Why Most Law Firm Websites Fail to Optimize Conversion

WHY MOST LAW FIRM
WEBSITES ARE
DESIGNED TO FAIL
LOGIC, EMOTION AND TODAY’S
LEGAL CONSUMER
ANDREA GETMAN
Digital Marketing Expert, Web Conversion
MICHAEL OWEN HILL
Product Manager, Social Media and Blogs
MARK JACOBSEN
Senior Director of Strategic Development
and Thought Leadership

WHY MOST LAW FIRM WEBSITES ARE DESIGNED TO FAIL2
“Now, wait a minute,” you may be thinking.
You’ve already invested in a professional website
development team’s services. And you’re largely
happy with the result. Maybe you’ve received
compliments from your peers. And perhaps your
site seems to be performing well because it has a
high search rank and significant traffic.
Even if all of these things are true, your website is
likely failing to deliver on its full potential. Why?
Because most attorneys and their website teams
do not adequately focus on conversion.
What is conversion? In a marketing context,
conversion means getting visitors to take the
actions you want them to take on your site. Every
aspect of your website’s design and content
should focus on motivating potential clients to
act. For most law firms, the primary goal should
be motivating visitors to contact the firm.
In practice, however, conversion is rarely the top
priority in law firm website development. Rather,
firms and designers too often focus on design
aesthetics, the professionalism of the content or
conforming to the prevailing template for a law
firm website.
While these objectives may have merit, making
them the sole priority can undermine the
most important goal: encouraging site visitors
to contact the firm and become clients. A
conversion focus places this goal front and
center. All other site elements should work to
support it. Indeed, smart Web marketers view
conversion optimization, or the continuous
improvement of a site’s conversion rate, as
critical in today’s crowded online marketplace.
MOST LAW FIRM WEBSITES ARE DESIGNED TO FAIL
That’s a bold statement, but it’s true. When evaluated against their potential in a given
market, many law firm websites generate less business impact — sometimes far less — than
they could if they were constructed more effectively.

WHY MOST LAW FIRM WEBSITES ARE DESIGNED TO FAIL 3
The Impact of Conversion Optimization
The goal of conversion optimization is to
maximize the number of conversions you receive
from visits to your website. This concept is often
expressed as a conversion rate:
To illustrate this concept, let’s review an example:
A law firm website receives 400 visits per month
on average. Before conversion optimization, it
received 20 contacts per month, resulting in
a conversion rate of 20/400, or 5 percent. To
improve conversion, the firm’s website team
optimized the site through visual and content
enhancements designed to motivate users to
contact the firm. In the month after conversion
optimization, the site again received around 400
visits, but 34 of those visitors contacted the firm,
for a conversion rate of 8.5 percent.
That’s a 70 percent improvement in conversion.
If this improvement is sustained, it would result
in 168 additional contacts over the course of a
year.
Law firms too often view the search rank of their
website and the amount of traffic it generates
as the key success measures. But as we discussed
in a previous paper, rank is a poor measure of
success in and of itself. And traffic has little value
unless it translates into actual contacts and
billable hours.
In that context, conversion optimization
represents a powerful, cost-effective way to
boost website performance — not by attempting
to attract a greater volume of visitors, but by
increasing the yield from existing traffic.
The First Step to Optimizing for
Conversion: Understanding Key
Motivators
Conversion optimization involves the continual
formulation and testing of hypotheses related
to conversion improvement. Since the goal of
conversion optimization is to motivate more
users to take the actions you want them to take,
we must begin with the fundamental factors
that drive consumer decision-making. While a
complete exploration of this topic is beyond our
scope, this paper explores some of the most
In general, law firms invest 100 times more
effort in acquiring traffic than in conversion.
By doing so, they miss out on a significant
opportunity to drive additional contacts
through conversion optimization.
You can motivate users to take the action you
want only if you understand the factors that
most powerfully influence them.
CONVERSION RATE =
number of conversions
number of visits

important — and often hidden — motivators that
come into play as consumers evaluate attorneys
and law firms through their websites.
As we understand these factors more deeply,
we can employ website development tools to
formulate and test conversion optimization
hypotheses. We can then use the findings to
continually hone our websites to target powerful
behavioral motivators and lead visitors (often at
a subconscious level) to take the actions we wish
them to take.
The Fundamental Drivers
of Human Decision-Making
We all would like to think that we make decisions
— especially important decisions — based upon
a rational evaluation of risks and rewards. If
we believe our own decision-making to be
completely rational, it is only natural to believe
the same of others’. Soon we find ourselves
assuming, largely without question, that the best
way to encourage a specific behavior is to make a
logical appeal.
The problem with this approach is that the
world is not populated by rational human beings
making logical decisions. Countless studies in
psychology, sociology, economics and political
science have debunked the myth of humans as
fundamentally rational actors.
The reality is that we are motivated most strongly
by emotions, we process information and make
decisions primarily with primitive parts of our
brain, and our self-proclaimed rationality is
often the illusory result of rationalizing our
decisions after they have already been made.
This is reflected in the fact that a purely rational
argument is rarely sufficient to change peoples’
minds or convince them to take a desired action.
Ask any trial lawyer who wishes to influence a
jury if a dry, logical argument with no emotional
appeal will be effective.
This fundamental irrationality is not an accident.
Our consciousness and decision-making are
strongly influenced by parts of our brains that
evolved over millions of years to provide us with
survival advantages.
This is not to suggest that the rational mind —
generally associated with the frontal cortex, or the
part of the brain associated with higher cognitive
functions such as reasoning and moral choice — is
The core motivators that influence a
potential client to contact your firm might
surprise you.
While not anatomically precise, this image underscores
the fact that more of our brain is devoted to unconscious
processes than logical decision-making.

not important to motivation. Rather, there are
less well-understood and powerful processes at
work that are unconscious and non-rational in
nature. Understanding these motivators is critical
to maximizing conversion potential.
With that in mind, we will avoid lengthy
discussion of obvious, conscious motivating
factors and focus on eight that are often
overlooked:
1. Safety
2. Surprise
3. Status
4. Scarcity
5. Certainty
6. Similarity/Dissimilarity
7. Sympathy
8. Selfishness
All can have a powerful influence over whether
or not potential clients will contact your firm.
The eight hidden motivators that influence decisions: Safety,
Surprise, Status, Scarcity, Certainty, Similarity/Dissimilarity,
Sympathy and Selfishness

Motivator #1 — Safety:
Desire for security and aversion
to risk and loss
While most people appreciate a sense of security,
we are more strongly motivated by perceived risk
and threat of loss than by the promise of safety.
Humans are generally averse to taking risks
when there is a lot to lose. The degree to which
an individual’s decision-making may be driven by
aversion to risk or loss is highly situational. But
given that people seeking legal help often have a
lot at stake, understanding the human desire for
safety and fear of loss is critical to designing for
conversion.
Information regarding actual or perceived
threats to safety is processed by the hindbrain
— a “primitive” part of the brain that regulates
many autonomous functions. When we perceive
a threat, we encounter an acute stress response
often referred to as “fight or flight.” This
reaction is not based upon a conscious, rational
assessment of the situation; rather, it is entirely
governed by the sympathetic nervous system. If
you have ever experienced the strong physical
sensations that accompany narrowly avoiding a
car crash or waking to a strange sound in your
home, you can attest to the power of this wholly
unconscious response.
Since perception of threat and response to
perceived threat are nearly instantaneous
processes that bypass the rational mind, these
can be used to powerfully influence behavior at
the unconscious level.
One intriguing fact about threat avoidance
and loss aversion is that they can actually
outweigh potential gain as motivating factors.1
For example, studies have demonstrated that
the fear of losing a given sum of money can be
a far stronger motivator than the prospect of
gaining an identical sum of money.2
In fact, for
most people, the potential gain would need to be
double the potential loss for the motivation to be
equal.
Loss aversion refers to the tendency
for people to strongly prefer avoiding
losses over acquiring gains.
This has specific implications for law firm
marketing. For example, it may be perfectly
logical to believe consumers will contact a
personal injury plaintiffs’ attorney based on
the suggestion that doing so could lead to a
substantial financial recovery. But research
indicates that a more powerful approach is
to frame the conversation around what the
potential client has to lose from not contacting
an attorney.
Let’s apply the same concept to another area of
legal practice: divorce. It might make sense to
include such messaging as “we’ll help ensure
How does your website address
the risks that potential clients face?
1
Baumeister, R. F.; Bratslavsky, E.; Finkenauer, C.; and Vohs, K. D. (2001). “Bad is Stronger than Good.” Review of General Psychology, 5, 323–370.
2
Kahneman, D., and Tversky, A. (1979). “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk.” Econometrica, XLVII, 263–291.
www.princeton.edu/~kahneman
{ }

you receive a fair share of marital assets.” That
approach appeals to potential clients’ desire for
financial safety and may be effective in motivating
some to contact your firm. However, tapping into
your potential client’s fear of losing that security
is often more effective.
Research indicates that such statements as “if
you don’t have aggressive representation, you
stand to lose your financial security,” are, all
things being equal, more powerful at motivating
the decision to contact an attorney.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• The desire for safety and security are strong drivers of human behavior.
• Focusing on how you can protect clients from the threat of losing something is more effective
than focusing on how you can help them gain something.
• Imagery and messaging that position law firms as being able to protect against threats to
safety and security can drive desired user behavior.
The image in front frames the conversation around what the potential client has to lose
by not contacting an attorney versus what he or she may gain.

Motivator #2 — Surprise:
Attraction to the novel
Georg Simmel, a German sociologist active
around the turn of the 20th century, introduced
the concept of the “attraction of the novel” in a
1904 article which proposed that fashion derives
from a tension between our tendency to imitate
others and the desire to distinguish ourselves
from our peers. Although more than 100 years
old, this concept remains pertinent to a discussion
of modern legal marketing, in which there is a
prevailing “fashion” in law firm websites that
should be obvious when conducting a Web search
for an attorney or law firm.
Novelty is the quality of being new
and unusual and is one of the primary
identifying aspects directing focus.
Law firms often stumble on this dichotomy when
approaching the design and development of
their websites. Many understand that to stand
out from the competition, the design must be
fresh or unique. At the same time, there is a
significant impetus — perhaps based upon sound
reasoning, perhaps based upon an irrational
aversion to risk — to imitate other successful sites.
The decision to imitate is easy to rationalize. A
site that imitates the popular fashion might hope
to benefit from the results it is assumed other,
similar sites are driving. But by unquestioningly
following the crowd, you risk copying the bad
conversion and usability decisions made by
the sites you emulate. It makes good sense to
conform to established Web usability standards,
but it’s equally important to be unique in your
market. The decision to imitate rather than
innovate will likely prevent your site from reaching
its true conversion potential.
Imitation and conformity are safer than creating
something new. Standing out is often perceived
as risky. And as we have discussed, human
beings (including attorneys making marketing
decisions) tend to be risk-averse. So instead of
focusing on the benefits of creating a distinctive
design, consider the risks associated with
conforming too closely to the current fashion. If
your marketing approach too closely echoes that
of others, you will miss out on an opportunity
to differentiate your practice in an increasingly
competitive marketplace. Prospects will likely
view your website (and therefore your firm) as
unremarkable. If so, many of these potential
clients will not be sufficiently motivated to
convert. The risk to your firm in terms of lost
business is substantial.
More contemporary guidance relevant to the
tension between the novel and conventional
comes from Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of
the Ogilvy Group and a popularizer of behavioral
economics. He notes that the best way to sell a
product is to make new things seem familiar and
make familiar things seem new.3
For example,
a tax practice might present information about
law changes in a way that is understandable
and relatable to readers. On the other hand,
the same firm might highlight the experience
If your website looks like every other law
firm’s site, can you expect it to stand out to
visitors?
3 “
Rory Sutherland on Influence” — http://vimeo.com/39398824
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and qualifications of its partners — a ubiquitous
aspect of legal marketing websites — in a fresh
and novel way.
In other words, you can leverage the attraction to
novelty and reap the benefits of distinctive design
without “reinventing the wheel,” and without
jeopardizing the investment in your website by
creating content or design that is so unfamiliar
as to be confusing or unusable.
So, while we encourage you to prioritize
distinctive design that motivates users to convert,
you don’t have to completely break the mold or
implement untested approaches. Rather, if you
wish your site to convert at an optimal rate, you
should choose to stand out rather than conform,
to innovate rather than imitate.

The example in front screams, “Choose us, we’re different from the rest!” But when
other sites follow the same idea, it no longer stands out from the crowd.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Humans are attracted to the novel. Focus on innovation instead of imitation.
• While many firms may shrink from the perceived risk of being different, departing
from the prevailing “fashion” of the crowd can help you stand out.
• Messaging that clearly differentiates your firm in your market is important.

Motivator #3 — Status:
Desire for social power and affirmation
Humans seek status because, evolutionarily,
higher status equated to greater access to
resources for survival. Like safety, this is a
deeply rooted desire. And also like the desire for
safety, the threat of losing status may be a more
powerful motivator than the promise of increased
social standing.
The desire for social status is one of
the most important factors driving
human behavior.
One study found that negative social signals and
experiences predict psychological behavior more
strongly than positive ones.4
Similarly, another
study found that social conflict and undermining
behaviors are far more likely to diminish feelings
of status and self-worth when compared with
how positive factors such as social support and
affirmation can increase self-worth.5
In the West, where employment and income are
generally perceived to be core factors of social
status, the threat of loss of status through loss of
income or position can be powerful motivators.
This has far-reaching implications for attorneys.
For example, criminal defense attorneys often
find that conversion improves when messaging
focuses explicitly on the threat of loss of
employment, income and status due to criminal
charges and/or conviction. Statements that speak
to these emotions — “if you are found guilty of a
felony, you may find it very difficult to find a job
in the future” — can be more effective motivators
than promises to “protect your rights.”
Another way to tap into status is through
“social proof,” which involves leveraging
social signals through testimonials, reviews
or impressive Facebook “like” numbers that
can powerfully influence your potential client.
Effectively leveraging social signals is a complex
methodology that we will address in a future
paper. That said, your potential client is more
likely to be drawn to your firm if your website
demonstrates proof of others’ trust in you.
Marketers and advertisers in other industries
have long understood that status is a primary
motivator in decision-making. So why do
relatively few legal websites leverage the desire
for status and the fear of its loss?
Does your website speak to your
potential clients’ desire for status?
4
Okun, M. A.; Melichar, J. F.; and Hill, M. D. (1990). “Negative Daily Events, Positive and Negative Social Ties, and Psychological Distress Among Older Adults.
Gerontologist, 30, 193–199.
5
Vinokur, A. D., and van Ryn, M. (1993). “Social Support and Undermining in Close Relationships: Their Independent Effects on the Mental Health of Unemployed
Persons.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 350–359.
{ }

One reason is that the connection between hiring
an attorney and social status acquisition is less
obvious than, say, the purchase of a sports car
or the choice of one brand of clothing over
another. That said, the primary reason legal
websites often fail to leverage the desire for
status to drive conversion is this: The status
needs of the firm — and not those of potential
clients — too often drive decision-making.
Desire for status is as much of a motivator for
attorneys as it is for potential clients. It’s almost
unavoidable, and these desires come into conflict
during the Web design process. You must decide
who your website is for and who it’s intended to
motivate — yourself, or your prospects.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Humans strongly desire status, social power and affirmation.
• Firm messaging that ensures the preservation or expansion of social standing
can be a powerful motivator.
Messaging that focuses on the threat of loss of employment and social status
may be more effective than promises to “protect your rights.”

Motivator #4 — Scarcity:
A sense of urgency drives action
Suggestions of scarcity — “while supplies last,”
“for a limited time only,” etc. — have long been
staples of marketing language. Why? Because
perceived scarcity can be a powerful motivator to
take action.
If we perceive a resource to be scarce, we’re more
likely to believe it’s valuable. Likewise, scarcity
taps into loss aversion, or the fear of missing out.
Most individuals will take action when presented
with an opportunity to acquire a valuable product
or service — along with a threat that failing to act
quickly will prevent them from ever being able to
acquire it.
Scarcity taps into the theory that we
will be driven to desire an object
more if we can’t have it.
Clearly, we can’t suggest that legal services are in
limited supply. One thing that is in short supply,
however, is time. Personal injury
claimants may “miss out” if they act too late.
Individuals accused of crimes may find their
defense options limited if they wait too long to
consult an attorney. Divorce clients often wish
they had legal guidance before making decisions
that can affect future disposition of assets and
child custody arrangements. Clients facing DUI
charges may not be prepared to take quick action
to preserve their right to drive. The list goes on.
You probably have numerous such examples from
your own practice.
One way to tap into scarcity motivation is to
craft website design and content that convey
a clear sense of urgency. A simple “contact us
today” doesn’t communicate urgency. You must
explicitly present the risks and quantify potential
losses that might result from a lack of action or
delayed action if you want to motivate potential
clients to contact your firm.
Does your potential client understand
what’s at stake if he or she fails to act?
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Perceived scarcity is a strong motivator to take action.
• The negative consequences of failing to act quickly can offer a powerful way
for law firms to tap into this motivator.
{ }

Motivator #5 — Certainty:
Too many choices is a bad thing for
conversion
We desire comfort and certainty. We like clear,
definitive answers. Conversely, we dislike
confusion, ambiguity and doubt. These make
us uncomfortable and can trigger anger and
frustration.
The last thing you want a prospective client
to experience when visiting your website is
confusion. To maximize conversion, you need
to provide clarity to encourage your prospects
to feel certain in their choices. If you don’t, they
may refrain from making any decision — such
as contacting your firm — and instead seek help
elsewhere.
The concept of choice overload or “overchoice”
plays a role here. The term was coined in the
early 1970s to describe the observation that the
proliferation of choices available to consumers
does not make it easier to come to decisions.
Overchoice can be related to such phenomena as
“analysis paralysis” and “information overload,”
and has been verified in numerous studies and
experiments.6
When presented with a wide variety of choices,
consumers — such as law firm website visitors —
often prefer to make no choice at all. Presenting
too many choices can prevent your potential
clients from deciding to contact your firm.
One study demonstrating the impact of
overchoice on consumer behavior found that
for every 10 mutual fund options an employer
offered in a 401(k) plan, the rate of employee
participation went down by 2 percent. It may
be counterintuitive, but providing employees
with more choices had the opposite effect than
intended.7
The human ability to manage
choices is limited, and too many
choices can lead to choice apathy.
Likewise, our experience indicates that for
Web design in general — and site navigation
in particular — presenting too many or too
confusing choices can dramatically impair
conversion.
One way to identify if overchoice is preventing
your website from achieving its full conversion
potential is “bounce rate.” Bounce rate is the
ratio of visitors to a Web page who view the
page but navigate away from the site without
clicking onto additional pages on the site. While
bounce rate is only one of many metrics that
may provide insight into your potential clients’
decision-making regarding your website, a high
bounce rate (e.g., greater than 50 percent for
Do potential clients have a clear idea of
the action you want them to take on your
website?
6
www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/bicpapers/pdf/04-08.pdf
7
www.shabanali.com/upload/poc.pdf
www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
{ }

your website’s home page) may be a good reason
to take a look at the number of choices the page
presents to visitors and to clarify or simplify
wherever possible.
So it may seem logical to present your visitors
with numerous options to navigate to pages
targeted to specific case types. But the reality is
that providing too many choices may result in
potential clients making the one choice that has a
certain outcome — to go elsewhere.
When you present all of the information you think a user could ever want, the website’s
main goal is lost and navigation becomes cluttered. If you eliminate choices, you can
greatly reduce anxiety for consumers and guide them to take the desired action.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Presenting an overabundance of choices on your website can confuse and repel users.
• Think carefully about the most important choices and navigational pathways
you want to provide site users, then design the architecture around those.

Motivator #6 — Similarity/Dissimilarity:
We appreciate consistency
and notice contrast
Designers understand that creating strong visual
contrast is an effective way to attract attention
and guide user behavior. Similarly, conceptual
contrast — such as a point-counterpoint or side-
by-side features comparison — can attract and
hold readers’ attention and influence decisions.
The power of contrast to influence attention is
related to the neurophysiology of awareness.
The reticular activating system — neural fibers
connecting the base of the brain to its outer
layers or cortex — within the central nervous
system mediates shifts in awareness and levels
of attention.
When we view the elements in our
environment, the brain seeks clear
contrast in order to make decisions.
Understanding how this part of the brain affects
behavior can help you make good website
design decisions. If you want a visitor to focus
on a contact form or other conversion-oriented
feature, consider using contrasting colors or
other visual distinguishers.
At the same time, designers and marketers
know the importance of maintaining brand
consistency with imagery, layout, language
and the like. Consistently applying the same or
similar features helps to create an “identity” for
a site that can facilitate a potential client’s sense
of understanding a firm. Extending identity to
offline marketing and holistic brand-building
through consistent design features such as
logos and slogans should be a high priority.
Consistency also helps limit confusion, which
links to the concept of overchoice discussed
earlier.
The most effective approach is to balance your
prospects’ appreciation for consistency and
attraction to contrast in your site’s design. Too
much contrast creates visual chaos. Too much
consistency may be insufficient to direct and
motivate users to take the desired action.
Does your marketing effectively balance
consistency and contrast?
{ }
An example of how you can use copy to get people
to pay attention to your service by demonstrating
its benefits in a before-and-after scenario.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Consistency in look, feel and tone throughout a website promotes usability, reinforces
a firm’s brand image and helps meet potential clients’ expectations.
• Within a context of consistency, contrasting images and messages stand out
and boost impact.
• Use contrast strategically to drive users toward desired behaviors.
The form using the blue background color and orange button creates strong
visual contrast to attract attention and guide user behavior.

Motivator #7 — Sympathy:
Trust, likeability and the human touch as
conversion factors
Feelings of affection and trust for a brand can
powerfully motivate a consumer’s purchasing
decisions. But while the value of trust is easy to
recognize, many law firms do not understand
the fundamental factors that influence the
perception of trustworthiness.
In marketing your firm’s services, you might
think it logical to draw attention to your years of
experience, your top-flight alma mater, your vast
professional awards and other distinctions. The
reasoning is that potential clients will conduct
a rational evaluation and determine that these
factors indicate trustworthiness.
The truth is that trust does not reside in the
rational part of the brain (the frontal cortex), but
rather in the amygdala. In addition to playing a
significant role in primal emotional responses
such as fear and aggression, the amygdala is
deeply involved in our value judgments. This part
of the brain helps us decipher facial expressions
and decide whom we should trust. It also
influences many of our purchasing decisions.8
It’s easy to make suboptimal design and
content decisions if you mistakenly presume
website visitors will come to trust you based
upon a rational evaluation of your experience,
credentials and accolades. If you want to
optimize for conversion, your website must
appeal to the part of the brain where decisions
about trust are actually made.
Images that depict trust appeal to
our “emotional brain” and influence
purchasing decisions.
You can start by thinking about representations
of human faces on your site — particularly
images of attorneys. Take a hypothetical firm
with seven attorneys. It seems logical to present
a photograph of all seven attorneys looking
suitably somber and professional on the firm’s
website, under the theory that it will convey
power and gravitas. That might be what the
rational mind would infer. But the emotional
mind that is looking for trust signals will
find little to motivate it in such an imposing,
humorless “wall of lawyers.”
Instead, consider the unconscious impact of
softer photos that depict smiling, friendly,
open faces. These are faces you can trust.
These are individuals you can imagine having a
conversation with. These are people with whom
you can feel comfortable sharing the difficulties
that led you to search for a lawyer in the first
place.
8
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11850635
http://brainb.psyc.bbk.ac.uk/PDF/mattavellietal_2012.pdf
www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/bicpapers/pdf/04-08.pdf
Does your marketing give potential
clients a reason to like and trust you?
{ }

Similarly, consider language style and tone.
You might assume that complex diction and
abstruse construction will provide evidence of
your intelligence and erudition. This approach,
however, misses the opportunity to signal
trustworthiness and likeability to your prospect,
who is relying on his or her unconscious mind to
make quick decisions about trust.
Contrast that with a more natural approach
that employs matter-of-fact language and
terminology. Consider the impact of a website
that clearly signals caring, openness, kindness,
strength and honesty through the use of
emotional words. This type of content is more
likely to motivate action, according to an analysis
of 180 law firm websites conducted by FindLaw
in 2010.
That study categorized the content of each
site using three technical properties of tone:
pitch (indicating mode of address) being either
abstract or conversational, approach (indicating
marketing style) as either subtle or aggressive,
and language (indicating diction and syntax) as
either formal or informal. Further, we grouped
the sites into five topical categories based on the
similarity of their target audiences.
We found that a conversational and relatively
informal approach tended to be more highly
correlated with conversion than a formal,
Compare the stern-faced “wall of lawyers” with the friendly, approachable face. The
latter immediately creates a personal connection. Law firms can benefit by having real
(not stock) pictures of staff, customers or others who may relate well with potential clients.

informational tone. Interestingly, this bias toward
more friendly, understandable content was
present across website types, including those
targeted to a business-to-business audience.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• Consumers want to do business with firms they sense are trustworthy and likable.
• Law firms should work to attract consumers with images that present attorneys as likable,
approachable and trustworthy, along with content that addresses laypeople’s core concerns
in language they can understand.

Motivator #8 — Selfishness:
Forget “what’s in it for me?” and answer
the bigger question: “What’s in it for my
potential client?”
A firm’s legal marketing website is a tool that
can accomplish many things. It can promote the
firm’s experience, capabilities, accolades and
prestige. It can make the firm appear impressive
to peers. In short, it can satisfy the ego-driven
needs of the firm’s attorneys. This is the right
approach if the firm values that outcome more
than generating new leads, more cases and more
billable hours.
On the other hand, if conversion is a goal for
the website, it’s important to focus more on
your potential clients’ needs than your desire to
look impressive to your peers. As much as you
may expect a website to be designed to meet
your own expectations, site visitors will not be
convinced to take action unless their needs and
expectations are met there.
In short, when you approach a website design,
you will almost certainly face a difficult choice:
Are you building it for yourself? Or is your goal to
drive business by motivating potential clients?
The latter approach will lead to higher
conversion. If you make this choice — and we
urge you to do so — you will need to carefully
consider each design and content decision. It’s
far too easy to start with the intent of designing
for your audience, only to let ego influence each
decision.
Why? Because attorneys — like consumers — are
motivated by self-interest. We say that not as
a criticism. It’s a biological and psychological
reality that you must address to maximize your
website’s conversion potential.
Too often, attorneys motivated by self-interest
fail to consider that the potential client’s
interests must dictate design and content
decisions for a website to be fully optimized for
conversion.
You must be vigilant to avoid allowing ego to
color your decisions. Rather than instructing
your website development team to focus on
elements that stroke your ego, assist them by
providing insight into your potential client’s
questions, concerns, fears and aspirations. Make
it clear that you will be happy only if meeting his
or her needs is at the heart of every content and
design decision.
Visitors to your site will not be
convinced to take action unless
their needs are met there.
When successful, the audience-focused
approach affects many aspects of website design
and content. Here are a few examples of how to
create content designed to drive conversion:
• When promoting your firm’s credentials,
describe them only in terms of how they may
benefit a potential client.
Who is your website for — you or your
potential client?
{ }

• Address your website visitors directly. Tell
them “we can help you,” instead of “our firm
has a track record of success.”
Remember, your potential client is focused
on his or her own immediate needs, and
studies indicate we are much more likely
to act on messages we feel are personally
directed at us.
• Present legal information and marketing
messages in a way that is understandable to
a layperson.
• Address real, immediate (and often
emotional) needs, rather than emphasizing
the firm’s erudition and fluency in “legalese.”
Your potential clients’ self-interest may be the
most difficult motivator to correctly integrate.
But designing for website users instead of
website owners can significantly improve a site’s
conversion potential.
Example of customer-focused content
Example of ego-driven content
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• In a scenario in which “everyone is in it for themselves,” the needs of prospective clients
must prevail.
• It can be uncomfortable for a law firm to prioritize the needs of prospective clients over its
own desire to emphasize its status. Doing so is key to constructing a site that maximizes
conversion, however.

The State of Legal Marketing
Websites Today
While the science of marketing and the
understanding of human behavior and
motivation have advanced rapidly in recent years,
the template for most law firm websites has
evolved little since firms first began employing
the Internet as a marketing channel. Most law
firm websites feature some combination of the
following:
• overemphasis on credentials that are likely to
impress only other attorneys
• bland and often exhaustive overviews of
every practice area and case type the firm
handles
• overblown content that leaves most
consumers cold
• overreliance on clichés — “we are dedicated
to protecting the rights of our clients,” “we
provide aggressive representation,” “our
attorneys have over 100 years of combined
experience” — that do little to distinguish
firms or motivate prospective clients.
Why do the majority of legal marketing websites
fail to meet their potential? We contend it’s
because they were designed to appeal only to
the potential client’s rational mind. As a result,
many law firms miss opportunities to grow their
business. Some may even struggle to survive in
a crowded marketplace in which simply having
an attractive website is no longer a significant
differentiator.
In short, most law firm websites fail their firms
because they are designed to fail.
The only solution is to approach website design
from a radically different perspective, one
characterized by a rigorous focus on what will
motivate real people to choose the firm from the
many options available to them.
Conversion Optimization
as an Iterative Process
Understanding the key motivators we share
as human beings sets the foundation for
conversion. That said, a successful conversion
optimization program must begin with a
thorough understanding of what will motivate
your specific target audience. This means that
the best approach to conversion optimization
will almost certainly depend upon variables
unique to your firm and market, including
the demographics of your client base and the
common pressures your potential clients may
face. In short, conversion optimization is neither
a one-time nor a one-size-fits-all proposition.
Are you losing potential clients because you
are doing what “seems logical” instead of
what works?
No website can ever be “fully” or
“permanently” optimized for conversion.

Conclusion
Conversion optimization involves the continual
formulation and testing of hypotheses. This
in turn generates lessons that, if applied, can
improve a website’s conversion rate. Central to
this process is understanding the factors that
motivate — or fail to motivate — your potential
clients to convert.
By effectively targeting consumer motivators, law
firms can dramatically improve their conversion
rates and generate substantially greater returns
from their website investments.
This paper has addressed these powerful and
often subconscious motivators to provide insight
into some of the primary considerations in the
conversion optimization process. In a subsequent
paper, we will delve deeper into this process
and provide additional examples of conversion
optimization methodology at work.

© 2014 FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters business
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