25 Best Lawyer Website Principles

Lawyer Website Principles

Fast Web Page Load Time

1. Fast websites load in 2 seconds or less. If your website is slow on smartphones you will lose business. BEWARE- most WordPress Lawyer websites are SLOW. The Google Page Speed Insights rating should be 90% or greater. (See Google Page Insights). Google has announced that page loading speed will be a factor in search engine page rankings for mobile searches. Very slow websites that load in 6 seconds or more will often get dropped by readers especially on smartphones.

    

   Smart phones use 4G internet over radio waves.  4G is typically 10 Megabit/second.  Cable internet is 30-60 Megabit/second in homes and business.  Since 4G is much slower that cable, fast loading on phones is more difficult.   Now almost 50% of searches for businesses and services are on smart phones.  If your website is slow on smartphones you will lose business.  See Google PageSpeed Insights.

Fair Website Price - $399- $4000

2. Lawyer website setup fees vary widely from $399 dollars to $4000 dollars. Website features vary widely too.  One very important feature in the age of computer viruses is SSL (Secure Socket Layer) protection.

    

   If your website doesn't have it a big "Not Secure" label is displayed on your website.  Once again, Google lowers your "Quality Index" if your website is not SSL secure.  For additional security, some designers add McAfee Secure Website technology.

    

   Complex websites cost more.  Websites in the $5000 range should include a lot of programming functionality such as an Air Line reservation website.Our survey of lawyer website companies shows that most of the websites are 5-9 HTML pages.  Monthly fees are from $30-$60.00.

Lawyer website Setup and Installation

3. You can buy a template but you will still be a long way from having a lawyer website.  There are many features that you will need.  The website has to live somewhere.  Websites must be hosted on a server to be seen on the World Wide Web.  Also, you will need a great domain name that is not trademarked by another company. There are lots of images, SEO, and content to be setup on a 5-9 page website template.

    

   A typical lawyer website setup will include:
   • - Domain name for a brand new website
   • - High Quality Web Hosting Servers
   • - Installation should be Included
   • - A nice pallet of Colors
   • - Custom Images on each page
   • - Contact form or at least email address
   • - Google Reviews,Yelp Reviews
   • - Google Maps
   • - SSL Certificate
   • - iPhone / Android touch icons
   • - Favicon for PC browser tab

Smartphone Website iPhone Icons

4. The latest lawyer websites include advanced mobile features like iPhone Screen touch icons that customers can download to their smartphone.  These icons can be customized for your profession.  The icons download on Android Phones too.

    

   Currently, only the-lawyer-website.com offers custom iPhone and Android icons that you can download to your smartphone.

Lawyer Website Portfolio

5. Designing a modern high performance mobile/PC website is complicated.  Yes, a website can be design from scratch but this costs a lot more money than a well designed template customized to fit your business.  Typically, attorneys get more value from a high performance template that is customized to their business.

    

   Many templates were designed over the space of a year by a team of programmers.  Lawyer websiteers customized these ultra-fast lawyer websites with SEO content appropriate for the particular profession.

Domain Name Email

6. Website Domain Email should be included for Free too! Website email is email with your domain name in email address.  For example: sales@yourdomain.com is domain email for the domain yourdomain.com.

    

   Typically, lawyer websiteers charge extra for additional emails after the first one. Some lawyer website companies charge a monthly fee for just one domain email.  Be sure to check on this fee if your business requires a lot of separate web emails.  Don't forget to make sure the web mail works on the phone too.  Some web based emails don't work well on smartphones.

Domain Name Registration

7. The best lawyer website companies include a free domain name with Website Setup.  They work with you to find a great domain and make sure that it is not trademarked.  You can check trademarks easily at USPTO.gov and sign into Tess.  Domains need to be renewed every year.

    

   It can take hours, days, or even weeks to find a great domain name.  Lots of great domain names for your profession were taken years ago.  Generally, a business domain is the type of business combined with the city name. Make sure your domain name registration is private.  There are many websites that people can use to find out who owns a website if your domain name registration is not private.  One site that can research own owns domain names is whois.sc. Great great statistics about any domain from a Company called Domain Stats - DomainStats of any Domain

Compliant Credit/Debit Card Processing

8. Lawyers can take credit cards right on your phone or let your clients log in to pay you. Complete customized payment collection with Monthly and Annual sales reports on demand through our payment processor. No need to buy a point of sales system with a credit card swipe - save $50/month.  Typically processing fees are 2% but the fees on small transactions can be higher.

    

   Make sure you group your fees into one monthly charge to reduce processing costs.  One larger fee is cheaper than two small ones.

Complete SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

9. Many website design companies have an SEO package. SEO is important to getting found on Google. Get your website on Google Maps, Yelp, Google Reviews and many other back links to help you get found.  Back Links are links from big name websites like Google.com and Yelp.com to your website.  It's very effective to have links to your reviews in Google and Yelp on a page in your website. Potential clients read reviews and shop the internet these days.

    

   Rank Number 1 on Google – 10 techniques

    

   Top lawyer website companies analyze Google Search key words and phrases and include them in the content, keywords, site description. Does a lawyer website want to sell you a 3000 page website?  These are very good for getting traffic over time.  This tends to be world wide traffic and not focused on a business location.  Really great SEO for a local business should be geographically focused or it will not help you.

    

   One of the best ways to get more visitors to your business website is to invest in digital magazine advertising.  A great new technique is to buy a "Top 10 'your business' in 'your city' " article.  If the magazine has a high domain authority and the key words of the article are done correctly, your article with your business listed first gets hundreds of visitors/month.

    

   Google often charges $5-$15 dollars/click in highly competitive professions.  100's of clicks from a high traffic article would cost $1000's of dollars/month to buy directly from Google.

Website Review Links to Google

10. It's very important for your clients to go from your website to Google Reviews, Yelp, or Facebook. Many lawyer websites forget how important it is for Google to get traffic from your web page. Look for designs that have a review page that links your site to Yelp and Google Reviews. Include signs and emails in your business office that suggest to your customers to go to that page to add Reviews.  Google and Yelp reward referrals in mysterious ways such as domain authority.

PC Smartphone Responsive site

11. Today it should go without saying that your website must work well on smartphones as well as Personal Computers.  As discussed in the beginning, your website must be fast on smartphones.

     

    Since the screen is smaller, the smartphone version should have bigger font and different size images and icons.  Most lawyer websites use a "Hamburger" menu for site navigation.  The Hamburger menu is three or four short horizontal lines that functions as a button.  The button opens up a drop down menu.  In most mobile websites the name of the business is on a square or rectangle that functions as a button to return to the home page from any inside page.

Legal Advertising Expertise

12. Advertising rules for lawyers apply to Lawyer websites too. Each state has different rules.

Google Map to Business

13. Lawyer Websites should include a handy Map on the Contact Page to help people find your business.  A nice feature is that the map can change scale or switch to satellite view.  Also, some maps can activate directions to your location on smartphones.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Website Security

14. SSL website security ensures no hacker is in between you and your customer. If you don't have SSL Chrome displays a big ugly  "Not Secure" text on your website next to the URL. You are lowered in your Google quality score.  If a lawyer websiteer's website is not secure, don't use them.

Website Hosting

15. Website hosting servers should be guaranteed 99.9% up time. The hosting site should handle at least one hundred simultaneous customers on your website at one time.  This is important if you have special events that my load up your website.  Many lawyer websiteers charge a monthly fee for this service.

Email Collecting Pop-up

16. Many customers visit your website and then leave.  Some websites have a pop-up that pops when the user tries to leave the site or after 10 seconds.  Typically, a special deal is offered in exchange for the customer's email.  Once the email is acquired you can follow-up with a customer to get the sale.

     

    This technique can turn lots of short visits into customers.  Typically, 75% leave the site.

Appointments

17. Some lawyer websites are packaged with appointment software.  Some software reads incoming calls and determines which customer is calling.  The appointment can be made with one click since the software already determined the customer's name and number.

     

    Automatic appointment reminders are another software feature to look for if your business relies on a large number of appointments.

Reasonable Terms for Cancellation.

18. Most designers require a minimum time after the website is built to cancel.  Make sure they don't lock you in for years.  If the service deteriorates over time you may want to switch or upgrade your website.

Contact Page

19. Many Website template contact pages need a pop-server. The contact page brings up the Microsoft Mailer which is not connected to the pop server.  What does that mean?  It means your customer can't contact you.  Make sure it works for your customers.  If there is not a contact page, there should at least be an email for the business.

Lawyer Specific Features

20. Look for features that your law firm website needs.  For example, lawyer websites should include an SSL locked new client form on the website that new clients can fill out.  Attorneys need a new client form too with room to completely describe the situation.  Some simple tables can be added to a client can select from a few parameters and get an automatic estimate.

     

    Another example would be a carpet cost calculator or pool construction cost calculator.  The client types in the dimensions they want and the software gives them a cost estimate.

Chat

21. Many websites allow a "chat" style of conversation between the client and the business.  This allows the business to directly engage with clients instead of waiting for a call or an email.

Complete pallet of lawyer website colors

22. There should be a selection of harmonious colors that you can select from.  Pallets are a collection of colors that worked together well.

High Quality Images

23. One of the things that make a great website is great pictures in high resolution.  Don't make the mistake of using cell phone pictures.  Cell phone 8 megapixel images are so large that they will load on cell phones very slowly.  Cell phone images must be resized.

     

    Modern websites use ultra-compressed images.  One new ultra-compression format is JPEG.  Typically conventional JPG files can be compressed to 1/3 of their original size by the new JPEG format.  Also, PNGs files can be ultra-compressed.  A free image compression site is ImageResize.org.

SEO Updates

24. SEO is not a set it and forget it proposition.  A great lawyer website company periodically updates and increases your Google keyword focused content. Over time a high quality lawyer websiteer will keep adding content to your website to increase SEO.

     

    Another more effective approach is to utilize High Domain Authority Magazine websites with "Back-Links" to your website.  For example if you are an HVAC air conditioning company our magazine (the 4GYellowPages-SmartPhone Magazine) would design a high - SEO top 20 air conditioning repair companies' page in the magazine.  Because the article is in a High Domain Authority website, it gets a lot of impressions on Google Search.  4GYP.com utilizes SEO and content marketing to link to your website and bring in customers.  See our advertise with us page -> SEO advertise your website in our magazine

Great Customer Service

25. When a customer needs attention to his or her website and gets ignored or mistreated the low price of the website is soon forgotten.  Over time your business will need to add a location or change some information. It is normal for lawyer website companies to charge an additional fee for updates or changes.  However, when you have problems or questions you need a responsive and helpful assistance from your lawyer website company.