Types of Data
There are three general categories of data for analysis:
- Individual data – Provides insight into website performance, search engine rankings, content effectiveness, and visitor activity.
- Industry data – Provides insight into client trends to help firms identify potential new clients and popular practice areas.
- Internal data – Provides insight into securing future clients using billing, time tracking, and client lifecycle data about existing clients.
Getting Started with Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool that helps law firms analyze what visitors are doing on their website. To provide a comprehensive view of site performance, Google Analytics collects various types of data. With dozens of reporting options, it provides valuable information related to how many people visit a site, where they came from, how they navigate the site, and how much time they spend on each page.
Getting started with Google Analytics requires registration and installation of the software onto your website. The installation process varies by hosting platform, but these are the general directions:
First, you need to generate a Google Analytics tracking ID.
- Step #1: Go to your website admin menu
- Step #2: Select “Tracking Code” from the “Tracking Info” section
- Step #3: Copy the code or tracking ID
Depending on your website platform, you’ll need at least one of these IDs to install Google Analytics. Now, move on to the general installation instructions below. Remember, the instructions may vary a little for your specific website type:
- Step #1: Create or sign in to your Analytics account
- Step #2: Go to google.com/analytics. To create an account, click Start for free. To sign in to your account, click Sign into Analytics.
- Step #3: Set up a property in your Analytics account. A property represents your website or app and is the collection point in Analytics for the data from your site or app.
- Step #4: Set up a reporting view of your property. Views let you create a filtered perspective of your data; for example, all data except your company’s internal IP addresses, or all data associated with a specific sales region.
- Step #5: Add the tracking code or ID to your websites.
You are now ready to start collecting data in your Analytics property.
A/B Testing with Google Optimize
A/B testing, also called split-run testing, is a research methodology for user experience. It is a randomized experiment that involves two variants, A and B. It uses statistical hypothesis testing to compare two versions of a single variable. Variant A is the original while B contains at least one modified element from the original.
By testing a subject’s response to variant A against variant B, lawyers can identify the most effective of the two variants. The most effective variant represents what site visitors prefer. Then, by using that variant, law firms can benefit from greater conversions.
Google Optimize offers a free A/B testing product that provides valuable capabilities to law firms. Built on top of Google Analytics, users can quickly and easily utilize A/B testing to improve website conversions. The following are the steps to create a simple A/B test:
- Identify an area for testing. Start out small by testing a simple change, like:
- A different Call to Action
- A different color scheme
- Altering a form field
Once you get comfortable with using A/B testing, you can expand to more involved changes.
- Create a hypothesis
- Identify a problem and craft a hypothesis for improvement. A sample hypothesis would be “Changing the color of the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button from red to green will increase revenue by 10 percent.”
- Your hypothesis may involve conversion declines, increased webpage exits, or shifts in user demographics. Your website Google Analytics report can help identify a starting point.
- Create an A/B test for your hypothesis
- Go to your Optimize Account (Main menu > Accounts)
- Click on your Container name to get to the Experiments page
- Click Create Experiment
- Enter an Experiment name (up to 255 characters)
- Enter an Editor page URL (this is the web page you’d like to test)
- Click A/B test
- Click Create
Using On-Site Surveys for Visitor Feedback
On-site surveys, also called on-page surveys, offer another valuable opportunity for collecting data and feedback about website visitors. When users visit a specific page on your website, a survey slides in from the edge of the page with short, simple questions for your visitors to answer.
Some of the benefits of on-site surveys include:
- Understanding your visitors and what drives them to your website
- Analyzing what visitors like and don’t like about your site
- Identifying and addressing troublesome pages
- Measuring visitor experience
- Increasing e-commerce conversions
- Receiving insights from website visitors and clients
On-site survey questions may be open-ended to solicit more detailed answers, such as “What suggestions do you have for improving this website?” They can also be close-ended questions for quicker responses, like “Did you find this webpage helpful?” Surveys can also ask users to rate the website or specific page on a numerical scale.
Platforms like Hotjar, Mopinon, and Smartlook allow law firms to analyze customer experiences in a variety of ways. Users can choose between such tools as surveys, heatmaps, and behavior-triggered feedback forms.
Web Analytics and On-Site Surveys for Better Conversions
Web analytics and on-site surveys are valuable tools for law firms to analyze the effectiveness of their websites and the experience of site visitors. To learn more about the advantages of data analytics, click this link to an informative article by TimeSolv legal time tracking and billing software.
About Erika Winston:
Erika Winston is a freelance writer with a passion for law. Through her business, Personal Touch Edits, she helps legal professionals deliver effective written messages. Erika is a regular contributor to TimeSolv and a variety of other publications.
