Day after day I hear of traffic form my clients. Traffic is important, but for for the reason most think. Traffic statistic are important when determining which areas of practice to target and the level of competition therein. For instance, if you want to compete for Toyota Recall search more than 2,000,000 times last month according to Google’s External Keyword Tool. You would know it will take thousand of dollars a month to buy top rankings and that you are too late to start working for natural results.
Stay focused on the goal of your internet marketing efforts: new clients. Here are some metrics with which to concern yourself.
- Conversions – This is a measure regarding the potential new client taking action.
- Call tracking number should be used on your website allowing you to calculate the number of calls and show the number calling. This enables you to identify new clients to your website. You may be surprised to see client who gave credit to a referral on the list as people are using your website to confirm said referral.
- E-mails Contact forms are easily tracked. We are currently tracking 8 phone calls to every e-mail for out clients.
- RSS and/or e-mail subscriptions allowing your clients to stay current with changes that may affect them.
- Website Analytics – These are detailed report showing use trends and search phrase rankings.
- Focus on bounce rate; the lower the better. This measure will indicate the first impression your website makes.
- Check arrival and departure pages. Ideally you will see landing on home page and area of practice(AOP) pages and leaving from a different page like the contact page. Home page should rank for firm name searches and AOP for practice area searches.
- Look at the search terms of the clients choosing your site. Chasing search phrases is much more difficult than building on the ones for which you already rank.
- Step back and look at the trend. Time and traffic volume should help your program increase. If you’re not seeing an upward trend, you’ve got a problem.
I know i used some jargon above. Much like the practice of law, one can only break down such matters so far for the lay person. Again like the practice of law, this is why is is advisable to hire professional to manage your law firm’s internet presence. Your consultant should be telling you changes are needed and why. A law firms website is a constant work in progress.
Often times your website is the first impression your firm makes on a potential new client. You take into consideration the appearance of your office and the cordiality of your staff. Have you thought as much about your web site’s impression on a client?
