Content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are two of the fastest-growing marketing channels today. It’s one thing to get traffic to your website, but it’s an even bigger challenge to get a consumer to stay on your website. If you’re finding that the vast majority of claimants leave your firm’s website without contacting you or even reading a second article, here are some things that may be going wrong:
1. Navigation Is Difficult (Or There’s None at All!)
The structure of your firm’s website can make or break your digital marketing campaigns. Most websites’ content is structured like a pyramid—your home page is the top. From there users should be able to access 5-7 pages of pillar content that’s vitally important to your firm’s brand, such as the areas of law you practice or case types you handle.
When setting up your site’s structure you’ll want everything to be easy to find. Drop-down navigation options are fine, but it’s confusing for users to hover over an “SSDI” tab and reveals hundreds of pages to click on. Your navigation should also be descriptive. For example, a link titled “Contact Us” is much better than one that says “Reach Out” or “Learn More Today.”
2. Annoying Content/Video
The vast majority of consumers do not enjoy auto play videos, especially if they include sound. In fact, it’s so annoying that Google Chrome’s March 2018 update started blocking videos that automatically play if they have sound.
What does this mean for your firm? Stop forcing consumers to watch your videos or have their screens taken over by a giant pop-up for your legal services. They’re on your website so it’s time to win them over with great content, not another advertisement.
3. It’s Too Slow
Site speed makes a big difference when it comes to user retention. The longer it takes for a page on your website to load, the more likely someone is to leave. Less than 10% of users will exit a page that takes two second to load, but more than 30% of users will leave if your website takes seven seconds or more to load. The average website takes around five seconds to load, so odds are decent that you’re losing a lot of consumers due to a slow website.
Google offers Page Speed Insights, which assesses how fast your firm’s site loads and gives a list of opportunities for you to improve your site speed and retain more users.
4. It’s Not What They Expected
We’ve all experienced the frustration of searching something on Google, clicking on the first result, and realizing that the content is not what we expected. If your pages have misleading titles or low-quality content, consumers will feel the same way when they find your website. For example, if you have a page that’s titled “One Sure-Fire Way to Win Your SSDI Claim With Cancer” but the content of the page glosses over the application process and how a claimant should reach out to your firm, consumers will leave disappointed.
What’s worse, low-quality content will lead to high bounce rates, less time spent on your site, and fewer articles read per user. All of these metrics factor into whether your site will rank well on Google. Sites that reach the top of page 1 on Google are engaging and informative for consumers.
While it may seem tedious to update your site’s content to ensure people stick around, it’s impossible to outrank committing firms without putting in the time and effort to meet the needs of your potential clients through digital content.
Sources Used:
https://www.section.io/blog/page-load-time-bounce-rate/