Continued from Last Month
Before writing this article, I went through over 100 different law firms’ websites and looked at their “free consultation” page.
A few observations:
1. Every lawyer offers a free consult/evaluation.
2. Every lawyer cares about me.
3. Every lawyer is honest.
4. Every lawyer has experience.
5. Every lawyer has results.
6. Every lawyer will listen.
7. Every lawyer will put my interests first.
The Contact Form
The contact form is the most important thing.
The contact form is so important because it is a portal that gives them access to you. Therefore, you need to put serious thought and consideration into how the form looks and behaves.
Is the contact form above the fold?
Can a person quickly and immediately find how to get in touch with you? Make sure that the person can very quickly find where to initiate the free consultation. This means it needs to be in view on a laptop/desktop and on mobile there should be a button or form near the top.
Is the form easy to see?
One common mistake I’ve seen is the form will be hard to see. Specifically, forms often have white background and the boxes in which you are supposed to type are white and there is no border. There might be a blank line, but it simply isn’t clear and obvious that I’m supposed to click somewhere to start typing. It needs to be clear when a box is supposed to be an input.
Make sure the user can immediately identify what to do. Send the page to some people and watch them interact with it. This is important to get it right.
Does the form stand out?
You also need to make sure it visually stands out. It should not look like everything around it. The form area should stand out immediately so that the user’s eyes are drawn to it.
Is the form overwhelming?
Your form also needs not to overwhelm the user visually. I’ve seen so many forms that, on a desktop or laptop, stretch out across the entire page. This makes the form feel so much more intense and does not enhance my experience.
Does the form offer feedback?
It’s also important that when someone clicks the submit button that the user receives a message letting them know whether or not they’re information has transmitted successfully or not.
Should I do a button with pop-up or an embedded form directly on the page?
There is no perfect answer here. Having the form immediately visible is great, so people can immediately start filling out their information. The flip side of that is if you have someone click a button which pulls up a pop-up containing the form, this engages the user in micro-behaviors leading up to them ultimately contacting you.
What questions should be on your form?
There is a company out there that has what feels like 50 questions on the form (28 to be exact). Do you really need all that information for a person to contact you? If you are extremely picky and do not have an intake team, this is okay. However, the more questions you ask the less people want to fill out the form, reducing your quantity of leads. Train your intake team to ask these questions to quickly vet leads. This way, you have prospects on the phone.
Should your form stay at the top or scroll?
Similar to the form being directly on the page or in a popup, this can have perks both ways. On a desktop, it’s great to have a form that follows the user as they scroll down (this isn’t really practical on mobile). Having the form scroll with the user allows the next step (filling out the form) always in view. On the other hand, this also takes up enormous visual space and means the user has to scroll significantly more to consume the same content.
At the end of the day, it’s important for you to consider the contents on your page and how your page functions. Make your page easy to use and you’ll be steps ahead of your competition.
A Few More Items
What do you call this page?
It’s less about what you call the page and more about how you position everything. Every contingency-based lawyer is offering some sort of free consult/case evaluation. Getting wacky with what you call it isn’t necessarily helpful. Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut way to differentiate this page by name. One way we position pages like these are, “Request a time to talk with So and So about your possible case.”
Where do you put this page and how do you use it?
I mentioned above that this page should be linked to pages’ in your content rather than sending people to a generic, cold “Contact Us” page. I love using these types of pages in a retargeting campaign to send to people who are on pages like “Results” and “Testimonials.”
Design Colors
Make sure the colors both fit with your firm’s theme AND properly accent things of importance. I’ve seen so many firms with a dull color scheme use a soft color to try to make a form stand out. Discuss with your design team how to make key pieces of information stand out, with colors that pop.
Mobile vs. Desktop
It’s incredibly important that you take time to examine how your page looks on both a desk-top screen and a mobile phone. Do things look right? Is it easy to read? Are you drawn toward key pieces of information (and the contact form)?
Load Speed
Use a website like GTMetrix to examine how your website loads. If your website is loading quickly, this is great. However, if your website loads slowly, work with your tech team to get this rolling smoothing as soon as possible. Load speed can kill a person’s interest level in hearing what you have to say.
The Role of Chat
Many law firms have live chat installed on their website. I am a huge fan of this. However, on some pages, it is just plain obnoxious. If a person is on a free consult, having the chat available on the page is highly valuable. That said, if your chat keeps popping up in different ways, I recommend toning this down. Once is enough.
Use the Page!
At the end of the day, these recommendations are only helpful if you actually use the page whether through links within your website, ads, SMS marketing, or other means. Direct people to your free consult page and help the reader move from first learning about you to understanding how you can help them have the future they desire. You can help them. You just need to position it so that they realize the same.
