Everyone wants to show up on the first page of Google, but position is not the only indicator of success when it comes to Google. There are a number of success metrics, and IMS advises clients to look at all of these elements when evaluating whether or not a website is working right and if awareness of an estate planning and Elder Law firm is growing or losing ground to the competition.
What should you be looking at to define successful marketing? A profitable cash flow and a steady or growing number of new clients are easy answers, but those are actually the end product of a number of variables.
Conversions are one way to measures success on a website. For most IMS clients, a conversion occurs when a prospect fills out a contact us form or picks up the phone to call after visiting your website. Here’s an issue: if the prospect calls the firm and the call is not handled correctly or to the prospect’s liking, is it still a conversion? Technically yes. But if the conversion does not translate into a new client because the phone call is not returned within a few hours, then the entire process has been rendered moot.
Remember, web leads are shopping for legal talent and have little tolerance for phone calls that are not returned almost immediately.
We’ve had a few clients or team members who call us after reviewing their website and wonder why the phone number on the site is different than their regular number. That’s for a reason. With a dedicated phone number, which is pointed to your regular office line so that the client experience is seamless, we can measure exactly how many calls come to your firm directly from your website.
In a perfect world, they are looking at your website on a smart phone, and all they have to do is tap the number to be connected to your office. This gives us (and you) an accurate count of phone call conversions. This is very valuable information!
What if a form is filled out, and the person gets an auto response message that leaves them cold and they don’t get a phone call at all? It’s still a conversion according to Google, but this is another example of a failure that will push the prospect to another estate planning law firm.
Traffic on your site is also important, and IMS does a lot of work keeping up with Google’s ever-changing search parameters as well as making sure that websites have built-in optimization for search engines. Traffic (and ranking) is improved when your website is frequently updated with new content: we provide you with weekly blog content that is prepared specifically for your practice area. We hope you are using it; we know that the websites that perform best in rankings, traffic and conversions are those that add new content on a regular basis.