BY TAYLOR TOBEY, MBA, 9 SAIL
While there is an abundance of metrics to analyze in determining the success of your SEO efforts–below, we highlight five key SEO metrics that every law firm should be tracking.
ORGANIC TRAFFIC
There are a variety of channels through which traffic can come to your website – including organic search, direct and social. On a monthly basis, you’ll want to see how much of your total website traffic came from organic search. Be sure to monitor whether the traffic increased or declined month-over-month. This will help you identify trends and if there is room for improvement.
Seeing the different channels through which traffic came to your site can be easily seen within Google Analytics. All you have to do is navigate to Acquisition All Traffic Channels. Once there, you can see metrics for all the channels that are driving traffic to your website.
ORGANIC CLICKS AND IMPRESSIONS
An organic impression occurs when someone searches a query and your website shows up in the results; an organic click occurs when someone clicks through to your website from those results.
It’s important to note that – whether you show up on page one or page ten of the SERPs – this will count as an impression. Because of this, you’ll always have a greater amount of impressions than clicks. Monitoring these two metrics within your Google Search Console will allow you to identify top-performing pages and underperforming pages that would benefit from further optimization.
KEYWORD RANKINGS
One of the most crucial components of properly executing any long-term SEO strategy is keyword research. While conducting your research, you’ll want to make a list of 30-50 actionable keywords you plan to target. An actionable keyword is a keyword that will drive leads or action on your website. For example, “Montgomery County personal injury attorney”: someone searching for this keyword is actively searching for an attorney in those areas (both practice-related and geographically) and is more likely to call or fill out a contact form on your website.
Once your research is complete, you’ll want to choose a keyword tracking tool and input your keyword list. While there are a number of keyword tracking tools available, at 9Sail, we use SemRush’s Position Tracking Tool for clients. Once your tracking is set up, you’ll want to glance at it weekly and make note of any major ranking changes whether positive or negative, helping you understand what’s working and what needs improvement.
ORGANIC CONVERSIONS
A conversion is any user action deemed to be important, such as a download or phone call. Conversion tracking is incredibly important because it allows you to under- stand which traffic channels and pages are driving the most leads. While conversions tracked can vary by firm depending on top-line business objectives, there are two conversions every law firm should be tracking.
Contact Form submissions—Contact form submissions can be tracked in Google Analytics as long as you have a “ThankYou” page that triggers once a user fills out a form.
Phone Calls— Phone calls can be tracked by setting up a goal in Google Analytics or by utilizing a call tracking platform.
NUMBER AND QUALITY OF BACKLINKS
Link building is hard work, but it pays off if done correctly. As you may know, the number and quality of websites linking back to your website affects your search engine rankings. A quality backlink is one that is relevant and comes from a website with a high domain rating or trust score. The higher the domain rating, the more effective your link will be in boosting your search rankings. Thus, tracking the number and quality of backlinks you obtain can help you understand the effectiveness of your link building efforts.
Taylor Tobey, MBA, is a digital strategist with 9Sail, a lead generation and SEO marketing agency serving the legal industry.