Tracking the Results of Your Internet Marketing Campaign
Tracking the results of your Internet marketing is extremely important if you want to run a successful Internet marketing campaign. Through the use of website analytics and phone call tracking numbers, you can find out exactly what marketing is working so you can make smart decisions about where to spend your marketing dollars.
Many law firms today advertise their law practice on the web through many different sources. Some utilize SEO companies to help improve their visibility, others depend on Pay Per Click advertising on major search engines like Google and Yahoo, while other law firm’s purchase advertising or listings in different web directories. No matter what you spend your advertising budget on, it’s extremely important to know what marketing is working for you and which marketing dollars are not. Very few firms seem to know how to differentiate the good from the bad and so they continue to spend without “trimming the fat”. So how can you figure out what is (or is not) working for you?
Web Analytics
Web analytics provide vital information about the visitors to a website. It’s not enough just to have a “stat counter” that tells you how many visits your site is receiving. It’s important to know about how those visitors got to your site, how long they stay at your site, which pages are the most commonly visited, how many pages per visit your visitors average.
Web analytics can provide a lot of information on what your visitors think about your site. For example if your average number of “page views” is 1.2 pages per visit, it’s obvious that most visitors leave after seeing a single page of your site. In almost every case like this, a small number of pages per visit signifies a poorly designed site that is not keeping the attention of your site visitors. On the other hand, if your site visitors are averaging 3-4 pages per visit, this means your site is keeping the attention of your site visitors and they are clicking around to other pages of your site.
Web analytics can also inform you about the ability or inability of your site to convert visitors into actual clients. For instance, if you are receiving a large amount of traffic but are not receiving phone calls or contact form submissions on your website, your site has a poor conversion rate. This is often attributed to content that is not strong enough to convince visitors to contact your firm. Poor web design can also be a factor if your conversion rate is low.
Website analytics can also tell you which sites are sending visitors to your site (or are NOT sending you traffic). If you are not getting any traffic from Google, that’s something you need to know since the majority of web users are using that engine to conduct their online searches.
Web analytics can do a whole lot more, but this should tell you that if you do not have a website analytics package installed on your law firm site, have it added right away.
Phone Call Tracking
Tracking numbers are also great ways to find out how many calls your website is generating. These are numbers that should only be used on your website and not anywhere else. This way you can attribute all calls on that phone number to your site. You can also get phone call tracking numbers for various sources of advertising. For example, if you are spending $1,000 a month at Yellowpages.com, it’s worth it to spend $20-$40 a month on a tracking number to see if that source of advertising is working for you. If you have multiple websites, you should also be using different tracking numbers on each site. Some tracking number systems can even differentiate phone calls by traffic source, ad campaign, or individual keyword.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Perez
Michael Perez is President of i-Lawyer Marketing, a company specializing in search engine optimization, search engine friendly web design and video production for law firms.
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Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this publication, it is not intended to provide legal advice as individual situations will differ and should be discussed with an expert and/or lawyer.For specific technical or legal advice on the information provided and related topics, please contact the author.
