Your website homepage is one of the most important marketing tools you have—and one of the most difficult to get right. It must explain your services to people who may have no clue what you do, and it should do it in way that’s concise and intriguing. It’s a tricky balance, and many firms have yet to find it.
To make your homepage the best it can be, learn from other firms’ mistakes and leave these five things off your homepage:
- Legalese. The average person won’t understand the legal terminology you use on a day-to-day basis. (That’s why they need a lawyer in the first place.) Don’t scare visitors off with complicated jargon. Use simple language, which humanizes your firm and builds trust. It also helps with SEO; for example, most people search for “car accident lawyer” rather than “personal injury attorney.”
- Law firm clichés. Your homepage should explain what makes you different—and therefore, why you should be hired. Saying you provide exceptional service, individual attention, or 150 years of combined experience may be true, but it doesn’t differentiate you from the hundreds of other firms that are saying the same thing. Your firm has something that sets it apart from competitors, so don’t rely on clichés to tell your firm’s story. Find a new way to convey your benefits.
- Details about everything you do. Your homepage is one place where basic is better. People’s attention spans are short, and when they visit your website for the first time, they don’t want to be confronted with an essay on the ins and outs of your copyright infringement case history. If they want more information, they’ll browse your website to find it or contact you. Your homepage should give just enough information to clearly convey what your firm is all about while enticing people to keep clicking.
- Over-the-top graphics. Videos are super engaging, and beautiful images can set your website apart from others. But avoid going crazy with slideshows, audio, and animation. The more stuff happening on your homepage, the more likely that visitors will miss the key message you want to get across. Much like your homepage copy, the images you use on your website should be simple and represent the essence of your firm.
- Outdated content. Your homepage is where you make your digital first impression, and nothing ruins a first impression more than old information, like a statistic from 15 years ago or a banner for an event that happened last month. Neglecting to update homepage information makes you look forgetful at best, lazy or even dishonest at worst. The easiest solution? Don’t put anything on your homepage that needs to be updated constantly. If you must put time-sensitive content on your homepage, make a note on your calendar to take it down when it becomes outdated.
