Does the content on your website keep people reading or does it make them run and never come back?

As a lawyer, you want to give your customers a good first impression. You want your content to be meaningful and helpful, but also readable.

Avoid using long walls of text

People are scanners. Which means, they scan through your blog post to find anything that would help them, and if it’s just a wall of words, they gloss over it and leave.

Write your content for scanners.

You have to break it up with white space, subheads, bullet points, numbered lists and images.

People are lazy and want reading to be easy for them. If they find it too hard to read, they can do a google search for the same topic or services you provide and move on. You’ve lost a potential customer because your copy wasn’t easy to read.

Use short sentences. Avoid run-on sentences, bad grammar and check for spelling mistakes. If you follow those suggestions, you will avoid having a wall of text in your content writing.

Make sure you address your target audience

Understand who your readers are and pinpoint what they want. You want your potential clients to feel like they’ve come to the right place.

When people go to a lawyer site, they are looking for a lawyer to solve their specific problem. If you address that problem in your content writing, you will gain a customer. Develop a buyer persona and study their needs and desires. Then write your content with them in mind.

Include a solution to your potential client’s problem

Make sure your potential clients know what your firm can do for them.

Your firm has features and benefits for your ideal customer. If you don’t show the benefits and only list the features, they won’t know what’s in it for them or why they should choose you.

Your features let your audience know the facts and the descriptive side of what you offer. People don’t respond emotionally to a list of facts.

When you show your audience what they will receive when they use your service, this is results based. Showing the benefits helps your audience make a decision as to why they should choose you and your service and not someone else’s. Your audience has several concerns, fears and desires. When you speak to those concerns your audience will respond emotionally. People always buy with emotion first.

Be sure to put clear benefits in your content writing, and not just the features.

Include a Call to Action

Write a compelling call-to-action.

Your audience wants to know what to do next. Give them something of value for free that speaks to a specific problem you can solve. You can highlight your most important benefit and give them a special discount. Or give them an ebook that solves a particular problem.

Always include a call-to-action at the end of your blog post. This will insure that those who are interested in your legal services, will take action and engage with you.

Ask yourself, “Why would they want to buy from me?” Use their language when you talk. You may want to find out where they hang out online and write down what they are saying. Then use those words in your content writing.

Here’s an example of what you want to avoid

At The XX Law Firm, we provide sophisticated legal representation to individuals, businesses, and organizations in a wide range of civil litigation matters, including labor and employment, civil rights, government litigation, business litigation, personal injury, and whistleblowers. We represent clients  in the X metropolitan area, the State of X, and X. Our practice focuses primarily on federal court litigation, but we also handle cases in state courts, before government agencies, and at arbitration proceedings.

The first thing you notice about the above paragraph is that it is a wall of text.

It lists all the features and doesn’t appeal to a specific target audience.

Here’s an example of how it could be written with an audience in mind and showing what results or benefits are in it for them.

Quality comes first at The XX Law Firm. Your legal case is important to us whether it’s personal or business related.

If your case involves a domestic assault, and your future looks bleak, let us handle all the legal matters and put everything back into perspective for you.

Or you’re facing an embezzlement case in your business, don’t be afraid to reach out to us to help and stand between the offender and you so that your company can get back to being a business people can trust.

We offer legal services in several areas. No need to feel your case is either too big or too small.

We represent clients in the X metropolitan area, the State of X, and X.

Reach out and call us to help you through some of the toughest times of your life. We provide sound advice and a clear direction for your specific legal matter.

Content writing can keep your readers on your page longer if you learn and practice these techniques. Focus on solutions and directly appeal to your audience’s feelings. Remember to ask yourself, “What does the reader want?”

Does your website tell your clients how you can help them and specifically point them to ways to contact you?

Karin Conroy helps lawyers have better websites that more effectively reach clients. If you don’t have the time or inclination to optimize your website to reach potential clients, she can help you do that.

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It seems that website sliders are everywhere. Open up the homepage of a modern website or try to buy a new WordPress theme that doesn’t include sliders and you may have trouble. There’s one major problem though. Sliders, or carousels, are NOT effective. If your law firm’s website features a slider, or you are looking at building a new website, here are 5 reasons to reconsider this feature.

5 Reasons Why You Need to Ditch Your Website Slider

1. SLIDERS ARE DISTRACTING

When a user lands on your website, an automatically moving slider is distracting and unnecessary. Our eyes are wired to detect movement, a vestige of humankind’s early days in the wild and being able to see predators early on was life-saving. Now that we are ensconced in houses with fancy laptops, any movement is distracting. When we see movement on the screen, such as a popups, sliders, and automated graphics, it detracts from the overall experience instead of adding to it.

If your slider is photos, it distracts users from reading your content and can cause them to close the website. If your slider features ads, having multiple ads is less effective than having one. Choosing one allows users to focus on one featured ad, instead of trying to read multiple slides as the carousel changes automatically (not giving them a chance to fully read each ad). Hands down, sliders bring UX down.

2. SLIDERS LOWER YOUR SEO

A featured slide takes up a lot of space on your homepage. This is valuable real estate on your website! The distracting slider requires a lot of space for a feature that only 0.22% of users click on. Instead of wasting space on the slider, you could move your valuable content and CTA higher on the page.

If your law firm website features a slider, it’s possible that most of your content is pushed down below the fold. Google has stated, since 2012, that pushing down content is harmful for SEO. When users search for something and click on a website, they are frustrated when the content is not readily available. Having to scroll past a slider lowers UX and Google may penalize accordingly.

Many sliders feature a different H1 tag for each image. This is confusing for the user and lowers the effectiveness of your keywords. Changing the H1 tag with an automatic carousel is harmful for SEO efforts.

3. SLIDERS ARE BAD FOR MOBILE

Web designers use desktops to create websites. What looks great on a desktop may not translate to mobile. In 2018, 52.2 percent of all website traffic worldwide was on mobile phones, and that number is expected to continue to climb. If your website is not responsive in mobile, you are losing potential clients before they get a chance to even look at your site.
Sliders can have a big impact on site performance. They can delay speed so the site takes too long to load. Mobile users frequently bounce from websites that take too long to load on their screen.

Sliders are also prone to breaking in mobile, so the images do not appear correctly. A broken feature on your homepage makes the site appear unprofessional and can be a deterrent for users.

Lastly, a slider is going to appear differently on a mobile phone than a desktop. If a user has to scroll past image after image to get to the content they are looking for, they may end up frustrated and leaving the site before they even get to your CTA.

4. SLIDERS AREN’T ACCESSIBLE

Every website should be as accessible as possible for all users. Sliders are notoriously difficult for screen reading software and other adaptive technologies. It is difficult, if not impossible, to make sliders accessible. They are so frustrating that a longtime advocate for accessibility created this website shouldiuseacarousel.com to showcase the frustration and distraction sliders cause.

5. SLIDERS DON’T CONVERT

The main reason your law firm shouldn’t have a slider on your website? They do not convert! All the factors we’ve talked about effect user experience, and ultimately whether users follow through on your call to action. If a slider causes a user to leave your website — due to distraction, frustration, broken features, etc — then they never have the chance to complete your CTA.

The point of your website is to get potential clients to call your firm or fill out an online inquiry form. Sliders not only don’t add anything positive to your website to prompt users to action, they negatively impact user experience and SEO.

Your law firm website does not need a slider. There are other ways to engage users that will increase user experience and SEO efforts. High-resolution images and relevant content continue to provide a better website experience than automatic carousels. If your law firm needs assistance creating a professional, engaging website without using sliders, contact Conroy Creative Counsel.

Article: Original Source

This post was published on April 2, 2019. Last updated: July 5, 2019.

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With website speed, first impressions really do count. A slow website will harm your law firm. The world operates much faster than in the past. This also means that when it comes to your law firm and your website speed, the faster the better. You typically have around 5 seconds to capture the attention of your website visitors, otherwise you run the risk of them leaving and visiting a competitor’s site instead.

Delivering a fast website experience allows you to build trust with your visitors, keeps them engaged with your content, and helps them understand what you do. Here are 10 ways to improve your website load speed.

With the ever shortening attention span of the mass population, you need to make sure that you have their attention and you can keep it. Here are 10 tips that will improve your website speed.

1. Get a better web hosting company

Slower website speed happens when the servers are overloaded. If you are experiencing issues with speed and you feel like your host may be the culprit, you might want to consider breaking up. When it comes to web hosting, a one-size fits all approach may not be in your best interest.

Advanced servers that are built to serve the masses can be more pricey, but they have faster loading website speeds. The amount of time your customer is waiting for your site to load, can cost you in the long run. Check out this Web Design company with an advanced server. They can speed up your website overnight!

2. Make your website smaller

Bigger isn’t always better especially when inviting visitors over to your website. Large files within the coding may slow down your speed and take longer to load. Making sure to follow basic rules can help maximize your speed on a large website. Such as:

• Using images sparingly, instead of overloading your website with graphics
• Compress your files
• Utilizing Minimal fonts
• Use proper coding and keep it simple

3. Minimize external requests

By minimizing external requests for content you’re helping to boost your website speed. Instead of having external links, optimizing embedded links to social media can be helpful.

Since these tend to load after the main pages, it can drag down your speed.

4. Don’t use a WordPress theme

WordPress themes have a tendency to come with preloaded codebases that overload your website and make it run at a snail’s pace. One alternative to purchasing a WordPress theme is by having a web developer create a customized website just for you.

If you are still wanting a diy option, try researching some lesser known sites that have a more sleek codebase. Cleaning up your website’s backend will be worth it in the long run.

5. Lower the number of redirects you are using on your site

Every time your URL is redirected and bounces back and forth trying to find the server, it creates a situation to lose website speed. Utilizing accurate URL in your script can help.

If you create a direct path for your scripts and files, then unnecessary redirects will be obsolete and your visitors will see what they need faster.

6. Remove unnecessary plugins

In the event that you decide to add plugins to your theme, double checking that you are only installing what you need will help to make the website speeds more optimal. There’s no need for any extras in this department. It only takes up additional space and doesn’t serve your website.

Some themes come with built-in plugins and while they can help in easier setup of your site, they can drag you down in speed if it’s options that you aren’t using. For example, if you have a physical product and buy a template that has an e-commerce plugin already added, you may not be ready to utilize it at the moment.

7. Compress images

Less is more when it comes to compressing your images. Using tools and software to help create smaller images can help with load times while still maintaining high quality.

You can save a substantial amount of data by implementing tools such as TinyPNG to assist with the compression.

8. Lazy load images

It’s well known that our society is leaning more towards visuals to get our attention. Adding interesting and supportive graphics and images can aid in attracting visitors to you site. Since these images can pull a lot of weight from the speed needed to load successfully, sometimes the images are slow to load.

There’s not much worse than trying to view a page and see the dreaded loading circle spinning and spinning. We as a society are not typically patient people.

9. Scale your images

Adding images to your site can be more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, but the proper sizing of the image is important as well. Changing the scale of your images can boost speed time and help create a visual experience for your visitors.

The larger the image, the more data it takes to download. Making sure you load the proper size image is beneficial to your website speed.

10. HTTP Caching

Navigating the internet with code can be made more difficult since the network and server need to tag team to fetch the website. The traveling of information multiple times can slow down your need for speed.

Ensuring that the correct HTTP cache is valuable. Performance is boosted by the reusing of information stored in the browser’s cache.

There are numerous ways that you may be losing precious time due to poor practices on the backend of your website design and development. Not all is lost, by implementing a few changes you can gain website speed. This will ensure that you’re not losing visitors and they aren’t losing patience from long wait times.

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It’s 2019 and we can no longer deny the advantages of women in design. As more and more women enter previously male-dominated fields like IT, engineering, and design, companies are realizing the advantage of having women in the workforce. Women are steadily becoming more educated and stepping into roles of power and authority. There’s a long way to go on the equality front, but it’s exciting to see women foraging ahead and taking on new roles at every level of business. While I hope to see an increase in female CEOs and top executives, I am pleased to see the number of women owning businesses, going to school in STEM, and creating a future where equality is real. What do women bring to the design industry? There are plenty of statistics that show women are a powerful asset in the workplace. Women designers have a lot to offer!

5 Benefits of Women in Design

1. FEMALE PERSPECTIVE

There are excellent male designers out there. Unfortunately, even the best designer cannot completely put themselves in someone else’s shoes. That’s why it is helpful to have a variety of different contributors, so that different perspectives are taken into account. A female designer and a male designer may face the exact same problem, but have totally different solutions. This doesn’t mean that male designers purposefully leave out facets of a project that are important to women. They may not have realized those issues at all. That’s why it’s a good thing more women are starting to join the industry. Female designers allow a new perspective to enter the thought process and can ultimately lead to design being more accessible to everyone. A collaborative effort with a group of diverse individuals can lead to amazing and efficient solutions that one individual or a group of like-minded individuals would have never thought of. Female perspective isn’t a coy term, it’s an important part of critical design thinking. It is important for the industry to acknowledge that women may have a different perspective, which is valuable and likely sorely lacking in their current lineup.

2. DIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE

Diversity in the workplace isn’t for PR. In fact, the idea that tech startups and Fortune 500 companies hire women simply for diversity and that they aren’t full contributors is flat-out wrong. The reality is that women add much needed diversity to many companies that is proven to bring real benefits to business. Diversity spurs creativity and innovation in the workforce. A variety of voices means that your business is better suited to provide a robust and inclusive end product. It can also help you recruit and retain talent. Diversity is becoming more and more important to people of all demographics. It is one of the metrics applicants look for in a company. A lack of diversity can drive current employees to look for other work. Diversity is an important factor in how we work and where we want to work. The diversity effect is true for gender, sexual orientations, race, and ethnicities. Having a diverse mix of people opens up perspectives, introduces new ideas, and creates an environment where innovation can thrive.

3. COMMUNICATION AND EMPATHETIC MANAGEMENT

Women are especially good at building relationships with their peers and reports. They do this through collaboration,   Having a woman manager can encourage other people in the group, who might not otherwise participate, engage more actively in discussions and projects. Because women are less likely to focus on competition and generally more comfortable sharing power, other people who might normally feel uncomfortable in groups might be encouraged to share. Of course, men can be good communicators and empathetic managers as well. And some women can be terrible managers. Let’s not stereotype and entire gender. However, the social skills that women are typically drawn to and are reinforced in our society include active listening, thorough communication, and compassionate understanding — all qualities that can help managers be effective leaders.

4. APPEAL TO WOMEN CONSUMERS

Women represent an important part of the market and over $29 trillion in global sales Having female designers means getting an inside look at the pain points and concerns of over half the market. Women represent slightly over half the consumer market in the United States, but they do a disproportionate amount of the purchasing. Over 90% of household purchases are made by women. That’s not just dish soap and groceries. This includes major purchases like cars, appliances, and power tools. That’s incredible purchasing power! However, despite the purchasing power of women, many companies are falling flat in their approach. The marketing standby to “shrink it and pink it” that has been popular for decades (anyone remember the disastrous “Della” laptop marketing campaign is still prevalent today. Female consumers are getting fed up with this condescending approach, and there’s an easy solution. Women in design offer an opportunity to create products that will appeal to women without being slick and artificial. Products made for women, by women, are much more likely to hit the mark as the designer is a test market already. They are also more likely to suggest products, apps, and websites that women will use that are currently missing from the market. Because men currently lead most startups and tech firms, there is a distinct lack of women-centric products that have the potential to make it big. Case in point: an app to track your period is relatively new. When designing products, websites, branding, etc, it is crucial to keep the female consumer in mind as she represents such a large percentage of total sales in the United States. The best way to do that is by including female designers in your business.

5. FINANCIAL ADVANTAGE

It is important to encourage women in the workforce and to lift each other up. But what might convince companies to hire women for web design, development, cybersecurity, and other tech jobs is that it’s statistically proven that businesses that are gender-diverse are 15% more likely to outperform competitors. Businesses cannot ignore the fact that hiring more women can boost their earnings. There might be several factors that gender-diverse firms outperform including the diversity quotient, representative marketing, or productivity. Although there is a persistent perception that women talk more at work and therefore don’t contribute as much, that theory has been proven false. If women are chatting, it’s not hurting their overall productivity, which is 10% higher than men’s. For a variety of reasons, women have proven themselves a valuable asset in tech. Ultimately, startups and other businesses can’t afford not to hire women. Across the board, women make a difference to the productivity, creativity, and profitability of businesses. So if you don’t care about the success of your business, never hire a woman! The tech industry needs skilled and/or experienced workers. There are thousands of open jobs, and women are rapidly taking coursework and sharpening their skills to take those positions. There are so many advantages of having women in design, it will be fascinating to see where the field goes next.

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