Understanding Non-Branded Keyword Searches

Any law firm SEO campaign should be measured in a number of different ways. Rather than simply focusing on your ranking for a particular keyword, you should understand how those rankings are producing targeted traffic. How that traffic is converting into leads and finally how many of those leads are becoming new clients. This is the only way to truly measure the effectiveness of a campaign and understand the return you are getting from your investment.

One of the important factors mentioned above includes understanding the make-up of the traffic visiting your website. For search engine traffic, it’s important to understand the keywords people are using to find your site. This helps us to better understand how our rankings for certain keywords are effecting our actual site traffic.

Non-Branded Keyword Searches

What are non-branded keywords? They are the general category keywords used when a prospect is not aware of your name or the name of your firm. They may be terms like “injury lawyer Chicago” or “bankruptcy attorney in Baltimore”. The value of the non-branded keywords is that they represent opportunities for new business. These are clients looking for your legal services that are not already aware of your firm.

Finding Your Non-Branded Keywords In Google Analytics

Utilizing a free analytics program, such as Google Analytics, is a great way to get some insight about your search engine traffic. Once Google Analytics is setup on your website, you can view the keywords people are using to find your website under the keywords tab under traffic sources:

Look through the keywords and see what the composition of your search traffic is. Are the majority of searches for your firm’s name? Is the traffic targeted? Are searchers reaching your site after looking for non-branded keywords? Would people searching for the keywords you see be likely to retain your services? These are important questions to ask in order to determine the effectiveness of your keyword strategy.