Website speed is one of the most important metrics for you to track with your site. In fact, the speed with which your website loads could be one of the primary factors that decide between you keeping and losing a visitor, and thus a potential new client for your firm.

This might sound dramatic, but data certainly backs it up. The longer a website takes to load, the more likely a visitor will click away and look somewhere else for their legal needs. But if your website loads quickly, your visitor is more likely to stay, which increases the odds they will reach out to you for more information or to schedule a consultation.

Performing a speed test

One of the simplest ways to measure the performance of your website with regard to its speed is to conduct a speed test.

There are a variety of tools you can use to run this speed test, many of which are available for free. A quick google search will bring up a number of options. Depending on the platform you used to build your website you might even have speed testing functionality built into the back end of the site.

To get the most out of your speed test, follow these tips:

• Run multiple tests: There are a variety of factors that could affect the results of your test, so it’s a good idea to run at least three tests to get a more accurate picture of your website’s performance.
• Test from different locations: Test from servers based in different geographical areas so you can see how performance varies based on location.
• Turn on caching: Website caching helps boost your website performance. Make sure it’s turned on before you run the speed test.

Ideally you will have a website that loads in two seconds or less, which is the standard sites like Google set for ecommerce websites. Google itself aims for less than a half second of loading time. Any more than two seconds and you run the risk of turning off your audience and harming your search engine rankings.

If the results of your test indicate your website is indeed running slowly, it’s important to quickly determine what’s causing this slowness. Common issues include poor quality web hosting, an over-reliance on large graphics or video, or functionality in the website that hasn’t been updated or doesn’t work as it should.

Make some adjustments to your website to ensure smoother operation, then run several speed tests again to make sure your adjustments actually worked. But if you get stuck in a situation in which you cannot determine what’s causing your website speed issues, you can always ask a professional for assistance.

For more information about improving website loading times for your firm, contact us at Conroy Creative Counsel.

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/your-guide-to-speed-tests/

The speed at which your website loads will drastically affect the experience your users have when they navigate to your page. Ideally your website should load up quickly when a person navigates to it, otherwise they’ll be likely to click away, losing you the opportunity to lock in a new client.

Consider your own browsing habits. How much patience do you have for a website that does not load efficiently? Chances are if a site takes too long to load you move on to something else.

The last thing you want is for a potential client’s first experience with your firm to be an aggravatingly slow loading time on your website. For this reason, it makes sense to embrace what developers often refer to as “lazy loading.”

What is lazy loading, and how can you implement it in your website?

The term “lazy loading” refers to a technique web designers use to make sure a page loads as quickly as possible. In this process, the website only loads the images at the top, above the fold. Any images or other elements below the fold (where you need to scroll down the page) don’t load until the user starts scrolling.

This means rather than trying to load everything on a website all at once, instead it only loads as needed. For website users, this means it looks like the image had already loaded by the time they scroll down to see it.

There are a variety of ways you can get the most out of lazy loading for your website. Consider the following tips:

• Optimize images: Depending on the way the image is being used on your website, you may or may not need a large resolution or file size. Compress or shrink when necessary to ensure faster loading speeds.
• Reduce redirects: Redirects extend loading time for pages. Cut them out whenever possible.
• Improve server response time: The faster your website is able to communicate with the server, the faster the website will be able to load.
• Minimize custom code: There are certain types of CSS, HTML and other types of code that might slow down loading times on your website. Don’t get overly fancy with your designs when it’s not necessary.
• Prioritize: You need to have a balance between website experience and website aesthetics. Consider this as you plan out the design of your site and how you can best implement lazy loading.

For more tips, contact us at Conroy Creative Counsel.

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/how-lazy-loading-speeds-up-your-website/

As an attorney, it’s important your firm and services are taken seriously by your audience. Using your website and other content, you must be able to convey you have a certain level of expertise and knowledge in your subject area.

Using content marketing in various forms can help establish you as a thought leader in your field, which will increase the amount of respect you command and the amount of trust your audience has in you and your work.

Here are just a few ways you can demonstrate your expertise through your content.

• Blog posts: Blogs are a great way to share the knowledge you have with your current or potential clients. You can go into detail about specific legal issues or practice areas and provide your readers with helpful, practical tips and strategies they can use to resolve some of their legal issues and take the next steps in their case. The quality of the content you create will show your firm to be more than capable of assisting its clients.
• Emails: Regular email newsletters can provide quite a bit of value to your audience and also point people toward your blog, website or specific actions you wish them to take. Emails can be used to share more concise tips and information and to encourage conversation.
• Social media: Social media is the ideal place to build relationships with your audience and interact with people interested in your practice area or your specific services. You can have actual conversations with people, and respond to their questions or feedback. You can also use social media to share other content, such as blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.
• Podcast: Podcasts are an outstanding opportunity to establish yourself as a trusted expert in your field. Podcasts allow you to go into much more detail than you’d be able to even in a blog, while also giving you an opportunity to share your personality with your audience and deliver content in a different format. People can listen to your podcast while on their daily commute, or while doing chores around the house. Consider getting started by seeking out opportunities for a guest appearance on someone else’s podcast. This will help you get a sense for what’s involved in podcast production and whether it’s right for you.
• Videos: Consider developing short, helpful videos for clients to watch about your services or about specific legal issues. Like podcasts, videos offer you a chance to showcase your personality. You can use them as responses to FAQs, repurpose them as social media posts or embed them into your emails. They also give you a chance to put a face to your name, which helps build trust in your audience.

For more tips about how you can use content marketing to establish your firm as a thought leader in your practice area, contact us at Conroy Creative Counsel.

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/establishing-expertise-with-your-audience/

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of using various best practices in content creation to increase your website’s search rankings. One of these best practices is the proper usage of keywords throughout the content.

A keyword is a word or term that people are likely to use when searching for something online. For example, a person looking for an attorney in their area might look for “personal injury attorney” or “estate planning lawyer in San Francisco.”

Keywords are important because they instantly provide a link between what a client is searching for and your services. When properly used, they educate search engines about the topics of your content and make sure your content reaches the intended audience.

However, keyword research and implementation can be complex. Here’s a quick overview of the basic information you should know about keywords when performing SEO work on your website.

• Choosing keywords: To determine the keywords you should use, you should think about the words or phrases your target audience is most likely to use in a web search. For attorneys, this will usually include a combination of relevant case types and locations. We used a couple examples earlier, but think along the lines of “Chicago car accident lawyer” or “Las Vegas business attorney.”
• Number of keywords: Typically you’ll have a single main keyword you attempt to rank for, and a variety of related keywords. Each page on your website may have different keyword strategies. Usually you shouldn’t try to rank more than three keywords per page, as that could quickly get messy and complex.
• Keywords per page: How many times should you use a keyword on each page? This is where a lot of the strategy has shifted over time. The early days of SEO involved people trying to stuff their keywords into content as many times as possible. This, however, resulted in low-quality content that read as though it were written by robots. Keywords should be implemented naturally and should reach around a two percent density, but should not be used so frequently that it disrupts the flow of the content.
• Keyword locations: Keywords are effective when used in titles, subtitles and headers. They should be used at least once in the first couple paragraphs of body content, and can be sprinkled in throughout the content where appropriate. Keywords can also help SEO when used in URLs and meta descriptions.
• Tracking keywords: You can track the success of your website’s keywords using a wide range of rank-checking tools, such as Moz Pro, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Serpfox and many more. You can see which keywords are getting you the most search engine and which pages on your website are getting particularly strong results.

To learn more about keywords and proper SEO tactics for your law firm, contact us at Conroy Creative Counsel.

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/what-is-a-keyword-an-overview-of-the-basics/

Trust is the foundation of any relationship. This is true in law firms just as it is in interpersonal relationships.

People want to work with attorneys they trust, like and feel comfortable with. Therefore, it’s critical that you do everything you can with your law firm’s website to make sure your clients trust you with their legal issues.

Every layer of your readers’ journey through your website should have trust signals embedded in them that show your potential clients they can place their trust in you.

Here are a few examples of some of these most important trust signals.

• Clean and modern design: Make sure you have a website that is well-designed and has an aesthetic that fits not just with your brand, but also with what your target audience expects to see when visiting a law firm’s website. At the very least, your website should give off the impression that you care about your appearance.
• Address and contact information: You should have an address and contact information clearly located on your website. This indicates to potential clients that you are accessible and encourage them to get in touch. A firm that makes itself easy to contact portrays itself as being genuinely interested in helping people with their legal issues.
• Mobile functionality: Consider how well your website is optimized for mobile use. Your website should function well on smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. A surprising number of firms fail to check the functionality of their site on a smartphone, and with a larger percentage of people than ever browsing on mobile devices, it’s important you check that functionality. Firms that have functional, responsive mobile designs show they care about reaching all of their potential clients wherever they’re at.
• Up-to-date content: Outdated content reflects poorly on your firm. Visitors at legal websites want to get the most up-to-date information and recommendations related to their case type. By maintaining your pages and blogs and ensuring they provide accurate, up-to-date information, you will develop a greater level of trust in your readers.
• Reviews and testimonials: Adding reviews and testimonials to your website is a great way to show readers that actual clients have benefited from your services and had a positive experience. This builds a lot of trust in your firm and its ability to resolve potential clients’ legal issues.
• Copyright date: This is something that’s very easy to overlook, but having an up to date copyright year or data range shows you regularly update your website and care about providing the most up-to-date information to your clients.

Sometimes it’s the small things that make the biggest difference. Keep a focus on building trust through your website and you will be able to better connect with potential clients.

For more advice about building trust for your law firm’s website, contact us at Conroy Creative Counsel.

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/dont-forget-these-important-website-trust-factors/

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of using various best practices in content creation to increase your website’s search rankings. One of these best practices is the proper usage of keywords throughout the content.

A keyword is a word or term that people are likely to use when searching for something online. For example, a person looking for an attorney in their area might look for “personal injury attorney” or “estate planning lawyer in San Francisco.”

Keywords are important because they instantly provide a link between what a client is searching for and your services. When properly used, they educate search engines about the topics of your content and make sure your content reaches the intended audience.

However, keyword research and implementation can be complex. Here’s a quick overview of the basic information you should know about keywords when performing SEO work on your website.

• Choosing keywords: To determine the keywords you should use, you should think about the words or phrases your target audience is most likely to use in a web search. For attorneys, this will usually include a combination of relevant case types and locations. We used a couple examples earlier, but think along the lines of “Chicago car accident lawyer” or “Las Vegas business attorney.”
• Number of keywords: Typically you’ll have a single main keyword you attempt to rank for, and a variety of related keywords. Each page on your website may have different keyword strategies. Usually you shouldn’t try to rank more than three keywords per page, as that could quickly get messy and complex.
• Keywords per page: How many times should you use a keyword on each page? This is where a lot of the strategy has shifted over time. The early days of SEO involved people trying to stuff their keywords into content as many times as possible. This, however, resulted in low-quality content that read as though it were written by robots. Keywords should be implemented naturally and should reach around a two percent density, but should not be used so frequently that it disrupts the flow of the content.
• Keyword locations: Keywords are effective when used in titles, subtitles and headers. They should be used at least once in the first couple paragraphs of body content, and can be sprinkled in throughout the content where appropriate. Keywords can also help SEO when used in URLs and meta descriptions.
• Tracking keywords: You can track the success of your website’s keywords using a wide range of rank-checking tools, such as Moz Pro, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Serpfox and many more. You can see which keywords are getting you the most search engine and which pages on your website are getting particularly strong results.

To learn more about keywords and proper SEO tactics for your law firm, contact us at Conroy Creative Counsel.

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/what-is-a-keyword-an-overview-of-the-basics/

On-page SEO encompasses everything involved with improving the search engine optimization of a website. If you want your firm’s website to be found by potential clients, you need to perform good SEO to improve your search rankings and get noticed.

Here are 10 important tips to help you boost your on-page SEO for your firm’s website.

1. Keywords in title tags: You should use a target keyword in the title tag for your page. This is a word or phrase that best summarizes the content of the page, and what potential clients are most likely to type into their search engine to find legal services. Adding your target keyword at the start of a title tag helps your page stand out to potentially interested clients. Try to aim for 50-60 characters for your title tag.
2. Include your keyword in the first 100 words: Make sure your target keyword is located within the first 100 words of you page, as this helps visitors and search engines alike understand the topic of your content. Add the keyword a few more times naturally throughout the content, without going overboard (no keyword stuffing).
3. Create SEO-friendly URLs: Your pages and posts should use shorter URLs that include your target keyword, which will help them perform better in search engines.
4. Craft unique meta descriptions: Every page and post on your site should include a unique, well-crafted meta description that includes your target keyword. Use up to 160 characters. This description will show up as the descriptive text below the title of your search engine results.
5. Write for people, not machines: Actual human beings are going to be the ones reading your content, so consider their needs over those of the machines and algorithms. If your content is hard for humans to read, they’ll quickly leave the page, which will damage your SEO and your ability to convert leads.
6. Create engaging content: The content you develop should be interesting and easy for people to read. Break up the text into small paragraphs or bullet points, and make good use of headers and illustrations to help break up the content. This will help you keep the attention of your readers. Longer time spent on a page, results in an improved SEO.
7. Don’t forget internal linking: Internal linking is highly useful for improving your SEO. Link to relevant pages or blogs on your site to help people gather more information and to keep them on your website. You should have internal links on every page.
8. Consider search intent: Before targeting a specific keyword, make sure you do some research about the kind of results that already show for that keyword. If none of the results for that keyword are blogs, then people searching for that keyword aren’t looking to read blogs.
9. Look at competitors: Scout out the competition to see how much of their content is ranked well and what they’re doing with their content to achieve such rankings.
10. Prioritize fast loading: Do whatever you can to optimize loading speeds on your website. If it takes more than a couple seconds to load, people will get frustrated or bored and navigate away, which will damage your SEO.

Follow these steps, and you’ll be well on your way to significantly improved search engine optimization on your website!

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/10-important-on-page-seo-tips-for-your-website/

A content audit provides your firm with an opportunity to review the written content on your website and see what needs to be revised or updated. This might include errors in the content, outdated information, broken links or anything else that affects the usability or quality of your website and its content.

After performing a solid content update, you will have clear vision regarding new SEO opportunities and how to improve the user experience on your site.

Here is a simple step-by-step process that will help you get started with the content audit process for your website.

• Determine your goals: Your first step should be to determine exactly what it is you hope to get out of a content audit for your website. Are you looking to generally improve the content across your website and deliver high-quality information and writing to your clients? Are you looking to drive better search engine results? Do you simply want to make sure you have a functional website that has up-to-date features? The goal you have will determine the other steps you take in conducting the audit.
• Develop a spreadsheet: Develop a spreadsheet where you will capture the information you need to track as part of your audit. There will be various headings in this spreadsheet with information to capture, including the URL, page type, page title, meta description, analytics information and anything else that might be helpful based on the goals you set for your audit.
• List your content: Develop a list of all the content on your site you wish to analyze, including web pages, landing pages and blog posts. If you have a small website without many pages you can easily copy and paste this information manually into a spreadsheet, but if you have a lot of pages on your domain you may need to download a complete site map.
• Categorize the content: After listing out all of your content, it’s time to categorize it. Note the type of content (blog post, web page, etc.). For blogs, include the date on which you published or last updated it. If you have older posts, you can update them with new information, which will help your search rankings.
• Data analysis: Once you have all the data you need collected, you will begin the analysis stage. If your goal is to improve SEO, here’s where you look for missed opportunities with titles or meta descriptions. If you want to improve or update your content, you should pay attention to older content with outdated information. You should also analyze traffic to each page, and pay attention to the characteristics of the pages on your site that get the most traffic. Identify pages with low traffic where there are chances for improvement.
• Action: Based on the analysis you’ve performed, you should create some clear action steps for you to work on moving forward. Assign each item a priority and begin working through the list as your schedule allows.

Need assistance in performing a content audit for your law firm’s website? Contact us today at Conroy Creative Counsel for guidance.

This post was originally published at Conroy Creative Counsel at this link: https://conroycreativecounsel.com/how-to-perform-a-content-audit-on-your-website/