Legal Marketing Law Firm Benchmarks: Insights from GA4 Data

One of the biggest challenges for legal firms is understanding how their website performance compares to others in the industry. As someone who works closely with TBD Marketing—a legal marketing agency specialising in helping law firms achieve their marketing goals—I’ve had several firms ask about industry benchmarks for website data.

While there’s plenty of generic data out there, it’s often too broad to provide real value for legal firms with unique client bases and objectives. To bridge that gap, I decided to take a closer look at the data we have access to through the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) accounts of UK law firms I’ve worked with.

This analysis focuses on the metrics that matter most for legal marketing, covering Q3 2024 (August–October). In this post, I’ll break down key metrics, explain what they mean, why they’re important, and share some actionable benchmarks to help law firms understand how their websites are performing—and where there’s room to improve.

TL;DR

🔍 Organic search drives 50.14% of traffic and has the highest engagement rate (63.27%).

📝 Blog content is a major entry point, accounting for 40% of pageviews, while homepage views are limited (14.05%).

📱 Social media contributes just 1.99% of sessions, mostly from LinkedIn (76.12%), and email traffic is minimal (0.87%).

📊 Key benchmarks: 30,144 users (quarterly), 50.90% engagement rate, and 1.99 pages/session.

💡 Takeaway: Focus on SEO and optimising blog and landing pages for engagement while exploring ways to improve social and email performance.

Methodology: How the Benchmarks Were Calculated

To create these benchmarks, I used Looker Studio to aggregate data from over 50 eligible GA4 accounts for UK law firms. These accounts span a variety of firm sizes and specialisations, providing a well-rounded view of the legal sector’s online performance.

The data analysed covers Q3 2024 (August–October), and averages were calculated to provide actionable benchmarks. To ensure privacy and confidentiality, all data was fully anonymised before analysis.

This approach ensures the insights are based on real-world performance while maintaining the integrity and security of client information.

Whether you’re looking to optimise your digital strategy or simply curious about where your website stands in the competitive legal landscape, these insights are designed to offer practical and meaningful value. Let’s dive in!

Total Users

📈 Benchmark: Quarterly average: 30,144 | Monthly Average: 10,048

Definition: Total users represent the number of unique individuals who visited your website during the period. Each user is counted only once, regardless of how many times they visit.

Relevance: This metric is a key indicator of your website’s reach and visibility. A higher number of users typically reflects strong marketing efforts, successful SEO, or effective referral traffic. For law firms, it can also signal how well your content resonates with prospective clients.

New Users

📈 Benchmark: Quarterly average: 29,158 | Monthly Average: 9,719

Definition: New users are individuals visiting your site for the first time during the period.

Relevance: This metric highlights how well your marketing strategies are reaching new audiences. For legal firms, attracting new users is essential for generating leads, but if the percentage of new users is consistently high, it may indicate limited return visits—prompting a review of how engaging and useful your content is for existing users.

Sessions

📈 Benchmark: Quarterly average: 43,495 | Monthly Average: 14,498

Definition: Sessions refer to the total number of visits to your website, including repeat visits from the same user.

Relevance: Sessions give a broader view of overall activity on your site. A high number of sessions paired with a strong engagement rate or lower bounce rate suggests your site is attracting and retaining quality traffic. For legal firms, this could mean visitors are exploring services, blogs, or contact pages.

Engaged Sessions

📈 Benchmark: Quarterly average: 22,954 | Monthly Average: 7,651

Definition: Engaged sessions are visits where users interacted meaningfully with the site, such as scrolling, clicking, or spending significant time browsing.

Relevance: Engaged sessions provide a more refined view of user interest and interaction compared to total sessions. For law firms, these interactions often signal potential clients researching services or reviewing resources like blog content.

Engagement Rate

📈 Benchmark: 50.90%

Definition: Engagement rate is the percentage of sessions that qualify as engaged sessions.

Relevance: A high engagement rate (above 50%) suggests that your website is effectively meeting user needs and encouraging interaction. Legal firms with high engagement rates are likely providing relevant content or easy-to-navigate pages tailored to their audience.

Pageviews

📈 Benchmark: Quarterly average: 84,349 | Monthly Average: 28,116

Definition: Pageviews measure the total number of pages viewed during all sessions.

Relevance: This metric highlights how much content users are consuming on your website. For law firms, high pageviews often reflect interest in resources like blog articles, case studies, or service pages.

Views Per Session

📈 Benchmark: 1.99 Pages

Definition: Views per session refer to the average number of pages viewed during a single session.

Relevance: This metric indicates how deeply users explore your website. For legal firms, encouraging visitors to view multiple pages (such as service overviews, blog posts, or contact forms) can increase the likelihood of inquiries.

Average Session Duration

📈 Benchmark: 40.89 seconds

Definition: This metric tracks the average amount of time users spend on your website per session, measured in seconds.

Relevance: Longer session durations often indicate that visitors are engaging with your content and finding it valuable. For legal firms, this could reflect users reading detailed practice area pages or exploring informative blogs, which can be an important step toward converting visitors into leads.

Traffic Sources: Where Are Sessions Coming From?

To better understand where website traffic is coming from and how users engage with different types of content, I analysed data from all eligible GA4 accounts using a combination of Looker Studio and regex-based categorisation. This allowed me to classify landing pages into key content types, helping to identify trends in user behaviour and traffic sources.

Organic Search Dominates

Over half of all sessions (50.14%) originated from organic search, confirming the critical role of SEO in driving traffic for legal websites. Not only does organic search contribute the most traffic, but it also boasts the highest engagement rate at 63.27%, indicating that users arriving through this channel are actively interested in the content they find. For law firms, investing in SEO to improve visibility on search engines is a clear priority.

Social Media Struggles

Organic social media traffic was much lower, accounting for just 1.99% of sessions. Of that, 76.12% came from LinkedIn, reinforcing LinkedIn’s dominance as the go-to platform for professional and B2B engagement. While LinkedIn clearly drives the majority of social media traffic for legal websites, the overall contribution from social remains small, suggesting there’s room to improve strategies for these channels.

Email Underperformance

Email campaigns accounted for only 0.87% of sessions. This low percentage might reflect underutilisation of email marketing or a need for more targeted campaigns to effectively drive traffic. Given the potential of email to nurture relationships and convert leads, firms should consider revisiting their email strategies.

Content Engagement: What Are Users Looking At?

To further explore user behaviour, I grouped landing pages into content categories using regex patterns. These categories allowed me to see which types of content users interacted with the most. Here is an example Regex you can use to achieve the same thing:

CASE
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "(?i)/news|(?i)/blog|(?i)/insights|(?i)/insight/|/what-can|/the-consequences|/knowledge-base/|/events/") THEN "Blog & News Posts"
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "/for-business|/for-you|/services|/personal-legal-services|/business-legal-services|-service|(?i)/expertise|(?i)/practice-area|/property|/wills") THEN "Service Pages"
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "(?i)/contact|(?i)/contact-us") THEN "Contact Page"
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "(?i)/our-people|(?i)/about-us|(?i)/people/|/we-are-family|/our-lawyers|/about/") THEN "About Us Pages"
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "(?i)/vacancies|(?i)/join-us|(?i)/careers|(?i)/graduate|/human-resources") THEN "Careers Pages"
  WHEN REGEXP_MATCH(Landing Page, "(?i)/home|/|/Home") THEN "Home Page"
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "/tag|/category") THEN "Tag & Category Pages"
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "/page") THEN "Paginated"
  WHEN REGEXP_CONTAINS(Landing Page, "/client-stories|/case-studies") THEN "Client Stories"
  ELSE "Unclassified Other"
END

This regex-based classification allowed me to see patterns across a variety of content types and identify key areas of user interaction:

Homepage Traffic is Limited: Surprisingly, homepage views accounted for just 14.05% of total pageviews. This indicates that users are often bypassing the homepage and navigating directly to other parts of the site, likely through search engines or targeted campaigns.

Blog Content Drives Engagement: Blog content accounted for around 40% of total pageviews, suggesting that much of the traffic—particularly from organic search—is landing directly on informational blog posts. This highlights the importance of a strong content strategy and SEO optimisation for blog articles to attract and engage users.

Focus on Landing Pages: With homepage views being limited, optimising key landing pages for engagement and conversion becomes critical. Service pages, blogs, and contact pages are particularly important touchpoints for potential clients.

These findings suggest that for many legal websites, blog content serves as the primary entry point for visitors, often answering specific queries or providing valuable insights. Optimising blog posts for search, including well-researched keywords and clear calls-to-action, can be a good way to guide visitors towards exploring additional pages or contacting the firm.

Conclusion

This analysis highlights the key benchmarks and trends for legal marketing websites based on real GA4 data from Q3 2024. Organic search continues to dominate as the leading traffic source, not only driving the most sessions but also achieving the highest engagement rate. Blog content plays a crucial role in attracting visitors, accounting for 40% of pageviews, while homepage visits remain limited.

These insights underline the importance of a strong SEO strategy, with a focus on optimising blog posts and landing pages to capture and engage users. Meanwhile, the relatively low contributions from social media and email highlight opportunities to refine and enhance these channels for better performance.

Whether you’re looking to benchmark your website’s performance or uncover areas for improvement, these findings provide a practical starting point for law firms aiming to strengthen their digital presence.