What has your website done for you lately? As the new year is fast approaching, it is an ideal time for attorneys to audit their websites so that in 2018 they actually will generate new business.

A website is the online equivalent of an attorney's face-to-face business development efforts. While in-person marketing works one-to-one, a website reaches potential clients one-to-many. And it is true that More Clients Find Attorneys Online than From Referrals.

More potential clients will check our your law firm website than talk to friends, colleagues or a reference, according to Hinge Research. When buyers “check out” professional service providers, 80.8 percent look at their website, compared to 62 percent who ask friends or colleagues if they've ever heard of the firm.

Following are 12 steps to take in an audit analysis of your website marketing efforts. This way you'll increase traffic from target visitors, keep visitors on the site longer and entice visitors to return.

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If you'd like an independent, objective analysis, contact me to get a no-obligation website audit designed to generate new business for you.

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1. Website usability. Can a person who has never used the site find the information they want on the first try? The site should display a neatly-organized set of links to get answers to the questions that clients ask when they visit your office. “Don't make me think” is the operative guideline. In particular count the number of practice areas your site displays. If it's more than 10, that's too much information.

2. Content analysis. The more fresh, original content you offer, the better. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps a site rank high in Google, and the best way to achieve that is to publish ample, practical information for potential clients. How many pages of your website are indexed in Google? To find out type this in Google: site:www.yourwebsite.com (where “yourwebsite” is the URL of your website). If fewer than 100 pages are indexed, your site is thin and won't rank well. Successful websites that generate lots of new business have 2,000 pages.

3. Traffic. Open up the traffic dashboard for your website or check Google Analytics to see how much interest your website generates. A flourishing website will get 5,000 to 10,000 page views per month. Anything less than that indicates a website that is not producing new files for you.

4. How do potential clients find you? By learning the search terms that potential clients use to find your site, you can tailor your content to be found by those terms. I like using Semrush.com to learn the search terms. My site is found using the keywords law firm marketing, attorney marketing, marketing for law firms, mass tort settlements and how to promote a law firm.

5. What are people reading? In Google Analytics, the Content Drilldown will tell you the pages that attract the most readers. Let the data make your decisions, and publish more articles and blog posts on those topics. My LawLytics site has a dashboard that tells me that my top blog posts are The 10 Most Effective Law Firm Marketing Techniques, Settlement Values in 5 Top Mass Tort Cases and Personality: Why 25% of Lawyers Can't Sell.

6. Mobile ready. As of November 2016, more people use mobile devices than desktop computers to view websites. In fact, total activity on smartphones and tablets accounted for 60 percent of digital media time spent in the U.S., according to ComScore. Check your website on your cell phone to see what your site looks like. It should have big buttons and click-to-call links. If you can't read anything on your site using a cell phone, it is not mobile-ready and you are missing a lot of business.

7. Inbound links. Backlinks or inbound links reflect the number of other websites that include a hotlink to your website. The more you have, the more authority Google attributes to your site. SemRush tells me I have 7,600 backlinks from 670 referring domains. You can increase your backlinks by writing articles for other websites.

8. Competition. No analysis is complete without checking the competition. You may be surprised to discover who is competing with you online. Use Google to conduct a search for the practice area that generates the most revenue for you. It may turn out that your firm is not the top listing. Visit other firms that compete with you online to see what they are doing right. Chances are they have invested in content marketing and have much more timely information on the web than you do.

9. Clients. Can visiting potential clients tell if you represent people like them? No attorney website is complete without a link to “Clients,” describing whom you advocate for and case histories describing examples of your work. Business law firms should list representative companies and industries, and consumer websites should describe the situations for which you offer legal solutions.

10. Contact form. Your site should have a form where visitors can subscribe to your firm newsletters and blog posts. This way you will be able to identify visitors as they enter their contact information. Every person who completes the online form is a business development lead for your firm.

11. Your bio. Online, your biography should be written so that people know, trust, and like you. Unfortunately, many attorney bios are boilerplate that lists a lawyer's birthplace, law school and bar membership. These bios don't give any sense of what the lawyer is like and thus can be a real turn-off for potential clients. Think of your bio as your “30-second commercial” that you use in person when you meet new people.  It has three elements:  “I am ___” (What function you perform), “I work with ___” (Describe your ideal client), and “To solve ___” (How you help clients).

12. Control over your online marketing. It is essential for attorneys to own and control their own website, so that they can directly update their content, add a blog post or write a new page on without asking an outside provider. Otherwise, you're entirely at the mercy of a company or an individual that may not fully understand your practice area or the messages you want to convey. If you have to contact your marketing agency or your SEO provider, you do not have control over your marketing.

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If you'd like an independent, objective analysis, contact me to get a no-obligation website audit designed to generate new business for you.

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