Top 5 Website Mistakes That Could Be Costing You Clients

When building a website for a law firm or title company, there are several key mistakes you need to avoid making. To help you design a website that will attract new clients rather than drive them away, here are the top five website mistakes you should be sure to avoid: 

Mistake #1: Not Ensuring a Responsive Design

Above all else, a good website needs to be responsive and function smoothly. If the first thing users encounter when they visit your site is slow load times and broken links, they probably aren’t going to stick around for long. Not only does an unresponsive website create a poor experience for users, but it also reflects poorly on your brand; after all, if clients can’t trust your firm to keep its website functional and running smoothly, how are they going to trust it with their business? 

That’s why it’s always essential to design with the user experience in mind and create a site where everything functions as it should. This starts with optimizing your website for fast load times and ensuring that all of the links on the site function correctly. It’s also essential to utilize a responsive design that looks and functions great no matter what kind of device a person is using. With more people using mobile devices as their primary way of surfing the web, your website is going to drive away a lot of potential clients if it’s not optimized for mobile users. 

Mistake #2: Poor Security

As the rate of cyberattacks continues to climb year after year, the importance of strong website security has never been more obvious. Along with increasing the likelihood that your firm will suffer a devastating cyberattack, poor website security can also discourage potential clients in more ways than one. 

In some cases, users will know that your website’s security is lacking the moment that they visit it. Search engines and antivirus software will evaluate a site’s security and notify users of security risks when they attempt to access it. Suffice it to say that having your users see a message like this when they visit your site is not a great way to win their trust. 

Perhaps even more costly, though, is what happens if poor website security does end up causing your firm to become the victim of a cyberattack. The reputational damage that firms suffer when they aren’t able to protect their clients’ sensitive data can often linger for years after the event takes place, and it’s very hard to win that trust back again once the damage is done. 

Mistake #3: Limited Accessibility

It’s important to make sure that your website is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. Ignoring accessibility can cause you to miss out on an entire swath of potential clients, and, in some areas, it can even lead to legal issues. 

When designing a website for your firm, you should always follow the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) standards. These standards provide guidelines on things like adding text descriptions for images, ensuring color contrast is sufficient, and using captions for video content to ensure your website is accessible to all users regardless of their disabilities. 

Mistake #4: Ineffective Content

Your website’s content is what most users are there to see. It should reflect your business’s expertise, answer potential clients’ questions, and help them understand your unique value. If your content isn’t delivering on these promises, then it could be costing you clients. 

Content that’s vague, outdated, poorly written, or irrelevant isn’t going to win over a lot of clients. Instead, you want to make sure your website is populated with content that is compelling and persuasive. Strive to address your audience’s pain points and capitalize on industry trends while at the same time creating content that is an accurate reflection of your brand and the value that it brings to the table. At the same time, you also need to ensure that your content is optimized for SEO so that your site will rank higher in the search results and more potential clients will discover it in the first place. 

Mistake #5: Bad Design

Design trends evolve, and a website that looks outdated can give the impression that your business is also behind the times. All you need to do is look at websites that were designed ten or fifteen years ago to see just how glaring the difference can be between these and more modern designs. 

Of course, that often means that firms are required to refresh their website designs periodically. It’s not something that typically has to be done every year, but it’s important to keep an eye on design trends and make sure your website keeps up with the times. Failing to update your website’s design is something that can easily make the wrong first impression on potential clients, causing them to view your firm as unprofessional, outdated, or both. 

Conclusion

How well your website is designed can make all the difference when it comes to attracting new clients to your firm. Not only does your site’s design play a pivotal role in the impression that you make on potential clients, but it also has a major impact on search rankings and can determine how many people ever discover your website in the first place. 

By focusing on responsiveness, security, accessibility, compelling content, and a modern design, you can make a winning impression on potential clients who find your website and help set your firm apart from the competition. Of course, getting all of these things right is often easier said than done, which is where services like TitleTap can be a big help. 

At TitleTap, we specialize in designing fully optimized websites for law firms and title companies. If you’d like to learn more about how our expert web designer can help you build a website that attracts clients rather than driving them away, feel free to contact us today for a free consultation!