When you come to designing your law firm’s website, there are many aspects you need to take into consideration.  One of the most important will be your landing pages. These are the pages that Google will use to link a search to your website. It’s important for you to know that this page does not have to be your website’s homepage. In fact, it would probably be better for it not to be. Your landing page should take the visitor to exactly what they searched for.  For example, someone who has searched for divorce costs will not want to be directed to your legal home page where they then have to search your site to find this information for themselves. People want to be directed straight to the information they are looking for. Otherwise, they are likely to go back to their search results and find a link that will do this. So what are the most important things to think about when designing your landing page?

The Headline

Your headline will be the first thing a visitor will read on the page. It needs to be something that grabs their attention straight away and lets them know they have found what they are looking for. So if your page is about immigration lawyers, your headline should definitely include the words immigration and lawyer.  Your headline should:

• Include keywords to show the user they are in the right place.
• Encourage users to stay on the page and read your copy.
• Be short but rich in information.

 Easy Navigation

Traditional ‘home pages’ used to avoid navigation, in an attempt to remove distractions from the user. However, it has become clear that Google doesn’t approve of this tactic and may land the page with a low-quality score. So it is important that you include navigation links on your landing page. The user must be able to access all other parts of your law firm’s website in order for you to show the diversity in your work. The best ways to do this are:

• To include easy to use links to the rest of your legal site.
• Make sure any links to contact information and policies are easy to find as people will look at this as a sign of a professional site.
• Your sites main menu should be in plain view for visitors; you should test which position works best.

 Engaging Content

The content of your pages is arguably the most important part of your website, especially when it comes to landing pages.  It is important that you create something that people want to read, and it must be suitable for your target demographic. The decision about whether to make your text long or short will depend entirely on what information you are trying to convey.  Long text, however, does not mean big bulky paragraphs. You can make this look more appealing by including bullet points, images, and graphics. It is important that you include as much legal information as possible, but this information needs to be suitable for the intended reader. The information will be written very differently if it is intended for other lawyers than it would be if it were for members of the public. To make your copy as successful as possible you should aim to:

• Write from the point of view of the reader.
• Include the word you often to give a direct and personal feel.
• Sell the service or product the user has searched for.
• Give as much useful information to the reader as you can using a variety of mediums.
• Include testimonials from previous clients, but limit yourself to two or three of the best.

 Clear Layout

It’s very important that the layout of your legal landing page is carefully considered. If you get the layout wrong, it may turn people away from the page. It needs to be displayed in a way that the user can easily take in all the information available without being either overwhelmed or overly distracted. You must plan where all your content will be placed on the page. It would be no good to place an image underneath some writing making it difficult for the user to read. When planning your layout you should think about:

• How you can make your legal page look inviting to users.
• How you can place images and graphics while still maintaining a professional look that suits the legal industry.
• The best place to put menus, links, and other navigation tools so that they are not in the way of the main body of work but are still easily accessible.

Using all these ideas in conjunction with each other should help to guarantee the success of your landing page and improve your legal website’s  Google ranking. It is important that you consider all these steps and also that you test the success of the format of your page regularly. The Legal Copywriting Company hs years of experience helping law firms create engaging, authoritative content for their websites.  If you would like to find out more please call us on 01 767 600544.