What Your Potential Clients Want to See on Your Site
You’ll know that when someone needs a solicitor, going online to find one is now the obvious first step.
What you might not quite realise is the vital importance of the first impression.
Our recent white paper, Choosing a Lawyer: What Drives Consumers, found that only a quarter of PI clients reported shopping around for a solicitor. Meanwhile, a significant 42% of these clients spent a day or less looking for a legal provider.
It means that once a visitor lands on your site, you stand a pretty good chance of converting them into a lead.
So what are these visitors looking for when they get there?
What you do
People coming to your site want information. They want to know what you can do for them and they want to know how you’re going to achieve those outcomes. As we explained in our white paper, law firms should be looking at improving the basic information they provide for prospective clients on their sites.
You should explain the claims process, how long it will likely take to conclude, who will be managing what and what your client will have to do. Arm them with all the facts they need to make an informed decision about going ahead with a claim and they’ll have a good foundation of knowledge before you start work on their case.
Something that will take a little more investment than creating informative content on your site is introducing a live chat function – but it could be worth it. Prospective clients – particularly younger ones – are comfortable chatting online to find out whether they have a claim and what they need to do. Chat bots are also available to take things further, allowing you to capture leads outside of office hours.
Why is your firm better?
Clients base their decisions on reputation. Our white paper research found that 69% of PI clients said reputation was very or fairly important. So if you have a good reputation, use it to your advantage. Build trust in your firm by highlighting your Trustpilot rating or making your reviews easy to find. Shout about them on your social media and pepper your site with positive comments from happy clients.
They wanted a specialist in the field too, with 66% of PI clients saying this was important. Highlighting your expertise across your online presence is fully within your control. Detailing your specific service areas will show that you specialise. Meanwhile, naming your key staff members and their experience and qualifications will give your team authority and trustworthiness.
54% of PI clients said they valued recommendations highly when deciding on a legal services provider. So use your satisfied clients. Create case studies that show how happy they were and how they’d recommend your firm. It adds a sense of real-life credibility. Just make sure you’re getting their permission and staying on the right side of data protection laws.
Give visitors what they’re looking for
Your visitors end up on your site for a reason. They’ve entered a search term and found you among the results. If they then find the information they were looking for, they might get in touch and kick off the claims process. However, if they don’t, they’ll probably exit your site. And fewer site conversions means fewer leads – which does your bottom line no favours.
You can use your analytics to see what your site’s visitors are looking for. You can then compare that to your conversion rates and the pages that saw the most exits. Look at whether your search results pages and exit pages match. If so, this could be because your visitors aren’t finding what they’re looking for.
Use your search term data to identify what people are looking for. Provide the information they’re looking for and you’ll likely see more engagement and lower bounce and exit rates. That can ultimately help you capture the right kind of leads – something we know all law firms are looking for.
