The online legal blogosphere is a pretty populated space. Thousands of law blogs exist on the internet today that cover every topic, debate, niche, and article.
To have your voice cut through all this noise, you have a steep hill to climb.
But it’s not an impossible task. As a PA workers’ compensation veteran in the industry, I have been blogging for over a decade now. It started as a simple practice where my only goal was to help the injured workers understand their rights more. But talking to them and my clients, I realized there is a real dearth of knowledge when it comes to workplace injuries and the complexities of the legal system that attends to them.
So, my passion became my purpose.
In February 2023, my blog was ranked #11 in the entire nation by Feedspot in the Top 25 Workers’ Compensation Law Blog rankings.
The recognition felt good, of course, but it mattered more because it spurred me on a post idea that I’ve wanted to do for a while now: sharing what worked for me.
Now, it’s important to note that what worked for me might not work for you, so what I share here must be applied with a lot of A/B testing, tracking, and changes. But if you are launching your blog and looking for solid starter points, I can help.
Strategies To Stand Out
Over the years, these 8 strategies enabled me to create engaging, popular posts, get new clients, and conduct lead-generation campaigns.
- Start with a strong design
The way your law firm blog looks, and the way information is structured there is the first thing to get right. If your design is subpar, and people have trouble finding the information they are looking for, they may leave and don’t return.
To keep their interest and ensure they trust the information you are presenting, create a clean blog design with easy navigation. Organize your content into clear categories and don’t litter the blog with anything unnecessary.
- Clarify your goals
Post regularly and consistently. But what is regular will depend on your blogging goals.
If you’re looking to bank on SEO profits, you may have to follow a publishing schedule of two posts a week. As a full-time attorney, that would be a huge thing to pull off, but anything less than that, and you won’t be able to meet your goals.
If your purpose, however, is to establish your credibility, you can have a more organic posting schedule where you post probably once a week or every ten days but what you do post is high-value long-form content that validates your thought leadership status.
- Write what adds value
Content that provides value to readers eventually ends up on top of search results even if your primary goal wasn’t SEO. With that in mind, always strive to write what brings value to your clients. Offer a unique perspective, clarify concepts, and share your expertise and experience to present insightful opinions on topics that concern your clients.
To that end, keep your language simple, clear, and descriptive. Don’t use jargon or technical phrasing that your clients won’t be able to understand.
- Get to the point quickly
Readers of law firm blogs are usually people who are in a fix and looking for potential solutions. To help them, it’s important to keep your language straightforward and arrive at the point quickly.
Make your content skimmable so that when people are looking for relevant information, they can find it without going through the entire post — which, many of them won’t do anyway.
- Bring in the stats
Every time you make a claim in any of your blog posts, make sure it’s backed by research and facts.
It goes whether you are taking a legal stance, presenting a contradictory viewpoint, or sharing relevant industry news. When you use statistics, real studies, and facts to structure your argument, people can look at you as a credible source of information.
- Show empathy and compassion
As a workers’ compensation attorney in Pennsylvania, I talk to injured workers every day. The uncertainty they feel, the fear they go through, and the stress of dealing with the loss of income loom over all the talk of health and recovery.
When I write my blog posts, I try to talk about all these aspects of the recovery along with trying to simplify the PA workers’ compensation system for them. Irrespective of which branch of law you serve, your ultimate goal is to protect your clients and try and make it easy for them. Writing from a place of compassion and empathy helps you create content that’s more meaningful and helpful.
- Format your content for mobile
We talked about making content simple to read and skimmable. You can make that happen when you format all your content to suit mobile readability.
A few things that will help:
- Headings and subheadings to divide the content into sections
- Shorter sentences and paragraphs
- Lists and bullets
- Keeping most of the content under 800-1000 words
By giving your content proper structure and organization, you ensure more people will get to the end of the page and may even be inclined to press the Share button.
- Update your existing posts when need be
To keep yourself ahead of the curve, it’s critical to revisit your posts and identify when an update might be in order.
When a new court decision sets the precedent or opens up a new line of negotiations, it’s time to go back and update existing posts that relate most closely to what is going on. When changes in the law or your own experience about a matter, renders your previous take on it outdated, you must update your posts to ensure what you are saying is fresh and updated.
Conclusion
In the end, try to have with your blog. Choose topics and viewpoints that you feel passionately about. Write about things that you most intimately know. Keep your language simple and compassionate so when those in legal trouble find your blog, you have an empathetic voice to counsel them and give them the help they need.