Smart law firms know they need to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to website development. Here are five trends that you should consider in order to keep your website looking professional – and modern. 

Personalized Website Content

One of the quickest ways to create a powerful – and unique – user experience is with personalized website content. Personalized website content is defined as web page content that is tailored to the specific needs of the user. This type of content takes into account the user’s location, demographics, interests, and other factors to deliver a customized experience. For law firms looking to differentiate themselves from their competitors, incorporating personalization into your website design could make a major impact. 

With personalized website content, your website will remember what content your visitors have interacted with in the past (such as a specific practice area page) and serve them similar content that they are likely to be interested in (such as blogs related to that practice area.) This is a great way to keep your visitors engaged with your website and coming back for more. 

When incorporating personalization, it is imperative to understand your various audiences. Who are you trying to reach with each section of your website? What needs do they have that your website can address? Once you have a good understanding of your target audience, you can start to think about how to best personalize your website for them.

You will also need to consider what information you want to collect from visitors to your site. This will help you determine what type of personalization features you need to add to your site and the next steps you want them to take. Do you want them to read more about a particular practice area? Learn more about your attorneys? Download a white paper? Reach out to your firm? Once you know who your audience is and how you want them to move through your website you can personalize the content to do just that. 

Website Load Time, Page Speed, Latency – and Smart Content Load

All four of these website development factors are important to consider in order to keep your website running smoothly and quickly. No one, including search engines, likes a slow website, so make sure you prioritize speed when developing a website for your law firm.

Your website’s load time is the amount of time it takes for your webpage to fully load when a visitor goes to your site. Website speed is a measure of how quickly your website responds to web requests. Website latency is the delay between when a user requests information from your website and when they receive that information. All three of these factors are important to consider when developing a website for law firms. 

There are many factors that can affect your website’s load time, speed, and latency. Some of these factors include:

• The size and complexity of your webpages, including the size of the files on the page, the number of images, and the amount of code
• The hosting environment for your website
• The number of visitors to your site

Website load time, page speed, and latency speed have been major factors in website development for some time now. A slow-loading web page can negatively impact your search engine optimization (S.E.O.) as well as your website conversion rate. In short, if your web pages take too long to load, you are likely losing potential clients.

Smart content load is a website development technique that is gaining in popularity and helps improve the user experience by loading only the necessary content for each individual visitor. This can help improve your website’s speed and performance. In addition, smart content load can also help law firms reduce their website’s bandwidth usage and improve its performance. This can be done in a number of ways, such as using cookies to track user behavior and preferences or using server-side rendering to dynamically generate content. 

This technique is particularly important for law firms because it can help them ensure that their website visitors are only seeing the most relevant information for their needs. By loading only the necessary content, law firms can avoid overwhelming their website visitors with too much information and make it easier for them to find what they’re looking for.

Optimized Voice Search

With the proliferation of digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Home, more and more people are using voice search to find the information they need online. This means it’s more important than ever to use natural language keywords and to make your content easy to understand. 

To make sure your law firm’s website is voice search-friendly, you’ll need to do some keyword research to find out what sorts of questions people are asking about your practice areas. Once you know what sort of questions people are asking, you can optimize your website content (blog posts, videos, practice area pages, resources) to answer those questions. 

More and more people are using their phones and tablets to search for information online, increasing the importance of a website that is optimized for voice search. 

Dark Mode Standardization

If you want your website to be accessible to a wide range of people, something to consider is dark mode standardization. Dark mode is a color scheme that is becoming increasingly popular on websites and apps. It features a dark background with light text and can be easier on the eyes than traditional white backgrounds. Many people find it helpful to use dark mode when they are working in low-light conditions or at night. Dark mode can help reduce eye strain and make it easier for people to read your content. Plus, it looks pretty cool!

Some of the benefits of dark mode include:

• Reduced eye strain
• Less blue light exposure
• Increased battery life

If you’re thinking about implementing dark mode on your website, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, make sure that your text is legible against the darker background. Second, consider using brighter colors for links and call-to-action buttons so that they stand out but most of the colors you use should be muted tones. And third, make sure you incorporate plenty of negative space (also known as white space) in your design to make the website appear less heavy or cluttered. Using dark mode helps images stand out and can also be a good time to incorporate minimalist design.

Privacy and Data Security

The importance of privacy and data security when developing a website cannot be overstated, especially for law firms, which handle sensitive client information on a daily basis. As more and more businesses move their operations online, they become targets for cybercriminals. Law firms are no exception. In fact, some experts believe that law firms are actually at a higher risk for cyberattacks than other types of businesses due to the sensitive nature of the information in their possession. Some corporate clients are even asking law firms to document and share their website security protocols to ensure that their information is protected. 

Cybersecruity firm Coveware says small and midsize professional services firms, especially law firms and financial services firms, are most at risk from ransomware attacks because they lack needed cybersecurity, perhaps because they think they’re too small to be targeted. 

There are a few different ways to make sure your website is secure. Using S.S.L./T.L.S. certificates to encrypt communication between your website and visitors’ browsers in one way. When you visit a website that uses S.S.L./T.L.S., your browser will check to see if the website’s certificate is valid and up to date. If it is, the browser will create a secure connection with the server. By using S.S.L./T.L.S., you can help protect your users’ information from being intercepted by third parties and give your website users peace of mind. 

If you have a website that allows your law firm clients to sign in with a user name and a password, then you should consider implementing two-factor authentication. In an era when data breaches are becoming more and more frequent, it’s critical to do all possible to safeguard your law firm’s website and the confidential information it may contain. Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of protection by requiring users to verify their identity using two distinct components, such as a password and a One Time Code (O.T.C.).

And it may seem obvious, but having strong passwords and controlling who has access to your law firm’s website and online databases is also essential. 

Websites are constantly evolving, as are the tools we can implement to create a great user experience. By staying ahead of the curve and incorporating some of these website development innovations now, you will differentiate yourself from your competitors, be easier to find online, and delight your prospects and clients.