How to Turn Your Web Traffic into Cases

The following is adapted from Law Firm SEO.

By following a successful SEO strategy, you’ll dramatically boost the number of people who find and visit your law firm’s website. But if those visitors don’t actually become clients, what was the point of all your hard work?

To collect the return on your investment, you need to turn web traffic into signed cases. This is the moment when SEO meets offline work—when you make sure your office has an exceptional intake process to convince site visitors that you’re the right law firm for them. From nurturing leads and collecting information, to scheduling a consultation and drafting an agreement, each step of your intake process brings you closer to a signed client.?

SEO can send potential clients your way, but you have to put in extra work to make sure those leads become conversions. Below, I’ll outline some easy, but critical, ways you can turn your web traffic into cases.?

Would You Hire Yourself?

Start by asking yourself, “Would I hire us? If I landed on this website, would I pick up the phone and call?”

Think about what you would want to see from a law firm if you had to hire a lawyer of your own. What questions would you have? What details, qualifications, or calls to action would you want to see?

Ideally, your messaging will include these points and entice visitors to take action. You’ve worked so hard implementing and investing in your SEO strategy. Now that you have a prospect visiting your website, don’t leave such a crucial moment in the client journey to chance.?

I recommend personally reviewing your website’s content on a quarterly basis. If the content on your website comes across as unwelcoming or confusing, for any reason, it might be time to retrain your copywriter.

Make Contact Effortless

Next, increase your chances of converting visitors by making it as easy as possible to contact your firm.?

A few best practices include displaying your phone number in the top right corner of every page and coding the page so the phone number remains visible, even when you scroll down. The visitor should never have to search for the phone number. Also, put a contact form on every page. It should be short, simple, and require only a single click to submit.

As the saying goes, a confused mind never buys. Make it easy for your prospect to connect with you by way of a phone call, simple form submission, or a web chat. By providing multiple options, you increase your chances of converting that prospect into a lead.

Show off Your Accolades

You never want to come off like you’re bragging or flaunting a big ego, but if you’ve received accolades, show them! Potential clients feel stressed and vulnerable because they were wronged in some way, and they need to know they can trust you. Awards and recognition make a compelling argument.

Accolades you might want to display include, but aren’t limited to association memberships, professional awards, a high Avvo.com rating, and major verdicts or settlements. Again, visitors look for reasons to trust you—make it easy for them.

Don’t Leave Potential Clients Hanging

Finally, it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: a potential client has picked up the phone and called your office. Now’s the time to ask yourself, “Do we have a good system in place to handle calls?”

As a best practice, aim to answer calls within two rings. If a caller gets sent to voicemail, which hopefully they don’t, return their call quickly, preferably within the hour. Don’t leave them waiting. Respond to form-submission leads and web chats, preferably within an hour as well. The chances of converting that lead into a client go down dramatically the longer you take to respond. My company created a 2021 Lawyer Response Study to explain the importance of answering calls.?

You’ll also want to create an effective intake script your office can use that demonstrates empathy and respect for a client’s unique situation. This will help to prequalify all leads and move them closer to the signing process. You can get as sophisticated as you want with your system and even set up automated text messages to communicate and keep in touch with leads.

Using a call center can be a good option, as well. I recommend finding one that has experience answering calls for law firms. Their call center may answer after-hour and weekend calls for your firm, and some can pre-qualify leads, send hot transfers, or even sign cases for you.?

If you decide to go with a call center, my main piece of advice is to make sure you understand their process and are continuously proactive with the intake scripts that they follow. The last thing you want is to invest so much in SEO, in terms of time and money, only to lose a potential client forever because of one bad phone call.

Make Your Website Accessible

Another important factor to consider for conversions is accessibility. Not only should your website be usable by everyone, so you don’t turn away potential clients, but you’re also legally bound, by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to provide accessible services.?

Many large companies have lost lawsuits costing millions of dollars because their websites weren’t accessible to people who use screen readers, captions, or other accessibility features to interact with the internet.

To ensure that your site is and remains accessible, I recommend using a service called UserWay at userway.org. UserWay is an accessibility-compliance solution that helps ensure your website meets ADA requirements.?

The plugin will do things like enlarging text or reading content out loud, without you needing to hardcode changes into your website. It’s a quick and easy way to make sure all visitors can access your content and services, and it decreases your liability for a potential lawsuit.

Convert Traffic into Cases

Gaining traffic through SEO is merely a path to signing more clients. You can bring visitors to your website, but without a good user experience, they probably won’t convert into clients.?

At the end of the day, these people are looking for professional legal help and may have never engaged with or hired an attorney before; so your content, messaging, and user experience should convey appropriate empathy, trustworthiness, and competence. When you put effort into earning your potential clients’ trust, everyone benefits.?

For more advice on turning web traffic into signed cases, you can find Law Firm SEO on Amazon.

Jason Hennessey is an author, entrepreneur, and internationally recognized SEO expert focused on dissecting, demystifying, and reverse-engineering the algorithms behind the world’s most popular search engines. He’s the CEO and Founder of Hennessey Digital, a multimillion-dollar digital marketing agency recognized by Inc. as one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States. A digital search marketing correspondent for the Washington Post, Fox Business, CNBC, and CBS News, Jason is also a highly sought-after public speaker, prolific angel investor, and an active board member of several nonprofits. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Bridget, and their three children.