Nearly everyone has a cell phone these days, and the vast majority of people use smartphones to search for the businesses and services they need. When potential clients are searching for you online from their phone, you need to be sure that your law firm’s website is mobile-friendly. Your website should be the go-to resource for your clients whether they are on desktop or mobile. Neglecting to optimize your website for mobile is one of the most common mistakes law firms make. Over half of all general website traffic comes from mobile, so that means if your site doesn’t load clearly or quickly, you’re losing business.  Here are four simple steps to ensure your law firm website is mobile-friendly.

Step 1: Check Your Website’s Mobile Responsiveness

The first thing you should do to find out whether your website is mobile-friendly is taking Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Google loves when you use its products. And when you make updates and changes to your website to accommodate the suggestions made by Google, it can only help your site.

One of the biggest issues law firms run into is their website’s mobile responsiveness. You might run into this problem if you wanted to include large images or videos that require Flash, for example. The good news is that making your web design responsive is a relatively easy fix. The website is coded so that the contents will automatically adjust to the length, width, and screen resolution of a mobile device. However, don’t be fooled. This could involve an entire redesign of your law firm’s structure and layout. Making the decision to go with a responsive web design can only benefit your website in the long run.

Step 2: Keep Your Web Design Clean and Simple

It can be tempting to go with a flashy web design that you think will make your law firm stand out amongst the competition. But if your web design is complicated or uses poor design elements, it can hurt your rankings and make your website respond poorly on mobile.

Arguably the most important aspect of a mobile-friendly website is its ability to load quickly. Users simply don’t have the time, patience, or inclination to wait for a page to load. And if they click out of your page before it has time to load, this can increase your bounce rate. To make sure that your web pages load quickly, avoid using large ads, fonts, and images. These are heavy files that will slow your website down and negatively affect your rankings on Google.

Content on your website should flow on the mobile screen so that the user doesn’t have to turn their phone into landscape mode to see the page’s content. Font style should be clean and the size shouldn’t be too large either.

Step 3: Make Sure Your Website is Easily Navigable on Mobile

If you want to give your prospective clients the best experience on your law firm’s website, make sure it’s easy to navigate. Little is more frustrating to an internet user than being unable to find the information they are looking for. If they can’t find navigation buttons or your CTA buttons are hard to click, it’s going to cause your user to click out of your page and look somewhere else— which could mean your competitor’s law firm if you don’t take the necessary steps.

Choose your menu style wisely. Will your clients prefer a tab pattern or hamburger menu? The hamburger button can be hard to find when you hide your navigation menu behind it. If this is an issue for your law firm website, opt for a drop-down menu, sidebar, or move your top nav to the bottom of the page.

Make your website stand out among your competing law firms by adding a search bar to your navigation. The ability to easily search for keywords your potential client is looking for is a great way to lead them directly to the content that will best serve their needs— and make them a client of yours.

Step 4: Don't Block CSS Files, JavaScript, or Image Files

Blocking image files, CSS files, and JavaScript can have a negative impact on your website’s mobile performance. These media improve the functionality of your law firm’s web pages. When the files aren’t placed correctly, they can be blocked which can have a devastating impact on how fast your web page loads. Make sure these aren’t blocked by using the URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console.