What Is "White Space" In Design?
Updated: Sep 5, 2022
How White Space Affects Lawyer SEO And How To Use Them
Site design affects user experience and readability. It can also help draw focus on the things that matter to your Lawyer SEO. You can use it to highlight important site elements like text, images, and CTAs.
What Is White Space?
White space is also known as empty space or negative space. Because there is nothing else to look at, visitors are guided to focus on specific site elements.
It's worth noting that white space isn't always "white." It can just be an empty space. It can be any background color as long as it distinguishes the various elements and contrasts with the one it's highlighting.
The best examples I can give are the spaces between this article's paragraphs and the images.
You can also look at the area around this CTA:
Notice that there's some ample space around the elements of the page. Text isn't placed so close to the image above, so it's highlighted among the text surrounding it.
Although white space minimizes clutter and improves the aesthetics of a web page, it also serves several practical design goals, including:
Increased readability
Improved or redirected focus
Better user experience
Negative space, whether we realize it or not, gives visitors a visual respite. At the same time, they analyze the information on your website. This is critical because too much information or visual data at once can lead to information overload, which makes it impossible for the brain to process and retain any information.
It's far easier for our brains to take in and digest information when there's less clutter and distractions.
Remember: When it comes to content marketing for lawyers, the easier your content is to consume, the more valuable it'll be to the reader. After all, content that's hard to read and understand for whatever reason isn't going to help your audience. What they'll likely end up doing is close the tab and find another page that effectively gives them the information they need.
Which Site Elements Can You Optimize With White Space?
White space serves as a directional signal, and directional cues are visual aids that direct your visitors to the most crucial parts of the page. Some of the most significant factors to emphasize with white space are:
Headline. Because it's often the first thing visitors see, your headlines should be eye-catching. If enough white space surrounds a headline, it can attract visitors' attention even faster.
Lead Generating Forms. Because lead capture forms are among the most important page elements, it only makes sense to emphasize them with as much white space as possible.
Buttons. Buttons can take full advantage of white space, whether it's a two-step opt-in, a click-through, or a hyperlinked with an anchor tag.
Your Content. Site visitors would rather scan a web page quickly and simply for the most critical information than read an entire page.
That's why breaking up your content with bullet points is a good idea. When combined with white space, the bullet points become much more noticeable.
These elements are all important factors in law firm content marketing and other lawyer digital marketing strategies. The best law firm marketing companies will pay attention to even small details such as white space, because they know how crucial user experience is in delivering content to audiences.
How to Make the Most of White Space in Your Law Firm Website's Design
Pages with a lot of information crammed into every nook and corner are difficult to read and don't allow the eye to rest.
As a standard lawyer SEO marketing tip, always leave some open space around your design elements when creating a web page layout.
Remember: The open spaces not only provide a more inviting, less claustrophobic ambiance, but they also allow the eye to rapidly identify all regions of the page, making it more legible.
Of course, the same ideas apply when developing websites with a black or dark-colored background, but the mood conveyed by a dark background is distinct. On a dark background, a lot of space around items generates a sense of drama and excitement.
Here are a few more design tips to help you open up your layout and give the reader more breathing room:
1. Use White Space To Avoid Large Walls Of Text
White space makes text on your legal blog look less cramped. In addition, giving your text some breathing room makes it more pleasant to look at and easier to skim.
Here are a few tips to help you break up large walls of text:
Limit your paragraph length to 3-5 sentences.
Use bullet points
Use lists
Highlight the most important text
Insert images throughout the content
The tips mentioned above are also applicable tips for implementing legal content marketing. They make your content easy to read and consume, which boosts your content lead generation capability.
2. Less Is More In Site Design
Of course, the less on the page, the easier it is to use white space and floating objects that break out from the grid framework.
Remember: Don't be worried about cramming every vital information into a single page. Instead, create separate pages and link them to anchor texts.
In other words, limit the amount of information you include on the page's less critical elements. Keep the more in-depth for a separate page that concentrates on that element.
3. Use White Space To Reduce Distractions
This is especially crucial for your landing pages, where the goal is to boost conversions.
Remember: If too many elements are on the page, it might detract a site visitor from your CTAs.
That said, make sure not to crowd CTAs, links, and buttons with text and other irrelevant site elements. The less there is to distract the site visitor, the more focused they'll be on where you want them to look at.
Improve Your Law Firm Website for Lawyer SEO With LawyerLeadMachine
Lawyer SEO can boost your site traffic, increase conversion rates, and improve user experience. With the right design knowledge, you'll be able to climb up the rankings in the SERPs.
LLM is a legal marketing agency that provides attorney marketing services such as lawyer SEO marketing, law firm content marketing, and law firm local SEO. To get you started on your Law Firm SEO strategy started, review your options here.
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