In the competitive landscape of the UK legal sector, a well-optimised website can be the difference between a thriving law practice and one that struggles to attract and retain clients. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is a critical aspect of digital marketing, and when done correctly, it can significantly boost the number of inquiries and leads your law firm generates online. This article will explore 13 proven strategies to improve CRO on UK law firm websites, ensuring that your digital presence works as hard as you do.
However, before we look at these strategies, let’s look at an important question…
What Do We Mean By Conversion Rate Optimisation?
It’s obvious that if you want to generate leads online, you need to have users visiting your website, but that is not all that’s important. Of all the people visiting your website, only a small number will convert into leads, whether by filling in a form, reaching out via live chat or simply picking up the phone.
Conversion Rate Optimisation is the practice of improving the number of users that convert online and become actionable leads. In this way, your website can maximise the value it gets from its existing pool of visitors.
This is important when it comes to UK law firms. In my experience, many law firms have established websites that generate a significant amount of traffic because they are older domains. However, they fail to turn that traffic into leads because the website is old, uses an outdated design and is technically poor. In short, it’s not optimised for conversion.
So, how can you change that?
Let’s Look at the Numbers
Before we look at the ways to improve CRO, it’s worth taking a moment to understand what good, average and bad CRO looks like. Conversion rates vary across industry, but according to Ruler Analytics, law firms achieve a conversion rate of 3.4% on average.
Conversion rate is typically calculated as:
number of website leads / number of website users x 100
If you know your number of leads and users, you can calculate your own conversion rate.
The impact on even a slight increase or decrease in conversion rate can be significant. If you have 1000 website users a month, the number of leads generated varies greatly, as you can see:
- Average conversion rate (3.4%): 34 leads
- Bad conversion rate (1.5%): 15 leads
- Great conversion rate (5%): 50 leads
When deciding how to generate more leads, improving a bad conversation rate can often be easier, quicker and more cost-effective than trying to increase traffic. For example, if you start with 1000 users and a conversion rate of 1.5%:
- Increasing users to 1500 and keeping a conversion rate of 1.5% produces 22.5 leads per month
- Keeping users at 1000 and increasing conversion rate to 3% produces 30 leads per month
For these reasons, improving conversion rate through conversion rate optimisation is just as important (in some cases even more) as search engine optimisation or other forms of digital marketing. With that in mind, here are some ways you can improve your CRO.
1. Understand Your Audience
You’re probably sick of reading articles that tell you to ‘understand your audience’. Believe me, I’m sick of writing them. The uncomfortable truth, though, is many UK law firms still don’t have a clear understanding of what makes their online audience tick.
Understanding an audience is more than just identifying what they need from you. Understanding means:
- Identifying the priorities of your audience: Cost, time and quality are common priorities but what about location, knowledge, reputation, media presence or ethical practice. What your audience prioritises when looking for a law firm can range from the generic to the niche and you need to know where your audience (or audiences) sit on that spectrum.
- Identifying who the decision maker actually is: The person who books the consultation isn’t always the person you need to reach out to. Legal decisions may be influenced by family, friends or colleagues so making sure your website works for that audience is just as important.
- Identifying how your audience changes: People go through a number of stages before deciding to reach out to a law firm. Your audience has different needs when researching an issue compared to when it is ready to contact you. Understanding these needs and how they evolve is key.
Conduct thorough market research to determine the demographics, behaviours, and pain points of your ideal clients. Tools like Google Analytics and client surveys can provide valuable insights into what your visitors are looking for, allowing you to tailor your website content and user experience accordingly.
Actionable Tip:
If you’re confident you understand your audience, try using audience segmentation to create tailored content and landing pages that speak directly to the needs of different client types. If you find yourself repeating the same generic messaging, it might be a sign you don’t know your audience as well as you think you do..
2. Optimise Website Navigation
Law firms tend to have a lot of information. This is a double edged sword, as while it may provide a lot of value to website visitors, years of adding more and more pages can lead to a cultured, overwhelming website navigation.
A well-structured, intuitive menu and clear calls to action (CTAs) can dramatically reduce bounce rates and increase conversions. For law firms, this means having a logical flow from the homepage to key service pages, with easy access to contact forms and consultation booking features.
A bonus of ensuring you have streamlined navigation is it can uncover and solve any weaknesses in your URL architecture, which is great for SEO.
Actionable Tip:
Ask friendly clients or colleagues that don’t use the site much to find specific information and record how long it takes and how many clicks it needed. This will help identify confusing elements within your navigation, along with important pieces of content that are not visible enough. You can then simplify your menu structure and ensure that important pages, such as practice areas and staff profiles, are easily accessible.
3. Implement Clear and Compelling Calls to Action (CTAs)
CTAs are the driving force behind conversions, yet many law firm websites fail to implement them effectively. You shouldn’t assume that your users know how to use your website as easily as you do. If you need to get users to a specific page, a giant button that says ‘click here’ is a good place to start. Even better is using more engaging language that promotes an action or conveys a benefit.
Don’t forget, CTAs can take many forms, from buttons to images to links in text. What matters is a CTA should be clear, concise, and persuasive, encouraging visitors to take the next step, whether that’s booking a consultation, downloading a legal guide, or subscribing to a newsletter.
Actionable Tip:
Experiment with different CTA types, placements and wording to see what resonates most with your audience. Consider using A/B testing to refine your approach, ensuring that your CTAs are prominently displayed and aligned with the user’s journey.
4. Leverage Social Proof
Trust is paramount in the legal industry, where clients are often dealing with sensitive and high-stakes issues. In the case of building trust, seeing is believing and social proof such as client testimonials or case studies is a powerful way of establishing your law firm as reputable and capable. Alongside testimonials, industry certifications, awards, and memberships in professional associations can also be used as social proof.
These types of social proof are far more effective in building trust compared to content that starts with “We understand that…” or “Our team of experts…”, so make sure you’re using it prominently.
Actionable Tip:
Dedicate a section of your homepage to displaying social proof. Client testimonials, in particular, can be powerful, so consider featuring a rotating carousel of quotes from satisfied clients, accompanied by their names and, with permission, their photos. If you haven’t already, select and set up one or more profiles on review platforms like Google or Trustpilot. When you have enough reviews on these platforms, include a module on your homepage that pulls reviews from these directly.
5. Enhance Mobile Responsiveness
It goes without saying that websites need to be optimised for mobile, but what does that mean? In the case of UK law firms, optimising for mobile means presenting longer form content and often more complex navigation in a way that is still accessible for users.
Common mobile optimisation issues we still see include menus or text running off the screen, spacing between modules being incorrect, slow page load speeds and difficulties clicking CTAs. Solving these problems and providing a seamless experience, regardless of the device, not only improves user satisfaction but also has a positive impact on your site’s search engine rankings.
Actionable Tip:
Most people working at law firms check the site when they’re at work, which means they are often checking on desktop. Take a moment to explore the site on mobile instead, taking note of elements you found difficult to use and overall performance. Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool will also give you a performance score for desktop and mobile so you can compare.
6. Improve Page Load Speed
Users expect websites to load quickly. According to Google (and they should know) 53% of visits are likely to be abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load, while one out of two people expect a site to load in under two seconds.
A slow website can lead to high bounce rates and lost conversions, as potential clients may abandon your site in favour of a faster competitor. This is particularly damaging if paired with a confusing navigation. Even the most motivated website user will leave your site if they can’t get to the information they’re looking for in a reasonable time.
Page load speed is also a ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm, making it doubly important for law firms.
Actionable Tip:
Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to analyse your website’s speed and identify areas for improvement. Compress images, leverage browser caching, and minimise the use of heavy scripts to boost load times. If you’re not sure where to start, reach out to us and we’ll run a report for you that includes a waterfall breakdown of how your site loads. This cool feature looks at the load order of your website, helping to identify specific instances that slow down page speed.
7. Craft High-Quality, Relevant Content
Most of the items on this list relate to page structure and performance but we shouldn’t forget the role content plays in conversion rate optimisation. Some common content issues we see with UK law firms are:
- Information overload: Content written by solicitors often includes way too much detail. This is either because the content is written for other solicitors (not your audience) or because they feel the content they write is direct legal advice (not the case).
- Generic language and tone: The legal sector includes a lot of SMEs who look at what larger firms are doing and follow their example. Unfortunately, over the years, this has meant that a lot of legal content has adopted the same generic tone. Phrases like “we understand that…” are commonplace and I’ve lost count of the number of sites I’ve seen that ask users to “pop in for a friendly cup of tea”.
- Mismatched content: Where law firms have asked multiple departments to provide content relating to their services we often see a total mismatch in writing styles. Some pages become information heavy, while others include only a sentence or two. Some focus on presenting themselves as personable, while others try to highlight their expertise through discussing case law.
Writing legal content that improves CRO starts by agreeing to some universal rules around the style and tone of the content you produce. Create a tone that encapsulates the unique values and benefits of your law firm. While doing this agree the amount of legal detail you want to include in service pages and make sure this is consistent throughout.
Actionable Tip:
Once you’ve agreed your tone, develop a content strategy that includes regular blog posts, legal guides, and FAQs tailored to your target audience. Focus on addressing common legal questions and providing actionable advice, which can help build trust and encourage visitors to reach out for further assistance.
8. Utilise Live Chat and Chatbots
Live chat and chatbots provide an immediate and convenient way for potential clients to engage with your firm. They can answer frequently asked questions, guide users to relevant content, and even help with initial consultations. By offering real-time assistance, you can capture leads who might otherwise leave your site without taking action.
Contrary to what you might assume, adding live chat or a chatbot to your site is not a costly exercise. While there are powerful softwares for law firms with the money to spend, there are also many moderately priced options for those with more modest budgets. In fact, you can get live chat from HubSpot for free.
Actionable Tip:
Integrate a live chat feature on your website and monitor its performance. If you prefer to automate the process, ensure that your chatbots are programmed with relevant legal knowledge and are capable of handing off more complex inquiries to a human representative.
9. Optimise for Local SEO
When considering how a website performs when it comes to conversion rate optimisation, one factor is where your website traffic is coming from. After all, a thousand visitors every month from Bangladesh is unlikely to prove much value to a local law firm in Prestbury.
For that reason, local SEO is vital. Potential clients are often searching for legal services within their region, making it essential for your firm to appear in local search results. Optimising your website for local SEO involves ensuring that your firm’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all online platforms, and that you have a presence on local directories and Google My Business.
Actionable Tip:
Claim and optimise your Google My Business listing. Encourage satisfied clients to leave reviews, and ensure that your firm’s details are accurately listed in local directories like Yell. If you have multiple locations, include a dedicated page for each location on your website.
10. Incorporate Video Content (if your ready)
The importance of video in digital marketing and CRO is growing every year and for good reason. Video not only delivers information more efficiently than text, but it also encourages users to take actions that directly impact key metrics related to Google rankings. For example, video can increase session length (the amount of time someone spends on your site) while also decreasing bounce rate (the number of people who leave your site without an action).
Video content is also flexible. For law firms, video can be used to introduce attorneys, explain complex legal concepts, and provide virtual tours of your offices.
However…
I think it is important to stress that video content is often something that improves already performing websites. What it isn’t is an all in one digital marketing and CRO strategy. Video won’t generate loads of traffic to a site that has none, nor will it generate leads if your navigation, design and content are all terrible.
So, if you’re ready for video, great! If you’re not sure how your site is performing, though, it may be best to look at other ways to improve CRO that will be more cost-effective than video.
Actionable Tip:
Create short, informative videos that address common legal issues or explain your firm’s services. Embed these videos on relevant pages of your website, and consider sharing them on social media to reach a broader audience.
11. Implement a Robust Analytics Framework
Understanding how users interact with your website is key to optimising for conversions. A robust analytics framework allows you to track user behaviour, identify drop-off points, and measure the effectiveness of your CRO strategies. Tools like Google Analytics or Hotjar provide insights into how visitors navigate your site, which pages are most popular, and where improvements can be made.
When reviewing analytics, try to identify potential. It’s rare that anything on your site will be a total success or a total failure the first time and the most value you can get from review analytics is identifying elements of your CRO strategy that are not quite performing at their peak. For example, look for pages with forms that get a lot of traffic but not many submissions. In this case, adjusting your form fields (a five minute job) might be all it takes to improve CRO and start generating more leads.
Actionable Tip:
Set up goal tracking in Google Analytics to monitor conversions. Use heatmaps and session recordings to gain a deeper understanding of user behaviour and make data-driven decisions to improve your site’s performance.
12. Offer Free Resources
Most law firms only offer one or two ways for a user to convert on their site – a contact form or a consultation form. These are key elements of your site, but they only cater to the very specific part of your audience that is ready to hire a legal professional today. What about everyone else on your site?
Providing free resources, such as legal guides, checklists, or templates, can be an effective way to capture leads and nurture potential clients. These resources should be tailored to the needs of your target audience and require users to provide their contact information in exchange for access. This not only builds your email list but also positions your firm as a helpful, authoritative source of legal information.
Actionable Tip:
Create a dedicated resources section on your website where visitors can download free legal guides or templates. Use these resources as lead magnets, encouraging users to enter their email addresses to access the content. For a bonus these resources can also be used on social media or offline in client meetings or events.
13. Ensure Strong Data Privacy and Security
With the increasing concerns over data privacy, it’s crucial that your website adheres to all legal requirements and provides a secure browsing experience. Visitors need to trust that their personal information will be handled with care, particularly when dealing with sensitive legal matters. Having an error on your site because of a missing SSL or using outdated plugins that are susceptible to cyber attack is not a good look.
Actionable Tip:
Ensure that your website is SSL certified and that your privacy policy is easily accessible. Implement clear data handling practices and consider adding a security badge to your site to reassure visitors.
Finishing Up
Conversion Rate Optimisation is a fascinating part of digital marketing that provides a range of techniques you can use to increase the number of new clients you generate online for your law firm.
While implementing every element on this list may require a strategic approach, it’s also true that many individual items can be tackled by in-house marketing teams.
That said, if you believe your UK law firm is not generating as many leads online as it should be, it’s time to reach out and discuss your CRO and wider marketing needs. You can do this by booking a free digital workshop today, within which we’ll review your marketing efforts to date and provide actionable advice on how you can grow your audience online while also producing more leads.
