How to Structure Your Law Firm’s Blog to Attract & Retain Clients

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Maximizing Client Retention Through Blogging

A blog is a powerful tool in law firm marketing for attracting and retaining clients. It not only increases your online visibility but also reinforces your credibility. Additionally, it serves as a new lead source by exposing your high-quality content to a wider audience and can deliver a high return on investment because of a minimal (if any) cost of entry.

Here are Forward Push’s best practices for structuring legal insights on your law firm blog to attract potential clients and retain clients.

Understanding Your Audience

Understanding your target audience is crucial for any law firm or practice looking to attract prospective clients through blogging about topics related to their legal services. This knowledge informs your strategy and helps you tailor your content to the potential client’s needs, increasing the chances of attracting and retaining them.

To understand your target audience, think about the types of clients and potential clients you want to work with now and in the future.

Consider factors like:

• Location: Is your firm or practice limited to a certain geographic area? Do your potential clients congregate in an area? 
• Practice areas: What legal needs can you or your law firm handle? Your blog posts must focus on relevant content related to your legal practice to reach your target audience with these specific needs.
• Demographics: What do you know about your clients and potential clients based on demographic factors like age, gender, income level, and educational attainment? These details will help inform your content strategy and keep you focused on your ideal client.
• Values: What values, interests, and priorities might your potential clients share? Understanding these can help you craft resonating, high-quality content.

The two most straightforward ways to align your business goals and enhance relationships with clients are asking your client base directly about their legal questions (they will appreciate you doing so!) and reviewing your online presence, email list, search rankings, social media platforms, and law firm website metrics.

Now, save your target audience profile and store it in a place that is memorable and accessible!

Your audience development profile serves as a guidepost for creating content that resonates with your audience. It also ensures you remain strategic in your approach, lest you start writing random pieces of content filled with legal jargon… no one wants that!

Keyword Research and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

One of the best ways for your law firm blog content to be found online by clients and prospects is to include relevant keywords in the blog post topic covering your legal expertise. Keyword research is crucial for optimizing content for law firm blogs on search engines.

You can increase the likelihood of your legal blogs appearing in search engine rankings by targeting relevant keywords and phrases your potential clients are searching for. SEO techniques to reach a broader audience include creating online content around legal developments, evergreen content, legal concepts, and common questions. 

Once you have your list of target keywords, incorporate these naturally into your blog post. Be sure to place them in places like headings, opening sentences in paragraphs, and a few times throughout the post. Make sure your keywords fit naturally. Otherwise, your good work producing fresh content for your thought leadership will look spammy to search engines.

Boost the efficacy of your legal blog’s online presence by including keyword phrases in the blog title and meta description.

The title tag and first paragraph are the most important places for the keyword. Remember to optimize image file names and alt text.

All of these are examples of on-page optimization for legal blogs.

Content Planning and Strategy

Content planning and strategy are the best ways to keep your law firm blog organized and on topic with your target market.

Part of the content marketing strategy for law firms includes planning to create posts that provide value for clients and prospects. Start your content writing process by creating a list of evergreen content of the types of legal issues your clients and prospects may face and where you and your firm can deliver effective solutions.

Next, author informative content and valuable insights that deliver tips to your target reader on handling situations where your knowledge and assistance are imperative to achieving the ultimate goals of a satisfactory outcome.

Yes, it takes time to develop your content strategy, types of content, and content plan, but you will get this time back in spades due to how organized your content is.

A general rule of thumb is to post 1-3 times per week. This cadence lets search engines know the educational content associated with your law firm blog is one of growing authority. Your clients and prospects will appreciate seeing your content marketing efforts emblazoned with your and your firm’s name.

If this online content posting schedule sounds too aggressive, consider that you don’t have to deliver long-form content in each post. Sometimes, you serve your clients and prospects with simple, straightforward informational content, news posts, monthly posts, updates, and timely analysis.

A blog post series covering your practice niche, legal issues faced by your target reader, numbered lists, identifying common mistakes, interviews with other authority figures or clients, guest posts, and Q&As are all ideas for you to consider as valuable content for a blog post.

Partnering with a legal marketing agency is a good idea if you find yourself too busy, overwhelmed by the thought of posting consistently, and struggling to document a flow of topical ideas.

Promote your new content pieces on your law firm’s social media platforms, along with other digital marketing strategies like email newsletters, client alerts, and internal communications. Update the content writer’s bio and social media presence with the title of each post so the informative content is associated with the author and their practice niche.

Blog Post Structure

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty and discuss content goals around blog post structure. You’re well on your way to creating content assets, online content that is strategic and organized, includes proper SEO techniques, and can be found online by your target audience.

The next challenge is creating a compelling headline for your online content. Imagine this is your best chance to hook readers and draw them in with your informative content. You can choose to write the headline first and tailor your post to it. Or you may wish to craft the headline after a draft of your blog post is complete.

Some of the most effective ways to create a compelling headline to attract your target market are: 

• Stating or asking a question
• Use stats or figures
• Using short, descriptive language to create a picture
• Use keywords
• Having fun coming up with headlines and various thereof
• Identify the biggest mistakes or common mistakes a reader can make concerning your client base
• Keyword phrases 
• Make the layout simple and clear

No one wants to read boring content that is a wall of text with no white space and nothing to guide the eyes to scan the content.

The layout of your law firm blog needs to ensure that the content formats allow readers to scan and easily digest the information you want to deliver.

To keep the layout of your content writing projects simple and clear, consider these 10 tips: 

• Use an informative intro paragraph summarizing the post’s topic
• Break content into sections with descriptive subheadings
• Write informational content in shorter paragraphs for better readability
• Use content formats like bullet points, numbered lists, or emojis (if you are so inclined) when applicable
• Help your reader visualize concepts in your content pieces by including relevant images, charts, or graphics
• Draw attention to subtopics by making the text bold.
• Take items in a non-numerical list and bold each one
• Ensure white space is used properly so a reader’s eyes are not overwhelmed
• Make sure any links are clearly marked with font in a color other than the body text
• Conclude your post by summarizing key takeaways (Hint: you can do this to begin your blog post, too.)

 Well-organized law firm content marketing allows readers to scan and comprehend your news posts quickly. Your target reader is more likely to return because the blog is structured in an organized and authoritative fashion appropriate to the practice niche.

Voice and Tone

Striking the right tone in your posts allows readers to acquaint themselves with your brand and personality. A conversational and helpful tone often works well to soothe a reader’s apprehension around a legal topic and position you, the author, as a compassionate authority.

Certainly, the ABA may have some rules or suggested measures for tone. However, professionalism and a conversational tone work well to demonstrate your knowledge without boasting.

Remember that your clients are likely seeking legal representation more frequently than other legal professionals reading your post. Your language must reflect your understanding of your audience.

Be sure to eliminate jargon and legalese and take the time to explain the issues succinctly.

A great way to enable your readers to feel heard and as if you are writing exclusively for them is to use second person pronouns (“you”).

Writing in the second person engages the reader and aids in their comprehension. It can ultimately create a connection with the reader, which can strengthen a relationship long before earning their trust in a legal matter.

There is a word of caution about voice and tone that you are encouraged to consider. While your tone is conversational and helpful, resist being too casual.

Things like slang, abbreviations, exclamation points, off-color humor, and related remarks will surely sink your efforts and potentially damage your reputation.

Your firm’s values and brand must reflect your tone. As an author, demonstrate your expertise while being approachable. This will attract clients who appreciate your knowledge and personality.

Putting it Together

Regular and consistent posting schedules are crucial for building a successful law blog and attracting an audience. Stick to your chosen cadence and lean on your content strategy and planning to guide you.

Consistency means you will become more reliable to your audience, and search engines will view new content as signals of a healthy and authoritative blog and website.

Understanding your audience means you’ll be creating content for them that seeks to provide them with solutions while demonstrating your unique knowledge on a topic.

Rather than searching for solutions to their legal issues, they turn to you because of your demonstrated experience in a given area.

Creating a content plan and strategy is imperative to staying organized and maintaining a list of topics as your blog grows.

Writing blog posts with targeted keywords helps your audience and search engines find your content. Remember to include your keywords naturally throughout the content; otherwise, it may be viewed as spammy.

Building a law firm blog takes time, just like any other marketing initiative. Remain consistent in your posting, voice, tone, and approach. Your (growing) audience and search engines will thank you.

FAQ About Law Firm Blog Writing

What can blogging do for my law practice?

Blogging is an excellent method of attracting an audience, achieving higher results on search engines, demonstrating your knowledge, and promoting your practice.

How often do I need to blog to be successful?

Time, creativity, and a willingness to write in ways that inform and engage your readers.

What can I write about in my law firm blog?

It is best to write about those topics that reflect your practice, the work you do, the matters you handle, and the work you enjoy.

Why is structure so important for a law firm blog?

Structure is critical to keep your posts organized, aligned with strategy, clear, and scannable for your readers. It also aids SEO and search engines in how they view your content.

How do I determine which keywords are right for my blog post?

Consider keywords that help your readers understand the topic of your post. Include keywords that define your audience and other factors like location. Insert the keywords throughout your post naturally and in a conversational way. Overusing keywords often leads to content being viewed as spammy.

What is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar is a simple tool for documenting a blog’s topic, author, keywords, publish date, and other factors you choose based on your organizational style. Editorial calendars help authors see what topic has been covered, when, and from what angle and provide clarity in selecting new topics.

 Is it acceptable to have a co-author on a law firm blog post?

Absolutely! Co-authoring promotes multiple voices and perspectives and lessens the load of producing blog content. Co-authors may be colleagues, clients, or notable subjects with deep and unique topic knowledge.

What are some of the best ways to promote a law firm blog?

Social media (the author’s and the firm’s), internal marketing, and client emails are the simplest and most measurable ways to promote a law firm blog. To grow your subscriber list, offer an email signup form or call to action within blog posts.