Is Your Law Firm Website Outdated?

An outdated website can help others form a negative impression of your law firm.

How can legal professionals tell if their websites are too old? Obvious signs include pager numbers in the contact section, animated Flash intros set to New Age music, FrontPage extensions, Comic Sans MS fonts, animated navigation icons that resemble flames, etc. Other signs that are less obvious but equally indicative include lack of social media buttons or widgets, the absence of a blog, page templates that emulate print brochures, content that dates back to the Rehnquist Court but ignores the Roberts Court, and more.

Old websites can have a very negative effect when converting website visitors into interested prospects and potential clients. An effective and expensive paid search results campaign can virtually evaporate if visitors stumble into a law firm’s site that looks like it was designed using old MySpace templates. Attorneys should always assume that their visitors are Web-savvy and sensitive to page layout and content.

The dangers of old layouts and outdated content

The problem with design layouts that have obviously failed to keep up with Web design trends is that they can make visitors feel uneasy. If they arrived from a search engine result, they may think a law firm has gone out of business but the site has not been taken down. A fresh and modern layout will have the opposite effect and will instill confidence in the visitor and boost credibility for the firm.

Old content can be even more problematic. For example, a Venice Chapter 7 bankruptcy attorney would not want to have blog posts up featuring opinions written before the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 — they want fresher content with accurate information. Site visitors and prospects are very likely to seek available, up-to-date information when they visit the website of a legal professional.

Another pitfall of old websites is that they are less likely to be mobile-friendly. This is a modern cause of poor conversion metrics and higher bounce rates, particularly when considering the sheer growth of mobile Internet searches.