When you’re trying to raise awareness and bring in more business for your law firm, online content marketing is one of the best ways to do it. Indeed, content marketing brings in three times as many business leads as paid search ads. Furthermore, smaller law practices that post blogs regularly get much better lead growth than those that do not. To top it all off, content marketing generates much higher conversion rates for law firms than other marketing strategies.
Creating targeted and useful content helps law firms build trust and authority with their potential client base. Quality content helps you connect with clients in a way that other methods simply cannot offer. Read on for some tips on how you can put together a winning law firm content marketing strategy.
What Do We Mean by Inbound Content Marketing?
Inbound content marketing is the process of creating content that instills trust and authority in your law firm. Consequently, when people need legal advice, they seek your help because you have the right answers. In other words, you use content to attract fresh leads to your firm instead of outwardly marketing your brand to get clients. It comes down to establishing your law firm as a reliable, authoritative resource, so potential clients will trust your firm and your brand.
Perform Keyword and Topic Research
Before creating any targeted content, it’s critical to understand what your potential clients are looking for online. Through topic and keyword research, you should be able to generate enough content ideas to fill up your content calendar for months.
The search terms that clients type into a search engine to find specific services are known as keywords. For instance, someone heading for a divorce would probably type the phrase “divorce lawyer.” The idea is to do research to build up a list of relevant keywords for the content you want to create.
- Start with a list of topics relevant to your law firm – Think about what your potential clients would need to search to find you. If you handle employment law, they might search for “workplace discrimination lawyer.” And try to think of questions clients might ask based on your results. For instance, “What does an employment lawyer do?” You can devise content around answering these types of questions.
- Use SEO tools to refine your list and find related keywords – To add more keywords to your list, use SEO tools like Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner to check out your keyword’s competition and its search volume. For best results, target keywords with good search volume and lower competition.
One thing you want to stay away from is using sophisticated, lawyer terms. Your clients may not be familiar with what an employment lawyer does. However, they will know about workplace harassment, so make sure you use similar, basic terms in your content.
Create Relevant, Authoritative Content
Once you’ve created a strong list of topics and keywords, it’s time to create your own content. Your overarching goal should be to devise content that is valuable and authoritative to your target audience, whether it’s a new web page or a blog post. It also helps to try out different types of content to see what resonates the most with your audience. Some types to explore include the following: web pages, blog posts, videos, images and infographics, emails, and even guest posts on other related blogs.
Lead with Honesty
Since you are an expert in your field, there’s no need to mislead your clients. Write what you know to create authoritative content that will be useful to your users. If you write with honesty and integrity, audiences will look upon you as a reliable authority.
You should also be careful to follow legal marketing rules so that you don’t commit any advertising or legal ethics violations with your content.
It’s Still Quality Over Quantity
Keep in mind that one high-quality, informative blog post is far more valuable than four or five filler pieces. For this reason, make sure your content is easy to digest and not stuffed with legalese. Paragraphs should not stretch beyond 3-4 sentences, and your sentences should stay under 20 words.
And with legal content, you need your sources and quotes to be accurate. You want to make sure that any advice you give is safe for your clients. Your advice should also be actionable for users. Essentially, your content should help your clients by giving them clear steps to solving a problem.
Truth be told, content marketing isn’t an overnight road to success for low site traffic and minimal lead generation. It’s a gradual path to improving over the long haul. In fact, it will probably take 6-9 months at a minimum for your marketing plan to show results. However, it’s important to know that law firm content marketing can generate quality leads for your firm. If you create content with your target audience and these tips in mind, you will develop a solid content marketing strategy that will drive growth to your law firm for years to come.