7 Small Law Firm Website Design Details That Make a Huge Difference

Holy wow! It takes a few minutes before your eyes can even start making any sense of what’s on the page, and then it’s a few more minutes before you can figure out what it is, what it’s selling, or how to even begin to navigate it. 

 

Now, take a look at this example:
 

How much more quickly are you able to identify what the page is about? How quickly can you understand how to navigate it? How much calmer do you feel while looking at it?

If you’re like most people, you automatically feel more oriented and at ease looking at the second example—by, like, a lot. That’s how much of a difference smart use of whitespace makes in a law firm’s website design. 

2. Limit Options to Motivate Action

Your design provides the paving that leads people toward relevant goals when they visit. If you give them too many options, they’ll get lost looking for what they want. However, if your design clearly leads them toward strong pages and strong calls to actions, they’ll be able to get exactly what they came for—and you’ll increase the leads and conversions that come in through your law firm’s website. 

Remember those two examples from the section above? One of the things that makes the cluttered example “bad” is that it presents too many options at once. Even if you can ignore the crammed-in feeling of the page, you’re given a list of well over 25 directions to go in from the “Index” sidebar. And that doesn’t even count all the separate product links that also appear on the page. Whew! That’s a lot to sort through before you find what you want. 

Now, look at the second example again. Your choices for moving forward are limited, allowing you to self-select your interest in either podiatrist or attorney website design. Other than that, you have the option to return to the “What We Do” page or follow the in-text link to a relevant article. That’s four choices total, making it easy to pursue your highly specific interests from that page. 

Lots of lawyers’ first impulse is to put every option right on the homepage, assuming that people will want every piece of information as soon as they get there. However, when you limit choices, you actually limit confusion. You also motivate people to self-select what they’re most interested in and propel themselves toward the most relevant pages in a logical way. 

With a smart design and wisely limited choices, you reduce the work you need to put in, and you make your users happier. 

3. A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Most law firm website designs include photographs, images, and videos. However, most of those sites also make some glaring mistakes in how those images are used on the site or incorporated into the design. 

You DO want to use images, but you want to be picky about what you use. You want high-quality photographs that look great. You want to use photos that tell a story and show your team in action, not just the same “bookshelf headshot” that you see on every other attorney website. Even if you’re using some stock photos, you want to be careful to choose images that make sense in the context and that aren’t too popular or overused by other websites. You don’t want to look generic or cheap! 

Ultimately, the photos and other media that you use on your website are an opportunity to show your personality and make an immediate connection with your potential clients. If you choose a bunch of generic images or outdated headshots to showcase your firm, then generic and outdated is how people will think about your firm when they visit. So, don’t make that mistake. 

Looking for a little more advice on getting it just right? Find out how to choose effective images for your website. 

4. Readability Is Everything on a Law Firm Website

People visit your website on all kinds of devices with all kinds of different screen sizes. What that means is that the typeface and size of the text you use on your website is a much bigger consideration than it used to be. 

This might seem like a tiny detail—but think about it. Why do people visit a law firm’s website? It’s usually because they need ANSWERS. They are there to research a legal issue, understand what to expect from a lawyer, or otherwise get informed before they make a decision about who to hire. If they can’t read what you have to say, then you aren’t meeting their needs—even if the content you have hidden behind that weird font is excellent!

You need to think about the “line-height,” which is the space between lines of text. (Remember when we talked about the “whitespace” between lines under tip #1?) If it’s too close, it’s hard for the eye to follow. If it’s too far, it looks a little disjointed on the page. When it’s just right, it’s nearly “invisible” because it lets the eye flow naturally over the text and to the next line. That’s just what you want!

Depending on what looks and works best in your law firm’s website design, you might choose a line-height that is between 120% to 200% of your font size. However, around 140% is probably the most popular, and it probably offers the best readability in most circumstances. 

The typeface or “font” you choose matters here, too. Serif fonts are usually more challenging to read on the screen than a comparatively pared-down sans-serif font. So, sans-serif fonts are typically preferred. 

Not convinced that these little text details make a difference? Let’s look at two examples, and then you can decide whether it’s a big deal. 

Was the first example your favorite? Was it easier to read? Most people would say yes!

Responsive website design helps a lot in this respect because it can automatically detect the type of device being used and deliver an experience that’s best suited for that screen size, browser, etc. However, you still need to be intentional about what you choose to display, and you want to be careful to check how your website content looks on different browsers, desktop screen sizes, and mobile devices. 

5. Think in Color to Elevate Your Law Firm Website Design

Even if you stick to “web-safe” colors, you still have a ton to choose from. However, it can be hard to hit the sweet spot between total “rainbow barf” and the severity of plain black and white. 

When we start designing a law firm’s website, we typically work with our clients to narrow it down to three or four colors that we’ll use throughout their site. If the client doesn’t already have colors in mind, we’ll start looking for suggestions and inspiration in existing brand colors, colors that evoke a particular “tone” or “feel,” and colors that look particularly great on the Web. You want all your colors to work well together, and you want them to work well for your brand and message! 

While choosing a few colors may not seem like a big deal, color has a lot of power. If you choose your colors randomly, you could end up with something like this: