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As a showcase for your know-how, your website is an integral part of your brand. The crisis has shown those who weren’t yet convinced of the need for a web presence. As a reflection of your business, your site must evolve along with you to continue attracting prospects.
Customers form an opinion of you via your site
When you visit the websites of some law firms, bailiffs, notaries or chartered accountants, you realize two things : they haven’t evolved since their creation, and they’re not easy to navigate. Like all those who have been immersed in the digital world for decades, your customers are used to a certain level of expectation: they need answers that are easy to find and pleasant to navigate. While 50% of a professional’s choices are made by word of mouth, a large proportion find them via the Internet. Beyond the reviews left on your Google My Business page, the customer’s perception will be influenced by the articles found about your structure, the reviews left on Glassdoor, but also by the visit to your site.
If the home page takes several seconds to load, if the navigation menu is unclear, if the latest blog posts are 3 years old, this will leave an unpleasant feeling that won’t necessarily be made up for by your high rankings in Décideurs. If the customer has a choice between you and a competitor who has a responsive, up-to-date site, this can weigh in the balance when the final choice is made.
The biggest structures don’t necessarily have the best sites
Contrary to popular belief, bigger budgets don’t mean better sites. According to Hit Search Limited’s Digital Effectiveness in the Legal Sector report, none of the UK’s top 10 law firms has a website in the top 10. Three of the top UK law firm websites are those of Gowling WLG, Trowers & Hamlins and Burges Salmon. Most of the major law firms’ websites are at the lower end of the ranking, the only exception being Slaughter & May’s, which climbed to 15th place. These are long-established structures with solid reputations, relying primarily on their importance in the market to attract customers. However, it seems dangerous to rely solely on the past to build the future. The development of new, 100% digital law firm models or increased competition from Legal Tech, which is attracting new generations, will increase the need for innovation.
Slow and inaccessible websites
The report’s other conclusions are equally damning:
– Site speed is far from optimal, which can lead to the loss of potential customers, but also lowers search engine rankings. Only 6% of sites surveyed scored 7/10 or better in this area, and almost a quarter of sites scored less than 3/10 on this criterion.
– Many sites fail to take accessibility into account, which is problematic for visually impaired and blind people’s access to information.
– While many sites are making efforts to be SEO-friendly and optimize their referencing, they are still far from having activated all optimization levers: « the biggest firms are not investing enough in natural referencing and are only too slowly adopting best practices in this area, such as video, for example » (Legal Futures).
– The 50 biggest law firms have optimized their home pages for navigation, but not necessarily other important parts of the site, such as the Services pages.
– A third of the sites of the 50 biggest law firms do not indicate contact methods on the home page.
– 66% don’t have a customer area on their site, even though many customers would like to have a customer area on the site where they can find billing information, case progress and where they can submit documents securely.
Some sites haven’t moved since 2015. What was fashionable in terms of design and interactivity in 2015 is no longer “in” in 2021. A site is a living organism that needs to be updated very regularly to meet the expectations of your current customers and convert prospects.
