18 Tips For Creating Law Firm Landing Pages That Convert
Tired of spending money on digital ads and not getting the leads you want? Here are 18 things your law firm should be doing to increase landing page conversions.
June 18, 2018
18 Tips For Creating Law Firm Landing Pages That Convert
Tired of spending money on digital ads and not getting the leads you want? Here are 18 things your law firm should be doing to increase landing page conversions.
Using landing pages is a no brainer for law firms. In fact, businesses that link ads to a home page instead of a dedicated landing page get 266% fewer leads.
Never heard of a landing page? That’s ok. It’s actually a really easy concept to understand. In digital marketing, landing pages are standalone web pages—separate from your law firm’s home page—created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaigns. They are literally where your visitors “land” after clicking on a digital ad.
Unlike your home page, a law firm landing page is designed with one goal in mind: to convert visitors into qualified leads. This is accomplished by directing visitors to a very specific call to action.
Maybe you want your landing page visitors to call your office. Maybe you want to sign up for a free consultation. Maybe you want visitors to sign up for a drip email marketing campaign.
Whatever you specific advertising goal is, landing pages can usher visitors to take the action you want.
Our team has studied landing pages, tested them and optimized them for conversion. Here are 18 best practices in law firm landing page design.
First things first - your law firm landing page should focus on only one topic. In your case, this may be one specific practice area or, more narrowly, one specific service you offer.
Your landing page should distinguish your unique value proposition (UVP), or the services you highlight on your website, from your unique campaign proposition (UCP). Your UCP should be related to one service. This could be anything from a free case evaluation for a workplace injury, a flat fee for LLC formation or a strategy call for a criminal defense case.
If you are a personal injury attorney, create a dedicated landing page specifically for auto accidents. Want more dog bite cases? Create another landing page specific to that issue. Maybe you are a criminal defense attorney looking to handle more DUI cases, or a bankruptcy attorney that offers a flat filing fee. The same rule applies here.
Ever heard of the paradox of choice? The idea is that the more choices a person has, the harder it becomes to make a decision. When it comes to landing pages, you want to make your visitor’s decision to be as easy as possible by reducing the number of choices they can make.
To simplify your visitor’s choices, you should reduce your landing page’s attention ratio by limiting the number of things - buttons, links, photos, etc. - that pull your visitors’ attention away from the call to action.
A homepage may have an attention ratio of 50:1, depending on how many options a visitor has to navigate your site. There is probably a navigation menu at the top. There is probably a phone number to call. You may also have a contact form. Then, below the fold, there may be more links. Links to service pages. Links to case results. Links to reviews. You get the idea. All of these links are vying for your visitors’ attention. While they may be effective on a homepage, they will work against you in a landing page.
Conversely, your landing page should have an attention ratio of 1:1. No navigation. No outbound links. No media that pulls visitors away from your call to action.
Client reviews matter… a lot. In fact, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. About 83% of people will look at lawyer reviews online before hiring an attorney, and 70% of people are willing to travel out of their way to see a lawyer with higher reviews.
Adding client reviews about your law firm from around the web on your landing page will provide the kind of validation potential law firm clients are looking for. In turn, your landing page conversions will increase. After all, 72% of consumers will take action only after reading a positive review.
People have an attention span of about 8 seconds. To grab their attention, you’ve got to act quick.
Your CTA should have high priority when it comes to designing your law firm landing page. It should be one of the first things visitors see. The CTA should stand out clearly from the rest of your landing page’s content. Moreover, you should tell visitors exactly what will happen if they click the CTA.
Keeping your CTA above the fold, i.e. the upper half of the landing page, ensures that everyone who visits your landing page will know what you are asking them to do.
About 80% of people who come to your landing page will read only the headline. That means you have less than one sentence to tell people what your law firm is offering.
There’s no need to be subtle, clever or coy on your landing page. Visitors are on your page to find a solution to their problem. Your landing page is there to help them solve it. With the right headline, you can capture your ideal client and direct them to conversion.
Say, for instance, that you have designed a landing page for people who have been bitten by a dog. Your landing page should state “If you have suffered injuries from a dog bite, call us today,” or something to that effect. This headline serves two purposes. First, it tells the visitor that you can handle their dog bite case. Second, it matches the headline to the call to action. Even if your visitor reads nothing else, they will know what steps they need to take to find a solution to their problem.
One of the best ways to secure a conversion is to offer something of value to your visitors. In other industries, this may take the form of discounted services, a free e-book or some form of additional services or information.
With law firms, the added value may be a free case evaluation, a flat fee service or an informational brochure about your practice. Sometimes simply offering your expertise in a legal strategy phone call may be sufficient, depending on your client profile. The key to showing value is emphasizing how the offer will address your visitors’ specific legal issue.
The path to conversion should be traced before building your landing page. Don’t know where to begin? Start with your ideal client in mind.
What information will they be looking for? What method of contacting you would they feel most comfortable with? What would cause them to hesitate to contact you? Once you answer these questions, you can strategically present your headline, CTA, imagery, video and supporting copy.
The most effective landing pages anticipate your visitors’ questions, provide answers and keep them moving toward conversion.
One study of 1,000 landing pages discovered that the average word count of landing pages was around 2,000 words, but that some of the most effective landing pages hovered around 500 words. The right word count for your law firm’s landing page depends largely on your end goal. Do you want to educate your visitors? Do you want them to fill a contact form? Do you want them to call your office?
The same study found that 45% of signup pages had fewer than 500 words and focused solely on completing the signup process. These pages cut down on distractions and focused on the CTA.
A good rule of thumb: the bigger the ask, the longer the content.
For example, you may need less content if you are asking a visitor to download an ebook about divorce, as opposed to calling you. It’s much more daunting to pick up the phone and set up and appointment with your office than it is to submit an email address for more information.
Of course, every law firm is different. Making sure that foundational content is included — headlines, CTAs, social proof, case results, etc. — will likely help you hit your desired word count without issue.
Right now, only about 14% of landing pages are using video. For law firms, this presents a huge opportunity to stand out. Videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%, according to one study.
But slapping a video on your landing page isn’t a shortcut to success. As with everything else on your law firm’s landing page, the video must complement other content and fit into the visitor’s path to conversion. While powerful, video could ultimately distract visitors from following the CTA.
Keeping videos short and on message is the best way to implement this type of media on your landing page. Size is also important. Don’t make the video the primary focus (unless your desired action is to watch the video). Use a thumbnail image so that visitors are tempted to click on it. If the video is important to your message, place the video high on the landing page. Lastly, make sure that your video also includes captions for visitors who have diminished hearing.
As you are building your landing page, deciding on which images to use and what reviews to include, keep your ideal client in mind. Remember, if they clicked on your ad, they are probably in the market for a solution to their legal issue. Think about what questions or concerns they may have and provide answers.
There are five common questions that you should keep in mind. First, can you solve their problem? Second, are your services affordable? Third, do you have good reviews? Fourth, have you worked on cases like theirs in the past and obtained favorable results? And finally, why is your law firm the best firm to handle their case?
You won’t know who clicks on your ad, but that doesn’t mean you can’t personalize your law firm’s message. Studies have shown that landing pages written in first person can be extremely effective in producing conversions.
Think of it like a conversation. For example, how would you explain your services to someone seeking your counsel? You wouldn’t say “X Law Firm can handle your insurance dispute,” would you? Instead, you might say something like “I understand what you are going through. My team has been handling insurance disputes for over 20 years. We can help you resolve this issue.”
See the difference? Your landing page visitors certainly will.
Another easy way to personalize your law firm’s landing page is using real photos. Far too many law firms rely on stock images of heavy law books, scales of justice or courthouse steps. With a simple half-day photo shoot around your office, you could generate high quality, standout content that gives your landing page visitors an immediate impression of who you are.
Landing pages are distinct from your website, but visitors should have a similar experience with your law firm’s brand. This means your logo, the colors you use, the tone you use, photos and reviews should mirror those found on your website, stationary and social media profiles. This is important because people who visit your landing page might still be exploring their legal issue. If your visitors do more digging on your website before giving you a call, consistent branding will tell them they are dealing with the same law firm.
A subdomain is part of your original, top-level domain name. Using a subdomains can increase your law firm’s domain authority and show Google that your website is active. Furthermore, you can put keywords into your subdomain. The result? A boost to your SEO!
We get it. Law is a modest profession. But when it comes to your law firm landing page, it never hurts to brag a little.
Posting your previous case results is an extremely effective marketing tactic that can increase conversions. People want to know if you’re an effective lawyer. By providing previous case results, you are able to demonstrate that you have obtained success for your clients in similar cases in the past.
While it may feel like bragging, you are actually doing your visitors a service. Your record is something they want to know about. Being transparent about previous cases and your experience will only strengthen their decision to contact you.
Some law firms load their landing pages with the kitchen sink. They throw in videos, high quality images, links to social media accounts, links to Google reviews and menu options that take visitors to their website.
As tempting as this may be, the most successful landing pages are simple, straightforward and devoid of visual clutter.
The benefits are twofold. First, it keeps your visitor focused on the action you want them to take. Second, your landing page will load faster. Forty percent of people will leave your landing page if it takes more than three seconds to load. Even just a 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.
Today’s legal consumers are savvy and can detect sales talk from a mile away. Still, you need to be persuasive if you want to have a shot at their business.
Use simple, clear and honest content that explains how you can help solve their legal issue. Keep your state bar’s legal ethics rules in mind. Stay away from using hyperbole and legalese. Under no circumstances should you lie about your qualifications, past results or experience. Also, landing pages should never include a guarantee, even if it is a guarantee of client satisfaction.
Stick with the facts and make sure everything you include on your landing page is objectively verifiable.
Getting visitors to click on your ad and read your landing page is great, but ultimately you want them to take some kind of action. You cannot assume that because they made it to your landing page that they will convert. You need to include statements designed to seal the deal.
The most effective closing statements are those that are positive and reduce anxiety. Your visitors may be hesitant to call you, or submit their information to your law firm. Providing reassurance in the form of testimonials, case results and experience will go a long way.
Your closing statements should also include action words and describe the action you want your visitors to take.
For example, CTAs that use the word “click” are 15% more effective than those that don’t include any action words. “Click Here” is even more effective, increasing conversions by another 12.8%. Telling your visitors when to do something is also effective. Using language like “Download Now” is 8% more effective than simply stating “Download.”
We could theorize all day about what a successful landing should look like, but when it comes down to it, the only way of knowing what works is testing it. That is why we A/B test every landing page we create.
Never rely on intuition and anecdotes. Test, test and test again. While the tips above may highlight industry best practices, no law firm is the same. What works for one may not work for the other.
What can you test? Pretty much everything. But to get the best results, A/B tests should look at the location of CTAs, the size of images, the inclusion (or exclusion) of social proof and case results, and the addition of links to your website.
For example, one study found a direct correlation between the complexity of an offering and the CTAs placement on a landing page. If you deal with complex legal issues, you could be hurting your chances of conversion by placing the CTA above the fold. The only way to know what works and what doesn’t is by testing.
Is your law firm’s landing page optimized for conversion? Contact us today for a free landing page analysis. We will send you a short 5 minute video evaluating your landing page and identify areas of improvement. Just send us a quick email with your name, number and landing page URL to tyler.roberts@nomosmarketing.com
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