Pop-Ups on Law Firm Websites Can Be Tricky

Often pop-ups can drive visitors away. However, there is a use for them. For some law firms, it is time to look into pop-ups, and for others, it is time to take a close look at how effective they are and whether they are driving your traffic and converting visitors.

Often pop-ups automatically drive visitors away as they are regarded as distracting, irrelevant and have useless information. They are often created to prioritize the law firm's objectives over the interests of site visitors.

However, it is possible to do both. Website pop-ups are an excellent marketing tool.

What Are Website Pop-Ups?

Pop-ups appear in boxes on the top of a page. They come in a variety of formats. They offer specific information, have a carefully crafted call to action, are designed to gather visitor information or they can do all of that.

How Are Pop-Ups Helpful

Well-designed and optimized pop-ups have numerous benefits. Pop-ups have their uses and can focus visitors' attention on the services your firm provides. Here is what pop-ups can help with:

• Act to share information on interesting topics to your visitors
• Provide a place for visitors to enter their contact information for marketing/sales purposes (such as presenting a seminar or webinar)
• Deliver focused calls to action (such as register now for the upcoming webinar)
• Grab visitors' attention by messaging about something they are interested in

Well-designed pop-ups, if carefully crafted, can keep website visitors on your site longer.

How Pop-Ups Hinder?

Not every pop-up is a good one. If there are too many obnoxious pop-ups with little to no helpful information to your site's visitors, site experience, client interest and conversion will suffer. Qualities of a bad pop-up include:

• Interfere with navigation of your site
• Disrupt a visitor's experience on your website
• Incorrectly assume how users interact with your firm's website
• Provide inconsistent user experience across different platforms

It is clear that while pop-ups can be helpful and can result in enhancing a visitor's experience, many things can go wrong. Law firms must understand how to avoid those risks and promote their firm's opportunities.

What Law Firms Can Do to Improve Pop-Ups

1. Make the Pop-Ups Contextual
Ensure your firm's pop-ups are relevant and in context with what practice areas you focus on. When done correctly, your pop-ups will decrease user annoyance and maximize your conversion rate.

Pop-ups are highly customizable. You can control which visitors see pop-ups, what information those visitors see, which pages will display the pop-up and the time the pop-ups are displayed. Never put pop-ups on all of your website pages. Make sure the pop-up content is relevant to the content on the page.

2. Timing Is Crucial
Pop-up timing is a key issue because the last thing people want when they come to your firm's website is a pop-up on the first page they see. Pop-ups should appear at opportune moments. For instance, if your law firm is hosting a seminar on elder law, time the pop-up announcing the seminar to show on the pages relating to elder law.

3. Be Unique
Pop-ups, like the once popular banner ads, are increasingly ignored. The only way to turn that around is to stand out. Instead of offering something usual, such as a chance to get the firm's newsletter or a free e-book, do something new. An example could be to offer a visitor their choice of an attorney to answer two questions for them free of charge. Make what you offer something unusual and memorable.

4. Be Clear and Concise
When creating pop-ups, be clear and concise. Make sure the website visitor sees and reads about the benefits of your offer. Provide an easy way for them to contact you in your call to action. Keeping the pop-up clear and straightforward is the best approach.

5. Limit the Ask
Never have more than one pop-up on your site. Confusion drives visitors away. Keep any forms you want to be filled out simple and only have two fields to fill out. A study of over 1 billion pop-up views showed that two form fields in pop-ups convert better than three form fields forms by 206.5 percent.

6. Be Multi-Device Friendly 
Make your pop-up multi-device compatible or friendly. This ensures ease of access. It is possible to give your potential clients the best browsing experience and services.

7. Test Your Pop-Ups
Test your pop-ups before you deploy them. If something does not work, examine the issues and improve. Never settle; think how your pop-ups could perform better.

These are serious law firm marketing questions, and if you want to use pop-ups with success, follow the guidelines, experiment, and keep on improving what works.