One of the most competitive digital marketing niches is legal services. There are so many law firms trying to rank in the SERPs, and only the best-optimized pages and highest quality content take the top spot. So while you’re doing your best to implement Lawyer SEO, make sure you plan, research, and create high-quality content that’ll outrank the saturated competition.
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That said, creating content is no easy task. Not only does it have to be high quality, but you also need to publish them at a consistent rate. Lawyer SEO content needs to be well-planned to be effective and sustainable.
Let’s discuss a few content marketing tips to instantly boost your law firm’s SEO:
Tip #1: Write For Laymen
The majority of your target audience will be non-lawyers. After all, you’re trying to attract potential clients who’ll be looking to you for legal guidance. This also means making content for that specific audience.
So, make sure your target audience understands your content. Avoid using niche terms, unexplained concepts, and legalese. Using these complicated terms can alienate the average non-lawyer.
Here are a couple more tips to help you write beginner-friendly legal content:
- Explain New Terms. The first time you mention a legal concept, explain it briefly. People don’t always know what legal terms like “damages”, “pain and suffering”, and “statute of limitations” mean, so make sure your audience knows what they’re reading about.
- Spell Out Acronyms. Again, people don’t know what EEOC, FEHA, and OSHA mean, so spell them out the first time you mention it.
- Link To Other Posts. A great way to use terms and concepts without explaining them is to add hyperlinks to a relevant blog post. For example, if you mention “pain and suffering,” you can just link to a detailed blog post that explains it. This is great for readers and your blog traffic alike.
Remember, although all traffic is good, one of the best benefits of content marketing is attracting the right traffic. This means getting traffic from the right audience. If all you’re attracting are fellow lawyers, then you won’t be getting much attention from people who can potentially need your legal services.
Tip #2: Write What People Need
The way content marketing works is that you attract people through quality content they’re already looking for. So instead of trying to develop something unique and end up with something too niche, make what your audience wants.
Remember, high-volume keywords get a lot of traffic because people are actively looking for information on them. Sure, there might always be an audience for even the most niche of legal topics, but you don’t want to get so little ROI for consistently creating high-quality content.
Here are a few tips to help you write what your audience wants:
- Do Audience Research. Determine your target demographic and create content based on what they want and need. The better you cater to their needs, the more they’ll appreciate the content you create.
- Do Keyword Research. The simplest way to find what types of content people need is by conducting keyword research. The most popular keywords are often the ones people constantly look up, so you get a really good idea of what types of content will do well.
- Conduct Social Listening. Use social media data and the news to determine what people are talking about with their peers. If a topic is regularly discussed in online spaces, then it’ll probably get a lot of attention on the SERPs, too.
An important reminder: writing about what people need doesn’t mean sacrificing uniqueness. In fact, if you catch on fast enough, you might be the first to make content on something people really want to read about. So, don’t forget to regularly check on the news and the latest trends to do it first.
Tip #3: Streamline Your Content Creation Process
As mentioned, content shouldn’t just be high-quality; you also need to consistently come out with them. Of course, you don’t have to post every day, but you also don’t want to abandon your blog for months on end.
Instead, develop a reasonable content creation schedule that gives you enough time to create content and stick with it. So, if it takes you a week to write a great blog, then make sure to consider that while making plans. You don’t want to have to rush and sacrifice the quality of your content just to put things out more often.
Here are a few more tips to help you plan a sustainable content creation schedule without sacrificing quality:
- Quality Over Quantity. If it takes you two a week or two to plan, research, write, and edit content, then don’t force a three-day schedule. The key is to post as consistently as you can, not as constantly as you can. After all, you still want to deliver the best content among your competition, not try to compete with pure volume alone.
- Set Reasonable Deadlines. Quality takes time, of course, but you also want to make sure you don’t end up taking eight months to finish a 1000-word blog post. In the same way that you shouldn’t be setting deadlines too early, you should also avoid setting deadlines. Having a work schedule ensures you get your quality content out there in time.
- Outline And Edit. Some people sit down, write for days, and expect an organized, well-worded, and well-optimized blog post ready to publish. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Instead of spending too much time trying to figure out which sections go where as you’re writing, start with an outline to organize your thoughts and ideas first, then start writing. Don’t forget to proofread everything, of course!
- Keep Coming Up With New Ideas. Keep a list of ideas and keywords ready. You don’t want to spend half of your research and writing time coming up with a unique idea. Instead, please take note of possible title suggestions and blog topics and have them lined up in your calendar.
Unless you have a writing and content team behind you, you’ll need to run your law firm’s content marketing strategies on your own. That said, it’s not that easy to balance it with the actual cases and responsibilities you have with your clients, so making sure you have a schedule that fits well allows you to keep track and maintain your digital marketing efforts without sacrificing your standard routine.
Bottom-line
Given how competitive Lawyer SEO is, you need to make sure you’re producing good content that actually contributes to your ROI. If you’re just posting uninspired and unoptimized content, then you shouldn’t expect traffic or ranking boosts.
Make sure you’re creating high-quality content that attracts and caters to potential clients and keeping a consistent schedule that doesn’t negatively affect your content quality.
This is especially crucial advice for smaller firms looking to get started on SEO. Most established and popular law firms are big enough to hire experts and professionals to run their SEO and content marketing efforts. However, you can’t possibly force yourself to match that production level on your own.
So instead, focus on what you can do right now and do it well, hence quality and consistency. You can always hire more people once you have enough budget to compete with those on top.
Author’s Bio
JC Serrano is the founder of 1000Attorneys.com, one of the very few private enterprises certified to process lawyer referrals by the California State Bar. His marketing strategies have continuously evolved since 2005, incorporating ever-changing SEO strategies into lawyerleadmachine.com.