Monitoring the Performance of Your Law Firm’s Website — Transitioning to Google Analytics 4

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Having a law firm website that showcases your services and legal experience is the bare minimum when it comes to an effective legal marketing strategy. You should certainly be commended if you’ve created a strong web presence. But it’s vital that you monitor and track your performance so you know what’s working and what isn’t. 

Google has tried to make this as simple as possible for businesses with its “Universal Analytics” product, which is free. But that’s changing this month as Google transitions to Google Analytics 4, which is also free. 

You won’t have the option to continue using a familiar legacy system. It is gone forever as of July 1. Here’s what that means for your law firm and some of the changes you can expect with Google Analytics 4. 

Why the Switch from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4?

Privacy has become a major concern for consumers over the past several years. As a law firm, it should also be a concern for your business. There have been more and more changes in the law, like GDPR in Europe and ITP. 

There is less reliance on cookies, which are considered intrusive. Google Analytics 4 takes consumer privacy into account by using a different type of modeling that operates across platforms (web and app). You get more precise data about visitor interactions that also respect the user’s privacy. 

Google Analytics 4 for Law Firms

As a law firm, you need detailed insights about the people who visit your website and other online properties. This allows you to better gauge the user experience and adjust your online marketing strategy to improve results. 

Universal Analytics recorded all user visits to your law firm’s website as “sessions.” While this might sound ok, the system made it challenging to determine users who may not be interested in your services. 

Google Analytics 4 has changed its approach to “event-based” tracking. This records each user’s interaction with your website as an individual “event.” The data associated with these events are logged so you can better target your advertising to visitors who may be closer to your ideal client group. 

Benefits of Using Google Analytics 4 for Your Law Firm

Whether you love or hate the new version of Google Analytics, your law firm will have to embrace it unless you decide to use a private solution. But, since you are trying to rank your website on Google, it makes sense to tap into Google’s own tools and use its free analytics. The good news is that GA4 has many benefits over its predecessor. Here are just a few:

1. Privacy Compliance

One of the catalysts for the development of GA4 was greater privacy compliance. This can help your law firm build trust with potential clients and avoid potential legal issues in the future. GA4 makes it easier for businesses to comply with regulations by using a form of consent that changes what data it collects based on a user’s preferences. 

2. Explorations

GA4 is an excellent tool to analyze your law firm’s website. A module called “Explorations” gives you data that was previously only available to paying customers of Google Analytics 360. Using this feature, you can view deeper insights about your website, such as funnel, path, and conversions exploration. 

3. Machine Learning

GA4 uses machine learning algorithms to search for data patterns, allowing it to make more accurate predictions about future behavior. In fact, GA4 was built with machine learning as one of its foundations. Specifically, the solution will gather data and identify trends to group visitors based on their behavior, alert website owners of important trends, and predict future behavior. 

4. Event Tracking

When you create “events,” like product downloads, video views, or offer sign-ups, on your website, you want to be able to track them. GA4 makes this possible and simple with a feature called “enhanced measurement.” You can track all of these “events” as well as things like scroll tracking, site search tracking, outbound click tracking, and more. 

5. Cross-Platform Tracking

GA4 works seamlessly across web and app platforms, allowing website developers, marketers, and businesses to bring data together into a single analytics dashboard. Even though most law firms don’t currently have an app, this capability may have uses for your firm in the future. 

6. Google Integrations

Finally, GA4 has continued the trend of integrating various Google products. For example, the system can synchronize GA4, YouTube, Google Ads data, and more. This creates a more unified experience for your business. 

What You Need to Know About the Transition to GA4

If you’ve waited to switch your law firm’s monitoring solution from Universal Analytics to GA4, the decision has been made for you. As of July 1, Universal Analytics has been phased out. Your only option when logging in will be GA4. 

When you log onto the current version of Google Analytics, the Admin section will be located at the bottom of your sidebar. Click on it and choose “GA4 Setup Assistant.” From there, you can create a new GA4 property, specify tagging data, place code on your website, and begin to see data showing up in your dashboard. Google offers a step-by-step guide for transitioning to Google Analytics 4. 

Get Help Monitoring Your Law Firm’s Website Performance

Google Analytics 4 for law firms is a powerful digital marketing tool when used correctly. It allows your business to measure valuable insights and leverage what is working for even bigger gains. It also allows you to quickly identify areas that need improvement so you can make adjustments to your strategy. But you don’t have to do any of these things on your own. 

At Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing, we specialize in helping law firms increase their online visibility to gain more qualified leads and boost overall revenue. Our team would love to have a conversation about how our digital marketing services for law firms can help your business. Call us today at (800) 864-1764 or contact us online. We offer a free internet marketing assessment and website evaluation to get started. 

How to Use Google Analytics – Improving Your Website Ranking

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Staying focused with the right data can help your law firm get more leads and paying clients. But the key term is the “right data” and not just all the facts and figures available. Google Analytics is an important tool to track and analyze how well your law firm’s website is contributing to its digital marketing goals.

With a strong understanding of how to connect to and use Google Analytics, law firms can ensure their efforts are on the right track for success. Here is how you can use this valuable tool to improve your website’s ranking. 

Why Your Law Firm Should Use Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an obvious choice for law firms because it’s connected to and owned by the search engine your business wants to master – Google. The online insights software offers many pre-programmed reports. But, you can also customize your experience to get data that is unique to your business. Not sure if you need it? Here are five reasons your law firm should use Google Analytics:

1. It’s Free

One of the best reasons to use Google Analytics is that it’s completely free to get the data you need to make your digital marketing efforts more effective. 

2. Simple to Use

Most people find it somewhat easy to access Google Analytics and begin collecting some basic data. Once you create an account, you can grab a code that goes on your website. 

3. Real-Time Results

Another benefit of Google Analytics is that law firms can see what is happening on their website in real-time. Whether you are tracking the performance of a new blog post or some other website changes, you can see how they are being viewed and accessed instantly. 

4. Audience Insights

Google provides website owners with useful visitor demographic information such as location, type of device, age, and gender. You can also determine who visitors arrived at your site, whether through social media links, your Google Business Profile, organic search, email, or Google Ads. 

5. Competitive Analysis

Google also allows you to spy on the competition, which might be one of the best features of the software when you are trying to improve your SEO. Google Analytics allows you to view your competitor’s website traffic, which you can compare to your own. 

Google Analytics Features for Law Firms

Google Analytics can track a massive amount of your law firm’s website data. So much that it can be overwhelming to the point of no longer being useful. Fortunately, you can customize your Google Analytics dashboard and only choose the KPIs that have the most meaning for your digital marketing strategy. 

If you want to get the most out of Google Analytics, here are some of the top metrics, or KPIs, you may want to add to your dashboard.

1. Total Leads

This KPI tracks the total number of leads going to your websites. Ideally, you’ll want to see an upward trend over time. You can also create different tracking codes to differentiate different types of leads, such as email sign-ups, blog posts, and ebook downloads. 

2. Cost Per Lead

Most law firms have a limited budget for digital marketing. Understandably, you want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth for various efforts. Google Analytics can help you determine how much you are paying for each type of lead if you differentiate the code between your different channels. 

3. Types of Traffic

If you’ve ever heard the term, “don’t place all your eggs in one basket,” you probably understand that it’s not an ideal practice to rely on a single channel for all of your marketing success. When you track the different types of traffic you receive, you can ensure you’re getting traffic from various mixes, such as social media, organic search, and paid ads. 

4. Conversion Rate

Leads are well and good, but it’s important that visitors to your website take some type of action, like give you a call or fill out your “Contact Us” form. A percentage of those conversions are going to become paying clients. You can also track these conversions using Google Analytics. 

5. Bounce Rate

When a potential client arrives on some page of your law firm’s website and then never visits another page, this is considered a “bounce.” And this usually happens when a visitor isn’t engaged enough to keep looking around. Google Analytics can reveal your website’s overall bounce rate as well as the pages with the highest bounce rates. 

6. Exit Rate

Exit rates are similar to bounce rates, but not quite. These are the pages that visitors most commonly exit your website from. Having this data can be valuable because you may be able to add some additional information, like blog posts links or video content, to keep visitors engaged. 

7. Average Page Views

In the online world, not all website visits are created equal. Some visitors just want an answer to a single question and don’t have the intent to hire an attorney. Others are looking for legal counsel immediately. When you track average page views, you will have a better gauge of how many pages a typical person visits so that you can work on things like navigation and engagement. 

8. Top Pages Visited

Looking at the top pages on your website that people visit can give you an idea about what content is driving traffic as well as what content might need some optimization to boost engagement. 

9. Traffic Growth Rate

One of your marketing goals should be to get a steady increase of visitors coming in month after month. You can track this with your traffic growth rate and break it down by various traffic sources.

10. Visits to About Us and Bio Pages

When a visitor to your site is serious about hiring a lawyer, they are probably going to visit your About Us and Bio pages to learn more before making a decision. Track how many visits you get to these pages and compare it to bounce rates. If the bounce rate is high, you might have some work to do. 

Google Analytics also allows you to set goals, where you can define what you’d like to achieve with your law firm’s website. Finally, if you are using Google Ads, you can also track conversions using Google Analytics. 

How Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing Can Help With Google Analytics

Google Analytics for law firms is a powerful marketing tool, allowing your business to measure and leverage valuable insights. It’s free and easy to use, but not every law firm has the time to dig into this data and find ways to improve its efforts. 

At Too Darn Loud Legal Marketing, we specialize in helping law firms increase their online visibility to gain more clients and boost overall revenue. We welcome the opportunity to tell you about our comprehensive suite of digital marketing solutions for law firms. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.