When you decided to throw your law firm into the online marketing game, you knew there would be lots of optimizing, a sprinkling of keywords, and several social media profiles to manage. And while you’ve been tirelessly writing blog posts, working on your SEO, and learning about the latest Twitter trends, you’ve had a sneaking suspicion in the back of your mind about whether or not this is really working.
All the traditional online marketing tactics are online. You can research your way through SEO, hire a professional, or just include a few competitive keywords here and there. But how much of that work is brining new traffic to your website? And moreover, how much of that traffic is subscribing to your blog, liking your Facebook page, and coming in for a consultation? Measuring the effectiveness of your law firm’s marketing efforts is rarely on the SEO checklist, but sooner or later, you’ll start to wonder what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong.
What To Track
To measure your firm’s marketing success, there are several metrics you should be checking on a daily basis. In an ideal world, there would be only five metrics that mattered and they’d be the same for every company out there. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. Which metrics you track and how closely you’ll track them will be based on your particular practice and goals. For instance, if you’re a new firm just starting up, raising brand awareness is probably at the top of your list. Tracking blog subscribers, unique page visitors, and bounce rates could be your most prominent metrics. On the other hand, an established firm that’s had a highly ranked website for a few years is probably interested in conversion rate and page views metrics. Once again, every company will find different metrics helpful towards its marketing strategy so you shouldn’t take the above examples as gospel. However, as you start to explore some popular marketing metrics, you’ll soon understand which ones are important to your law firm. Here’s a brief explanation of the most popular marketing metrics:
Website activity: This includes how many people are coming to your website, how many are first-time visitors, how many are retuning visitors, and how many pages they view before leaving. If you notice a high “bounce rate,” that means people are coming to your website, either uninterested, unengaged, or unable to find the right information, and leave rather quickly. These kinds of metrics can help you determine which landing pages are ineffective and how well your website interacts with visitors.
Traffic origins: If you know how people are getting to your website, then you know how people aren’t getting to your website. This metric can be especially helpful when you’re looking to find new clients, blog subscribers, and followers. If people are coming in directly, then they haven’t reached your website through any online formats. This could be from business cards, commercials, billboards, etc. If you notice that a lot of people are coming in via search engine, you can see which keywords they are using to find a firm like yours. If you’re a divorce attorney that specializes in child custody cases but most people of your visitors searched for “divorce attorney Seattle,” then you can try including more keywords specific to child custody. Other forms of traffic can also be from social media, online advertising (Facebook advertising, Google Adwords), and email newsletters. You can also see where people are searching from and what language they’re using. Knowing where your clients are can be especially helpful to attorneys.
Conversion rate: An important metric to follow! The ultimate goal of any law firm’s marketing efforts is to convert visitors into clients, partners, subscribers, and so on. By tracking your conversion rates, you can know how many visitors or doing exactly what you want them to do. Whether it’s downloading a white page, signing up for an email list, or calling you on the phone, a conversion rate tells you how many people are converting and how many aren’t. You should also be able to gather why any non-converters are bouncing. If you notice they all stop on a certain page, there could be a broken element, a poor design choice, or a complicated form to fill out. Tracking conversions can help you reach your law firm’s goals by figuring out what works and what doesn’t work for the clients you are trying to reel in.
How To Track
You went to school for law, not marketing! So how in the world will you ever find all these bounce rates and page views? Actually, it’s pretty simple for even the amateur online marketer. First and foremost, get Google Analytics up and running on your website. You’ll be able to track all the metrics explained above and more! You should also be checking your Facebook insights and any other tools provided by social media platforms to see what kinds of posts get you the most attention.
You’ve been working hard on your law firm’s marketing efforts; now it’s time to see the results. Start tracking the results of your marketing strategies to improve, innovate, and optimize for maximum conversions.
Pete Wise is the SEO Manager for Network Affiliates; which has been an ad agency for lawyers and doctors since the dawn of the internet. We were the first full-service legal marketing agency in the space; with a full production studio, full digital agency, and media buyers and planners under one roof. Check us out on Twitter: @Netaff