Having a modern WordPress website for your bankruptcy law firm that is authoritative and professional is paramount to attracting new clients. But there are many more important parts to assembling a website that delivers than just the way it looks. If you want to collect quality leads that result in real bankruptcy cases you must address all of these components in a way that guides your visitor from just gathering information to actually contacting you.

How we optimize bankruptcy lawyer websites to gets clients

The following are the steps we use to build a results driven bankruptcy website.

1. Create content for your bankruptcy law firm website

As you begin the journey of creating a bankruptcy law firm website, a great place to start is with the content. 

Most people considering bankruptcy for the first time have no clue what to expect. They have lots of questions and are looking for answers. Providing those answers is information that should be included on your law firm’s website. 

The process of filing for bankruptcy starts way before it actually happens. People with financial trouble need to find out what they are about to get into. They need information. Either you supply it or some other bankruptcy attorney will.

Start by building a list of all the topics related to a bankruptcy that your client’s ask about. For each topic create a list of keywords that someone may use when searching for that topic. Then create the best piece of compelling content that answers all of your visitors’ questions on that topic and incorporates those keywords.

Some important topics to discuss on a bankruptcy lawyer website include:

• About Bankruptcy
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 13
• Bankruptcy for Small Business Owners
• Life After Bankruptcy
• Stop Creditor Harassment
• Stop Wage Garnishment
• Alternatives to Bankruptcy
• Bankruptcy Exemptions
• Foreclosure

When designing your bankruptcy lawyer website, you will want to incorporate these topics in a logical manner that guides potential clients through the process. Make sure users understand bankruptcy is not for everyone, but get them to feel that the process is rather simple when using a qualified attorney. 

Your content should spell out exactly what you will do to help, how long it will take, the impact on the filer’s credit and what happens afterwards.

For bankruptcy attorneys, blog posts are important. There are hundreds of questions and subtopics that potential clients want to learn about. These can’t all be answered from your core practice area pages. Properly interlink pages to encourage conversion.

2. Include these on-page elements with your website

There are certain elements of a webpage that are considered standard and should be followed for every website. Here are a few specific items that bankruptcy attorneys should focus on:

Clickable phone number –  Adding a clickable phone number in the upper righthand corner and throughout your pages. Did you know that more than 50% of law firm website visitors are using mobile devices to search? Do a quick search of some attorney websites and see how many fail at this. 

Chat – Another important feature is chat. One bankruptcy attorney I work with wins lots of cases because he responds to chats on weekends. Using chat is all about fast response though. If you can not respond quickly, your potential client may go somewhere else. Some law firms pay for a chat answering service which quickly responds to a message and forwards it to the attorney.

Headers – Creatively assembling keywords that potential clients are searching along with precisely defining the content on a page is a skill. Use short, simple headers to help build the authority on a topic and allow users to quickly scan a page.

For example:

Your H1 header may be:

Succasunna bankruptcy attorney – May not be a good choice since Succasunna is such a small town. There won’t be many people filing for bankruptcy.

Trenton bankruptcy attorney– Seems like a good choice

New Jersey bankruptcy attorney – Could be a good choice if you have multiple offices throughout the state, otherwise you are not likely to rank well.

Your H2 header could be:

• Simple steps to a fresh start on your financial future
• We can help you escape debt
• Providing debt relief for Thousands of clients every year

Structure – Take a little extra time to create a topical map of what your content will look like. Bankruptcy is a complicated subject and you want to educate as well as guide potential visitors through the pages until they find what they need and are ready to contact you. This not only helps visitors but also Google.

Awards – I have worked on a lot of bankruptcy attorney websites and they all include a list of awards the firm has won. Most of these are easy to obtain and just require signing up. But some of them require demonstrating your expertise. These awards demonstrate a certain amount of skill and are trust symbols that help with converting leads. 

3. Add a map & address of your law firm

Since COVID came along, many bankruptcy lawyers have discovered it is possible to handle most of their case work remotely. In fact, virtual meetings can allow you to pick up a few clients from further away. Still, some clients prefer to meet in person. So it is important to make it easy for them to find you.

Start with a map and directions page and provide a link from your main menu. This page could include a photo of your building, directions, a video of your office, instructions for parking and entering the building, and any nearby landmarks.

While anyone should be able to find that page, don’t stop there. Search engines view a bankruptcy lawyer very similar to a pizza shop. You’re a service based business and they expect clients to come to you. So the more clarity you can provide about your location the better. Add your address to the header and footer of every page if possible. Also, embed a map near the bottom of every page as well. Just be careful this doesn’t impact your site’s speed.

At this point, it is not so much about showing people how to get to your office as giving Google some help. They want to know that you have a real office location and not a virtual or shared office space.

4. Proper location structure

Another thing you will want to consider in your bankruptcy lawyer website design is how to incorporate office locations when you have more than one.

For multi-location bankruptcy firms it’s a good idea to add all of your locations on every page. This could be next to the map mentioned above, in the footer, or within the call to action at the end of each page of content. You could have a locations tab from the main menu linking to a page with information about each location. 

Only include a unique page for locations where you have an actual office. You don’t want to actually confuse visitors by making them think you have an office where there isn’t one. However, it would be a good idea to mention the towns you serve in the footer or on various pages of the website. Often smaller towns will not have a bankruptcy lawyer and your firm may be the best result for search engines to display.

5. Use appropriate images that reflect your service

Let’s face it. Bankruptcy is scary for most people. And a lot of bankruptcy attorney websites show images of tough looking lawyers with their arms crossed. That is all wrong. 

You don’t want to convey an image of someone ready to go to battle. Potential bankruptcy clients want to know that the process will be simple and painless and that you are a kind, friendly person who can help them get through a tough time.

Make sure you have photos of attorneys who are smiling and that are uplifting. Show off your welcoming office and any staff. 

6. Stress the benefits of bankruptcy

I was quite surprised when a bankruptcy lawyer informed me that a lot of his clients were teachers, small business owners and government employees. Honestly anyone can get into financial trouble and need help.

So it is important to educate visitors who may feel embarrassed or surprised to be exploring the topic on the benefits of bankruptcy. Incorporating simple concepts throughout a bankruptcy lawyer website will keep visitors interested and guide them through a conversion process that results in a new potential client. Here are some terms that stress the benefits of bankruptcy:

• Fresh start
• Simple steps
• Debt free quickly
• Financial future (your future can look bright)
• Stop collection efforts
• Stop wage garnishment
• Reduce debt
• Keep car and house
• Save money

Terms like these can be included in bullets, headers, steps, images, page titles, URLs and images. 

7. Incorporate a competitive review of other bankruptcy websites

In order to win new clients, you need to take them from someone else. To do this, you will want to explore other bankruptcy lawyer websites to see what they include and if it gives them an advantage, consider those items for your site. I am not suggesting you copy or incorporate every element from your competitors. Just look for things that may be giving them an advantage.

What you really want to do is set yourself apart from other bankruptcy firms. Show how you are different and a better choice for a potential client. This will not only help you improve conversions, but Google will reward you as you will be helping them prove you are more relevant. 

Here are just a few examples found on top bankruptcy law firm websites:

• Free Evaluation 
• Spanish Speaking Icon
• Free eBook 
• Common Questions About Bankruptcy (and answers) 
• Video Testimonials
• Video of You – (most bankruptcy lawyers won’t do this)
• # of Bankruptcy Cases Completed
• Amount of Debt Discharged
• Years in Business
• # of Locations / Virtual Meetings (makes it easy on client) 
• Awards Won
• Trust Symbols

8. Gather and display stellar reviews from happy clients

Having lots of 5-star reviews on your Google Business Profile, other directories and your website are critical for attracting new clients. Someone going through a tough financial time is not going to want to waste their money on a lawyer who might help them.

Outside of a referral, quality reviews are the best way for someone who does not know a bankruptcy lawyer to quickly gain trust and take the next steps to click and contact you.

Without a third party opinion, it can be an uphill battle to format your website to convince someone who does not know you to call, email or chat. 

Fortunately, it should be a slam dunk for a bankruptcy lawyer to ask for and get quality reviews. You just helped someone through a difficult time and made it pretty painless for them!

That is when you want to ask if they wouldn’t mind helping you by giving you a top-notch review. Provide them with a link to your Google Business Profile.

Once you have a regular flow of high ratings, you can create a reviews page for your website or use a few as testimonials. 

9. Make your bankruptcy website mobile ready

I get to see the analytics of a lot of law firm websites and as noted earlier, more than 50% of visitors are viewing them on a mobile device. It is fairly standard today to create a website on a WordPress theme that is mobile optimized. This just means when viewing it on a smaller screen such as an iPhone, the text, headers, images and other elements are modified to appear nicely formatted. 

But the bigger issue with mobile friendly websites is that they are fast loading. This requires proper image optimization, lazy loading, site structure and compact code. There is no need to be the fastest site out there. Just make sure to properly format and compress images before loading them and run regular checks to see that your bankruptcy attorney website loads quickly or your visitors will go someplace else.

10. Encourage follow up visits 

Unlike with personal injury or criminal law, people filing for bankruptcy typically take 1-2 months to become educated on the process before making a decision to move forward with an attorney. That means they could visit your website while exploring the topic and either come back or not once they have made a decision. 

Knowing this, your bankruptcy law firm website design must be formatted to encourage visitors to come back again and again. Offering high quality content that keeps readers intrigued is important. But there are other criteria that should be incorporated that will entice potential clients to return.

Make it easy to contact you. Offer multiple ways to contact you including click to call links for mobile users, chat, email with minimal form fields, and even a text option.

Excellent site structure. Provide an intuitive menu that guides visitors through the bankruptcy process. Each page should entice the reader to click for even more information. Make sure you have a modern and consistent page layout and lots of calls to action. 

Make free consultation obvious. Visitors to a bankruptcy lawyer website are already in financial trouble. They certainly don’t want to add more expenses to their debt. Make sure to include lots of options to sign up for a free evaluation.

Branding – Be sure to include consistent branding throughout your bankruptcy lawyer website. Your logo should match the name of your firm. Include a well-written bio page for each attorney. Make sure your off-site branding all aligns with your website.