When is a New Website Necessary?

Creating a new website. It’s not a thought most would relish, with the amount of work involved and the risk of delays, bugs and ongoing development work.

But sometimes it’s unavoidable.

Your site services your law firm. It was therefore likely set up to provide information and to generate enquiries from prospective clients. But if it’s no longer achieving the goals it was established for, it could be time to look into the creation of a new one.

Here are some signs that a new website should be added to your annual plan.

• Rebranding

Law firms don’t frequently undergo rebrands – but it happens. And it should go without saying that if you’re rebranding your firm, your website should follow. You may be able to simply replace your logo and brand colours but this might not be enough to reflect your new brand identity.

A new website might give you the chance to update your design, tone of voice and imagery to reflect the new look and feel your rebrand should be trying to achieve. Your site needs to align with the rest of your presence – both online and off.

• Scroll depth

If your scroll depth is consistently shallow across your site, it might be time for a new one. This could mean that a design aspect of your site is putting visitors off. You might need to carry out some user experience testing to improve their journey and identify the most effective new design.

You might need to invest in a heatmap tool to give you the scroll depth information you need. Hotjar is a well-known tool. But Google Analytics 4 also offers the ability to monitor scroll depth and register it as a goal.

• Speed

This summer, Google is updating its algorithm to prioritise sites that offer a strong user experience in its results pages. One of the biggest aspects of this positive experience is fast loading. This means that your site needs to be speedy to really compete in the search engines.

There may be other things you can do to enhance your Core Web Vitals – such as changing server or removing intrusive interstitials. But if these actions don’t get you where you need to be, a new site could be the answer.

• Time

Your website may have been brilliant when it launched. But when was that? If it’s been longer than two years, you might want to take a look at your competitors and see what they’re doing. Does your site still look relevant and modern in comparison?

There’s no requirement that your site be aesthetically relevant to contemporary online fashions – but it can help. If your top competitors are modernising and you aren’t, this could damage your credibility to potential clients shortlisting firms.

• User satisfaction

You’ll undoubtedly have visited a site that featured a popup asking about your experience. You can do the same with your firm’s site. Tools like Hotjar, mentioned above, have the capability to add that to your site.

If the responses to your poll reveal that users haven’t found your site easy to navigate, poorly laid out or generally unsatisfactory, this could be reason enough to look into developing a new site – with these considerations at the forefront.

Do you need a new site?

We’ve just assumed that your site is mobile friendly – if it isn’t, you’re going to have serious problems when it comes to ranking and conversions. If your site isn’t optimised for mobile, a new site is an essential, rather than something to consider.

But if any of the above issues are applicable to your site, a new one could give you a traffic and a conversion boost. And that’s always going to be a nice bonus. But don’t just delve into a development project without the data to back up your decision.

You may not require an entirely new website – a simple imagery refresh or a redesign could work just as well. So carefully weigh up how much development work is necessary and do the testing to establish what works.