A law firm’s website as a marketing tool

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Umut Acar
Gün + Partners Avukatlik Bürosu, Istanbul
umut.acar@gun.av.tr

Users of law firm websites mainly consist of students, head-hunters, business people, potential clients and anonymous visitors from different locations, with varying purposes.

Typical viewers, and their main reasons for visiting a law firm’s website, include:

• students, for applications and legal research;
• head-hunters, to identify talented practitioners;
• anonymous individuals, for many different reasons (such as an ad hoc google search);
• business people, to locate business related information; and
• potential clients, to obtain supporting information in their search for the right law firm for their legal requirements.

Considering this variety of visitor motives, websites should be designed as a marketing tool. If the information is positioned in such a way that enables the user to easily navigate through the site and clearly see the firm and its lawyers’ core areas of expertise, reputation and experience, this can help improve the conversion rate of visits from potential clients into requests for proposals.

During the client’s proposal evaluation phase, the selection criteria for a potential law firm are listed as follows:^[1] 

• responsive/customised content that suggests empathy with the client;
• sector knowledge;
• expertise;
• commerciality of the advice;
• convincing supporting evidence (engagement experience);
• creativity of the written submission (ie, differentiation);
• fees; and
• an easy-to-follow, concise submission showing clearly presented, powerful differentiators.

Most of these requirements are related to service area capabilities, practitioners’ capabilities and thoughts and insights shared with the public.

Service area capabilities are generally included in the practice area pages of the website; practitioners’ capabilities are demonstrated in the lawyer biography pages of the website; and thoughts and insights (publications, events, news,etc) are listed in the content pages of the website.

It is also worth focusing on how to increase the length of time that the end user spends on your website, the number of page views per visit, minimise bounce backs and design the site in such a way that interlinks pages to other sources of information. This will benefit the end user and make the journey to specific information much easier.

The following are some pragmatic means of further enhancing access to the content on these specific pages.

Practice areas

• Use separate pages for each practice area, to demonstrate specific expertise in that area and improve search engine optimisation
• Provide a capability statement, which clearly demonstrates the depth and coverage of the practice
• Where possible, include details of matters and cases and so on that shows how the practice can meet the expectations of high profile clients
• Include practice area directory rankings to enable users to see what others say about the practice. Third party endorsement can be a very influential way of showcasing expertise across certain areas

Lawyer biographies

• Include the lawyers’ expertise and experience, their general backgrounds, directory rankings allocated to that specific lawyer and publications they may have produced, including those published in the media

Content

• Include blogs, publications, podcasts, videos, events, news, thought leadership initiatives and all other content that demonstrates expertise and helps differentiates from the competition
• Request backlinks to your website from other sites where your content is published. This will also help to improve your website’s reputation

In conclusion, the traditional purpose of law firm websites has been to function as a ‘Who’s Who’ of the legal industry. However, a website that is well thought out and well-designed has the potential to enhance the client experience – and become another rainmaker for the firm.

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