By Kevin Smith on August 26, 2010 | 2 Comments

Bring Your Design Into Focus

The main purpose of your site is to get more clients, period. When users load your site, you have about 3 seconds to win over your potential clients and convince them to contact your firm. SEO is an invaluable tool, but all the SEO in the world will not help if they don’t see what they are looking for and instead decide to click that back button in search of another firm. A well thought out and executed design is key to getting users to stay on your page.

Designing Your Front Page

Think of your front page as a store window, where you feature your best products or latest news. You are focusing on a few key practice areas in your SEO campaign, which is why you should target those as your main products above the fold. Most people who search are finding your site with those areas in mind, so cater to them when they get there. Once you have the customer in your store, they can dig down to find more information on what they liked seeing in the store window. Try not to overcrowd your front page with extraneous information that distracts from your main goal. You want to lead their eye to the main focus of your firm and provide them with an easy way to contact you.

Imagery On Your Site

Imagery can have a huge impact on whether the user stays at your site or goes searching for another firm. Should you put a picture of a traumatic accident with firemen and police combing the scene? Or maybe your users would rather see images of people who look satisfied with the service you have provided? These things can be researched and documented by testing different versions of your front page to see what works best.

Designing Your Inner Pages & Content

For the inner page content, you should use visible headlines to call out sections of text. People tend to skim while reading on a screen and will not read long paragraphs of content unless it pertains to their unique situation. It is important to make sure that each section is well titled so that it’s easy to skim all the information without actually having to read the entire page. The eyes of a potential client will tend to move in an F pattern across your page. Placing vital content in this shape creates a nice flow and makes it easier for the user to find. Icons & graphics in the content area of your site are other ways to create a nice flow to your page. Although you have to be careful not to go overboard and end up taking focus away from the main goal of contacting you. Calls to action placed in strategic areas are a nice way to remind the user that you are there to help and it shows them the next step to getting started. Don’t make them guess or search for the next step, show them exactly what you want them to do now.

Choosing A Designer

When you are discussing your website with the design firm, be sure to ask them the following questions:

What thoughts or ideas do they have to increase your conversions through the design of your site?
Find out if they are thinking about your users and what they might want to see? Or do they only seem concerned with making the site attractive to you?
Do they intend to test the design to find the best possible fit for your law firm?
Will your design team review my existing marketing materials to coordinate a consistent branding approach for my firm?
Will I receive regular click-maps or heat maps that track my visitors’ behavior?
Will your design team monitor my site analytics including Time On Site, Pages/Visit, and Bounce Rate to report back to me how the design can be enhanced over time?
Is this ongoing design monitoring, A/B testing, heat maps, etc. included in the design quote or will you charge me extra for these services?

The designers at Consultwebs.com strive to provide the most efficient and aesthetic websites that cater to the needs of your potential clients. We vigorously test our designs to determine what works, and what needs to change. We believe that a website should be an evolving and pleasing extension of your firm and the services that you provide.

Lisa DiMonte says:

September 12, 2010 at 12:11am

Kevin, we are in the midst of having our entire site redesigned and re-architected. Your advice is excellent. Check out our new version on October 1 and let us know if we hit all your points!