Your Law Firm Web Site

Advanced Analytics

In order to provide visitors with a good interaction, law firms need accurate and complete information about how visitors are actually using their Web sites.

Traditional Web-site statistics methods ' counting hits and page views ' offer some clues about how visitors use law firm Web sites. However, these traditional methods have their drawbacks. Traditional Web statistics reports tell us only part of the story ' and provide little information about a visitor's true intent. If visitors go to an attorney bio page, for example, are they looking for the attorney contact information; information about the attorney's experience, education or admissions; related industry or practice area links; or attorney-written articles? By simply counting page hits, basic statistics programs do not provide this information.

'Older methods leave many questions unanswered,' said Fredette. 'Newer methods ' whether off-the-shelf, proprietary or custom-built ' provide a more complete picture of Web usage.

'Newer statistics technology can reveal more information about a visitor's true goals and intentions by tracking what they actually do on a Web site,' said Fredette, 'instead of how many times they might land on various pages. This additional information lets you know what they are trying to accomplish.

'Once you know what visitors to your site are looking for, you can use this information to improve their experience,' said Fredette. 'You can allocate your resources more strategically ' more resources toward development of the areas that are getting the most attention and less in areas that get little attention.'

Popular Destinations

Visitors to a Web site often go directly to biographies. 'Of all the common ways to search for attorneys ' by name, by practice, by school, by industry, by location or by 'all attorneys' ' our research shows that visitors search most often by name and location,' said Fredette. 'Make these searches easy for visitors by providing these menu options.'

Once at a bio, 30% of visitors do not scroll down the page ' which indicates that they are looking for contact information. Make sure that attorney contact information is present and complete ' including a 'snail-mail' as well as an e-mail address.

Interestingly, many of these visitors are in fact internal visitors , people at the firm who are using the Web site as a directory. 'If this is true of your Web-site usage, perhaps you should make this information more readily available to your 'internal clients,' perhaps via an intranet,' said Fredette.

'Contact us,' 'Office locations,' 'Recruiting' and 'Technology' are also popular destinations. 'Provide multiple navigation options throughout your site for these sections,' said Fredette. 'Also, even though it might seem outdated, many people still rely on footer navigation. Be sure to include it.'

Web-site (as opposed to Internet) 'search' is used by 20% to 30% of all visitors to a law firm's Web site. 'Make sure that this function works very well for visitors, and provides statistics that the firm can use,' said Fredette.

'If you know which search terms people are using to navigate your site, for example, you can make a conscious effort to provide more content in these areas,' said Fredette. 'If you discover that people are searching for particular terms ' like 'Medicare set-aside agreement' ' and coming up empty-handed, you can think seriously about adding relevant information in that category.

'If they are searching for 'office' and you are using the word 'location,' you might want to add a tool that links these two terms in your internal search engine and gives the visitor relevant results instead of a disappointing 'no matches found,” said Fredette.

Readability

Visitors to a Web site read 'content' differently than individuals viewing print documents read 'copy.' This is another area in which law firms can provide a better interactive experience for Web-site visitors. They scroll quickly, relying on visual cues to help them find what they are searching for. If they do not find it easily, they will quickly click away from your site. Scanning is facilitated by:

• Internal headings;
• Bulleted lists (no more than seven items);
• Short paragraphs (no more than seven lines);
• Optimal paragraph width (no more than 14 words per line);
• Readable fonts (sans-serif, like Arial or Verona); and
• Extra white space (leading) between lines of text.

If visitors like what they see on your Web site, they want the option of printing it out ' as a reminder or because they prefer to read longer documents in a printed format. Be sure to provide a print, PDF and e-mail version for each page.

'Advanced Web-site analytics can provide a law firm with a more complete and accurate picture of how visitors are using its site,' said Fredette. 'This information can be used to improve your Web site and to create a better experience for visitors.”

Janet Ellen Raasch is a writer and ghostwriter who works closely with lawyers, law firms and other professional services. She can be reached at 303-399-5041 or [email protected].

A law firm Web site is an interactive experience ' one that takes place between someone in need of information and someone in the position to provide that information.The total experience a client or prospective client has while visiting a Web site reflects on your firm. A bad experience forms a bad association. A good experience creates a good one.

'People who visit business Web sites are task-oriented,' said Greg Fredette, founder and managing partner Saturno Design (www.saturnodesign.com), a Web marketing and development firm based in Portland, OR. 'They are visiting in order to find specific information. The perceived quality of the experience in visitors' minds will be based on how relatively easy or difficult it is to obtain the information they are looking for.'

Fredette discussed the relationship between visitors and law firm Web sites in a presentation to the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Legal Marketing Association, held Jan. 9 at The Oxford Hotel in Denver.

Advanced Analytics

In order to provide visitors with a good interaction, law firms need accurate and complete information about how visitors are actually using their Web sites.

Traditional Web-site statistics methods ' counting hits and page views ' offer some clues about how visitors use law firm Web sites. However, these traditional methods have their drawbacks. Traditional Web statistics reports tell us only part of the story ' and provide little information about a visitor's true intent. If visitors go to an attorney bio page, for example, are they looking for the attorney contact information; information about the attorney's experience, education or admissions; related industry or practice area links; or attorney-written articles? By simply counting page hits, basic statistics programs do not provide this information.

'Older methods leave many questions unanswered,' said Fredette. 'Newer methods ' whether off-the-shelf, proprietary or custom-built ' provide a more complete picture of Web usage.

'Newer statistics technology can reveal more information about a visitor's true goals and intentions by tracking what they actually do on a Web site,' said Fredette, 'instead of how many times they might land on various pages. This additional information lets you know what they are trying to accomplish.

'Once you know what visitors to your site are looking for, you can use this information to improve their experience,' said Fredette. 'You can allocate your resources more strategically ' more resources toward development of the areas that are getting the most attention and less in areas that get little attention.'

Popular Destinations

Visitors to a Web site often go directly to biographies. 'Of all the common ways to search for attorneys ' by name, by practice, by school, by industry, by location or by 'all attorneys' ' our research shows that visitors search most often by name and location,' said Fredette. 'Make these searches easy for visitors by providing these menu options.'

Once at a bio, 30% of visitors do not scroll down the page ' which indicates that they are looking for contact information. Make sure that attorney contact information is present and complete ' including a 'snail-mail' as well as an e-mail address.

Interestingly, many of these visitors are in fact internal visitors , people at the firm who are using the Web site as a directory. 'If this is true of your Web-site usage, perhaps you should make this information more readily available to your 'internal clients,' perhaps via an intranet,' said Fredette.

'Contact us,' 'Office locations,' 'Recruiting' and 'Technology' are also popular destinations. 'Provide multiple navigation options throughout your site for these sections,' said Fredette. 'Also, even though it might seem outdated, many people still rely on footer navigation. Be sure to include it.'

Web-site (as opposed to Internet) 'search' is used by 20% to 30% of all visitors to a law firm's Web site. 'Make sure that this function works very well for visitors, and provides statistics that the firm can use,' said Fredette.

'If you know which search terms people are using to navigate your site, for example, you can make a conscious effort to provide more content in these areas,' said Fredette. 'If you discover that people are searching for particular terms ' like 'Medicare set-aside agreement' ' and coming up empty-handed, you can think seriously about adding relevant information in that category.

'If they are searching for 'office' and you are using the word 'location,' you might want to add a tool that links these two terms in your internal search engine and gives the visitor relevant results instead of a disappointing 'no matches found,” said Fredette.

Readability

Visitors to a Web site read 'content' differently than individuals viewing print documents read 'copy.' This is another area in which law firms can provide a better interactive experience for Web-site visitors. They scroll quickly, relying on visual cues to help them find what they are searching for. If they do not find it easily, they will quickly click away from your site. Scanning is facilitated by:

• Internal headings;
• Bulleted lists (no more than seven items);
• Short paragraphs (no more than seven lines);
• Optimal paragraph width (no more than 14 words per line);
• Readable fonts (sans-serif, like Arial or Verona); and
• Extra white space (leading) between lines of text.

If visitors like what they see on your Web site, they want the option of printing it out ' as a reminder or because they prefer to read longer documents in a printed format. Be sure to provide a print, PDF and e-mail version for each page.

'Advanced Web-site analytics can provide a law firm with a more complete and accurate picture of how visitors are using its site,' said Fredette. 'This information can be used to improve your Web site and to create a better experience for visitors.”

Janet Ellen Raasch is a writer and ghostwriter who works closely with lawyers, law firms and other professional services. She can be reached at 303-399-5041 or [email protected].