Your digital hub deserves devotion—right now, agree?
One of our attorneys logged 131,000 unique sessions last year. A session is defined as activity that a user with a unique IP address spends on a website during a specified period of time—and in web-speak that’s a lot of traffic.
But our client didn’t get stats like these by turning the other cheek; this law firm gave its website the attention and nurturing required in a constantly changing environment.
Perhaps this makes you wonder how effective your website is.
- Does your strategy drive people to this key conversion point?
- Do you track how people use your website?
- Do you understand the data you have?
Technology has advanced in warp-speed. No longer is a slick, eye-catching website design and compelling content enough go live with pride. No one makes a move without consulting Google, and to make things more challenging, the search engine giant keeps changing how it ranks websites altogether.
Keywords used to be key. Now original content rules. We must weigh the importance of page titles, meta tags, URL structure, anchor text, image optimization, heading tags, crawlers and so much more. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an ever-moving target, but you have to have the know-how to take an accurate shot.
Today, law firms are tasked with monitoring all types of traffic stats and staying on top of industry changes. The overwhelming prospect often leads to lawyers to turning it all over to a digital marketing agency. Working with professionals whose jobs are dedicated to keeping up with digital shifts, while positioning websites in the smartest ways possible to drive people to them, can pay off in stress relief alone.
What do I give my attention to?
If your website is a year old, it’s already time to start thinking about a refresh, which should include design and content updates, but also strategic methods for leveraging the brand equity you’ve already built through your website. It’s time to let your web presence move front-and-center and treat it with the respect it deserves. After all, if it converts one big case, it has more than paid for itself.
Start by considering your own web habits. Think about how you use the Internet to look someone up, check a restaurant’s reputation or dig deeper on a topic. If what you heard about is not what checks out through a Google search, you quickly move on to the next person, the next dinner joint or the next topic.
Your legal website is no different. If your web presence isn’t better than the vehicle that drives people there, it may drive them away. If your firm’s website doesn’t pay off your TV commercial or even word of mouth, people will instantly move on to the next attorney.
The competition is fierce. If you don’t stay abreast of what’s happening in the digital marketplace, you might miss out on a new client, a lucrative case or a better chance to represent the brand you’ve worked so hard to establish. Look at things such as:
- The first impression your website really makes
- How you are driving people to your website
- What visitors do when they get there—and how much you’re actually giving them to do
- Analytics shows where your site is “off”—so you can fix those broken areas
- How (and how well) you’re converting the people who initiative unique sessions to begin with
So as you ponder your next web steps, start by treating your website more like your baby. Give it love, attention and respect. You’ve got to nurse it along to perfection.