Don't Lose the Contact Needle in Your Website Haystack | Practice Up! for Advocates and Care Managers

Say you need to find a lawyer to help you draw up your contracts for your new advocacy practice. Which experience would you choose?

Experience #1: You do a search and you arrive at Attorney Option #1’s website. You see friendly, professional faces. You see testimonials from happy clients. You see descriptions of services, one of which is “Legal Support for Small Businesses”… Wow! Perfect! But you search and search and don’t see a phone number. In fact, the links on the website don’t indicate where you can go to find contact information at all. You finally arrive at a page with a contact form you can fill out.

Experience #2: Your search also comes up with Attorney Option #2’s website. It’s not pretty. In fact it even looks a little dated. You do see that this attorney also supports small businesses. And – large and clear on that homepage – you see this attorney’s phone number. There is also a link to “Contact Us” right at the top of the page which takes you to a map to her office and a contact form.

So which one, to you, is the better experience?

Most of us would choose the second experience because it takes us from needing information to finding information in the shortest period of time. It’s easy. AND – it’s appreciated. AND – it didn’t frustrate us trying to find all the contact information.

In fact, the first lawyer’s website may be impressive looking, but finding the contact information was like finding a needle in a haystack! Form over substance. All about the pizzazz of that attorney, with no appreciation for MY time and needs – and I’m potentially the client.

The second one yielded the information we needed – and fast. If it’s me, I’m dialing the second one because I know she focuses on what CLIENTS need. Substance over form.

Remember – the goal is to engage by phone. Period. A potential new client spends an average of 3 seconds on your website before deciding whether to go further.

3 seconds! If they can’t find contact information in those 3 seconds, then there is little chance you’ll ever hear from them at all. They’ll move on to someone else who makes contact less of a challenge.

Now take a look at your own website. How difficult is it for someone to phone you?

Remember – you don’t care how much time they spend reading your beautiful website. You don’t even care if they send you an email. It’s nice to have both those things, but eventually you’ll need a phone call, so why not just make it easy to do that first?

What are you waiting for? Check your website now! Make sure your phone number, and your CTA are right there, large and easy to find. And if they aren’t – update your site right away.