From Click to Client: The Ultimate Guide to Lawyer Landing Pages

Prior to the Internet, lawyers advertised their services through print, TV, and radio. Nowadays, law firms sponsor podcasts and place ads on Google search results instead.

With these types of developments, it can be said that the landscape of legal marketing has changed to account for consumer behavior. In one survey, more than three-quarters of participants said they preferred to visit two to five websites before making contact with an attorney. To help potential clients navigate their websites more easily, law firms may create dedicated landing pages for lawyers.

The importance of these pages in legal marketing is growing. According to the American Bar Association, 35% of law firms retained clients through a website in 2023. This number is higher than the recorded percentage for 2022 (25%). Clearly, website design has become a top reason for lawyers to hire a digital marketing agency.

As such, one must know how websites, and by extension, landing pages, fit into their marketing strategy. This article provides an overview of how these pages work and the parts and processes that ensure their effectiveness.

What Are Landing Pages, and Are They Important?

Landing pages are designed to convince users to perform specific actions. These include signing up for a newsletter, providing personal information, and purchasing a product.

One way to understand the role of landing pages in legal marketing is to compare them with home pages. The latter helps users navigate to other pages and acts as the front page of the law firm. Homepage traffic can also come from other sources, like search engines and social media posts.

Landing pages, meanwhile, typically do not allow the user to transfer to other pages. In addition, their traffic only comes from one source.

Since a landing page generally promotes one action, it is more likely to convert visitors into leads or leads into clients. To do this, landing pages use focused content to avoid overwhelming potential visitors, which could make them abandon the page.

Keep in mind that one landing page may not be enough. Hubspot recommends 10 to 15 of these pages. Companies that employ that many may receive 55% more leads than those with fewer than 10.

What Is the Anatomy of Effective Lawyer Landing Pages?

From the headline to the call-to-action button, landing pages for lawyers seeking leads or clients require different parts. These components play distinct roles. Regardless, they work together to form the structure of an effective landing page.

Catchy Headlines

A headline refers to the large and bold text at the top of a law firm's landing page. It is the first thing that visitors see after clicking on an ad or post. It is also the initial content they will read before moving on to the rest of the landing page.

However, not all visitors move on to a page’s other contents. The reason is that some headlines are difficult to grasp. John Caples — the late advertising executive credited with pioneering fields like copy testing — cautions against text that is not clear at first glance.

As such, law firm landing pages must show headlines addressing specific pain points. “Avoid tax controversy from cryptocurrency” is an example that clearly communicates what a tax law practice can do. That headline also aligns with the expectations of a potential client who clicked on an ad about crypto-related legal advice.

Incorporating numbers is another way of capturing attention. A survey found that 36% of users prefer headlines with numbers. “5 Actions That Hurt Your Child Custody Case” is one example.

Organized Subheadings

A subheading is the text that is typically below the headline. Acting as a mini-headline, it adds details to the headline in a way that supports it.

For example, in the crypto-related tax controversy example above, a possible subheading might be “Most of the $7 billion crypto assets seized by the IRS in 2022 involve unreported transactions.” This text magnifies the scale at which the government tracks and penalizes owners of cryptocurrencies.

As a reader goes through an attorney landing page, organized subheadings can keep them engaged. These also assist visitors in navigating and understanding the page’s main points.

Client-Centric Content

Headlines and subheadings may hook the reader, but the rest of the text needs to emphasize their needs. For instance, a Colorado-based law firm targeting individuals with active child custody cases may state that they only have a few weeks to decide whether to go ahead and appeal a judge’s decision. This content puts the spotlight on the potential client, not the law firm.

However, this does not mean that attorneys cannot show their expertise. They can utilize different ways to express authority in a particular field besides using legal jargon.

For example, instead of terms like “special assessments,” a Florida-based real estate law firm looking to highlight the growing cost of litigation in the Sunshine State may point to the fact that the average price of home insurance is about 31% more than the national average.

Trust Indicators

Client-centric content should not be the only information present on the landing page. At some point, case studies, testimonials, and professional credentials must show up. These details help a law firm demonstrate its expertise through actual results.

For instance, information like “over 5,000 DUI cases resolved” is strong evidence that the lawyer is experienced with those types of situations. Combined with testimonials and professional credentials, a law firm can prove its skill at defending individuals accused of drunk driving.

High-Quality Images

Only using text to convince potential clients may be exhausting for them. Having high-quality images spread out throughout the landing page can be a way to engage them further.

However, not all images convert equally. Stock photos performed the worst, according to Venngage. On the other hand, the most successful visuals are original infographics.

Infographics with easy-to-digest graphs can help potential clients understand complex topics while also building the law firm's brand credibility. For instance, a real estate law firm could use infographics to showcase its knowledge of the local property market.

Compelling Calls to Action

When a site visitor finishes reading the landing page content, the CTA invites them to perform a specific action. Clicking a button or filling out a form are some examples of steps that users can take to solve their problem.

Keep in mind that not all visitors are ready to hire a lawyer right away. As such, the CTA depends on where that person is on their buyer’s journey. For instance, those in the awareness stage — the point where they are looking for information about their problem — may respond favorably to phrases like “find out.”

Meanwhile, individuals who are in the decision stage — or when they are ready to call a legal provider to solve an issue — may react positively to phrases like “book a call.”

How Should You Design Lawyer Landing Pages?

Law firms can follow different landing page design tips to convert visitors. From applying single-column layouts to using red as the color of a CTA button, they have multiple takeaways that can help them create an effective landing page.

Mobile-Friendliness

To achieve a high-conversion landing page, a law firm needs to apply a mobile-friendly design. There are several ways to go about this, including keeping the copy concise and displaying just one CTA.

Note that over seven out of 10 consumers use their phones to contact an attorney. By creating a mobile-friendly landing page, law firms can improve their accessibility to potential leads.

Loading Speed

The best combination of headlines, images, and CTAs may not be enough if a landing page loads slowly. Multiple studies by companies like Walmart and Mobify show that shaving off seconds and even milliseconds from the loading speed increases conversion rates. Another study by Deloitte reports that a 0.1-second improvement boosts bounce rates by up to 8%.

Landing pages that take longer than five seconds to load are considered slow-performing. One way to reduce loading speed is to optimize images. Law firms can utilize image compression tools to reduce the file size of their visuals.

Navigation and Layout

The more choices a law firm provides their potential client, the more time that person needs to reach a decision. This is known as Hick’s Law. In this regard, the layout of a landing page must be user-friendly.

There are two general types of layouts that attorneys can use to get their message across. These are the F-Pattern and the Z-Pattern.

• The F-Pattern refers to the most common way users scan content. They start on the upper left corner, read the first headline, move down to the left side of the page, read what catches their eye, and then move down again.

• The Z-Pattern refers to the way some users scan landing pages. Unlike text-heavy content like blog articles, some pages are structured to provide core information at a glance.

By taking advantage of these patterns, law firms and their content marketing agencies can prioritize what information to provide their visitors for a better conversion rate.

Color and Typography

While colors and fonts may appear to be minor details, they play a crucial role in converting website visitors into prospective leads or clients. A web designer might place a green CTA button in line with the green color scheme of a landing page. However, this element might not stand out, costing the law firm valuable clicks.

Meanwhile, switching to a red CTA button may lead to better conversion rates. According to a Hubspot finding, this color change can result in 21% more clicks.

Moreover, using the right fonts for words that are not too close or far apart can improve conversion. Font size is also essential since not all users have perfect vision. To account for these individuals, a size 12 font is recommended.

How Do You Optimize Lawyer Landing Pages for Search Engines?

Landing pages are typically not SEO-optimized. Unlike blog articles targeting primary and secondary keywords, landing pages tend to revolve around one keyword. However, there are some ways to improve their visibility in search engine results.

Keyword Optimization

By focusing on a keyword or key phrase, law firms can improve their chances of showing up on sites like Google and Bing. However, since landing pages are focused on getting someone to do a specific action, the keyword must be aimed at users with transactional intent.

There are some examples of words or phrases that law firms and SEO agencies can use to target those ready to hire a legal provider. These include:

• Cryptocurrency lawyers near me

• Divorce attorney fees experienced in business valuation

• Estate planning lawyer in Yonkers, NY

Note that placing too many mentions of a single keyword may be deemed keyword stuffing. This practice is considered spam by Google. The worst-case scenario for law firms that use this method is that their lawyer website content might be omitted from search results.

Meta Titles and Descriptions

Meta titles and descriptions are the short texts that a user sees before they click on a search engine result. These show some details about the landing page.

A well-optimized meta title and description leads to more clicks, which consequently results in better rankings. As such, lawyers must consider some things when crafting these:

• Front-load keywords: If a law firm is targeting “crypto law specialists in California,” it needs to place that on the meta description.

• Character counts: Limit your meta title to 60 characters and your meta description to 155 characters.

Link Building

One can find multiple benefits for placing internal and external links on landing pages.

Internal links direct the reader to visit another page on the law firm’s website. The advantage of adding them is that it helps search engines like Google understand the website better. Internal links can also improve the chances of another web page ranking higher in search engine results from the same site.

On the other hand, external links direct the reader to visit another page on a different website. These links can help position the landing page as an authoritative source because they point to credible references like government sites and university studies.

How Do You Test and Improve Lawyer Landing Pages?

The conversion rates of landing pages across industries have a median of 4.3%. When it comes to the legal sector, the number is slightly higher, at 5.2%. This means that law firms that can get their landing page to perform at 10% or 20% are already doing better than the rest of the industry.

However, to achieve better results, attorneys need to understand what works and what doesn’t. This knowledge comes from the process of testing, analyzing, and tracking landing pages.

A/B Testing

A/B testing is a method of understanding how a landing page performs by comparing two versions of it against each other.

The best lawyer landing pages are formed because marketers test multiple elements. These include:

• The CTA button: For example, “Discover more” vs. “Find out more.”

• The headline: For example, “Avoid tax controversy from cryptocurrency” vs. “Don’t let new assets bring new tax issues.”

• The image: For example, an infographic that shows growth in the local property market vs. an AI-generated image of a house.

To test landing pages effectively, lawyers must only assess a single variable. This is because one can determine how the results differ by changing just one key component.

Analytics and Tracking

Another one of the landing page optimization tips lawyers must implement is analyzing and tracking visitor behavior. The data from these activities helps law firms understand their audience better. Some key metrics to track include:

• Click rates: “How many people are clicking on the CTA button?”

• Time of page traffic: “Are certain landing pages performing better in some months?”

• Source of page traffic: “Is it coming from social media? Quora? Google?”

• Location data of visitors: “Where do our visitors live?”

The last one is particularly crucial in the legal industry. The sector, as recognized by PPC  agencies, requires a higher cost-per-click in paid ad campaigns compared to other fields, like insurance and education. In fact, the top 25 highest-priced search keywords on Google in 2024 are all legal-related.

Due to the high cost of pay-per-click ads, it's crucial for lawyers to ensure their landing pages target the right audience.

Optimize Your Lawyer Landing Page with Expertise.com

Ultimately, firms that do not implement best practices or ignore optimization tips may find their budgets wasted. Expertise.com aims to avoid that by efficiently managing your marketing resources. From creation to promotion and tracking, discover how to meet your conversion goals with our team today.

FAQs on Lawyer Landing Pages

Should you include a contact form on your lawyer landing page?

Yes, but its length depends on one’s goals. Long forms are better suited for those looking to minimize the number of non-qualified leads. Meanwhile, shorter forms are applicable for attorneys seeking to increase their clientele.

The details requested by a law firm also depend on their field. For instance, business law practitioners may ask potential leads about their company name, size, and industry.

How does a lawyer landing page differ from a regular web page?

There are multiple points of difference between landing pages and regular web pages. These include the following:

• Landing pages are focused on converting visitors, while regular web pages are focused on educating or informing users.

• Landing pages are temporary since they are bound to their marketing campaigns, while regular web pages are permanent and evergreen.

How should you handle legal disclaimers on your lawyer landing page?

These disclaimers ensure that law firms comply with the advertising standards set by their respective legal associations. Some states have varying rules about what a lawyer can and cannot include in their marketing materials, including landing pages.

For instance, California does not allow attorneys in the state to advertise that they are specialists in a particular field unless they are certified by the Board of Legal Specialization or another body accredited by the State Bar.

It is also recommended to explicitly mention that the attorney-client privilege does not automatically exist when the visitor submits a contact form or emails the lawyer.

How often should you update your lawyer landing page?

Landing pages must be updated when conversion rates decrease, such as when CTAs no longer work or a campaign has ended. Reduced engagement rates are also another reason to update landing pages. One symptom of a landing page that is no longer effective in capturing a visitor’s attention is high bounce rates.

Updating these pages may also be necessary if the strategies related to conversion law firms employ cannot compete with newer landing pages from rival firms.