This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s post called “Current Standards in Law Firm Websites – Some Improvements for You to Consider.”
I visited a website today because I wanted to find out more about the company (not a law firm) and its services, but really more about the company.
I went to the home page. Unlike too many pages these days, this site had general pricing information and service descriptions displayed prominently on the home page.
Then I looked for and found a navigation bar near the top of the page. I was looking for a tab that said “About Us.” I found it, but also saw that there was a “What We Believe” tab.
I went to the “What We Believe” page. It was personal and created a good impression about the company.
Then I went to the “About Us” page to see what it said. It had a nice picture of the company founder and a well-written, friendly description of the company and its services.
I saw a link to “Testimonials” and went there to see what people had to say about the company. (Note that law firms are probably prohibited under the applicable ethical rules from using anything like standard testimonials, but notice how important they are in the thought process when we navigate other websites).
Next, I saw that the site had an “FAQ” or “Frequently Asked Questions” page and I took a look at that. Now I was ready for a “Demo” or “Tutorial” page, and I found one.
Finally, I looked in the top navigation bar and found the “Contact Us” tab and went to a page that gave me multiple ways to contact the company.
In terms of a user experience, this was a home run. The site was otherwise nothing special in terms of design or use of current gee-whiz tools.
How does your website stack up when you run it through the same thought process?
Given that law firm websites probably are prohibited from doing testimonial and demo pages, and FAQ pages are extremely rare on law firm websites, look at how you are short-circuiting the normal thought and navigation process, making it likely that a visitor will bail out before trying to contact you. If you then make it hard to contact you, it’s difficult to see how your website is really helping you.
Think about it. Then give your site a test.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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