CREATING GREAT CONTENT SERIES
This series is about giving small and solo law firms the information and tools to create amazing content for their own websites to gain more organic traffic, help potential clients, and rise in the Google rankings.
Part 1 – WHY GREAT CONTENT MATTERS
SEO is search engine optimization, and it is the way that Google integrates all of the information about your law firm from the entire internet to determine whether or not to place you on the first page of their search engine.
If you are attempting to optimize your law firm’s website to gain the coveted top spots on Google’s search engine, one of the best ways to do so is through fresh content on your law firm’s website. This episode will focus on why new blog posts and fresh content on your law firm’s website matters, how to actually create and format your articles, and how to promote your articles once they are published on your law firm’s website.
SHOW NOTES
Some of the resources I visited about in today’s episode include the following:
SmarterQueue – Social Media Scheduling Tool
Note: Link to websites may include affiliate links, in which I would receive a small fee or reward for the referral. However, please know I only provide referrals for companies and services I either use myself or believe in strongly..
TRANSCRIPT
I am so excited you are here. Because I have created a six-part series called CREATING GREAT CONTENT. And this series of podcasts is going to help you the small or solo law firm owner attempt to create your own content on your website.
Now, why would I do that? I own a digital marketing agency LAW QUILL where I focus on content creation for small and solo law firms. It seems almost counterintuitive that I would create this. But my passion is to truly demystify the entire digital marketing and SEO process for small and solo law firms. It’s my passion. So I know that there are a lot of law firms out there that simply cannot afford a digital marketer of any kind right now, and I want to help them. So I have a lot of content on my website. And this podcast is going to be all about helping small and solo law firms, do those digital marketing things and bootstrap their way to get on the first page of Google.
So this very first part of creating great content series is why great content matters. Why fresh, informative, relevant content on your law firm’s website is critical for SEO. So let’s just get right into it. If you are attempting to optimize your law firm’s website to get on that very first page of Google, one of the best ways, if not the best way is to do so through fresh content on your law firm’s website. So we’re gonna focus on why new blog posts, fresh, informative, relevant, great content really matters. We’re gonna eventually be talking about how to find these topic ideas, how to keyword, your articles, how to organize and format your article, how to create internal and external linking, and also how to make sure you are not plagiarizing, or even self plagiarizing.
We’ll get to all of that, because this very first part is why it even matters. This is the part where I convince you that the content you have on your law firm website matters more than most of the other things you’re going to do for SEO. So let’s talk about first what’s considered fresh content for a law firm website. And fresh content is great content. And I’ll explain why because Google has an ever-changing algorithm. And that determines what gets served up on their first page.
What is Fresh Content?
So the law firms that get served up on the first page of Google, Google thinks that those are the very best answers to the questions that potential clients are putting into that search engine. However, one thing that has never changed is that Google believes that a website is either growing or dying. Really, there’s almost no middle ground.
If Google sees that an excellent law firm website is not producing any new content, over time, they will drop that law firm’s website in their rankings, to allow room for law firm websites that do continually produce fresh content.
Now, it’s important to understand that the content can’t just be new. It has to also meet certain criteria that is useful, relevant has value gives the appearance of expertise. So for your law firm website, examples of fresh content can include any significant additions made to already published content. If you already have an article on your website, that’s 500 words. Make it 1500 words. That’s considered fresh new content, a completely new article, a completely new page on your website, or a completely new practice area, any new pages or sections that are added to your website are considered fresh content, any new announcements you might have or new offerings, if you have made the decision to now do estate planning along with your family law practice, any additional areas of expertise or expanding, even on an already existing area of expertise is considered fresh content.
What Fresh Content Does for Your SEO
So now that we know what fresh content actually is, let’s talk about why it matters for SEO purposes. SEO is search engine optimization. And that is the way that Google I mean, there are other search engines, right. But we’re talking about Google here, Google integrates all of the information about your law firm, from the entire interweb to determine where to place you on their search engine.
So you have all of these little pieces of the puzzle, you have your website, your Google My Business Page, your Google reviews, you have all of these little pieces, and Google is trying to put this puzzle together to see who you are, and whether or not you have the appropriate expertise and content that would deserve their first-page ranking. Additionally, law firms have another hurdle to jump for Google much differently than other types of businesses that are perhaps selling furniture, or some other type of good or service.
This is because law firms are considered YMYL businesses which is your money or your life. So this would be financial advisors, doctors, chiropractors, anyone in the medical field accountants and lawyers, because you are dealing with someone’s money or your life. Therefore, because you have a direct impact on someone’s future.
According to Google, law firm websites are frankly just held to a higher standard regarding content. That means that all of your content has to be up to date, accurate, relevant regarding the law. If your law firm has more recent information regarding personal injury and immigration law, or bankruptcy law, Google is more likely to serve you up to searchers than older content, even if it’s from a more established law firm website.
Please hear what I’m saying. This means as a small or solo law firm, you can still beat the large law firms on Google. If you are creating and publishing fresh content on your law firm’s website. If you’re doing that, Google is going to continue to add your information, your article, your new page, whatever it is, to their content index. When this additional content is added to the Google index, it processes it and then serves it to potential searchers looking for that specific content. And potential new clients are then going to start to see your content, which will then increase your law firm websites, monthly searchers because there’s more content on your website that’s valuable.
More people are seeing it either organically or I will just stop right here and say, you can take your fresh content, and spread it out and repurpose it on social media in your email list. However, you want to get that fresh content out. First of all, it gives you something to talk about on these social media platforms, right. But at the end of the day, you are getting tons of traffic back to your law firm website. When your monthly searchers on your website increases, let’s say from 1000 to 3000 a month, that is going to increase Google’s belief that you are an expert in your field because you are continuing to grow and more and more people are going to your website.
The only way to really get people to your website often is to provide new content, because if you don’t provide new content, they already know what’s there. And they probably frankly, forget about you after a while. So you constantly have to be in the forefront of a lot of your potential clients minds. The best way to do that is through fresh content. Also, frankly, you’re providing them information that they need. And you are then viewed as an expert. And they’ll remember you when it’s time to pick up the phone and call and when they need legal services.
The next thing that fresh content does, which is exactly what we were just talking about is that it helps potential clients but it helps them in a much deeper way psychologically than you may understand. We’ve been talking about how Google uses fresh content to boost search engine rankings, but this also really does help potential clients?
Let’s be honest, most people do not go to law firm websites for fun I do, because that’s what I do every day. I love it. But if someone is actually visiting a law firm website, you can bet, they’re probably looking for some sort of answer pretty quick. They just got a DUI, they’re considering filing for bankruptcy or divorce. They are considering their estate planning needs, they have an immigration issue, whatever it is, they’ve got a problem that they need to be solved. If you have content on your website regarding that specific area of law and their questions, clients use this to calm their fears immediately regarding a legal issue.
Now you can’t offer direct legal advice. But you can have enough expertise on your website, that these potential clients are going to see you as an expert in your field. And if they see that you are consistently posting on your law firms blog, they’re going to see that you’re very involved in this area of law. So they will consider you an up to date expert.
Both of these, both of these reasons actually ultimately encourage and prompt a potential client to pick up the phone and call you and book a consultation, which is what you want. That’s the point of all of this.
So if you are producing content related to the areas of your practice, that helps them understand that you are an expert in those practice areas. And if you’re producing content related to a new practice area that you have, that can help potential clients that expected to only see Family Law on your website to also now know that you offer legal services and estate planning or bankruptcy or whatever area of law you’re now practicing. At the end of the day. When you provide this content to the people that are landing on your law firms website, it does help answer some of their legal questions and the questions that it doesn’t answer, it makes them feel like you are the expert that they want to call to get those additional answers that are probably, frankly, more specific to their situation.
So all of that said, I need to tell you that not all fresh content is equal.
Fresh content is important to keep in Google’s good graces. And I always say that while the Google bots are not our robot overlords quite yet, they do understand quite a bit. So you want to give them an easy way to understand exactly that you are an expert in this legal area. But not all fresh content is created equal. Some content is considered by Google to be more valuable than other content. So for example, if you simply add an accolade or an award received by your law firm, that’s really good, because it’s going to go towards the fact that you’re an expert. And it will enhance your YMYL score, if you will, your money or your life for Google, it will show that additional expertise in that particular area of law.
However, adding that accolade or award, it just doesn’t have the same overall impact as a long word article regarding a significant area of law that you practice, and that frankly, impacts 1000s of people in your state, whatever that law or whatever that particular discussion regarding the law would entail.
Additionally, Google tends, frankly, to favor video over simply written content. But I will tell you this, if you have the trifecta, which is long-form content, which is really over 1000 words of content with a video with an infographic, some sort of graphic illustration that you are trying to present regarding a legal issue, that’s the trifecta, Google will always prefer a piece of content that has both video and written word and visuals like infographics over just a video or just written content.
So Google is always trying to decide between articles and information on essentially the same topic. And if you have the same amount of words as someone else, I would say the first thing you should do is add more. Now they have to be words that are important and relatable and informative. You can’t just pad words onto an article. But if you have more words than your competitor, if you have a short video three to four minutes, if you have an infographic, Google will choose you every single time.
Google understands that the users on the internet consume content in different ways. And therefore, the more ways you can include those different types of content, the more valuable Google will see your content and then place your law firm ahead of others for those specific articles in searches. So, again, I hope I have convinced you that having fresh content on your law firms website is so important for SEO.
What Fresh Content Does for Your Social Media
I’m going to take a little bit of a sidetrack here and tell you why fresh content on your law firm’s website is also great for your social media. A lot of law firms I talked to, they really want to up their social media game on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, even on tik tok, even on clubhouse, but they don’t know what to say, when you have a piece of foundational content. That’s what I call the articles that live on your website. It’s your foundational piece of content, you can take that content and then split it up into micro-content, just smaller little bits out of that article. And then you will have things to post on LinkedIn, on your Facebook group on Instagram, on Twitter.
And if you use a social media scheduler, such as SmarterQueue, and I can link to that in the show notes, then you will make it very easy to disseminate this particular information, this article throughout all of social media. So not only is fresh content, great on your website for SEO purposes for Google, and the algorithm, but it’s great for you to have something to talk about on all of your different social media platforms.
So take an honest look at all of the content on your law firm’s website right now. Do you have fresh articles? Are all of your practice area pages very clear to a potential client that searches your website? If you do family law? Do you do alimony? Do you do child custody issues? Do you do modifications guardian ad litem, what services do you actually provide? Do you have updated accolades or awards? You should put those on there? And do you have a strategy for determining what new content needs to go on your website and when.
So take a moment to consider what steps you need to take in order to start developing a fresh content strategy for your law firm’s website. Now, I’m going to help you because this is a series regarding great content and how to create it.
The next part is going to be about finding topic ideas to write about. So you’re definitely going to want to stay tuned for that. And you know, the very best way to make sure that you get notified of all the new content that I put out is to click that subscribe button right, which I’m sure you probably already have. But in case you haven’t, click that subscribe button, and then you will be the first to know about all of the great digital marketing tips that I’m going to be giving. And I can’t wait to chat with you on the next episode of the Legal Marketing Lounge.