“How many clients am I really going to get from this website?”
If you do SEO for law firms, either in-house or as a consultant, perhaps you’ve heard this question from one of the partners.
It’s the giveaway for which partner is advocating the bare minimum for an online presence.
It’s not an easy question to answer, because a lot of lawyers are in fields—real estate, corporate law, securities, arbitration and mediation—where the ROI for a website is difficult to quantify.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some important SEO metrics that tell you whether or not a site is having a positive impact for the firm.
How to measure SEO metrics for legal websites
The website is still where basic awareness of the firm’s existence and place in the world is established for a lot of people, so you want to be sure the site has its best foot put forward.
The most basic way to measure this is through metrics that tell you if web visitors want to learn more about the firm.
A good example is a sign-up for a newsletter, with Google Analytics tracking how many visitors signed up.
You also want to know how often visitors return within 30-90 days.
If they come back that frequently, you likely have people that will keep your firm in mind when something important comes up.
Ultimately, the skeptical partners need to see the website the same way they would their presence at a cocktail party or giving out business cards.
A direct correlation from such activity to clients landed might not be quantified.
But they wouldn’t think of giving it anything other than their best, and there are good metrics to prove to them that the website is pulling its weight.
