The focus of most Web development projects typically falls on the design, technology and information architecture with Web analytics applied as an afterthought. Perhaps this is because most Web design projects are driven by creative and technical professionals whose perspectives give more weight to the aesthetic and functional factors. Without the ability to effectively analyze visitor activities, however, there is no way for businesses to validate a site’s effectiveness, determine the return-on-investment (ROI), or develop a plan for continuous improvement.

Arguably, every element of the Web site should contribute towards this goal. The design should illuminate the path, the copy should be structured to give readers enough information and continually suggest ways to take actions. The back-end technology should be configured to extract information the marketing team needs to know and not hinder the ability to collect information.

For most legal organizations, Web site measurement is different than say an e-tail business, but there are still some key performance indicators that all Web sites share. Namely these measurements are visitors and conversions. “Conversion” defined, is when a visitor becomes a potential customer by taking a step to sign up for a newsletter or requests to be contacted. To make these measurements meaningful, it is critical for organizations to plan into the information architecture a step-by-step path towards these points of action.

To effectively measure visitor traffic, sites leverage analytic solutions tools such as Google Analytics. Every page of a Web site is “tagged” with code to collect data. To gather even more information, links can also be tagged with unique identifiers to document how many visitors came from an e-mail campaign or search engine ad. Redirects are custom URL names that are used to identify visitor conversions coming from a specific marketing activity such as a newsletter or micro site, and these URLs can also be tracked with analytics tools.

At the beginning of every Web development project, it is important for marketers to seriously consider what they want the site to measure, and before that, what they expect the site to do? Legal sites are typically lead generation tools or content repositories for a firm’s PR program. Typical metrics to focus on are e-newsletter subscriptions, visitor sessions, document downloads, referring domains (and what search terms led to your site). Even internal search applications should be able to report on keywords and search results. Access to white papers and articles can include a short form requesting name, company, and e-mail address.

Marketers should be taking advantage of every opportunity to gather information. And it doesn’t stop after the site goes live – site performance should be measured monthly to create a record of performance that becomes a benchmark for the future. When analytics are effectively used, you will have a better idea of what customers want, will be able to continually improve the site to give it to them, and get better, more qualified leads as a result.

We recently took our marketing efforts out in public at the LMA Bay Area Technology Show… It took over two months’ time to develop the collateral pieces and coordinate our booth, and in the end we turned lots of heads but can’t help but wonder how we did and how much new business we will get for the effort. Trade shows are a necessary part of marketing a small business, but it validates the popular statistic that it costs more to acquire new customers than retain existing ones.

The great thing about trade shows is hearing first-hand the challenges that legal industry professionals and even our competitors are facing. Now that everyone has a Web site, legal marketing professionals know it takes more than online presence to generate leads and interest. It takes e-mail campaigns, search engine marketing, blogs, podcasts, streaming video, and a calculated plan of how much awareness all this will generate for your firm. As an e-marketing services provider, we have to take note and focus our expertise in the areas where customers want to gain traction. We want them to see us as their e-marketing partner and a source of experience they can trust to achieve positive results.

Gathering knowledge about customer experience and incorporating it into your marketing strategy can optimize the efforts you are already making. Word-of-Mouth Marketing has great return on investment because people trust the source of the message. The challenge is getting people to say the right things about your business to the right people. We recommend e-mail surveys to our clients as a means to measure the effectiveness of seminars or events, but what about using surveys to just gather feedback on your customers’ impressions of your service or business?

Managing customer experience and actively applying the feedback to create the business your customers want takes effort but can actually cost less than trying to attract new business. Giving clients a forum to voice their opinions can reinforce some decisions and efforts you’re making, and can alert you to areas where you may need to improve. Putting a plan in place to regularly assess and understand how our customers feel about the service we provide can help us understand who our biggest promoters and detractors are among our client base, as well as show us where to focus our resources.