Law Firm Website Design: What to Plan Before You Build

What should a law firm website do?

A law firm website has three jobs. It must help the right people find you, it must help them decide to get in touch, and it must carry the information your regulator and the law require. Everything else is secondary. A handsome site that hides the phone number, uses legal jargon or loads slowly on a phone will disappoint, however good it looks. Google's SEO guide advises writing content that is easy to read, well organised, original and useful, using clear page titles, and linking related pages with descriptive text. Its people-first guidance adds that authorship should be clear where readers would expect it, and that the main purpose should be to help people. For a law firm, that means named solicitors, plain explanations and a clear next step on every page. Write down the three or four outcomes you want, such as more conveyancing enquiries or more calls from the local area, and use them to judge every design choice.

What should you plan before you build?

Planning saves money, because mistakes are cheapest to fix on paper. Work through the decisions in the table with your partners and write the answers into a short brief. Share the brief with every supplier you approach, so that quotes are comparable. Involve the people who answer calls and emails, since they know what clients ask and what confuses them. Gather the material you already have, such as client care letters, fee guides and frequently asked questions, because it is often the best source for content. Decide who will approve the content and the regulatory wording, and who will update the site after launch. Allow time for writing, as content is usually the slowest part of any project. A brief of two or three pages is enough, provided it is specific and honest about what the current site does badly.

Which pages does a law firm website need?

Most firms need a home page, a page for each main type of work, a page for each fee earner or team, a contact page, an about page and a regulatory page. The home page should say clearly who you help and with what, and should lead people quickly to the right practice area. Each practice area page should answer the questions clients ask, as described in our guide to practice area pages. People pages should show who does the work and their qualifications. The contact page should list the phone number, address, opening hours and a short enquiry form, with privacy information next to the form. The ICO says privacy information must be given at the time you collect personal data directly. A regulatory page should hold your SRA details, complaints procedure and any other statements you must make, and should be linked from the footer. Add pages only if you have something useful to say on them. A few strong pages beat many thin ones.

How should the site be built and hosted?

Choose a build that your team can maintain and that loads quickly. Speed matters for visitors and for Google. Google's Web Vitals guidance sets "good" targets, measured at the 75th percentile for mobile and desktop separately, of Largest Contentful Paint at or under 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint at or under 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift at or under 0.1. Ask each supplier how they will meet these targets and how they will prove it. Make the site work well on a phone, since many clients will use one. Check that images have descriptive alt text, that pages have unique titles and that Google can load your CSS and JavaScript, as its SEO guide advises. Agree where the site is hosted, who looks after security updates and backups, and how quickly problems are fixed. Insist that the domain, hosting and analytics accounts are in your firm's name.

What mistakes make a new website fail?

New sites often fail for ordinary reasons. The firm chooses a design before deciding what the site must do. Content is left until last, so the launch date slips or the pages are filled with placeholder text. The old site's pages are removed without redirects, so visitors and Google reach dead ends. The phone number is hard to find on mobile, or the form asks too much. The regulatory items are added in a hurry and never checked. Nobody is named to look after the site afterwards, so details go out of date. Analytics and call tracking are forgotten, so the firm cannot tell whether the new site works better than the old one. Each of these is avoidable with a written brief, a content owner, a launch checklist and a plan for the first three months. Take screenshots and figures from the old site before you change it, so you have something to compare with.

• Decide goals before design
• Name a content owner and a deadline
• Redirect old addresses to new pages
• Check regulatory items before launch
• Set up tracking before launch

How do the SRA and company law shape the design?

Build space for the regulatory items into the design from the start, so that they are not squeezed in at the end. The SRA Transparency Rules require an authorised body to show its SRA number and digital badge prominently on its website, to publish its complaints procedure with details of how and when to complain to the Legal Ombudsman and the SRA, and to publish costs information for listed types of work that it advertises. Company law requires a company's website to show its registered name, the part of the UK where it is registered, its registered number and its registered office address. The easiest approach is a standard footer on every page that carries these details, plus the badge in a place that is visible on mobile. Our SRA website checklist covers each item. Remember that you, not the supplier, are responsible for the accuracy of what is published. This is general information, not legal advice.

What drives the cost, and how do you run the project?

We do not quote prices in this guide, because a fair price depends on your scope. The main drivers are the number of pages, how much content is written for you, design complexity, integrations with other systems, migration of old content, ongoing support and the time needed for regulatory review. Compare quotes line by line, using the brief. A typical project runs through discovery, structure, content, design, build, review, launch and aftercare. Build in a review by your COLP before launch, and agree who can approve changes after it. Plan the launch carefully: redirect old web addresses to the new ones, check forms and phone numbers, test on several phones, confirm that the SRA badge works and that tracking records enquiries. Check again a week after launch. Our guide on law firm lead tracking explains the tracking set-up.

Next step

If you are planning a new site, book a free audit and we will review your current site and enquiry route. Our law firm website service builds sites that carry the regulatory information you supply, with your COLP approving the content. We are an operations partner for law firms, so we also look at tracking and follow-up.