- A divorce and custody of their children,
- Their rights in a business deal gone bad,
- How to pay for medical expenses when they are injured by someone else.
Some attorneys believe that putting their biography online which lists their law school, bar admission and the fact that they enjoy hiking on the weekends is all that is necessary to attract clients and keep their law firm busy.
This could not be further from the truth. The most successful attorneys understand that it is important to have a great deal of information out there about what they do, their opinions about legal matters and more.
- Your Content Exists to Form Relationships With People Seeking an Attorney.
The content on your websites should exist to build trust, position you as an advisor and make sure you are seen by your potential clients as much as possible.
It is foolish to think that just having your biography online is enough to get people to do business with you. You need to market yourself with lots of high-quality content. When people are searching for information about a legal matter, you want them to find you.
The great thing about content is that it continues working for you long after you have created it. If you are a DUI attorney and write 50 articles about this in a market of 50,000 people, the odds are you will come to the top of the search engine results if anyone is searching for a DUI attorney in your market (provided the content is of sufficient depth, interest and relevance).
In most cases, if you position yourself sufficiently as an expert, the public is likely to call you if your content is engaging. You should create content for your website with the expectation that it is more likely to help you than not help you.
- Lawyer Content is Most Effective When it Serves an Interest
There are many different styles of lawyering out there, and some of these styles are based upon being quite dry and “sticking to the facts”. To attract clients to your content, it is important that you become a voice for certain types of people or groups.
The best attorney content typically does one of a few things:
- It gives people an argument that supports their side
- It makes people see something in a new way
- It helps someone financially
- It gives people hope
- It makes them look smart
How can content do this? Imagine if you are a family law attorney. You could start writing articles about how the system is biased against divorcing fathers. Fathers’ rights are not protected during divorces and men need a special type of attorney to look out for them. All of a sudden, you would emerge from being a “normal” divorce attorney to someone who seems like an expert in this field.
Similarly, imagine you are an attorney specializing in getting women higher alimony and child support years after their divorces were finalized. You could do a bunch of articles about how to increase alimony and child support payments, signs you may have been cheated in your divorce and other topics that would get women’s attention.
The content that can get you clients will generally appeal to a group of people and make you look attractive to them. Generic, run-of-the-mill content generally does not help you.
Google will also reward you with higher search engine rankings (and more traffic) when users stay on your site after finding content they like. According to Steven Levy in his book, In the Plex, “… Google could see how satisfied users were. … The best sign of their happiness was the "long click" – this occurred when someone went to a search result, ideally the top one, and did not return." Known as “pogo-sticking”, this means that Google will reward you with higher search results when users come to your site and find content they like and do not return to Google.
- You Need to Promote Your Content After Writing it
Just putting your content on your website is rarely enough. You need to promote the content you add to your site as well.
First, you should be promoting this content on various social networks and sharing platforms such as Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. If you have not done so already, you should have a plugin installed on your website that allows you to do this with ease.
Second, you should be promoting your content to people you know:clients, attorneys and others. If these people enjoy your content, they will also share it with their contacts. Email, LinkedIn and other methods of sharing work very well.
Third, there are many options for targeting your content with paid promotion (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all have excellent ways for you to target content).
- You Need to Do Content Frequently
You need to be adding new content to your site frequently. How often should you be adding content? As a general rule, it will depend on the competitiveness of the market (and size of the market) you are in. In some major cities in competitive practice areas, content may be updated on a daily basis.
The reason content needs to be constantly updated is due to the fact that it shows Google that you are “active” in the subject matter you are writing about. For example, if you are an attorney practicing a branch of tax law and are regularly adding content to your site, Google will assume that:
(a) users they send to your site are more likely to get “current” information;
(b) users will find your site relevant and, thus, will have a better experience using Google. Users will be more likely to return to Google for their next search rather than using another search engine (Bing or Yahoo!); and,
(c) Google will continue to make lots of money.
- Content Serves a Purpose With Search Engines
The more content Google sees going on your website over time, and the more links, shares and other promotion that your content earns, the higher your law firm website will rank in the search engines. Content should get links, and links will increase your website’s online traffic results.
Conclusions
Law firms need a consistent marketing strategy to drive clients to their door. It is a huge part of getting noticed. Lawyers need a consistent content strategy that speaks to the audiences they are after.
