Legal
Evidence Shows Short, Positive Copy Converts Best
OVERVIEW
Key Insights for Legal
The legal industry has a higher median conversion rate than the baseline for all industries in this report, but there’s always an opportunity to improve. Our verdict? You’ll convert more visitors by simplifying your copy.
As a rule, short copy converts best.
Although the legal profession is all about debating some pretty complex topics, you probably don’t want that on your landing page. We'll show you how to make your point with maximum impact.
You can’t defend negative sentiment.
Times might be tough for your visitors, but they don’t need you to remind ‘em about it. Our data shows that negative language could correlate with lower conversion rates.
Make the case for more social ads.
On form-fill pages, the median conversion rate for visitors coming from platforms like Facebook is almost twice that of people coming from search ads (6.1% over 3.5%). If you’re generating leads, think social.
Accelerate results with simple CRO
Access the full Conversion Benchmark Report for detailed industry benchmarks, in-depth conversion rate insights, top-performing channels, and more.
Key Insight: Conversion Rate
Injury lawyers have the most trouble converting in the legal industry.
Conversion Rate: 2020 vs. 2021
What’s this mean? This graph (called a “box plot”) shows how the conversion rates of landing pages are distributed. The dotted horizontal line is the median conversion rate, while the ‘box’ shows where most pages sit. The vertical lines (or “whiskers”) represent the range of the remaining pages, excluding any extreme outliers.
Key Insight: Readability
Complex copy won’t help you convert—so keep things simple.
It can be hard to avoid complex legal terms in your landing copy, given that law is, ah… pretty complex. But our data shows that—generally speaking—the harder your landing pages are to read, the lower your conversion rates will be.
Just check out the graphs. When your word count is over 200 and your readability score exceeds a secondary school level, it can put your conversion rates in jeopardy. (That’s a word lawyers say, right? Jeopardy?)
If you wanna give yourself the best chance at converting, we’d advocate for using fewer words, simpler sentences, and just generally simplifying your vocabulary for us non-legal types.
Avoid complicating your landing page with industry jargon. Use short, simple copy that’s easy for visitors to understand (then explain the fine print later).
Readability: 2020 vs. 2021
Here’s how reading ease and word count have changed on legal landing pages since our last report.
+12.4%
Easier to Read
+4.2%
More Total Words
Key Insight: Sentiment
Bail on the negative language—it’s not helping your conversion rate.
Compared to the baseline for all industries, legal has a ton more words related to anger (97.2%), disgust (176.9%), fear (115.2%), and sadness (104.1%). That’s especially true on medical law and injury law pages, which have lower conversion rates than legal services overall.
Coincidence? We think not. On many legal landing pages, we see a correlation between negative emotions and lower conversion rates. Pages for medical and injury law have more of this type of language and—as a result—they underperform.
Sometimes marketers feel like they’ve gotta emphasize the pain that their product or service resolves—but on legal landing pages, it’s better to focus on the positive outcomes you can provide. Your competitors might be picking up on this already: since last year, most negative sentiments have actually decreased.
Focus your copy on the benefits of your service. Think “helping people gain maximum compensation” rather than “fighting for injured victims who are misinformed.”
Sentiments: 2020 vs. 2021
These types of emotional language saw the biggest change in use (increase or decrease) on legal pages over the past year.
-3.8%
Less Anger Words
-8.6%
Less Fear Words
-5.1%
Less Sadness Words
Legal
Legal marketers using Smart Traffic convert 33% more visitors.
At least, that’s what the average lift data shows. Smart Traffic looks at each visitor’s attributes and sends ‘em to the page where they’re most likely to convert.
See how Smart Traffic “automagically” gets you more conversions.