When a prospect first visits your law firm’s website, they’re going to quickly form an opinion on you and will determine whether or not you’re someone they trust. Consequently, you have a small window in which to impress them and persuade them to contact you. Unfortunately, making the wrong website mistakes can damage your credibility and kill your chances of capitalizing on leads. Here are some of the top mistakes that should be avoided at all costs.
Grammatical/Spelling Errors
While nobody is perfect, and everyone is going to make mistakes at some point, one of the biggest ways to hurt your firm’s reputation is to have blatant grammatical and/or spelling errors throughout your site. Whether it’s outright butchering the spelling of a word or simply using “your” when you should have used “you’re,” these types of mistakes can be the kiss of death and make you look unprofessional in the eyes of prospects. After all, someone might think that a law firm lacking this simple attention to detail would probably be ill-fitted to handle a serious case where their livelihood hangs in the balance. That’s why it’s important to use a quality spell checker and grammar checker and thoroughly proofread every single piece of content you create before publishing.
404s
404s are those ugly error messages you see when a server can’t find the page you request and there are broken links. And although many of the most highly respected companies and publications have the occasional 404, it’s something that you need to stay on top of to keep your authority intact. Fortunately, there are tools that can help you identify 404s before your prospects do. In fact, WordPress offers the Broken Link Checker plugin, which will alert you so you can immediately fix the problem.
Poor Links
The exterior links that you embed within your content are a reflection of your law firm and your level of professionalism. When you link out to respected resources like Forbes, The New York Times and university studies, it’s going to be a positive reflection. But if you link out to no name resources with low-quality or irrelevant content, then it’s going to have the opposite effect. That’s why it’s imperative to use quality control when choosing which sites to link out to.
An Outdated Blog
One final mistake that’s perhaps not as obvious but can be nonetheless detrimental is simply having a blog that hasn’t been updated for several months. Maybe you were consistent with updating your blog for years, but you haven’t updated it for a ridiculous amount of time. This can make your law firm appear disinterested, and you may lose some authority. What’s worse is when you fail to respond to comments that readers make, and their questions or input is simply ignored. These things are definite no-nos.
Because prospects form much of their opinion based upon a law firm’s website, it’s extremely important that you don’t make any of these careless website mistakes. Fortunately, by paying close attention, you can prevent these slip-ups and maintain a strong reputation and be in a position to garner trust.
Nick Mann
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