How to review your law firm’s website

Review your law firm’s website by trying to use it: choose a matter you want, find the lawyer and contact the firm. Fix anything that stops you before spending money on a new design.

I care less about whether a site looks new than whether it explains your work and gets a message to the right person. You can check much of that on your own phone.

Check the contact form before judging the design

I check contact first. I lose patience with a site that makes calling the firm hard. Your staff needs messages it can answer; that matters more to me than the photograph above the form.

Tell the person who receives website messages that you are sending a test. Use clear test details, with no private matter information. Send it once, then check both ends: the message shown on screen and the inbox where it arrived.

A thank-you screen is only half the test. Get the person at your firm to confirm receipt. If the message fails to arrive, I put that repair first.

Tap the phone number too. Check the number your phone opens against the number your staff expects callers to use. Read any promise about replies and compare it with what your team can deliver.

If the message arrives but nobody takes the next step, that needs an owner inside the firm. I cover that decision in when not to buy SEO. More visitors can wait until you can respond to them.

Let the home page introduce your firm

Now choose one kind of matter you want more of and the area you serve. Keep both in mind as you read the home page.

Can you name the work from the opening heading and text? Can you tell where the firm works? Those answers belong before a paragraph about the firm’s values.

For example, a family law firm could open with “Family law help for people in [county].” Fill in the real area and use it only if it describes the practice. The test is simple: the words tell someone whether to keep reading.

Next, find the route to that practice. A menu full of labels that only your team understands needs clearer words. I prefer a direct practice name over a broad label that makes you guess.

Check the browser tab title as well. Google’s SEO starter guide says it uses page titles and headings among the sources for search result titles. It recommends clear, concise titles specific to each page. A title about the wrong practice or city goes on the repair list.

Read one practice page from start to finish

Open the practice page you chose. Read it on its own, without using the home page to fill in missing details.

I look for the matters the firm takes, the area it serves and what happens when someone gets in touch. Then I look for the lawyer who does that work.

Here is an example of a useful detail: “At the first meeting, we discuss your concerns about property, parenting and support.” That line belongs on a divorce page only if it matches your meetings. It gives the reader something concrete to expect.

Read each heading and the paragraph below it together. If the heading promises what to bring to a meeting, I expect a clear answer underneath. If the answer is buried elsewhere, move it here.

Mark any legal explanation that needs your attorneys’ review, including details about services you have changed or stopped offering.

For a long page with few answers, mark the missing answer beside each heading. Rewrite those parts before adding another section.

Find the person behind the practice

Follow the link to the relevant lawyer. The biography needs to explain what that person does today, before it lists their full career.

Could you tell whether this lawyer handles the matter you chose? Check their current role and practice areas. Open links offered as support for credentials or publications and see whether they match the wording.

Google’s helpful-content questions ask about evidence of knowledge and the background of the author or publisher. On a lawyer’s page, explain the person’s work and give readers a way to check their credentials.

Then follow the route back to the practice or onward to contact. A general intake number is fine by me when the page explains that this is how to begin.

Walk the route again on your phone

This pass is about movement. Open the menu, follow the practice link, reach the lawyer and return to contact. Notice any point where you have to stop and work out where to go.

I check for text cut off by a box, a banner covering a button and form fields that are hard to use. Write down the page and what blocked you. That gives your provider a problem they can reproduce.

Read links before tapping them. A label such as “Divorce and parenting matters” names the destination. Google’s link guidance recommends descriptive wording to help people and Google understand linked pages. Links also help Google find pages.

Your provider can check that the code lets Google follow those links. You can judge whether the words and destination make sense without learning the code.

Google’s URL Inspection tool can show whether Google has indexed your page and test whether it can access the page now. Neither check guarantees that your page will appear in search results.

Ask your SEO provider to name any reviewed page that Google cannot include in search, explain the cause and fix it. That repair comes before writing more pages.

Decide what to repair and what to keep

Your notes now give you a basis for spending. I put failed contact routes and wrong information first, missing answers next, and changes to appearance after those.

For each repair, name the page, the change, who owns it and how you will check it. For example: add the service area to the practice page opening, get the wording approved, then read it on phone and desktop.

Before agreeing to a rebuild, ask which of these problems needs one. If your current site can support the changes, get a list of repairs and their cost first. Reopen the finished pages yourself before marking the work complete.

Questions law-firm owners ask