Costs of Legal Website Design For UK Solicitors
What are the average or standard costs of a legal website design for a firm of solicitors in the UK? What are the associated costs of legal website design and, perhaps more importantly, what are the hidden legal costs? This article aims to give you a breakdown in each of these areas, along with advice on how you can keep the costs down when requesting a quote for a legal website design.
My purpose with this article is to save you some time, money and stress and to ensure that you obtain a legal website design that is fit for purpose; namely one that will attract new clients to your law firm.
1. Domain Names
If you already have your domain name, eg www.smithersjones.co.uk, then you can move to part 2.
If you do not yet have a domain name, it is important that you secure this yourself first. I advise you to secure it so that it is not tied to your legal website design company. This way, should you ever fall out with them (which sadly frequently does happen) you are in control of pointing your domain name to any new website that you create.
The cost of a domain name varies from provider to provider but start from around £10 per annum, so this part of the process certainly won’t break the bank.
You can search for and secure a domain name here: //www.bluehost.com/track/nickjervis/
2. Keeping Your Legal Website Design Costs Down
What usually happens when it comes to obtaining a new legal website design is this:
- A solicitor decides that they need a new website design. They ask for some prices.
- They choose a legal website design company to undertake the task.
- They start to write new content for the new website because they recognise that this needs improving.
- The content takes a long time to produce. Despite realising that a new website is vital, there is now a delay, usually of a period of months, whilst the content is prepared.
- As they write new content, the number of pages now to be designed grows considerably, leading to a corresponding increase in the price of the legal website design.
This is the way that most new legal website design projects are completed and it makes the process far more time consuming and more importantly, dramatically increases the price too.
It is not the process you should follow.
Instead, my advice is that you follow this process which will lead to a fixed price for your legal website design which does not increase and a much faster and smoother project:
- Prepare a detailed website design brief specifying everything that you need your new legal website design to include. This will ensure that you receive a fixed price quotation which will not change. I include a precedent document for you to complete when you download my guide below. It will save you a lot of time and money.
- Send your website design brief to at least three website design companies.
- Obtain your own reviews of their services from some of their former clients (don’t skip this part).
- DO NOT REWRITE YOUR CONTENT UNTIL THE NEW WEBSITE DESIGN IS LIVE. This part is vital. It will ensure a swift process and so long as you use the right content management software (below), it will be easy for you to add content (or ideally ask your staff to do this part).
- Choose your designer and ask them for a timeline for your project.
- Once your new website is live, put in place a ‘content update plan’ and systematically review your website content over the course of the next few weeks/months.
3.The Content Management Software For Your Legal Website Design.
The content management software is what allows you to edit the content on your website. There are several options and you need to be very wary of some of them:
- A website design companies ‘bespoke’ content management software. In my opinion, there is only one reason that a company would like you to use their own content management software; it ties you to their business forever more. There is plenty of off the shelf content management software, so I would not consider this as an option, unless you are glad to be beholden to a legal website design company for life.
- Drupal, Joomla or Umbraco. These are all ‘heavy-weight’ content management software options. I have used them all and have found them all to be incredibly difficult and counter-intuitive to work with. Website design companies will tell you that these are all good options, but in my experience, if you want to easily be able to add and edit content on your website, these are not good options.
- Wix/Squarespace. These are free content management systems, but usually you have to display that you have obtained a ‘free website from Wix’ etc. I don’t know about you, but if I am looking for a professional service provider, in this case a solicitor, what message do I receive if I see that they haven’t even spent any money on their own website? I don’t think it will fill me with confidence, so I am against these options for that reason.
- WordPress. So long as you have the best website hosting, such as WP Engine or Siteground, there are no greater security risks with WordPress than any other content management system, despite what the website designers who want you to use their own content management software will tell you. The majority of my clients have WordPress websites and like them because they are so easy to update and edit, so long as the website design company does not use blocks to build your website (see the Legal Website Design Brief included in the download below.
Another excellent reason to use WordPress is that there are thousands of WordPress website designers available, so if you fall out with one another can step in and work with you easily.
My Legal Website Design Guide For You
I have prepared the Legal Website Design guide to literally make the process as straightforward as possible for you. It can save you thousands of pounds in obtaining the wrong website design and in lost fee earning time. The solicitor website design guide will tell you the following:
- How to approach website designers to obtain the right fixed price quotation;
- How to find recommended legal website designers;
- How to obtain the right design for your legal website;
- What you must do once you have gone live with your website to ensure that it starts to generate new client instructions for you; and
- How to avoid the terrible, costly mistakes that so many solicitors make when obtaining their new website (referred to above).
Click Here To Download The Legal Website Design Guide:>>
Ready To Take Action And See Results Now?
Please call 0117 290 8555 to arrange a mutually convenient time for a telephone discussion, Email me or complete a Free Online Enquiry. There is no cost or obligation. We will have a chat about where you are and where you would like to be and I will suggest some things you can do to get there quickly.