Conversion Rate Optimization for Law Firms with AI

In this episode of AI SEO for Law Firms, John Maher and John McDougall explain how conversion rate optimization can double your leads without adding new traffic. They walk through Cialdini’s principles of influence, practical A/B tests for headlines, images and calls to action, and how AI tools can audit your pages against competitors. They also cover must-have analytics, heatmaps and user testing so you can see what real visitors do and fix the bottlenecks that cost you high-value cases.

John Maher: Welcome to AI SEO for Law Firms, the podcast that cuts through the tech noise to give you the exact roadmap for dominating search everywhere optimization and landing high value cases. From McDougall Interactive, I’m John Maher, and with me today is our founder, John McDougall. Today, we’re talking about conversion rate optimization for lawyers. Welcome, John.

John McDougall: Good morning, John.

What Is Conversion Rate Optimization?

Maher: So John, what exactly is conversion rate optimization and why should a law firm care about it, maybe just as much as they care about SEO?

McDougall: Yeah, it’s the science of turning website traffic into cases, getting more leads out of the same amount of traffic. So a lot of people are focused on more and more traffic and doing social media, SEO, all these different things, but it’s amazing that they don’t get systematic about increasing the amount of leads they get from whatever amount of traffic they already have.

Maher: Right. It might be easier, in fact, to convert a person who’s already on their website to get the lead or get them as a client as opposed to trying to get a whole other person to come to their website, that’s more difficult.

McDougall: Yeah, I mean, we’ve increased conversion rates easily from the typical 1 or 2% to 2 or 4%, doubling conversion rates. I mean, you’re potentially doubling the amount of money you make. But we’ve also, by making really quality custom landing pages, like say for a mesothelioma law firm, or dog bite law or whatever, something a little different than your regular, very busy website page, on a tool like Unbounce or HubSpot, a very hyper-targeted landing page. We’ve gone up to 10, 20% conversion rate, compared to like the average of 1 or 2%.

Using Cialdini’s Psychology Principles on Law Firm Websites

Maher: So you’ve mentioned that psychology is a huge part of conversion rate optimization. Can you break down Dr. Cialdini’s six principles of influence and how they apply to a law firm’s website?

McDougall: Yeah, absolutely. So Cialdini’s six principles are social proof, authority, liking, reciprocity, commitment and consistency, and scarcity. And Dr. Cialdini wrote a book called Influence: The Power of Persuasion. Amazing book, maybe one of the best marketing books of all time.

One of the things is “authority” that he lists as a major trigger for getting people to buy. And if you write a book, or even an e-book, and you put it on your law firm website and have people have an option to download it, you are seen as more of an authority. So you can increase the likelihood people buy from you and trigger the algorithm to trust you more at the same time.

Same with “social proof”, it’s not just the number of followers that you have on Facebook, or Twitter, or something like that, although that is social proof. It’s also your happy, smiling customers’ faces on your website with testimonials, and case studies, and things like that. So social proof and authority are huge.

Then “liking”, we’ve even seen just adding a video to a law firm website, when we did user testing, how that spikes the energy of someone looking at a law firm website where they’re like, “Eh, it looks like a law firm website, blah, whatever.” And then they click and listen to a little video clip. And you probably remember that John, when we did that, even 15 years ago, we were testing for a personal injury law firm SEO project and Google Ad project. And the user tester was like, “Wow, they seem really nice. I could work with them.” And they went from, “yeah, website”, really bored looking at the law firm’s website, to really perking up, like, “Geez, I kind of like these people. I could work with them.”

So “liking” is one of those Cialdini principles that you can methodically work on, very practically, by just adding video and podcasts and picking good pictures of your team on your site.

And “reciprocity”, giving something away, like an ebook. People are more likely to work with you if they see you are a giving person.

“Commitment and consistency” – if you get them to take a small action, like downloading an ebook, they’re more likely to probably do a next step, maybe get a free consultation.

And then “scarcity”. If you have a high rate and you work with very elite people and you’re not that readily available, you’re probably going to attract more of the right, higher end clients, than just kind of begging and being always available. So scarcity is another one of the principles.

High-Impact A/B Tests to Run on Law Firm Websites

Maher: So if a law firm wants to start testing tomorrow, what are maybe the top three to five things on their website that they should A/B test first for the biggest impact?

McDougall: Yeah, I think the value proposition of “why you vs. someone else”, not just the button color and typical things that conversion experts talk about. Those things can matter, but think big picture first. Like, is it clear from the headline? So testing the headline with better value proposition statements, or in that more “you” language versus “we” language.

So our conversion optimization teacher, Bryan Eisenberg, had this thing called the we-we calculator. And it calculated how many times you “we-we” on yourself on your website, meaning you say, “We do this, and we do that,” as opposed to, “YOU are having a problem and we can help you.” So literally, use the words “you” in your headlines, not just “we” or “our firm” does this and that. So number one is that headlines and value proposition and kind of “you” language.

And then two, related to that, would be good images in the hero image because that’s the first thing people see on your website. It’s above the fold. I think that’s a really good first step.

And then call to action, calls to action in general, so whether that’s a button, like a “free consultation” button. In the landing pages that I was describing that we’ve designed for law firms, we’ll often put a form, in line, right in the page, so you see the headline and some text and images, but then a form. Instead of a button to go to another page, you can just fill out a free consultation form right there. So those are a few key things to test.

How AI Is Changing Conversion Rate Optimization

Maher: We’re seeing AI change everything in SEO. How is this new technology specifically changing the game for conversion rate optimization?

McDougall: Well, I think, from a very simple standpoint, you can say to AI, “think like a conversion rate expert such as Bryan Eisenberg and go and look at my competitors”, give them a list of competitors or upload PDFs or cut and paste your competitors pages. Like say, take your auto accident page and upload yours and your three competitors pages if it’s not doing a good job just finding them.

But “analyze this practice area page, mine versus competitors”. “What are the competitors doing better than us for conversion optimization”? You might not be a conversion expert or your marketing director or marketing staff might not be, but you might be regularly working on your website and trying to make it better, but you might just not know those core principles of conversion optimization, but AI does. AI has read every book on CRO there is, so you don’t have to be an expert anymore. It helps, certainly, but just asking to compare your conversion optimization to your competitors is huge…right there, you get tips that you won’t believe, very quickly.

And then, of course, it can be used to analyze conversion data and make recommendations or give personalized experiences to people that click on a certain type of ad. So personalization is another thing.

Or AI-powered chat bots. So you could upload data about the answers you want to give to people, documentation of your law firm’s questions and answers of what you’d like to share. And then people can ask a question of a chat bot, not just live chat, but you can capture their information within that. So there’s just so many ways AI is changing the game.

Essential Analytics and Tracking for Legal Conversions

Maher: And what’s the essential tracking that a law firm needs to set up in order to know if their conversion efforts are working?

McDougall: Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to get some kind of event tracking, at the very least, goal conversions, when people fill out a free consultation form. If they fill out the form and then they hit a Thank You page, you have to set that up in Google Analytics and have it register as a conversion.

Same with live chat. If you use Ngage or some kind of live chat system, if you use CallRail for call tracking, all of these things don’t just magically appear in Google Analytics, or your analytics software. When you install the code to have that start running on your site, you have to set those events up. So that’s number one, a common thing that’s overlooked. That is step one. Because then you [have your] conversion rate per every 100 visitors, how many people are doing any of those main things.

And then if you want to go beyond that, you can use heat map tools like Hot Jar, Microsoft Copilot, there’s Crazy Egg. There’s a lot of different tools to look at where people are clicking and looking on your website, how they’re scrolling, and you don’t get that from Google Analytics exactly. So those kind of tools are good.

I would, lastly, say userbrain.com is a personal favorite. You ask people to look at your law firm website. “Do we look credible at the homepage level? When you go to a practice area page, try and fill out a free consultation form. What was your experience like? Visit the About Us page. Tell us what you’re feeling as you’re researching our website.”

And you’re going to hear people talking into their microphone and see their screen. And it’s amazing what you’ll gather from users actually visiting your website. Might not be your actual law firm clients, but you’ll start to pick up on trends and you’d be amazed. Doing that is far superior than just guessing. Or having even your marketing agency, even me, I might say, with a lot of knowledge of conversion optimization, “Hey, try this and that”. But if users are looking at the site and they don’t like that, that’s a better judge than just the managing partner or the marketing staff or even your marketing agency. Actual visitors are a better judge, so I would use those kind of tools.

Maher: Right. If 8 out of 10 of the user tests are somebody saying, “Oh, I can’t figure out how to contact them,” and you’re screaming at the screen going, “The Contact Us button is right there on the top-right.”

McDougall: Yeah!

Maher: You’re like, “Why aren’t you seeing it?” But if most of the people who are coming to your site are not seeing it, then that’s a problem. You know where the Contact Us button is, but they might not. So it can be really eye-opening.

McDougall: That’s exactly right.

Maher: All right, well, thanks for speaking with me today, John. I appreciate it.

McDougall: Yeah, absolutely.

Maher: And thanks for joining us on AI SEO for Law Firms. If you’re ready to stop losing high-value cases because of outdated SEO, subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And for a deeper look at your firm’s current AI strategy, visit mcdougallinteractive.com for a free audit.