Making Your Website Scalable Helps Everyone (and Everwhere)

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There’s always room for growth. Whether you’re a two-person firm in a one-horse town or a multinational corporation with hundreds of employees, you want to leave room to expand. 

 

This room has to extend to your website, which you should build with the expectation that it will someday need to be updated for a larger, broader market. There are a number of reasons for this, but let’s focus on the main three for now.

 

Accessibility

Every state and country has different accessibility regulations, and you should pay attention to the strictest of the lot. If you follow the rules of the strictest, you’re following the rules of the laxest. 

The best way to cover your bases for accessibility is by following current SEO best practices:

  • Ensure images have thorough alt text
  • Make sure each page has comprehensive titles, H1, H2, and H3 labeling
  • Add title tags

 

Privacy Settings

Arguably more varied than accessibility, internet privacy laws change from country to country. Even within America, privacy regulations change. Some sites avoid state-by-state violations by simply showing cookie warnings to every visitor, regardless of location. 

 

Site Regulations

America’s must-haves for a website are different from the EU’s, and both of those are wildly different from China’s. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need different websites for different regions (you will probably need a different website for China). The best thing you can do is make sure your website follows the guidelines of every region it will be active in, and the best way to prepare for this is to have a website that is already easily upgradable. 

If you’re looking at building a website for your firm or simply maintaining the one you already have, it’s important to look ahead at where your business could go. These are the things we think about here at Mockingbird Marketing. If you would like to discuss your firm’s website, contact us!

Why You Should Be Checking Your Bounce Rate

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Relatively underrated compared to such metrics as “pageviews,” a page’s bounce rate shouldn’t be ignored. It’s important to know how many of your website’s pages were the first and last of your website a consumer ever saw. Knowing this might help you to improve your pages.

 

Judging Bounce Rates

Just like limbo at a party, you want it as low as possible for everyone. That being said, different pages will inherently have different bounce rates. Informational pages are likely to have higher rates due to the audience’s ability to get the information they were looking for and leave. Contact pages are likely to have lower rates because very few people click into a contact page from a browser. 

When looking at bounce rates, it’s important to remember page content and user intent. 

 

Improving Bounce Rates

If you want to improve your bounce rate you have to focus on user experience. This means optimizing everything.

 

Page Speed

Nothing gets a user to leave like making them wait. Compress your images, check your loading speeds, and making any necessary changes.

 

Page Design

Look at your pages as if you had never seen them. Are they visually appealing? Are they thematically consistent? Do they make you trust the website? Would it be easy to find an enticing next page to visit? 

If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” fix it. Your page is your front entryway. If a visitor enters and doesn’t feel comfortable they’re going to leave.

 

Optimize Content

Content should be optimized for fast reading. That means short sentences and short paragraphs. It also means that the content needs to be useful and relevant. Don’t sacrifice quality for brevity; you can write a longer piece if you really need to.

 

Internal Linking

If your page is well written, interesting, well designed, and loads quickly, one of the best ways to get people to go to a different page is with internal linking. This allows easy access to other pages on the website. We’ve all been down Wikipedia rabbit-holes and ended up learning about the history of some bridge in North Dakota.

If you think your website needs to improve the bounce rate on some (or all, we don’t judge) of its pages, contact us and we can help you figure out how to find and improve your bounce rate.

Creating Effective PPC Landing Pages

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Earlier this year, emarketer released a report stating that 2019 will be the first year digital ads surpass traditional ads. A claim was also made that by 2023, 2/3 of all advertising will be digital. If your law firm is not already putting the majority of advertising into reaching potential clients online then you’re already behind your competition.

Because pay-per-click encompasses such a large amount of the digital ad spend for our clients, we’re constantly trying to refine our designs and create websites that will perform well when it comes to converting your online ad spend into actual new clients. Here’s an overview of our process and what we try to convey on a successful PPC landing page.

After hours of external research and testing our creations, we have laid out our process for creating law firm PPC landing pages.

Determine Your Audience.

The first step, as it should be with any marketing material, is determining your audience and how we can appeal to their emotional desires. How we write copy is very important and just tweaking an ads copy can drastically increase click through rates and increase conversions on your landing pages. Once we know the audience, we can start the trust enhancing design.

Build the Landing Page

Now we know who the audience is, it’s time to think about the page structure and design of the landing page. We want the page to load fast, while gaining the user’s trust enough that they’ll want to contact your firm. When we create each landing page, we keep these three principles in the back of our heads:

  • Keep it minimal and uncluttered.
  • Each section should appeal to the user’s desires and reflect the search they conducted when finding your ad
  • The page should load as quickly as possible.

Header – Contact Bar

The header will serve more as a contact bar and an internal navigation. Your PPC landing page will not link to any external pages. We want to keep visitors on the landing page and emphasize contacting you on this first visit to your site. We also want your phone number and/or a contact button easily visible at all times. We will keep this fixed on the page so it’s constantly visible, but small enough that it’s not distracting users from your content.

Section: 1 – Establish Your Value Proposition

You want a marketing hero that has everything the client needs to contact you. This includes an appealing headline and/or copy that establishes your value proposition, imagery, and a call to action, that all appeals to your user’s desires.

Section 2: Build Trust

We have the user’s attention and they are interested in your value proposition, but they want to know who you are and why they should trust your value proposition? Section two should be a brief “about your firm” and clearly communicate why the client should trust you. This is a great place for an awesome testimonial or award. Just don’t overload the user with how awesome you are. Pick a few standout items that reinforce the values you’re trying to convey.

Section 3: Explain How Your Value Proposition is Unique

This section is to explain how awesome your firm is at meeting the desires your client is trying to fulfill. How does your firm stand out from the competition? You should use a short paragraph on how you stand out and include a result or two that backs up your claims.

Section 4: Encourage Contact Form Submissions

Buttons will also be in different sections that will anchor to this capture form section. Here we want a very simple form that captures name, email, and a quick description of the prospect’s issue or problem. We just want them to contact your firm so the intake team can handle the rest.

Test the Landing Page

It’s always important to test your landing pages. Play with copy, imagery, and placement to see what works better for your audience. You can easily (and should) run A/B testing on different versions of your landing page. Every audience is different and tweaking to get your maximum conversions is a must. Only data can prove what is working.

What’s So Special About You?

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I’m serious, what makes you special? Why should anyone be your client? There are other law firms, what makes you different?

 

How You Should Answer

All brands need answers to these questions, but law firms should spend some extra time thinking about it. Your clients are going through complicated and difficult situations, and are coming to you as a direct result of those situations. You need to be there to answer when they ask why they can trust you.

 

Prove Your Integrity

The best way to show you can be trusted is to show when you have been trusted. Client reviews are great for this. If a customer visits your site and immediately sees a list of reviews and testimonials you already have a solid starting point. 

Another method for gaining the customer’s trust is by sharing your story. What made you, personally, motivated enough to go to law school, work at various firms, and end up where you are. Every customer visiting your page is a job interview in which you have to provide your answers ahead of time. You need to come across motivated and up for their case.

 

Prove You’re Up For the Case

Just as important as your integrity is your capability. Unless this is literally your first case, you should have some proof that you’ve successfully practiced law before. Make sure your website lists cases you’ve won. For added specialization, list cases you’ve won in each of your practice area pages. The customer can trust you because you’ve done this before.

 

Prove You’re Different/Better

Chances are the customer is looking at multiple law firms. Let’s be honest, some of them might have better credentials than you, when to better-known law schools. Here’s where you really have to answer why you are special. If you’re not sure, ask past clients what made them choose you. Lean into that. 

 

Putting it All Together

So now you have a brand story and image that’s unique to your law firm. It shows why you’re different and why that’s good. Now you have to tell it. 

Like I said before, you’re website is your interview. You need it to look put together, qualified, and ready to help. That’s where we come in.

As a lawyer, you probably don’t have time for website maintenance or building web pages. We are proud to work with lawyers by getting to know them and building their online presence around their unique business. 

If you would like help identifying and conveying your brand’s character, give us a shout!

The Effects of Google Search Console’s Speed Reports

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Google just announced the rollout of a new report in their Search Console, a report six months in the making. Designed to let webmasters quickly identify problems and areas for improvement, the new reports will show which pages have fast speeds and which are slow, as well as which pages have identifiable issues. The speed reports will have a ripple effect on page quality and views. 

 

Graph showing sample speed report
Sample Speed Report, from webmasters.googleblog.com

 

Bounce Rate

One of the main causes of a high bounce rate is slow loading speeds. With the technology to identify which pages are slow, webmasters can improve bounce rates. This will help to increase conversions and site visits in general.

 

Identifying Updates

Knowing when to upgrade plugins can be difficult for novice webmasters, at no fault of their own. Running a website means keeping track of many moving parts, often while also running a business. Having speed reports can help webmasters identify which pages need their plugins updated.

 

Improving Site Design

Many slow sites can find the culprit for their speed in the design of their site. This could mean that they’re using too many fancy features, their images are too large, or they’re using embedded videos. If a page is being marked as slow without having an issue, it could be an indicator that it should be optimized.

Running a website is tough work and can require a level of expertise and commitment that not everyone is willing to devote. That’s a role that Mockingbird Marketing is ready to fill. We build and manage websites for law firms, including doing routine maintenance and technical audits. If you want to know more about how Google’s new speed reports can help your business, call us!

Please Spend Time on Your Practice Area Pages

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Imagine a consumer going through a crisis. A legal crisis. They turn to your practice, visit your website, and check your practice area pages for the crisis they’re currently in. What do you want them to see?

 

The Bare Minimum

If you want that consumer to become a client you need to show them what they need to see. That is:

  • Whether you cover their type of case
  • Some advice on their crisis so that they know you know what you’re talking about
  • Assurances that you have experience
  • Personal touches to prove that you aren’t just a machine that spits out legalize 

 And, most importantly:

  • More than a single paragraph that briefly describes their crisis and then tells them to call

 

Flesh It Out (Just a Bit)

So now you have the basics of what your page should have. Let’s add some more.

Things that aren’t difficult to add to your page but really do help include:

  • Pictures
  • FAQs
  • Links to resources
  •  Internal linking
  • Past case results
  • Reviews/testimonials

Some of these (FAQs, results, testimonials) might already be available elsewhere on your website. Put a few of them on your practice area pages as well. Give the consumer more information than they need, make them feel like you’re willing to put in the effort. 

 

Content is Worth It

Organic traffic is the most common form of internet traffic, by far (pdf). Failing to adapt your pages for SEO is turning away potential clients before they even get to the door. We get it, lawyers are busy. You shouldn’t be spending your time writing and designing practice pages. Luckily, you can pay other people to do that for you.

If you would like to set up a plan for your website’s content, contact us and we can help you figure out what you need. You might be busy, but, with our help, your firm might be a lot busier.

Choosing the Right Images for Your Article

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When creating a blog post, article, or informational page it’s important to respond to the visual elements of web design and add a relevant image. According to a study done by Skyword, pages with relevant photos get 94% more visits than their counterparts without images. 

 

What Images Work

“Images” is being used as an umbrella term here and refers to pictures, graphs, infographics, illustrations, and anything other than straight text. The image should add to the message of the text, helping the reader reach a further understanding. Graphs should make data digestible, infographics should make broader concepts fun and interesting, and photos or illustrations should make the reader empathize with the message.

 

Beyond being relevant, images should be of high quality. They should have a reasonable pixel count; nothing dates a web page like low-quality images. If you’re using stock photos, make sure they’re not too generic. If you’re taking your own photos, make sure they’re intelligently composed and well lit. It’s worth it to bring in a professional photographer or invest in photography lessons. 

 

How Photos Improve Practice Pages and Resources

As a law firm, you might already know the importance of images for your resources and practice pages. The number of divorce practice pages featuring photos of sad couples turned away from each other are countless. It can be hard to tell where the line is between overly generic/safe and overly relevant yet distasteful. The number of personal injury blogs with images of people on stretchers after car accidents is much lower than the sad divorce blog couples. These pages might be served better with statistical images: graphs and infographics. 

 

What Does “Relevant” Even Mean

As previously touched on, relevant refers to the image’s ability to add to the text. For example, the below photo is relevant because it shows how one might begin a photo search:

screenshot
This screenshot of a search on the website Pexels.com shows the generic nature of most stock image sites

 

As seen in the photo, most of the images available on the stock image sites are more generic than constructive. 

 

Sometimes images are completely irrelevant but provoke an emotional reaction that can’t be ignored, as shown below:

Salamanana
This image, also from Pexels.com, is deeply disturbing.

 

I have doubts that this example will help this page’s pageviews in any way, but it can still be considered relevant due to it being an example of irrelevance.

Getting Help Finding/Creating Images

A good graphic designer should be able to find or create images that are relevant and tasteful to your website and page, but not every firm has the resources for an in-house graphic designer. Luckily, there are services available for businesses that need help with web design and site-building. 

If you need assistance building or designing your website, contact Mockingbird Marketing and we can help you find relevant images for every page.

Chrome is Updating and Leaving Mixed Pages Behind

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In an announcement on October 3rd, it was revealed that Google Chrome will be phasing out access to pages with mixed content, citing user security. 

 

What Does This Mean?

If your website has secure https:// connections, but includes media without secure linking, Chrome will flag the page as insecure. Beginning in December 2019, Chrome 79 will allow users to toggle their security settings. They will be able to allow the browser to access insecure scripts and otherwise blocked content. Google will release Chromes 80 and 81 in early 2020 and promise to upgrade media with http:// security to https:// automatically. The update will allow mixed images to load, but with a “Not Secure” warning appearing in the Omnibox. 

 

How Does Mixed Content Affect User Security?

Mixed content provides malicious website builders an opportunity to tamper with content to influence visitors to the page. They can do this by adding cookie trackers to hidden scripts or messing with media links. Due to the prevalence of https:// security, and the relative lack of upsides to having mixed content, Chrome has decided that it’s more efficient to block all mixed content and upgrade the passive content of images, audio, and video.

 

Is My Website At Risk of Being Blocked?

Always make sure to check that your website is up and running and complying with all search engine and browser guidelines, but chances are that the largest risks to your site will get upgraded by Chrome with Chrome 80 and 81. If you would like some easy and/or free ways to quickly check your website for potentially blocked pages, check out Search Engine Journal’s article on the update. A number of good resources appear at the bottom of the page.

If you would like help building or maintaining your law firm’s website, contact us here at Mockingbird Marketing. The services we offer include web design and SEO for your business, as well as web-traffic monitoring and PPC.

Structuring Your Page for SEO

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Whether you’re building a page for an article, a blog, a product review, or a practice area, the way you structure your page is vital for Search Engine Optimization. From the design to the programming to the writing, you should always keep the big picture in mind before publishing.

 

Design

Your webpage should also be user-friendly first. This means the visuals are pleasing and the color scheme is easy to read. If the website looks good enough for the consumer to stay and read its contents, you’re on the right track. For improved reading and improved SEO, make sure you use headings in your text. These allow readers to easily scroll through your text to find the section they’re looking for, and it lets Google know the contents of the website. Don’t be afraid of having multiple “Heading 1’s,” as Google has ensured webmasters that despite certain less than honest tactics, the search engine can look past them.

 

Programming

The success of your site should rest on a foundation of solid programming, with special consideration taken to page speed and crawler accessibility. I’ll be honest, I know nothing about programming or coding, but if you’re building a website you or someone on your team should. 

 

Writing

As mentioned before, make sure your content is properly labeled with headings. As for the actual writing, try not to be Hemmingway or James Joyce. You want your writing to be comprehensive, but not rambling. If possible, work links into your writing as naturally. This will help Google connect your page to other pages on your website, as well as other websites. 

Your website is your company’s connection to the largest human network in history, and if you don’t set it up for people to visit you are wasting time and money. If you need help setting up a website for your law firm contact us here at Mockingbird Marketing. Optimizing web pages is what we do!