User Experience (UX) in digital design refers to the experience leads, visitors or customers have as they interact with your site - their engagement, emotions and perceptions of your brand. People connect with good design, and are influenced by usability, responsiveness, aesthetics and content value.
How to Improve User Experience and Increase Conversion Rates
Good conversion rates drive more sales and revenue while low conversion rates mean your marketing is ineffective, budget is wasted with significant negative impact on your business.
Call to Action (CTA) Links
The quality, clarity and placement of your CTA’s have an important impact on your visitor’s UX, and therefor conversions. CTS’a above the fold, or nearer the top of the page are significantly more effective than those lower down the page. CTA’s can be buttons, in-body text links or event short forms - depending on the goal and relevance these can all be effective leads to conversion. Context is really important - your CTA’s should relate directly to the content on the page, and more specific is more effective.
Website Speed
Site speed is one of the most crucial determining factors influencing a positive UX, with slower sites experiencing lower conversion rates and even poorer SEO ranking. Generally a page that takes longer than 3 seconds to load is likely to lose the visitor. Of course it does depend largely on the intent of the visitor, but as a rule try and keep page download speeds super fast.
Content Readability
If your copy isn’t easily readable it will not be engaging. People usually skim content for important highlights, and in the case where they’ve visited your law firm’s website for information or assistance, this information should be easy to find. Font size, colour, spacing and content volume and layout are the main considerations for legibility and readability.
Contact Details
Provide a number of ways for visitors to easily contact you consistently throughout your firm’s website. Include all relevant contact details for each location, as well as making it easy for people to get hold of individuals within our firms should they need to. This doesn’t necessarily mean all email addresses should be displayed on your website, you can have expertise within the firm contactable through a web form. On that note, keep website contact forms short, easy to complete across all devices.
Content
Write unique content for your law firm’s website, which will go far in building trust and communicating your firm’s expertise. Creating quality content is a resource and budget consideration, but it’s well worth investing in to set your firm apart and own your practice areas. Also ensure your page and content layout is crisp and uncluttered, so it’s easy for the visitor to find information and take action.
Video to Engage Visitors
Avoid making landing pages too long, with heaps of arduous content that will most go unread. Video is a concise, engaging way to deliver your brand message, client testimonials or expertise - provided it is polished, relevant and to the point. Using videos can increase conversion rates considerably if they effectively communicate your firm's value proposition and seamlessly encourage visitors to take the desired conversion action on the page.
Visual Assets
Brand assets encompassing photos, images, iconography and other brand components should be professional, well designed and implemented, consistent and on-brand. Professional photos are important to communicate with your visitors on a personal level before they contact your firm, and are an essential to a professional brand image.
A poor User Experience is frustrating to the visitor and damaging your your law firm’s brand, with low engagement leading to disappointing ROI. Clear, well-defined page goals, relevant easy to access content and seamless architecture will ensure higher engagement and conversion rates - directly affecting the success of your firm’s marketing strategy.