Using Google Analytics to Improve Page Speeds

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The uses and functionality of Google Analytics can sometimes feel endless. On that note, let’s break into page speed insights.

 

Finding Page Speeds

Behavior → Site Speed → Page Timings

Behavior → Site Speed → Page Timings

Knowing which of your pages are slowing your site down is key in optimizing your entire website. You can find individual page loading times under “Page Timings.” Within this dataset, you can toggle page views, average load time, and bounce rate.

By selecting a comparison view for the data visualization you can see which of your pages are taking longer than the site average. 

Once you know which pages are being problem children, you can begin to fix them. 

 

Fixing Page Speeds

Behavior → Site Speed → Speed Suggestions

Behavior → Site Speed → Speed Suggestions

Not only does Google Analytics tell you which pages are slow, they give suggestions on how to fix them. When you go to “Speed Suggestions” you can get suggestions on pages that aren’t even below the average site speed. 

Clicking on the suggestions will take you to a page that gives you the diagnostics on both your desktop and mobile pages. Since Google indexes on a mobile-first basis, neglecting your mobile site-speeds is probably a bad idea.

When you scroll down on the page you can see suggestions and how to implement them. Many of them can be solved using plug-ins, some of them can be solved by just reducing image sizes, and some can be ignored. These decisions are up to you as a webmaster. Or they’re up to us if you’re paying for on-site optimizations.

No matter what you decide to do with this information it’s good to have. Knowing what’s happening with your website is key to knowing what’s happening with your business.

Why Does Search Intent Matter?

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In the early days of digital advertising, search engines used keywords to understand their users. This is how SEOs optimized pages to get higher and higher page ranks for their clients. Things have changed a bit since then, and not in the least regarding how search engines work.

 

The Great Intent Shift

Search engines have been getting better at understanding user intent over user keywords for the past few years now. Using open-source machine learning, Google created BERT, a robot designed to understand intent, and released it into the world in the Fall of 2019. 

 

The release of BERT indicated a shift of intent over keywords. If you want to know what this looks like, imagine a person trying to figure out the visa process of moving from Guatemala to America. They search “Visa process Guatemala to united states.” With the keywords being “Visa,” “Guatemala,” and “United States” they Google might give them an onslaught of news stories about new policies. Other than maybe influencing them to move to Canada instead, these results won’t help them learn what they need to do. 

 

When you change the situation to user intent instead of keywords, the person is more likely to get links to the DHS immigration page or a blog post from an immigration lawyer. The point is, they are more likely to get what they intended to get. 

 

How This Helps You

While keywords still matter, they no longer need to be the focus when you’re creating content. Instead of stuffing H1s and H2s with various repetitive synonyms, trying to rank for as many keywords as possible, you should focus on writing the most accurate and helpful headers you can. It’s a lot easier to write quality content if you’re not fighting for every word. 

 

So how should you focus on intent? Provide quality content and write out the straightforward questions with straightforward answers. This is where blog posts, FAQs, and other resources will benefit you. People want straightforward answers to their legal questions, and that’s something you can provide. Search intent might just be what helps you get the traffic (and clients) you want.

Link Building: Where to Start

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Starting a Link Building Project

Link building is one of the building blocks of SEO. It helps to make connections, building domain authority, and motivating you to create interesting content. We all know this, but where do you start? Well, let’s start with where not to start.

 

Avoiding Schemes and Scams

There are countless businesses around promoting opportunities to buy lots of links for cheap. Don’t utilize them. Link building schemes are great for short-term growth and long-term destruction. And the growth isn’t even real since the incoming traffic rarely converts or interacts. 

Bottom line: don’t buy links.

 

Finding (Legitimate) Opportunities

Looking for places that will provide you with links or are willing to collaborate is hard work. It helps to begin where you are more likely to get a response. This could be directories, local newspapers, even alumni newsletters. These are examples of places where you can simply add a link to your website’s homepage or your attorney profile and call it a day.

 

One technique we like using here at Mockingbird is Lookback Link Building, a termed coined in-house. It can help get high-quality links without asking publications to change recent pieces.

 

The next level of link building is guest blogging or writing content that sites want to link to. This usually takes either an extreme talent for writing alongside high subject matter expertise or a longstanding and good reputation in the field. You should always aim for creating the highest quality content as possible, but the bar is a bit lower if you’re already a well-known name.

 

Building Connections

Making connections is hard in this world, and it’s even harder when you’re asking for a favor. Prepare yourself for a lot of rejection and even more indifference. A lot of your requests will be ignored. You learn to live with it.

 

So what do you do once you make a connection? If the type of link you’re requesting is just putting a link in an article where the firm or attorney is mentioned, ask for that. Explain how it will help the readers who might want to learn more about the subject. Try not to make it sound like a business transaction. People don’t like feeling like they’re giving you something for free.

 

Beyond singular links, you need to build connections with publications and websites that might be open to collaborating with you as a subject matter expert. This means that they would be open to you writing guest pieces or linking to your content. This is a great position to be in. If you find yourself with these types of connections, don’t piss them off. They’re your ticket to a high domain authority.

 

The Benefits of Link Building

If you aren’t convinced that an improved backlink profile will help you out, we have multiple case studies to show you otherwise:

 

Let’s Make 2020 the Year of No Long Term Contracts

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Here at Mockingbird, we have made our disdain for long-term contracts well-known. We have seen too many law firms fall victim to the predatory practices of FindLaw and other such agencies. Too many of our clients have come to us after being stripped down by contracts designed to empty their wallets. It’s because of this that we want to warn you of the dangers of signing onto a long term contract and how to avoid it.

 

The Dangers

Domain Ownership

Ownership of the website often sits in the fine print of these contracts, and it rarely benefits the law firm. This is one of the ways agencies trap their clients; they can’t leave without losing their website. 

 

Content Ownership

Right alongside domain ownership is content ownership; the agency owns all the content on the website. This means that even if the client manages to leave, they can’t keep anything from the website they might have been adding to for years.

 

Upselling Poor Service

When you’re trapped in a contract the agency has little motivation to provide you with the service you deserve. When you find them failing to deliver, they might even ask you to pay more for certain features that should be included or are completely irrelevant. Suddenly the contract is more expensive and the service is just as bad.

 

Our Experiences

We’ve been in the business for a while, and we’ve had more than a couple of firms come to us desperate and without a website:

Helping these firms get back on their feet has made us painfully aware of how damaging long term contracts can be. That’s why we’ve built a guide for escaping FindLaw. 

 

What to Look for When Signing a Contract

As a lawyer, you’re probably used to the implications of the fine print. The fine print for your marketing agency shouldn’t be given any less attention than what’s in your clients’ cases. Here are a few of the things you should keep an eye out for and flag:

  • Domain ownership
  • Content ownership
  • Termination penalties
  • End dates

If you see yourself about to sign a contract that will hold you for years, stop and think: is there a better way?

 

There is. Don’t make bad decisions in 2020 that will follow you for the next decade. Don’t sign the contract.

Impacts of Google’s January Update on the Legal Industry

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Google released a new core update in mid-January, most of which has been rolled out at this point. As with all updates, Google reassured webmasters that no specific sites or industries were targeted. That being said, some industries saw greater impacts than others. And since we’re a legal marketing agency, we like to focus on the impacts on the legal industry. 

 

Based on research from SEMrush.com, the legal and government industries have seen a fair amount of volatility over the past week. The peak days of change were January 14-16, and things appear to be back to normal now.

 

But just because things are no longer changing doesn’t mean there wasn’t an impact. SEMrush works to track SERPs (search engine results pages) in a number of categories, from featured snippets to reviews. 

 

By looking at a selection of these SERPs (not all of them are relevant to the legal industry, such as shopping results) we can get an idea of how legal websites might have been affected.

 

HTTPS Usage

From semrush.com

 

HTTPS usage saw a drop when the update was rolled out and has been steadily declining since. Fortunately, it looks like it might be bouncing back. 

 

Local Results

From semrush.com

 

Local results, or “Local pack” as it’s called on SEMrush, consists of location-based results that appear on the map and the first three results (see below).  After an initial dip, local SERPs seem to have bounced back to where they were before the update.

Reviews

From semrush.com

 

This metric refers to the number of organic results that appear with a star rating under the URL. As with the local results, there was an initial dip immediately following the update. Fortunately, this result is also creeping back up to where it was.

 

Top Ads

From semrush.com

 

Top ads refer to the ads that appear at the top of the page of search results. These have been seeing some serious fluctuations over the past 30 days, but seem to have been on a steady increase since before the update.

 

What Does This Mean

So what do these metrics really mean for you and your business? Mostly it means that there might be a bit of instability in your traffic for a little while after this update. Unless your website is seeing a long-lasting and extreme drop in traffic, it’s nothing to worry about.

What Types of Traffic are Better?

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I’ve been spending some time on Google Analytics. I’ve been looking at which of our pages are doing well, which are at the tail-end of their trend, and which are leading conversions. 

There are some obvious leaders in the conversions department, mainly our homepage and our Law Firm Advertising page, both of which we heavily advertise. They are also pages that tend to get pretty consistent organic traffic. What I was interested in was how their organic traffic related to their paid traffic in terms of conversions.

 

Referral Traffic

The page we’re looking at had a total of 3,243 sessions in the selected time period. Most of that traffic came from referrals, but referrals drove the smallest percentage of sessions to conversions of the metrics being investigated (referral traffic, organic traffic, and paid traffic).  Despite its 2,160 sessions, referrals only led to 6 leads: a measly 0.28% conversion rate. 

 

This seems to be reflective of the site as a whole, as organic traffic drives the highest percentage of sessions. Referrals hold a close second, showing their traffic-driving power, but they also convert the fewest number of users. With a 0.57% conversion-rate sitewide, referrals should probably be thought of more as visibility-assets than business-drivers. 

 

Paid Traffic

For this page, the second largest traffic driver was paid advertising. Paid traffic drove a total of 10 leads on that page, leading to a 4.61% conversion rate. Despite being about a tenth of referrals traffic-wise, paid traffic had a conversion rate that was over 16 times that of referred traffic. This is a good example of quality traffic over general traffic. 

 

Organic Traffic

Finally, organic traffic for the page was third as far as numbers of sessions but was second as far as conversions. As previously mentioned, organic traffic drove the highest percentage of sessions site-wide. What wasn’t previously mentioned was that organic traffic has the third-highest percentage (0.83%) of online conversions. Above it were paid CPC (4.22% conversion rate) and direct traffic (0.84% conversion rate). 

 

The Takeaways

The point of this research was to see the value in different types of traffic; a holistic approach to understanding Google Analytics. A quick glance at a number of Google Analytics accounts will show that while each website has its own quirks, organic and referral traffic are often high in the ranks as far as numbers of sessions, but referrals are often outpaced by paid and organic traffic when it comes to conversions. 

 

But conversions aren’t everything. Holistic, remember? Direct traffic also often ranks high for conversions, which implies that the clients who went directly to the site knew what they wanted and had already made their decision to convert. They probably made that decision during a prior search, which is why we shouldn’t discount referral traffic or any traffic that doesn’t seem to be driving leads quite yet. The one exception I’ll concede to is paid traffic. If your paid traffic isn’t resulting in leads you have a problem.

 

If you want to know more about what your law firm’s website’s traffic means, contact Mockingbird.

Your Logo Is Big Enough

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As a designer, I receive many requests for changes by clients regarding a design that I have created. I almost always get asked, “The logo is small, can you make it bigger?”, “I can hardly see the logo, could you make that bigger?”. I understand that you may be proud of your logo and you want it to be prominent, however, the size of your logo isn’t the most important aspect of your website nor should it be the main focus of the site.

Many people also believe that their brand is their logo. A brand is much bigger than just a logo and it can be presented throughout the entirety of the design. Your brand is how your firm represents itself, how you treat clients, your messaging and positioning, the overall experience that someone has with your service and firm. Yes this does include your logo however the logo on your website should never distract the user from the messaging on your website and it should never compete with it.

Large logos can come off cheesy and look amateur. Take a minute to check out the size of the logo for these well-respected brands:

Screenshot of popular website headers

It’s a pretty slim chance that your firm can compete with the same brand recognition as Apple, J.Crew, Nike, and Target, but you can still strive to achieve a similar professional, polished look. Your logo isn’t the focal point of the design. It can throw off the entire balance of the design and make it look cheap if it’s too large.

That brings me to another issue and a shameless plug from yours truly. If your logo needs to be larger to read it, it’s not a good logo. Logos should be scalable and recognizable at any size. If you need an updated logo or a logo redesign OR BRANDING, hit us up.

I have a strong opinion that if you include LLC, Law Firm, Attorneys, etc in your logo – it’s unnecessary and looks a bit amateur. People, who come to your website are aware that you are a lawyer, or a law firm, or an attorney..get it? That goes for you too, Esquires.

Also, if you ABSOLUTELY need to make your logo bigger, please watch this video.

When We’re Happy to See Clients Go

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We love our clients. We love getting new clients and keeping our more senior clients. There are law firms we’ve worked with for years; working relationships that sit at the very core of our company. We value all of them and hope to see our partnership last long into the future. That being said, losing a client isn’t always sad.

How We Know We Did Our Job Well

Our team always puts in 110% to ensure our clients’ successes, and it’s satisfying to see it pay off. There are single-attorney firms we’ve worked with that started without a website, without ads, and barely with a budget to grow. Once they get to the point where they’re able to hire an in-house marketing team, we know we’ve succeeded. 

 

Not the End of the Road

Just because a client is ending their contract doesn’t mean it’s over. We like to keep in contact, not close any doors. 

 

We also like to keep the door ajar by offering consulting, reporting, and/or collaborative services. Like doting parents watching their kids move out, we’re always here for support and want to know how their lives are going. 

 

The Mutual Benefits

When a client leaves us, we make sure to use that to both of our advantages. We make all of their resources as easy as possible to transfer to their new team, and we ask them to leave us an honest review. This helps us know how we can improve and lets potential clients know the quality of our services. We both walk away better off than when we started.

 

How This is Relevant to Your Firm

Saying goodbye to clients is a staple of running a business. People move, grow, shrink, and change, and it’s a good thing. Unless you’re a corporate lawyer, there aren’t many instances in which you want recurring clients. A divorce lawyer probably doesn’t want to have the same client over and over again; that client isn’t doing well if they’re getting divorce after divorce. You need to know how to say goodbye to your clients. 

By keeping your door open and parting on good terms, that client might not come back but will refer others to you. Turnover is a good thing. If you don’t think so, check out our reviews.

How Your Domain Authority Affects Your Firm

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Let’s clarify one thing right off the bat: Domain Authority is not the same as PageRank. Domain Authority (DA) is a tool created by Moz used to estimate your page ranking. It uses link flows and trust metrics to come to its conclusion, but DA has no effect on how well your site actually does from a technical standpoint. 

 

This doesn’t mean that DA has no effect on your site whatsoever. It has more of a sociological impact in the way that owning a fancy suit doesn’t mean you’re rich, but it might help you get a higher paying job. Having a high DA will improve link-building opportunities, which will, in turn, improve your PageRank.

 

Your PageRank comes directly from Google and isn’t accessible. You can try to calculate it, but your DA is probably a better estimate than you’ll come up with. The main thing is that your PageRank actually does determine where your page sits in the search results. As you can probably assume, higher is better. You want your page to show up at the top of the organic search results. PageRank says whether or not it will.

 

Improving DA and PageRank

Google and Moz determine your metrics through a number of factors but largely focus on links and content. Lucky for you, you have some control over both of these.

 

Link building is your best method for improving authority. By having a more trusted site vouch for you by posting an article with a link to your site, they are improving your trustworthiness. You can build links through guest-writing articles, negotiating with authors of relevant pages, or adding links to directories in which your firm is listed.

 

On the content front, the main advice Google gives is to prioritize quality over quantity. Google determines quality through E.A.T.: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. If you want your blog articles to be used as resources, they have to be relevant to your firm and what people want to know regarding your expertise. You need to prove that you are a trusted expert, and your website needs to prove that you aren’t trying to steal anything from your clients. This means that anyone who visits the site needs to be comforted by the layout, so content extends beyond writing and into the design. 

 

What Comes with a Good DA

When you manage to improve your DA and your PageRank you will most likely see an increase in traffic relevant to your business, meaning an increase in leads and clients. You will have more opportunities for quality link building, the heavens will open up you will finally find inner peace. 

 

It’s never that simple. Maintaining good DA means maintaining your website, keeping up with search engine updates, and consistently producing quality content. It’s work, and not always work you have time for if you’re also running a law firm.

 

Mockingbird is here to help. We work in improving your website, content, and link building connections. If you would like to get more clients, contact Mockingbird today.