When people need a lawyer, they are looking for three things: experience, professionalism and the confidence that they put their case in reliable hands. Few people compare lawyer’s fees to choose the cheapest option. Whatever is at stake, from fighting an unfair charge to protecting their parental rights during a divorce, it is of critical importance – so professionalism and trust are more important than anything else when deciding to hire a lawyer. In this article, we will help you understand the most effective SEO writing tips for law firm marketing.
What Are the Challenges of Writing SEO Content for Law Firms?
Law firms must be very careful about what they publish and what promises they make. In many cases, lawyers’ practices or law firm are reticent to the idea of blogging, because they are afraid of the liability it may involve. Or, if they blog, they talk about all matters in a very general and noncommittal manner.
This is extremely wrong. Content is king in any kind of digital marketing strategy, for any kind of business. Yes, there are rules to obey, such as adding disclaimers that content posted on the site does not represent legal advice, but law firms should be genuinely helpful and educational in the content pieces they post. It is the only way of persuading a potential client that your firm or practice is the right choice for them to defend their case.
Understanding the Purpose of SEO Content for Law Firm Marketing
Before we start sharing our tips, let us explain why content is king – this is a claim we made and, as a legal professional, you cannot accept it without justification and proof.
Here are the key roles of content writing for SEO, making it a pivotal element in your digital marketing strategy:
- Google and other search engines rely on content to understand what your site is about
- Quality, original and frequently published content is a strong signal of authority, reliability and expertise for Google
- A good SEO content marketing strategy increases the qualified organic traffic to your website, from visitors who are likely to need your firm’s services
- Users rely on content to find answers to their questions and understand their legal rights and obligations
- Well written and educational content encourages people to develop confidence in a law firm
- Through well written content, your law firm can become a reliable source of information in your professional field.
Here are a few relevant statistical data on the importance of SEO content writing in today’s marketing strategies:
- 49% marketers report that organic traffic has the best ROI of any other digital or offline marketing channel
- 87.41% is the potential decrease in the cost of acquisition of a new client if you have an effective SEO strategy
- 70% of marketers believe that SEO is more effective than paid marketing
- 76% of people who search for products and services near them using their mobile phones visit the premises within one day.
The Most Effective SEO Writing Tips for Law Firm Marketing
Here are some effective ways of planning and executing an effective SEO content marketing strategy for your law firm:
1. Create Client Personas for All Your Areas of Practice
Content posted on your website should address the people who need your services. The first thing you need to do is to know your potential client profile. What is their background? What demographic data do they have in common? Using Google Analytics, you can extract useful information about the users who visit your website, such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Where they live
- Areas of interest.
By comparing it to your actual clients’ profiles, you can add more information:
- Income level
- Job or profession
- Educational level
- Marital and family status.
These are extremely important details, because they determine the way in which you address them and the type of content your post on your law firm website.
2. Focus on Content Pillars, Not Keywords
A personal injury lawyer may be tempted to organise their content around the most important keywords they want to promote. However, Google is now shifting importance from standalone keywords to content pillars – relevant areas of interest for your business and for your website visitors.
SEO writing tips for law firm dictate that the respective law firm or practice should focus on their practice areas, with their ramifications. For instance, in personal injury law you can focus on these content pillars with their relevant sub-topics:
- Car accidents: hit and run accidents, commercial vehicle accidents, drunk driving accidents, etc
- Premises liability: slip and fall accidents, dog bites, amusement park accidents, pool accidents, elevator/escalator accidents
- Types of injuries: brain injuries, burn injuries, spine injuries, loss of limb
- Medical malpractice: diagnose errors, surgical errors, birth defects, defective medical devices, prescription errors.
3. Determine the Types of Content You Want to Post
Next on our list of SEO writing tips for law firm marketing is the need to create an effective content mix. You will need to cover all the specific pages that will help promote your website and generate more relevant organic traffic, such as:
- Service pages – detailing your practice areas
- Location pages – for all the places where you have offices
- Blog posts – providing helpful and educational content for potential clients
- Visual content – videos and podcasts sharing useful information for users.
As you can see, we add visual content to our tips for SEO content writing. There is no error here: videos and podcasts need to be carefully scripted, meeting both your brand voice and the specific requirements of the audiovisual medium: a conversational style, easy to follow even by someone who is not 100% focused on your video or podcasts (people driving to and from work, for instance).
4. Keep Your Content Free of Professional Jargons
SEO content writing is not supposed to show how clever you are as a lawyer – but how experienced and helpful you are. You are not showing off your legal muscle to other lawyers, but trying to persuade a person who has a legal problem that you can help them.
For this reason, leave out professional jargon, including Latin phrases, and focus on explaining what you do and how you can help clients in words they can understand. You can save the legalese for court or negotiations with the opposing counsel.
5. Repurpose and Update Content on Your Site
Google likes updates – they show that you are constantly working on your site and committed to your professional field. It also shows potential clients that you are careful to share only relevant and current information with them.
Editing older blog posts with updates is one of the most effective SEO writing tips for law firm marketing for several reasons:
- Updating old posts with new content and images can increase your organic traffic by 106%
- You can add new relevant keywords
- You can keep a high ranking page with slightly outdated content
- You can follow your content posting schedule with minimal effort during busy periods.
Final Takeaways
These SEO writing tips for law firm marketing will help your law firm increase its page rank using the latest Google ranking criteria. They will also help you write in a way that is helpful and easy to understand by your potential clients, earning their trust in your professionalism and experience. The effort of creating an effective SEO strategy and implementing it is well justified by the constant flow of new clients, which will gro the reputation of your practice or law firm.