2023 United Kingdom Legal Website Experience

At the start of 2023, Monsido examined the websites of 30 top UK law firms.

We are honored to announce the most recent winners in Web Accessibility, Content Quality Assurance, Response Time, Performance, and SEO.

Illustration of laptop and courthouse

Top 5 Websites Overall

The Overall category showcases the top-performing websites for UK law firms in terms of SEO, response time, performance, and web accessibility. These websites received high overall rankings in 2023. Congratulations, and keep up the good work!

*Overall Ranking is based on the average (weighted) ranking across all categories.
Overall Ranking* Legal Firm
1st Osborne Clarke
2nd DLA Piper
3rd CMS
4th Eversheds
5th Bindmans

Top 5 Websites for Web Accessibility

Accessible websites enable anyone, regardless of their age, level of digital competency, or disabilities, to use your website and access its content. Monsido scans your website to look for any potential problems that might prevent web accessibility. The recommendations for fixing these problems are provided in the following step, which also gives you an overview of how well your website is performing.

We advise achieving an accessibility compliance score of at least 70% for organisations using the Monsido platform in order to demonstrate progress towards compliance. The average score for UK Legal firms websites was 69.06.

The Top 5 UK Law firms scored highest for web accessibility in 2023.

*Based on the number of WCAG 2.1 A & AA checks passed on the Monsido platform in a 500-page scan.
Ranking Legal Firm Accessibility Compliance*
1st Simmons + Simmons 86.44%
2nd Womble Bond Dickinson 78.11%
3rd Brodies 77.87%
4th Bhatt Murphy 75.5%
5th Norton Rose Fulbright 75.23%

Top 5 Websites for Content Quality Assurance

Content Quality Assurance module looks for misspellings, broken links, broken images, and readability issues. By taking on quality assurance, you can decrease bounce rates, increase conversions, and improve your SEO, helping your members more easily find the information they need about their museum visits.

The websites of UK Legal firms received a 72.00 average rating. The law firms listed below deserve special praise for raising the bar for content quality assurance.

*Based on the number of pages without broken links, broken images, and misspellings.
Ranking Legal Firm Content Quality Assurance*
1st Simmons + Simmons 100%
2nd Allen & Overy 99.4%
3rd Addleshaw Goddard 98.6%
4th Pinsent Masons 98.2%
5th BDB Pitmans 97.8%

Top 5 Websites for SEO

On-page SEO still plays a major role in search engine rankings. Having common errors like missing H1 tags, broken links, and too many internal links on a page can harm your rankings and visitor experience.

The average SEO score for the websites of UK legal firms was 76.40. We applaud the following law firms for being industry leaders in SEO.

*Based on the number of pages that are compliant with all Monsido SEO checks.
Ranking Legal Firm SEO Compliance*
1st Carson Mcdowell 92.58%
2nd Latham & Watkins 88.36%
3rd DLA Piper 88.2%
4th Womble Bond Dickinson 87.5%
5th Pinsent Masons 85.51%

Top 5 Websites for Response Time

In addition to improving user experience, having a quick-loading website is important for SEO because Google uses it as a ranking factor. With Monsido's Heartbeat module, you can keep an eye on how well your website is performing to guarantee a positive user experience for your visitors and prevent any potential member annoyance.

The UK Legal firms websites had an average response time of 473.29 ms. Your score must be under 200 ms in order for you to be considered an excellent performer. The top five UK law firms should be pleased with their exceptional response time results.

*Average response time is based on average response time (ms) over a one week period in Monsido’s Heartbeat module.
Ranking Legal Firm Average response time (ms)*
1st Beale & Co 96 ms
2nd Simmons + Simmons 97 ms
3rd BDB Pitmans 128 ms
4th Carson Mcdowell 146 ms
5th Brodies 146 ms

Top 5 Websites for Performance Score

Getting a pulse check on the overall website performance score (0–100) based on Google Light House and Core Web Vitals provides a comprehensive understanding of all measures that affect your site's performance based on a visitor’s location, network speed, and device.

The average performance rating for UK legal firms was 45.17. Typically, we suggest that you aim for a score between 90 and 100. The top five UK law firms with the most effective websites are listed below.

Ranking Legal Firm Performance score (0-100)
1st Brodies 98
2nd Norton Rose Fulbright 83
3rd Allen & Overy 81
4th BDB Pitmans 68
5th Pinsent Masons 68

All UK Legal Firm Websites We Tested in This Report

We looked at the websites of the top 30 UK law firms for 2.5 weeks in end of December 2022.

If you can’t find your legal firm name and you are curious about what your website score will look like - scan your website here.

Are you on the list and you want to know more details about your results?
Let us discuss your results!

  • Brodies
  • Norton Rose Fulbright
  • Allen & Overy
  • BDB Pitmans
  • Pinsent Masons
  • Carson Mcdowell
  • Freeths
  • CMS
  • Irwin Mitchell
  • Latham & Watkins
  • Herbert Smith Freehills
  • Shoosmiths
  • Beale & Co
  • Bhatt Murphy
  • Burness Paull
  • Legal Ombudsman
  • Linkslaters
  • Womble Bond Dickinson
  • Bird & Bird
  • DLA Piper
  • Simmons + Simmons
  • Field Fisher
  • Eversheds
  • Osborne Clarke
  • Bindmans
  • Clifford Chance
  • Hogan Lovells
  • Anthony Collins
  • Addleshaw Goddard
  • Dentons

Not on the list at all? We work with 1000s of organizations across many different sectors. We’d love the opportunity to scan your website and see how Monsido could help your organisation. Book a demo with us!

See How Your Website Scored in 2023

See your website's scan results and how your legal firm performed in this report

We can also scan your internal user portal if you need to understand its performance.

An illustration of graphs displaying analytics results inside the Monsido platform

How the rankings work

Monsido:

  • Scanned a sample of 500 pages from the main publicly facing websites of the top 30 UK Legal Firms Websites using Monsido’s Web Governance software during a one-week period in December 2022.
  • Ranked the top 30 UK Legal Firms Websites based on their scores in Web Accessibility, Content Quality Assurance, SEO, and Response Time.
  • Calculated the Overall champions based on the average (weighted) ranking in all categories, prioritizing Web Accessibility, then Content Quality Assurance, Response Time, and SEO and Performance.

Improve Your Accessibility Rankings

Benefits of improving accessibility:

Increased Audience

By building an accessible website, you open yourself up to a much larger audience as 1/5 of the world’s population is living with a disability that could prevent them from using your site.

Improved SEO

Many web accessibility standards overlap with good SEO practices like ensuring descriptive alt and title attributes, checking for correct HTML, and offering a site map to users.

Enhanced User Experience and Quality Assurance

Accessibility means creating a website which provides a good experience for everyone, so when you ensure a good experience for users with disabilities, you can rest assured that your overall website experience and quality will improve.

Strengthen Brand Image and Reputation

Committing to accessibility is not just good for your users, but shows you take your social responsibility seriously and can benefit your brand. So make sure to promote your accessibility efforts.

Monsido Accessibility Handbook