Why Your Law Firm Should Have A Blogging Strategy

If you’ve heard that blogging is dead – fallen victim to social media – rest assured that blogging to attract more clients and cases to your law firm is a strategy that is very much alive and well.

In fact, over 77% of internet users still regularly read blogs, and businesses that have a strong content focused legal marketing strategy produce 67% more leads per month according to SEMRush, a search engine marketing tool.

Regular blogging is a great way to bring more potential clients to your website where you can easily demonstrate your expertise and authority around timely topics and frequently asked questions in your niche or practice area.

Beyond the business development upsides and potential to build a solid online reputation, blogging quickly increases your traffic by helping you increase organic traffic and your search engine rankings.

If you need help developing your law office’s SEO strategy before you launch your blog, check out our primer on SEO for law firms. (link to article)

A successful blog can be just the business development boost your law firm marketing needs, especially if you adhere to these guidelines to guarantee success.

Most Effective Blog Post Topics For Lawyers

Every effective blog needs a blend of timely and evergreen articles.

Blog post ideas:
– Recent court decisions
– Breaking legal news
– Legislative rulings

You’ll never go wrong having posts about recent court decisions, breaking legal news, or legislative rulings.

The key with timely posts is to deliver them on time. It doesn’t take very long before the hottest headlines are gathering dust. The news cycle moves quickly, and you have to be prepared to move with it.  An easy way to have the hottest headlines delivered is to set up Google Alerts that will make you aware when something in your practice area is making news.

You don’t have to write an opinion that goes on forever, either. The sweet spot for word count on blogs is right between 500-1200 words. Using voice to text tools can help you churn out time sensitive content rapidly.  The other benefit of dictation? Your writing will have a more conversational tone that will resonate with readers.

While timely topics help keep your blog publication cycle fresh, evergreen topics have long-term benefits.  Think about those frequently asked questions and issues you deal with regularly in your practice area or niche. Any client focused information you can share about the process helps potential clients make hiring decisions in your firm’s favor.  And evergreen blogs can be shared more frequently over social media, in firm newsletters and highlighted on your website where, over time, they will typically get 4x the exposure of time sensitive pieces.

Both types of blog posts are important. Freshness is a big SEO signal, but potential clients want access to information that provides them with key takeaways about their legal challenges.

SEO Tips For Your Law Firm Blog

SEO is a long-term strategy but writing for humans and search engines will get you results faster and help you realize the legal marketing benefits of your blog sooner.

If you’re not entirely sure about where to enter meta descriptions on your site, it’s critical to focus on the first fifty or so words of your blog. If you don’t create a separate meta description, your first few words usually become the default description in the search engine results (SERP).

Capture attention with engaging language and naturally reference your location and specialty along with the article’s keyword focus. This will help improve your law firm’s SEO score and contribute to increased organic traffic.

It can be very challenging to rank for competitive keywords like “lawyer” or “personal injury attorney” so by adding differentiators like location can help you level up your SERP results sooner. People are looking for legal services near where they live or within a reasonable radius. Don’t risk having your blogging efforts wasted by aiming too broadly with your keywords.

Also lean on topic clusters for finding complementary keywords to support your main keyword. Even with lower search volume, these supplemental keywords can capitalize on more specific search intent and return warmer prospects who are ready to book a consultation.

Another big boost for SEO is developing a strong linking strategy.

Whenever possible, try to:

• Link out to external authority sources that aren’t competitors
• Earn backlinks by writing quality posts
• Link back to related or previous articles on your own website

Linking increases the authority of your blog and earning backlinks from other sources is a real trust signal to your readers.

Ultimately, positive SEO ranking is a direct result of producing quality content your audience wants to read.

Getting Started: Create Blog Content For The Ideal Client Of Your Law Firm

While it can be tempting to use your blog as a tool to shout the benefits of your services, a better way to attract clients is by giving them the information they want to make an informed decision about their situation or hiring an attorney to represent them.

By making your blog a resource, you naturally become known as a thought leader in your practice space.  Think about what you like in the blogs you read and create articles about legal topics that are approachable, entertaining, and relevant.

To establish the blogging habit, start with valuable topics you’ll naturally enjoy writing about.

Once you commit to blogging, you want to build your online credibility by showing up consistently.  A regular and reliable publication schedule helps build an engaged audience more quickly.

In addition to being informative, you want your readers to get a sense of your personality and what it will be like to work with you. Be authentic and conversational in your blogs and leave the legal jargon for pleadings.

Keep topics tight around your practice area or niche so readers naturally know what to expect from your writing. You don’t want to risk boring your readers with a lot of the same things over and over again, but when you keep that topic list balanced between timely and evergreen, you’ll strike the right balance that brings in more readers and keeps them engaged over time.

You have a unique perspective, and your blog can be the place people come to get context on legal issues that affect them that they can’t find anywhere else. Demonstrate your passion and depth of knowledge on the subjects you cover to attract and find new clients and cases from your blogging strategy.

Every post doesn’t have to be perfect to be valuable to your audience but keeping a few things in mind will help you consistently turn out high quality blogs.

• Have a primary purpose. Every blog should serve a purpose whether it is sharing information on a certain legal topic or to drive traffic to your booking page for consultations.  Know what you want each post to accomplish before you start writing so you reach the right goal every time you publish.
• Share a fresh perspective. The truth is, there is lots of content out there about most things.  Take your own path about your practice area and share your unique take on what’s happening in your niche or specialty.  When you check out the competition (and you should) think about ways you can write a post that is better than what’s already out there.
• Write about what you know. The more experience you have about the topics you tackle in your blog, the better the quality of your posts will be.  When you are an expert, it shows.  Establishing yourself as thought leader is one of the most powerful and reputation enhancing ways to build your practice.
• Use evidence and statistics to make your blogs even more powerful. Google prefers well-researched content with proper citations and backlinking.  The more credible, the more likely your blog will be to rise in the SERP and get the clicks that get you more cases.
• Keep sentences short and paragraphs “snackable” and scannable. Most of your readers will be consuming content on their mobile devices and the experience of reading on a smaller screen means writing has to adapt. Attention spans are short, so make sure you adapt your writing.
• Give the eye places to rest. White space helps readers move through your content.  Break up walls of text with bulleted lists, relevant headers, and images.  Studies show that readers appreciate an “image break” every 75-100 words.  Your topics may be complex and by simplifying the formatting you can make it easier to digest.

Find your purpose, share your perspective and break up your ideas to make them visually and contextually approachable. Things that are easier to understand are naturally more interesting to the reader and have them coming back to your site to answer their questions.

Why It Is Critical To Be Consistent With Your Law Firm Blog

Once you start a blog it’s critical to publish consistently. If your plan is to write when you have the time, you may suddenly find other things pushing your blog lower on your calendar or to-do list.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with an unrealistic daily schedule, instead set a weekly day to write and revise your blog articles. Way too often attorneys say yes to blogging, only to have their enthusiasm peter out in weeks or months.

For attracting new clients, a dusty or empty blog is not good.

When those potential clients see you haven’t updated your blog recently, they may wonder if you’re too busy to take on new clients or even if you’re still actively practicing.

With a realistic blog schedule, you’ll develop the habit of creating quality content regularly, so you grow your readership and consultation requests weekly.

If you aren’t sure you can commit to producing a regular rotation of blog articles, there are professional marketing firms that focus on legal marketing. These firms understand the power of blogs to generate a steady flow of warm leads for your practice.  They employ professional content writers who can produce articles for your law firm and then all you’ll need to do is review the pieces for accuracy.

Having a well-written, SEO friendly legal blog could help you reach an entirely new audience of ideal clients with cases that will help you reach your business growth goals.

Whether you need new referral partners, new clients, or a mix of both, the professional benefits of a legal blogging strategy are many.