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Generating content ideas for your law firm’s website can be challenging — in fact over half of people using websites and blogs find this to be their biggest struggle. Sometimes the obstacle is just the mental challenge of generating ideas that will be relevant and interesting to your readers. If you didn’t have anything else to do, that might be easy enough, but most of us are juggling other tasks and job duties (and in your case, actually practicing law!) and do not have time to brainstorm a batch of content ideas. If whipping up fresh, regular content is causing you stress, there is creative help around the corner.
Understand Your Audience
Before creating and delivering content, it is important to understand who will be reading it. Who are your law firm’s typical clients? Your legal services reach a certain demographic, so it is key to speak directly to them. Your law firm’s content should engage and educate in a relatable tone and a language that your potential clients will understand. Based on your past experience, you can focus on your prospective clients by asking yourself:
- What are the questions they usually ask?
- What challenges do they often face?
- What are their goals?
- What are they worried about?
- Who is our ideal client?
These questions may bring different answers, because your law firm may have a different target audience for each service you provide. One online tool for discovering your typical client base is HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool, which may help you create the content that will best reach your potential clients.
Generate Content Ideas
You know you need compelling and consistent information that will woo your target audience, but, back to the original question — how do you generate ideas? Fortunately, there are common sense ways to dig up valuable ideas, along with online generator tools that can make content ideas the least of your problems.
View Competitor Websites
Head over to the website of a competing law firm and assess their content. What topics are they covering? How often do they post new content? What is the nature and quality of their content? How long is each article or blog post, and how do they share their information beyond the website? Digging through your competitors’ websites and blogs can offer valuable, free insights that may help you direct your own content. Never plagiarize their content, but your potential clients are their potential clients as well.
Listen to Your Clients
Listening to the needs of your clients can be one of the best ways to uncover fresh content ideas. When they first walk in the door, they have questions, and these may be recurring questions that new clients habitually ask. Gather these FAQs and attend to these typical client concerns in the content you provide. After a case is closed, give your clients an opportunity to speak or write down their honest feedback of their recent experiences with the legal process. Some businesses offer gift cards or other perks in exchange for a personal or written review, often prompting with questions like these:
- Tell me about your experience with our law firm. Do not be hesitant to share both positive and negative impressions.
- How could we help future clients navigate the legal process?
- What should attorneys understand better about their clients?
- Do you have any further questions or concerns?
Check Forums
Many individuals seek advice from peers before they ever consult a lawyer. Check forums such as Quora or Legal Junkies to explore the law-related concerns of the average person.
Use Content Idea Generator Tools
These online content idea generators might be a good place to start when you are staring at a blank page:
- Hubspot Idea Generator — This simple tool is great for generating topics for blog posts. The Hubspot Idea Generator asks you for five nouns, and works with these to create engaging content ideas.
- BuzzSumo — This site offers content ideas, using the cutting edge trends of the moment. BuzzSumo sees high-traffic keywords and gathers content ideas from online discussion boards to suggest relevant content ideas.
- Impact’s Blog Title Generator — Impact allows you to navigate between topic ideas and also customize title ideas with suggested keywords.
- Answer the Public is a thorough tool that takes analyzed data from Google to generate content ideas for you. You input your keywords, and Answer the Public will offer you the most searched phrases that contain these keywords.
Types of Content
Once you have your ideas and have created top-quality content for your law firm, there are a variety of ways to offer this information to potential clients. Some of the most common ways to dispense content are website pages, blogs and email newsletters.
Website Pages
Your law firm website is the first impression for a potential client. It can make a positive introduction, or cause visitors to scroll elsewhere. The content on your website should attract new potential clients and convert them into actual clients, so your website needs to be visually appealing, but also highly educational. Quality information grabs our attention, and a stream of valuable content establishes your law firm as a credible resource. Law firm website pages should offer compelling, up-to-date content.
Blogs
Although only 26% of law firms keep one consistently, a blog is an excellent marketing tool. It can continually draw people to your law firm’s website and position you as a trustworthy legal resource, and being a reliable domain for consumers means higher search engine rankings as well.
When you post on a law firm blog, you can weave in SEO techniques as you educate visitors and tackle the problems they face through your offered content. Adding elements such as images, video, a call to action and other interactive tools will engage more visitors and draw them to your website.
Email Newsletters
Email is not as young and trendy as other social media platforms, but it is still a trusted and well-traveled method of communication. Since 92% of adults check their email daily, sending out an email newsletter may be an excellent way to bring content to past clients, knowing that once you have served a client well, it is highly likely that they will recommend your law firm to friends and family. Through an email newsletter, you can offer a variety of content to your past clients, such as:
- New law firm goals and recently won cases
- Changes in state or local laws for your particular legal expertise
- Safety or seasonal topics that relate to legal issues
- Introducing new law firm employees
There are email marketing services that will design your newsletter, help you maintain a current contact list, and provide helpful marketing reports, so you know what is reaching your clients.
Where Can I Find Content Marketing Ideas?
According to Ghost Foundation, one effective way of finding inspiration for your law firm’s content marketing is by keeping a record of your ideas and opinions. Then, when you want to create a new piece of content, you can refer to this for assistance. Below are some additional tips to consider for finding content ideas for your law firm’s website.
Consider What You Are Offering
One way of generating content ideas for your law firm’s website involves thinking about what you are offering to clients. Often, doing this may help you find inspiration for your next blog post or other pieces of content. For instance, if your firm specializes in a certain niche, you might try generating content that aligns with this field, in addition to content that focuses on the law more generally.
Update Your Current Content
Updating your current content is an excellent way of gaining new content ideas for your law firm’s website. In particular, if you have a piece of content that is performing well, it can be highly beneficial to update and republish it. Doing this helps the content reach more people, and you can even consider sharing it on additional channels. To do this effectively, read the existing content and add additional information or adjust any out-of-date details. Then, consider adding or updating any graphics. Finally, update the content and share it as widely as possible.
Listen to Other Professionals
While listening to your clients is a great way of finding content ideas, another effective method involves listening to other legal professionals. To do this, think about where other lawyers may share their ideas. For instance, you might look on Twitter or certain Facebook groups. Often, this type of research may help you realize certain questions that your clients may want to learn the answer to, which can inspire content ideas.
Write Industry Guides
A good way of finding content ideas for your law firm’s website involves writing industry guides. These are typically comprehensive and well-researched articles that explain to your clients what to do and how they can do it. To create these guides, follow these steps:
- Research and select appropriate keywords on which to focus your guide.
- Read the top-ranking posts on Google for your selected keywords and think about the topics discussed so you can mention these in your own guide.
- Consider your target audience and what they want to learn.
- With this research, create a thorough but easily understood guide, and then share it on your website and other platforms.
Try Creating a Podcast
Alongside blog posts and videos, podcasts can be highly effective pieces of content. While these pieces of content can involve more work, millions of Americans listen to them, meaning you can potentially gain access to a huge audience. Additionally, when you create a podcast, this normally leads to other pieces of additional content. For instance, you can write blog posts that discuss or summarize the podcast episodes. When creating this type of content, ensure you include transcripts for each episode and encourage listeners to subscribe by including a call to action in the post.
How Law Quill Can Help You With Content For Your Law Firm’s Website
Coming up with content ideas for your law firm’s website can seem like a difficult and never-ending task. However, consistent and relevant content is an essential digital marketing strategy, since it can draw in prospective clients and raise search engine standings. If you are often stumped about what to write about or include on your law firm’s website and other outlets, there are some common sense, easy ways to get started. Begin with the FAQs of your new and past clients, and look around at the websites of your local competitors to discern typical blog topics. View the online forums to see what individuals unfamiliar with law are concerned about when they face legal issues, and make use of one of the free content idea generators listed above.
However, we understand that this can all feel overwhelming. We would welcome the opportunity to visit with you for free regarding your law firm website’s content, and how we can take these tasks off your plate! Schedule a free visit with us by scheduling a quick phone or zoom call at your convenience on our calendar today. You can also email us at support@lawquill.com.
