You may look at your law firm website as a lead generation tool, but if you are not converting leads from your website — and by converting, I mean getting visitors to your site to take some kind of action, whether that is filling out a contact form, downloading a free ebook or picking up the phone to call you — then you are not maximizing your website’s potential to help you land more clients.
In order to develop your law firm website into a lead conversion tool, you need to focus on three key areas:
- Website Analytics
When your website was set up, it was in all likelihood linked with an analytics tool like Google Analytics that gives you important insights into who is visiting the site, where they are spending their time, what devices they are using, what terms they are searching for and more. These are all key data points you should be using in order to boost your conversion rate.
The information you should be reviewing at least monthly includes:
Audience Overview
- Total sessions — tells you the total number of times someone visited your site that month.
- Total users — tells you how many unique visitors came to your site during the month.
- Average session duration — how long your visitors are spending on your site will tell you if prospects are finding your content useful.
- Bounce rate — which pages visitors are abandoning immediately will tell you if you need to rethink the content on that page.
- % New sessions — tells you the number of new people coming to your site each month vs. those who have visited before.
Acquisition
- Organic search — if visitors to your site used a keyword to search and clicked on your site from that search.
- Direct — if a visitor enters your website address directly into their browser.
- Social network — if a visitor gets to your website from one of your links or posts on social media.
- Referral — if a visitor gets to your website from another site such as Avvo or other directory websites.
Device
This category lets you know which devices your visitors are using to access your site — desktop, mobile or tablet.
Most Visited Pages
This category shows you which pages on your site are the most popular and is critical to increasing your conversion rate. Home pages are typically the most visited pages; pay attention to the pages that come after that so you can follow your visitors’ journey through the site to determine if they are being lead on the path you want to a conversion activity.
- Target Market
Your practice serves a specific target market — those who need the kind of legal help you provide — so it does you no good to try to attract everyone with any sort of legal problem to your law firm website.
Understanding your core demographic is key to conversion. Your content must speak directly to their individual needs or they will move on quickly. You must also understand your potential client’s intent, which you can more accurately gauge by looking at the Acquisition analytics I mentioned above.
For example, if someone comes to your site directly, they already know you. If they come to your site through an organic search, they are most likely in the discovery phase of their research in trying to find an attorney. If they come from one of your social media pages, they are intrigued enough about what you offer and want to learn more.
If you are using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you should be directing people to targeted landing pages that match with what they are looking for. If your PPC ad targets truck accident victims, when they click on your ad, they should be taken to a page that is all about that specific subject.
- Website Elements
There are a few key elements you need to pay attention to on your law firm website in order to convert visitors into prospects. Each element should speak to the type of visitor, their intent and what they plan to do next. These key elements include:
Banner — should immediately convey your unique selling proposition (USP) and feature your contact number.
Features and benefits — explain who you serve, how you serve them, and how hiring you will benefit your prospects.
Testimonials — provides prospects with an idea of what it would be like to work with you and gives you that important social proof that many people look for these days in choosing a service provider.
Call to action — tell your prospects what their next step needs to be in order to continue the conversation by giving them a clear call to action — a contact form on every page of your site, a prominently placed phone number or a Live Chat function.
Finally, all of this will do you not one ounce of good unless you have a trained intake person or team to handle inquiries from prospects. Trust is built by making a connection with each person who calls your firm looking for help. You need to make them feel safe and secure so be sure your intake team is laser-focused on connecting, not just closing.
