How Competitor Analysis Can Help Law Firms Create Landing Pages That Convert
In a highly competitive environment, it’s essential that your landing pages do their job. How can you make sure your landing pages are doing more to draw in potential clients than your competitors? Start by checking them out! A robust competitor analysis can help you identify areas for inspiration as well as opportunities. Here are 7 tips to help you conduct competitor analysis for law firm landing pages.
7 Tips on Competitor Analysis for Law Firm Landing Pages
1. Think About What Potential Clients Are Looking At
Begin with your target audience in mind: what are they looking for? What do they want to see? Brainstorm, research, and compare the terms that come to mind. Google phrases and then analyze the landing pages that rank for those terms. You can use a third-party tool like Ahrefs to look at organic search traffic and link profiles for any URL. Experts suggest documenting the top 5 pages that rank for your important keywords. Write down visitor demographics, the channel breakdown of traffic, and any other competitors that come up that you weren’t aware of. It’s also helpful to look at competing pages side by side and see what the big differences are.
2. Confirm That You Have the Right Audience
Making sure you are reaching the right audience and that your offer is relevant is even more important than the creative. To know this, you need to perform comprehensive research on your target market. Try surveys, focus groups, or conducting one-on-one interviews. Then, review competitor landing pages through the same lens. What are they offering? What is the user experience like? Take note of their imagery, the verbiage of their offer, etc. You can also use social media analytics and landscape monitoring tools to find out what the market is saying about your competitors.
3. Don’t Be Afraid to Engage With Competitors
In order to be really clear on what competitors are doing, you may need to interact with them. We suggest using a tool like SEMrush. Go to the dashboard and then click “Domain Overview” to find your competitors and their data. Under “Main Organic Competitors” you can click on “View Details” and see a list of keyword competitors. Evaluate the pages and the messaging down to font colors and the language on their CTA buttons.
4. Apply Keyword Insights to Your Own Content
Most experts use a variety of tools to determine seed keywords and identify which sites drive the most traffic based on those topics. This is a good strategy for determining critical keywords and subjects to cover in new pieces of content. Similarly, you can take note of the “People also ask” section of Google search results for the same sort of ideas. Since internal linking is so key for search rankings, it’s a good idea to create links to this new content on your landing pages.
5. Understand Competitor Ad Spending
When you need more detail, you can always follow the money trail. Ad insights can provide really valuable context to competitor analysis for law firm landing pages. Visit the landing pages that other firms are paying to promote. In most cases, if people are spending money to direct traffic to a page, it’s performing well (not always, of course, but for marketers that pay attention this is typically the case). How can you find these pages? Click on a few of the sponsored results on the SERP for important keywords, and then look for any commonalities that you should be repeating on your own landing pages. You can take things a step further by using a tool like SpyFu to view your top competitors in paid channels and then evaluate their pages. This particular tool will provide listings of keywords based on clicks per month, cost per click, coverage, and top ads based on the keyword.
6. Take Insights from Qualitative Data
Non-numerical insights can be just as valuable as quantitative data. Look for things like client support options and other features that can build high-performing landing pages. When you write copy for your landing pages, emphasize what your firm can offer in relation to what your targets are looking for. Think about how they will explore the page and how the content relates to that search. Then verify your thoughts with measurable data like bounce rate, time spent on page, etc.
7. Use a Checklist
All of this great advice can really be distilled down into a simple checklist that you can use when you perform competitor research. You might want to build a tracking document where you can add each of these elements as you research:
- The number of keywords the competitor is ranking for
- The organic search traffic to the page
- Domain authority of the website
- The number of internal links pointing to the ranking pages
- Any backlinks or external links pointing to the page
- SERP rankings
- Keywords targeted for SEO or PPC efforts
- A/B testing use
- Percentage of paid vs. organic traffic
- Time on page
- Pages per visit
- Visitor demographics
In terms of evaluating the landing page for non-measurable information, document the following:
- CTAs used and their placement
- Page layout
- Creative assets used and their placement
- Social proof like reviews, testimonials, or icons
- Parts of the user experience that seem unfriendly
- Elements of great UX
- Language, colors, fonts – and how they differ from CTAs
- Does it appear they’re using tools to increase activity?
- Is price discussed? If so, how?
- Data points that are used in the copy
- Amount of copy on the page
Takeaway:
Creating a compelling landing page requires a thorough understanding of your target audience, interesting content, and a smooth user experience. With competitor analysis for law firm landing pages, you will find insights that can improve all of these areas. By seeing what they do well, you can discover ways to do better. For more insights on powerful website design for law firms, begin a conversation with our team. We understand how to build lead-generating, responsive websites for law firms and organizations in the legal industry. Contact us today for a free consultation.
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