advertisements are enough. If you have any ambition to compete, they are not. Searchers are more than 15% more likely to click the first page result rather than the second.  In addition to that 90%+ of users do not trust ads. Getting found organically is a superpower in digital marketing and your website carries 100% of the burden. Do what you will with that information.
If you want to really annoy your competitors, in addition to sharing your expertise on your visually pleasing, well-sorted, and easy-to-navigate website you should provide commentary/analysis on recent events in a news blog – or similar. Google’s algorithms have gotten so advanced, that there isn’t much point in trying to trick your way to first place anymore. If you want to rank well, you must provide a regular stream of up-to-date content that satisfies search intent. Inbound/Backlinks and proper utilization of keyphrases also help of course. Combining recent topics with expert insight is a great way to increase reach.

Good websites have low friction contact methods

If we talk about conversion, we first have to define conversion. This definition is different depending on who the website is for.  For eCommerce, it means clicking the checkout button. Pretty straightforward. Lawyers and web developers suffer from the same problem: “Conversion” on the website hasn’t sold anything yet, it just means initial contact has been established. What follows is a lengthy and complicated process to achieve the desired result. So contact = conversion. Not only are we robbed of some effective copywriting techniques due to this circumstance, but convincing somebody to engage in something long and complicated with no immediate result visible is hard to do and an uphill battle in general.

Make your website your distribution center

We can win this battle, by optimizing our contact methods for our target demographic(s):  Social media links, E-Mail, and Phone widgets should be available everywhere. That goes double when we include lengthy content sections explaining details of practice areas, as discussed earlier. A sticky header – or a fixed contact widget is a must. 100% of well-made law firm websites I found had a contact form. You can link to them through your CTA’s, but I decided on a more intuitive method in the concept website: It’s implemented in the site’s footer and skip the traditional contact page and the CTA buttons would instead just scroll down the page. That way the visitor ends up at the contact form anyway, no matter where he goes. You could implement a classic contact page and just hide the form there, depending on taste.
Larger law firms with enough available resources implemented a live chat agent. Through which they scheduled appointments directly – which is a very personal and low-friction way of doing it.  Some even offer instant, free case consultations. Not every firm has enough resources to offer that, but especially if you target a younger demographic that is worth looking into. One thing I missed was instant consultations through messaging apps like Whatsapp or Telegram. That would be an even more personal version of the above client-binding method.

Niche site tactic

Since this post isn’t just about what technique lawyers can employ to boost the effectiveness of their site, but which ones we can implement across different industries I want to finish strong in that direction: A frequent method you will find attorneys utilize is what I’m gonna call the niche site tactic. Supplementing their main website they will have set one (or more) landing pages covering specific issues and picking up specifically where their advertisement left off. Two obvious examples: The VW diesel scandal and economic aid in 2020. If you have a landing page addressing a specific issue, you will once again amplify all of the benefits discussed previously.
You’ve probably seen the advertisements at some point. They all led to dedicated landing pages or even websites – but most of them had established firms behind them.
Adressing a specific problem -> higher conversion -> higher CTR and visitor satisfaction -> better SEO ranking -> more organic traffic
A very profitable chain reaction if you will.
Implementing these methods will certainly lead to an increase in conversion rate, no matter the industry.