Refreshing your site without a heavy lift

More Insights

It’s a reflection of your brand experience and helps give your buyers a holistic understanding of your firm. In our most recent Top of Mind Survey, we learned that almost 90% of legal buyers will visit your website before they meet you and only 1% will never visit.

With website technology and design and user trends continuing to change rapidly, it can be difficult to know how to effectively use resources to keep your site up to date while creating the best possible user experience. A full redesign can be costly and time-consuming. But depending on your budget and circumstances, a full redesign may not be necessary. Instead, consider a more limited website refresh, which can address usability issues while also revitalizing a dated design. If you’re considering a refresh, here are some quick wins that don’t require a heavy lift:

1. Breathe energy into your existing visual assets. Working on top of your current website structure, you can still make your site look brand-new. A different take on typography, color palette, buttons, icons, infographics and imagery will raise your site to an entirely new level. Unlike a rebrand, a refresh can refine and update these elements while keeping the essence of your brand. You can also improve your Americans with Disabilities Act compliance — an area where many older sites have not caught up to current expectations.
   
   
2. Update your imagery. Nothing degrades the look and feel of a website faster than the wrong choice of imagery. For an immediate impact, choose quality imagery and making sure that it aligns with your brand. Consider developing or revising an image style guide or creating an image library to help control the quality of the imagery.
   
   
3. What about bio photos? We know that retaking bio photos can be a major investment. But you may be able to update existing photos by changing backgrounds (if your photos are transparent silhouettes) and adding color or environmental/office backgrounds. Likewise, a different format or crop might be enough to give your existing photos a more contemporary feel.
   
   
4. Add interaction. Another way to breathe new life into your site is to add movement. Micro-animations and scroll effects can enhance the user experience and make your site feel less dated. Applying simple fade-ins and hover states throughout the site can give every page a new feel.
   
   
5. Create a flex area. Keep your site fresh and relevant by adding a flexible homepage section to feature statements or resources related to breaking world news. A flexible (or “flex”) area lets you quickly and easily deploy timely content on high-traffic, high-visibility pages without sacrificing brand equity. The flex area can be configured to appear when you have something to say and disappear when you don’t.
   
   
6. Repurpose existing modules for diversity, equity and inclusion or community service. Research shows that good citizenship has become increasingly important to buyers of legal services, your clients and prospective hires. Adding a section or a page or just showcasing stories, statistics, imagery or a video can demonstrate and showcase the firm’s values. Take stock of the existing modules of your site and whether they can be repurposed to accentuate this type of content.
   
   
7. Evaluate most-visited pages. Look at your analytics and find out what types of content users are searching for and what pages are getting traffic. Can these pages work harder or have more stickiness with the addition of teasers or pathways to other content? Can you add different content or formats to enhance the page? Focusing on a refresh for often-visited pages is a great substitute for, or a bridge to, revamping the whole site.
   
   
8. Use digital brochure software. Converting traditional static PDFs on your site to an interactive format will enhance the user experience and drive memorability. Content for specialty initiatives, marquee practice/industry groups, thought leadership, careers, DEI, pro bono or other high-value content can find new life in the digital world while working within the limitations of your current site. A digital brochure platform can actually feel like a microsite and be a great workaround if redesigning your site is too far in the future.

Interested in learning more about how you can rejuvenate your website without overspending your time and money? Schedule a meeting with Dawn Michalak, Director of Business Development.