How to Measure ROI on SEO for Law Firms

SEO for lawyers benchmarks

Start by establishing the right benchmarks (preferably before your marketing agency begins to do SEO):

• How many unique visitors come to your website monthly (traffic)
• How many leads you get from the website (visitor-to-lead conversion rate)
• How many new clients you’re getting per month from your website (lead-to-client close rate)
• How much revenue you expect to generate from the clients you sign up on any given month (apply the Law of Averages)

Simple, but so many marketing agencies don’t do this. I think it is because they do not want to be responsible for the ultimate outcome. Hold their feet to the fire and make them collect this data. This is very important as you will not know the value you get in return for the dollars you spend on marketing.

Law firm internet marketing goals

Once you have clear benchmarks, set clear goals with the help of your marketing agency. For example, if you currently average 4 new clients from your website per month, and the revenue per client is $5000 on average, then your website brings in approximately $20,000 of business per month.

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Say you want to get to $100,000 per month, now you need to get 20 clients. After some research, an expert digital marketing company can tell you if that’s a realistic goal and then create a roadmap for that will get you from point A to point B.

SEO for law firms reporting

Every month, you should get a performance report that shows you the increase of traffic and of actions taken that can be tracked online (like filled out contact forms or people clicking on your phone number). You should also report back to your marketing agency, telling them how many new clients you’ve had that month, and what’s the revenue you generated.

Let’s say you used to get 4 clients with zero spend on digital marketing (referrals, occasional online traffic, etc.). Now you are spending $5,500 per month, $66,000 per year. For the first 3-4 months, you see no difference in case flow. Months 5-7, you sign up 6 clients monthly (and can track the 2 additional clients per month back to the marketing efforts). Months 8-10, you sign up 9 new clients monthly. And, months 11-12, you get to 12 new clients per month.

So, for the investment of $66,000, you signed 37 new clients. Considering an average client value of $5,000, you generated 280.3% return on your investment in year one.

Things should considerably pick up in year two. Even if you stay at 12 clients per month level, your ROI on $66,000 in marketing spend will be 727.3%. Not too shabby.

Here is a common pitfall that you must be aware of: many attorneys become disheartened within a few months because they do not see results they want, but are spending the money they’d rather keep.

My advice is to keep your cool – SEO is a marathon – and review monthly reports from your marketing experts. Look for the positive trend. You should see it develop within 3-4 months.

After 2-3 quarters, you’ll have a very good grasp of what you’re getting for your money.

To learn more about how SEO for lawyers works, you can read this post where we explain it in great detail.

And, if your marketing company does not deliver the results you’ve been expecting for many months now, contact us here so we can discuss your strategy and help you achieve the growth you’re aiming for.

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Comrade is a Chicago-based digital marketing company that specializes in marketing and website design for attorneys. Read more about our SEO service for law firms