WordPress Plugins

First off, you should have a WordPress website. Full stop. If you are working off of a Wix or Squarespace website, you will literally never get any SEO or attention from Google. There, I said it. Wait - I'm not finished. If you have a website that is on a proprietary platform owned by a marketing agency (Scorpion, Thompson Rueters, etc.), you also have no ownership of your website. You can never take that website with you if you decide to leave, and frankly, you are not getting the SEO benefit you would with a WordPress website.

Now that you know that you need a WordPress website that you OWN, your next step is to think about the plugins that will help you elevate your website above your competition. Because there are thousands of WordPress plugins, it is worth taking time to explore them, and to examine which plugins are the most beneficial for law firm websites!

Plugin Basics

Plugins add specific functions to your WordPress website, and they enhance a website in a variety of ways, according to several basic categories:

• SEO
• Lead generation
• Site performance
• Site analytics
• Backup and security
• Social sharing
• Comment management

Many plugins are free, and this makes it tempting to add them haphazardly to a website, without considering if they are truly suited to your needs. This practice can lead to diminished website performance and security issues, so it is crucial to examine each plugin before making a choice. Always add trusted, safe plugins to your WordPress site, and ponder the following considerations as well:

• Explore the plugin cost and support services. Free plugins by reputable creators can be safe and effective, but paid plugins are usually updated more often and carry the services of a quality support team.
• Check for the most recent update. Any plugin could be problematic if the last update was more than six months ago.?
• Examine the ratings. 5-star rated plugins are preferred, and if the rating is less than 5 stars, read the reviews for warning signs.

Popular Plugins for Law Firms

It is an overwhelming task to choose from thousands of plugins, but you only need to find the best plugins that are specifically suited to the needs of your law firm’s website. To assist your search, here is a list of helpful WordPress plugins for lawyers.

Google Analytics

A free and powerful tool, Google Analytics tracks and analyzes data from your website visitors. This plugin follows the route visitors take to get to your site, whether they started at an ad, email, or social media posting. Google Analytics can report on which pages visitors view most frequently, which of your links and pages are most popular, and it can track how consumers use your website. Using this data and much more, Google Analytics can use the information to help you optimize your law firm’s website, enabling you to draw more traffic that results in increased business.?

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is the best friend of website managers and WordPress bloggers, since it almost thinks for you. Yoast SEO automatically optimizes your content for search engines and monitors your work even as you are creating it. Like an editor at your elbow, Yoast SEO will nudge you if you could use a keyword more effectively, improve your sentence length, enable permalinks or optimize meta tags. Yoast lets you choose public and private page designations and generates a sitemap so Google bots can properly read and catalog your website. Modern websites also need integration with their social media platforms, and Yoast SEO embeds settings so you can share your content easily.?

Disqus?

After visitors read your website content, they may have questions or comments. Disqus enables anyone to do this easily. It also manages the resulting comments and minimizes spam. Disqus is free, or you can also purchase an upgraded version with additional features.?

Booking Calendar

The booking calendar behaves as a virtual assistant for anyone who wishes to book a consultation or other appointment. When an individual books an appointment, a notification is sent, and the receiver can choose to approve or decline a consultation request. This plugin can be synchronized with Google Calendar and can import any other special events. A free plugin, the Booking Calendar also has a premium level option that can be purchased for a minimal fee, although some say that the upgraded version is superfluous for smaller law firms.?

WordPress Customer Reviews

A simple way to gather client reviews, the WordPress Customer Reviews plugin is free. Once you have the reviews, you can moderate, filter and display them on your website. Client reviews are one of the top influencers in a person’s decision to hire a law firm, so a collection of positive client reviews is more important than ever before.

OptinMonster

OptinMonster can help you build an email list to support a profitable marketing strategy. Using popup boxes, OptinMonster collects emails from your blog or website. Yes, we agree — too many popups can be annoying, but popups do increase signups, and with OptinMonster, you can tweak the settings as you wish. OptinMonster integrates with a variety of email marketing services, and costs for this plugin vary.

Shareaholic

Law firms are discovering and utilizing social media more than ever, and the Shareaholic plugin is a simple way to assist any law firm’s social media efforts. Free and adjustable, Shareaholic allows you to add social share buttons, links, and other components to your social media sites. Both big and small websites can use Shareaholic’s social media savvy to engage and expand their traffic from the ease of one dashboard.

CallRail

With the CallRail plugin, your law firm can trace contact forms and calls triggered from your website. CallRaill generates unique phone numbers, so the traffic source can be easily coded and tracked. CallRail tells you the call duration, location and time involved. This plugin allows you to view where the majority of your traffic originates, so you can also determine if your ad campaigns are working effectively. CallRail varies in price, depending on which features you choose.?

Strong Testimonials

Positive and public client feedback is the best kind of referral, and Strong Testimonials facilitate this for you. Strong Testimonials allows website managers to exhibit testimonials on the website, and the plugin cost is free, but you can also choose a paid upgrade. Strong Testimonials can help you post videos, photos, and organize your reviews in a variety of different ways.

SecuPress

SecuPress can help your law firm protect sensitive information for your clients. This plugin offers security alerts and firewall protection, and it obstructs any suspicious activity. SecuPress blocks harmful bots, protects security keys and wraps it up with a security report directly to your email. This helpful WordPress plugin runs free for the basic package.?

Lexicata

Helping you acquire more leads, the Lexicata plugin tracks prospective clients for you. With pricing options that vary, Lexicata uses automated emails and lead trackers to discover the source of your leads, and uncover which marketing strategies would work best for your target audience.?

How Do I Find a WordPress Plugins List?

You can find a list of WordPress plugins for attorneys’ websites by visiting the WordPress dashboard. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the WordPress dashboard and select “Plugins.” Then, press “Add new.”
2. From here, you can complete a plugin search via the search bar.
3. You can then select the plugin to find out more about it.
4. Then, you can install the plugin you want by selecting “Install Now.”
5. Following the installation, you can use it by selecting “Activate.”
6. If you wish to remove the plugin at a later date, simply visit the “Plugins” menu in the dashboard, then “Installed Plugins.”

To narrow your search, consider looking at highly reviewed and popular plugins in WordPress’s plugin directory. You can also find premium plugins by visiting a third-party site, which you can find via an online search.

How Many Plugins for WordPress Are There?

Attorneys’ websites that use WordPress can benefit from using their plugins, as they improve the site’s functionality and features. Currently, there are over 58,000 free plugins, which is one of the reasons why WordPress is popular for managing website content. There are also numerous premium WordPress plugins you can choose from as well.

What Are the Basic Plugins for WordPress?

Below is a list of plugins for WordPress that offer basic functionality.

iThemes Security

According to the Insurance Information Institute, American data compromises increased by 68% between 2020-21, highlighting the importance of having excellent security for attorneys’ websites. One way of improving your site’s security is to install an effective security WordPress plugin. iThemes Security can provide your website with good security coverage and automatically scans your site to identify security weaknesses. It also implements the following security measures:

• Monitoring file changes
• Managing security keys
• Creating database backups
• Applying strong passwords

Additionally, this plugin has a premium version that can offer website owners improved protection and monitoring features.

WP-Optimize

Seeing as site performance is key for SEO purposes, it is a good idea to install a WordPress plugin that optimizes your website’s loading speed. One of these is WP-Optimize, which offers users various features, including:

• Compressing images and other content
• Web caching
• Cleaning databases
• Minimizing code

WPForms

Contact forms are key for law firm websites, as their sites revolve around encouraging potential clients to reach out to them to find out more about their legal services, so applying a plugin that offers this feature is essential. WPForms is an excellent option due to the following reasons:

• The plugin allows you to create a contact form via several templates.
• You can create professional-looking, easy-to-complete forms via this plugin.
• The forms are easy to edit and fully customizable.
• You can also automate many common business tasks through this plugin, including taking payments and issuing surveys, although this requires the premium version.

What Are the Different Types of Plugins in WordPress?

Here is an additional list of plugins for WordPress, which outline some of the different plugin types available:

• Email plugins: While WordPress websites can automatically send emails, it can be useful to install an email plugin to allow the website to send emails in the same way as email clients do. This prevents your website emails from going into a recipient’s spam folder.
• Sitemaps: These plugins automatically map your website, making it easier for search engines and visitors to explore. This helps improve your website’s overall SEO performance.
• Web design plugins: These provide website owners with themes and page-building tools that allow them to quickly design and customize their websites. If you lack coding knowledge, these can be very helpful for quickly creating a professional and attractive website.

How Law Quill Can Help?

Plugins are advantageous little additions to your WordPress website, whether you need to improve your marketing strategy, assist client interaction, safeguard sensitive information or facilitate the use of social media. The choices listed above are only the beginning when it comes to finding the most helpful WordPress plugins for lawyers.?

We are here to help and would welcome the opportunity to visit with you for free regarding your law firm website’s content, and how we can take these tasks off your plate! Schedule a free visit with us by scheduling a quick phone or zoom call at your convenience on our calendar today. You can also email us at [email protected].

Annette Choti, Esq. has over twenty four years of combined legal and digital marketing experience. She founded Law Quill, a full-service digital marketing agency for law firms and businesses in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Annette is a sought-after CLE and keynote speaker for Bar Associations and legal events throughout North America. She creates and hosts the?Legal Marketing Lounge?podcast, and is the author of the bestselling book, Click Magnet: The Ultimate Digital Marketing Guide For Law Firms. Annette used to do theatre and professional comedy, which is not so far from the law, if we are all being honest