Ever wonder if your law firm’s website is up to snuff? Conducting your own law firm website performance audit will help you gain insight into what’s working, and what needs improvement.
After years of helping law firms grow their online presence, there are a few basic tests we run each new client’s website through to determine whether we can use their current site to build out their marketing strategy, or if we need to scratch the old site and start over.
Here are 4 steps from legal marketing experts on how to conduct your own law firm website performance audit.
Step #1: Get a Technical Performance Baseline
First, its important to truly understand how your website performs in the eyes of your clients. This can be difficult as software such as browser and server caching can provide you with a skewed view of your website performance.
If you’ve visited your website recently it’s likely that your browser has cached, or saved, your website files from that web session. This helps your website load pages, images and content faster. Your clients, especially prospective clients, may have never visited your website in the past and they will often have a much different experience from you.
To assist with this, one of the best, free tools is PageSpeed Insights. Google PageSpeed Insights is part of a powerful software tool set published by Google, Inc. and is completely free to use. This is one of the best free tools on the market to review your websites performance and learn about any performance issues your site may be experiencing
The PageSpeed Insights report covers recommendations regarding performance, accessibility, best practices and search engine optimization. This tool also allows you to test your site on both mobile and desktop environments.
Why are these metrics important? Well, if you are working towards getting your website to generate valuable case leads and increase search presence for your ideal target clients, then working to achieve the highest possible score will indicate that your site is ready to perform well in search results.
This is a Test, Not a Guarantee
Although these scores are not direct indicators of better site performance and do not directly contribute to success in search results, they do show what your users will experience when landing on your site after conducting a search on search engines. And, a good score here reflects similar sentiment from search engines about your site. And one thing we know about Google, Bing and the other big players – they want to serve up only the best experience for the end users. Your potential clients.
Through our law firm website packages, we always lead with technical performance, as that lays the groundwork for successful digital marketing campaigns.
Steps #2: Evaluate Your Content Quality
Website content is one of the top ranking factors search engines use to determine if a website is a great destination in search results.
Search engines will “crawl” your site periodically. When it does, Google will evaluate your content to understand both it’s meaning and quality. Then, search engines decide the search terms for which they’d like your site to be visible.
The guidelines for what constitutes quality content can seem a bit ambiguous. That’s because they are! There is no single way to write great quality content, but below are some boxes that need to be checked.
Content Guidelines of Success
According to Search Engine Land, industry experts for search engine optimization news and content, there are a number of factors that determine whether a piece of content is to be considered as quality content to search engines. We’ve reduced it down to a few short questions:
- Quality: Get in your clients head. Does the content match the intent? Is the writing grammatically correct? Is it concise and to the point? Can a layperson read and understand it?
- Researched: Are there citations or links to external resources? Is it original, non-AI generated content? Does it build on your firm’s expertise?
- Relevant: Is the content up to date with the times? Does it coincide with current laws and statutes?
- Substantial: Does the content provide in-depth analysis, links to outside resources, and links to other resources on your law firm’s site?
- Answers: Does the content answer the searchers query clearly and concisely? Does it have obvious answers within the text?
If you review your law firm’s website content and you can answer “YES!” to all the above, it would likely be considered quality. We say likely here, because there is no set answer as to what search engines see as quality content, but these are great places to start.
Step #3: Ensure Your Site Enables Clients to Connect with your Firm On-Demand
Take a look at your site from the eyes of your clients and prospective clients. A quality website offers seamless user experience and design that not only encourages your visitors to read more, but also to take action.
It’s important to include prominent, encouraging design feature and language. When conducting a website performance audit we always look for encouraging call-to-actions, easy ways to connect with your firm, and a wide range of options for potential clients to connect with the firm.
Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
Call-to-actions, or CTAs, are design containers of design language that encourage your visitors to take action. When paired with compelling content, these design pieces encourage your site visitors take the next step to contact your firm.
Click-to-Connect Elements
Click-to-connect elements are design elements strategically placed throughout your site to help your users connect with your law firm when they are ready. This should include both a visible phone number, a chat widget and mobile-friendly telephone links.
Forms and Chat Widgets
By including not just a phone number or click-to-call button, but also form submission opportunities along with chat widgets, help clients connect with your firm even if they are not in a position to speak over the phone.
Step #4: Ensure Your Site Provides a Simple, Unique User Experience
During a website performance audit we always want to keep user experience as a top aspect of evaluation. All too often designers try to create highly unique and exciting law firm websites. We recommend finding a balance. Never choose form over function. But also, your site needs to be unique to your personality and speak to the essence of your law firm.
Create navigation that is obvious to the user. Put navigation buttons in areas that a user would normally expect to see it! Your goal is to encourage them to either stay on your site as long as possible or enable them to contact you immediately.
A few questions to ask yourself when it evaluating your sites user experience:
- Does your site represent your brand?
- Is there a sense of intrigue and engagement?
- Is your sites navigation simple and easy to understand?
- Are there any pages that are not easily navigable from the homepage?
- Is my site more than 3 pages deep? (for example home page -> practice areas -> sub-practice area)
- Would I contact my firm if I were to visit my website?
If you put your users experience first, your site will do exactly what it’s designed to do: drive new cases day in and day out.
We’re Here to Help with Your Law Firm’s Website Performance Audit
These tips above give you a great idea of how to run your own website performance audit. If you need help or are looking to take your presence to the next level, contact the law firm marketing experts at Joseph & York to receive a complimentary website performance audit.