If you’re an attorney who caters to consumers, clients SHOULD be finding you through your website.  Your website should be one of your top three sources of new clients.

How can you make sure that your website is functioning as it should?  Great question.  The answer is a design that lends itself to lead generation.  Here are a few tips I give all of my attorney clients.  If you’re an attorney OR someone who caters to consumers, you definitely need to look through this list and make a mental list of the things you (your brother/ uncle/niece OR a legal marketing firm) must change about your site.  Trust me, you’ll be happy you did!

1. Make sure that a client can contact you the second he or she lands on your site.  No scrolling, no clicking, no hunting.  Your contact information needs to be large and clear and at the top of your home page.  Remember, most website visitors stay on a site for less than two minutes and look at fewer than three pages.  Make sure that even in a short amount of time, they can find your contact information and call you!

2. If you have a contact form on your site (and you should), be sure it is short and sweet.  Get the information you need to contact the client and nothing more.  The more fields you add to the form, the fewer people will complete it.

3. Add the really important information on the top left-hand corner.  This is where people naturally look when coming to a website.  Get your name, phone number and email address in that location.

4. Make sure you have great content.  For those potential clients who browse around the site, you want to look like an expert (even though your state bar rules may preclude you from saying that).  Add content that is useful for the potential client: no “legalese” and no case law.  Clients don’t care about that.  It doesn’t matter how many classes you AmJured or how many times one of your cases was published.  They don’t know what that means and they don’t care.  They just want to know that you can help them with their legal issues.  Keep that in mind.

If you have any questions or concerns about your own website, please contact us.  (What the heck?  Send your brother/uncle/niece our way, too!)  We’re happy to give all of you a free website evaluation and discuss some things that may improve your site.

So, you have an old, crummy website and it needs a little something.  If you have limited time and a limited budget, the thing you’ll want to do first is to give the site a face lift.  And, I mean the Demi Moore kind, not the Michael Jackson kind.  Just a little something that can help things out without freaking out your regular website visitors.

Here are a few things you can try to give your site just a little boost it needs to increase the conversion rates and raise its self esteem.  Of course, before you do anything you can’t reverse, you’ll want to do some A/B testing and figure out if these minor changes help as much as you’d like.

1. Change the font in your header.  It can be just that simple.  Sometimes a font can really date a site.  If you haven’t updated the design of your site in more than two years, it may be time to freshen up the font.  Here are a few ideas.  Have fun, but make sure that whatever font you choose is easy to read.

2. Upgrade the color.  When you need something fast, slapping on a coat of paint can do the trick.  There are literally billions of colors out there, so the choices can certainly be overwhelming.  However, my new favorite site can help you choose a great palette.  Warning — you could get sucked into this site for hours just looking at all of the beautiful colors!

3. Change the images.  If you have a few images on your home page, experiment with different ones.  Be sure to only change one image at a time and track the traffic changes with each new image.

4. Add a little something.  If you generally like the site colors and images, you may be missing something with the layout.  Look at where you’re losing people on the site. If they’re only looking at one page, you may need to add a contact or buy element to the home page.  (This is probably a good idea, anyway.)  If you have an ecommerce site, you may want to add a “suggestion” feature to the site to increase sales.

5. Content, content, content.  When all else fails, rewrite the content!  As you probably know, the content of a site can either encourage people to buy or scare them away.  You want the former!  Trust me!  Take a look at the content and send it to an honest friend.  Ask them if they would buy something from the site.  If not, ask what content could be changed to increase the chances of a sale.

OK, website fans!  That’s it for this week.  If you have a website in need of help, be sure to check back soon for the second part of the series!  If you really need help, contact us.  We’re ready to take a look at your site and give you some ideas.

If your goal is to show off your artistic skills, it may be fun to have a beautiful site that doesn’t do a lot.  It’s perfectly acceptable to for your site to be functionally void but with a gorgeous design. (Wait — I lost my place.  Am I talking about a website or Matthew McConaughey?)   If you’re an artist, an interior decorator, a photographer or even a website designer, your site should look stunning.  You want people to look at the design, because that’s what you’re selling.  (One word of advice — NO FLASH. Seriously. It’s too slow to load and it doesn’t work on mobile phones.  You’ll lose people.)

If your goal is to sell products or any other service, you want a site to function properly.  You’ve got to get the navigation working so people can easily contact you for more information or buy a product.  the idea is to put the fewest number of clicks between the home page and the sale.  Always think about that when you’re considering designing the website. Of course, the design needs to be pleasant, but it certainly takes a back seat to functionality.

So, there you have it.  In a nutshell — if you’re an artiste, go for design.  If you’re anything other than an artiste, make sure the darn things works and works well!

What type of site do you have?  Does it need a design/functionality review?  Contact us.  We’ll be happy to take a look!

Amelia has an adorable aesthetic, and we wanted to make sure that played out on the site.  In addition, it was very important that readers could easily find information and that people were signing up for the newsletter.

Here’s where we started:

Before Lucky Marketing Firm

And here’s where we are now!  Nice!

After Lucky Marketing Firm

If you have a website that needs to go from drab to fab, give us a shout!  We’re happy to help make sure your website looks as good as it should.

So, how much should you invest in your website?  I’m afraid the answer is that dreaded response:  it depends.  If you have a retail business, you will need to invest more money in building your site.  You have to make sure that your shopping cart is effective and safe.  Also, you’ll  undoubtedly be changing inventory on the site constantly.  If you have a service site (such as this one), you can get away with a smaller financial investment. 

Once you have a site built to your liking, you’ll need to invest some capital to make sure that it’s visible to folks who need to see what you have to say.  It may be time to hire an Internet marketer, an SEO specialist or a PPC manager.  These individuals are professionals who can help get creative with your site, help your site make it to the top of search engines, and help advertise your site to those who are searching for your products/services.

If you already have a website, it’s time to spend some time figuring out how effective your site is and how you can make it work even more efficiently.  Hire an expert to review your site and make suggestions.  I won’t promise that it will be cheap, but it may be even more expensive to overlook a detail on your website.  Even one error could decrease sales on your site dramatically. 

When it comes to your website, spend the time and money to built the site correctly.  Hire professionals to help guide you in this process.   Your efforts (and the professional’s efforts) will pay off in the long run.   Take a look at your website and contact us with questions.  We’d be lucky to help!

1. Make sure the site is easy to navigate.  When deciding how you want your site to look, try to think like an average web searcher.  Will someone who knows nothing about the site be able to navigate the site easily?  When he/she is looking for certain information, is the site designed simply enough that he/she will be able to find it?  If the answer is no, take another look at the design and make some changes.

2. Make sure your web team builds the site with a CMS system.  CMS stands for content management system.  Your site MUST have a CMS system.  This will allow you to make changes to the site yourself without having to ask the web builder each time you want to change information like your business hours or to add a picture.  This will cut down on a lot of time and effort on your part.  We at Lucky Marketing Firm insist that every new website is built with a CMS system.  Make sure your online marketing team is just as insistent.

3. Install Google analytics as soon as the site goes live.  Google analytics is a free program offered by Google to help understand the “back end” of your site.  With this analytics program, you’ll be able to see how many people view your site each day, how they find your site, how long they are on your site and which key terms they used to find your site.  It’s an absolutely amazing tool, and you will learn a lot from reviewing your site’s analytics.  

4. Make sure that the team you use to build your site understands your vision for the site.  Every business owner has a goal for his/her website.  Communicate your goal to your online marketing team.  Make sure that you’re all on the same page.  If your web team or marketing team doesn’t understand your vision or tries to change your vision, it may be time to look for a new internet marketing consultant. 

Websites can get complicated, but don’t let yourself get overwhelmed.  If you have any questions about your website, or if you’d like to build a new site, please contact the marketing team at Lucky Marketing Firm.  We’d be lucky to help you!