Filed under Website Analytics

It is common for law firm websites to speak about themselves with hyperbole.  Self-important adjectives litter the site content.  Firm’s with exceptional people are one-upped by those with truly exceptional people.  Knowledge is only valid if it is genuine. Experience, it seems comes in a variety of flavors as well. Some firms have wide experience.  For others it is deep experience.  But the most common benchmark of experience is that it be extensive.  Does your firm claim extensive experience?

Now it’s not that I don’t believe it when I read of a professional’s extensive experience. It’s just that this really doesn’t tell me anything. Worse, it doesn’t tell me anything different from the next guy who also has extensive experience. In fact, I would argue, my baseline is extensive experience. Now tell me how you’re better.

If you Google the phrase “extensive experience” there are over 6 million website pages where this value is claimed.  Using the search tool on several law firm websites, I discovered an “extensive experience” ratio of about  35% – 50% (# of appearances of “extensive experience”/attorney). So making this claim doesn’t so much separate one professional from the pack as much as it defines the pack. (Check your firm’s ratio and let me know!)

But the problem with this “extensive experience” language is not merely that it is linguistic laziness. Rather, this laziness results in failing to detail the richness, complexity and detail which this phrase references. And in so not doing, opportunities are lost for using this missing content.  You won’t be found in a search engine because, frankly, nobody is looking for “extensive experience.” And you won’t be discovered in your site search because, well, almost half of all attorneys have the same vague amount of experience. And it is all extensive.

Yes, I understand that, often, considerable descriptive detail must be concealed for privacy considerations.  Yeah, so? Content developers (copywriters) simply have to work harder to anonymize those involved. But, with a little effort, it is possible and essential to provide sufficient detail to make the stories comprehensible and relevant – and content rich.

Go the extra mile to gather the detail that elicits that sense of extensive experience. Boil it down to 3 to 5 cogent bullet points of industry and matter relevance. And post it. Your site visitor will have a better experience. This will result in more web pages consumed and possibly a longer time on the site with more opportunity for engagement. And search engines will devour the details for their ranking algorithms.  And you know how I know this? I have extensive experience.

On November 14, 2005, Google began to make Google Analytics available to the public. The deal, of course, is that in return for obtaining googols of data from trillions of web pages, they would offer this intelligently-featured website performance monitoring software. Already in the business of scouring the internet universe for signs of intelligent content, minding  website visits and stalking inbound links was a natural outgrowth in Google’s pursuit of becoming the Matrix.  OK, I’ll put my paranoia aside. But I’m just saying.

The Smoking Gun

As an engineer, website monitoring metrics has always fascinated me. And as a marketer, the data has always informed me.  Historically, I’ve had to study arcane and voluminous data spewing from web server reports. It’s been sort of like touring the engine room of an old steamship. I’ve carefully tip toed around bandwidth usage, server error and pages not loaded reports to mine nuggets of useful marketing stuff.  Or maybe it’s like doing a stool analysis.  Lots of crap and a few scraps of insight. No wonder few people pursued this endeavor.

Early Google Analytics Dashboard offered a "Marketer" view

My first Google Analytics dashboard actually had a drop down option reading “Marketer”. Woo hoo! From this pre-selected and compiled set of data, I was brought a million miles closer to my objective. This was to answer the question, “What the hell is going on here and how can I make it better.” Given my personal flair for evangelism, I was even more excited that I had the tool to push on every person I knew while liberally using the expression, “free”.  “Hey, you’ve got to have this.  It’s free.”

Are You Paying Attention

So armed with “free,” we’ve been pushing Google Analytics on all our clients and everyone we know. It is a standard offering of our website builds. But having the information is not the same as bringing this in to strategic business processes.  Since today is Google Analytics 4^th birthday, I’m going to make a birthday wish:  If you are a website publisher, make a commitment to understanding the performance of your website. Tie your site’s performance to your organization’s mission or business objectives. Make it work harder for you. The tools are in your hands. And they’re free.

Google Analytics is offered free from Google. It requires that you create an account and insert a snippet of code on every page of your website.