Launching your Law Firm’s website is a fundamental avenue of establishing a solid online presence. This online presence ensures increased visibility, wider reach and brand building for your law firm. Moreover, websites can act as a valuable gateway for client communication, updates on legal developments, and new avenues for legal consultation.
The abundance of various user-friendly platforms has made the process of launching a website for law firms more accessible, but only a select few can do it efficiently. There are multiple factors to be considered in order to maximise your chances of a successful website launch. This comprehensive checklist will cover all the essential steps to make your law firm’s website launch successful.
PRE-LAUNCH CHECKLIST
The pre-launch phase is a pivotal step towards launching your website. As the name suggests, it is the stage before you go live with your website. There is no fixed timeline to review your website during the pre-launch phase, as it depends on the complexity of your website. Still, it is ideal to have a structured review timeline to evaluate the functionality of your website thoroughly.
Proofreading Your Content
It is often the smallest of errors that go unnoticed, but these minor errors can reflect poorly on your brand’s reputation. It is essential to proofread as much content as possible. Apart from checking for grammar and spelling errors, it is equally important to maintain uniformity in the font sizes and colour palette throughout the website. Maintaining consistency also helps in reinforcing your brand identity.
Incorporating SEO
Launching your law firm’s website is often done to get potential clients to your website. Search engine optimization (SEO) provides more visibility to your website, which in turn drives more traffic to your website. Effective SEO techniques can improve the ranking of your website, and your website is more likely to appear higher in search engine results. Additionally, SEO allows you to target specific keywords related to your services and industry, which in turn can attract users who are actively searching for information that your website offers. SEO strategies pave the way for organic or genuine audiences for your website. This does not involve any sort of paid marketing strategies.
Obtain an SSL Certificate
Nobody wants to use a website that is not secure. An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate encrypts the data between a web server and web browser and protects sensitive and private information. SSL certificate also improves your website’s SEO performance and prevents phishing attacks. Further, when your website has an SSL certificate, visitors can see a green lock symbol and “https://” in the URL window, creating a sense of reliability and credibility while using your website.
Check Website Compatibility
An incompatible website is considered outdated and archaic. Your website should be compatible not only across all browsers but also across all devices. You can ensure that by running it on various browsers, such as Chrome and Safari, and testing your website on devices such as desktops, tablets and smartphones.
Test Your Website’s User Experience (UX)
If your website’s first impression is not good, you might never get a second chance to fix it. When a user can access your website seamlessly, without any glitches, this can help create a positive impression of your brand. You can enhance your website’s user experience by using legible fonts and clear language to make your content easy to read. Further, your website design and layout should be easy to navigate and visually appealing for the users.
Site Mapping
As the name suggests, a sitemap is a map of your website, and through this one page, you can show the entire structure of your website. It improves the overall user experience as it makes navigating your website easier. Your website should also have all the essential web sections, such as “About us”, “Practice Areas”, “Contact”, and “Insights”. These pages serve as an introduction to your website, and users can get a better understanding of what you do as a law firm and why they should choose you. Ensure all these links work and take the user to the correct destination.
Establish a Backup Strategy
Despite strictly following every step of the checklist and putting your time and effort into making your website launch successful, you can fail to launch your website if you lose all your data because of software bugs, server failure, data corruption, or accidentally deleting all your data. There is nothing worse than losing all your data, but with a solid backup plan in place, you have nothing to worry about. A backup can help you recover all your content and data quickly.
POST-LAUNCH CHECKLIST
Finally, it is time to go live with your website, and just when you thought your work was done here, there are a few important things to be checked and monitored after you launch your website.
Audit Your Website
Once your website is live, ensure it is error-free and working as expected. You must continuously monitor its performance in various aspects, such as uptime, speed, and performance. Doing so will also help increase engagement on your website.
Set Up Google Analytics
Do you want to know how your website is performing? Setting up a Google Analytics account can analyse and track the performance of your website by collecting data from your web browsers. The same data gives you multiple reports per your needs and requirements, and the best part about it is that it is free of cost.
Engagement and Outreach
Despite your best efforts to launch your law firm’s website, if it is not widely promoted, your launch may go unnoticed. One way to generate traffic to your website and increase your visibility is by increasing the user engagement. Have an effective engagement and outreach strategy in place and leverage all your social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram to announce the website launch. Sharing insights through email is another way to generate traffic to your website. You can send out a newsletter to your existing clients to generate engagement on your website.
Regular Updates and Maintenance
Laws and regulations are not static but constantly evolving. Whether it is a landmark decision delivered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court or a new amendment, a law firm must keep its clients informed about such legal updates. Regularly publishing articles, observation posts, and insights on various legal developments can further highlight your knowledge and expertise.
Further, regular updates and periodic maintenance of your website are also crucial to ensure its smooth functioning.
SO TO SUM UP
In this constantly evolving digital era, increasing your online presence by launching a platform like your website has become essential. Not only does it help you reach potential clients and grow your business, but it also gives an identity to your brand.
Before launching your website, checking website compatibility and interface, and ensuring attention to details are essential checkpoints to be considered for establishing credibility, and showcasing your law firm’s expertise. The post-launch checklist involves tracking website metrics and numbers, regular website maintenance and consistent engagement efforts of your website.
A comprehensive pre and post-launch checklist helps optimise user experience, drive traffic, and maintain security, ultimately contributing to the website’s success.
Launching a website can be time-consuming and requires strategic planning and attention to detail. Are you interested in launching your website but don’t have the time or expertise to do it? Worry not! We are here to help you figure it all out. Get in touch with us to know more.
