Spring Cleaning For Your Law Firm Website

Each Spring, you take the time to wash your windows, scrub your oven, and fluff your pillows to ensure your house is taken care of. This annual cleaning ritual is a staple for many, and having an annual cleaning of your website should be no different. Just like your house, law firm websites can quickly become “dusty” and “dirty” if you’re not taking the necessary steps to keep it clean. This year, make spring cleaning your website a priority.

There are three major questions you can ask yourself when spring cleaning your legal websites:
1. Is it working properly?
2. Does it look good?
3. Is it meeting your firm’s goals?

Below is a checklist of areas that should be checked to answer these three questions.

General Overview
• Browse and proofread the site. Take note of anything that needs changing
• Brainstorm what could be added, changed, eliminated, or updated
• Browse and proofread the mobile site. Take note of anything that needs changing
• Test mobile responsiveness
Links
• Check links within your website to make sure they’re directing to the right pages
• Redirect any links that are connected to an incorrect page
• Create a “Custom 404” error page to help with bounce rate
• Link to related pages within the website
• Link to other related blogs
• Find more opportunities to insert links to the contact page
• Find more opportunities to insert links to your home page
• Boost your SEO by searching for trusted external websites to link with
• Provide links to social media pages
Analytics
• Check on how people are using your website by reviewing your analytics
• Investigate pages with high bounce rates
• Investigate pages with low duration times
• Investigate major differences between mobile and desktop analytics
Software & Plugins
• Ensure they are up to date to help with your website security
Content
• What content has worked well for you? Create ways to utilize these strengths
• What content have you not covered? Create a plan to address those topics
• Are there content pages or blogs that need updating?
ADA Compliance
• Make sure images have an alt text
• Provide texts for videos
• Ensure the language is identified
• Smush images in the back for faster loading time
• Ensure the menu is easily accessible on every page
• Double check that all fonts are large enough
• Make sure your colors are contrasting
User Experience
• Utilize white space. Take note of any pages that appear too crowded
• Create content hierarchy for clear organization
• Test your website’s responsiveness to different devices and browsers
• Test page loading speed
• Test contact forms

These steps may feel overwhelming and daunting, but it’s crucial that these problems are taken care of while they’re small in order to avoid larger issues down the road. Luckily, an experienced lawyer website design company can help you with all of these steps. In fact, we go through a similar checklist every 3 months for our SEO clients.

If your lawyer website is in need of a good wash and dusting, contact Law Firm Sites today. With two decades of experience with law firm web design, we can answer any questions you have.