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 2 – FINDING INCREDIBLE TOPIC IDEAS TO WRITE ABOUT
Generating content ideas for your law firm’s website can be challenging — in fact over half of the 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 in this episode of Legal Marketing Lounge!
SHOW NOTES
Some of the resources I visited about in today’s episode include the following:
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
Hello, I am so excited that you decided to join me for part two of CREATING GREAT CONTENT. And today is about finding incredible topic ideas to write about. I think that one of the problems that I hear a lot of law firms and lawyers have regarding the content on their website is that they just simply don’t know how to generate content ideas. So if this is your challenge, today is your day. And you’re gonna want to click that subscribe button. Because this is only part two people have a six-part series regarding creating great content. And so you’re just going to want to hear all of it.
And if you are interested in putting any kind of content on your website yourself, then you have found the right place. So let’s just get right into it. Because generating content ideas for your law firm’s website is challenging.
And in fact, over half of people that use websites and blogs find this to be their biggest struggle. And sometimes the obstacle is just a mental challenge of trying to think of new ideas that will be relevant in your area of law, or interesting to your readers. And you know, frankly, if you didn’t have anything else to do, that might be easy enough. But my guess is that you are juggling other tasks, and job duties. And I don’t know……actually practicing law!
So you don’t have time to just sit on the beach and brainstorm a bunch of content ideas. So this is causing you stress, you are absolutely in the right place. And there is help here today.
Engaging Your Audience
So let’s first start talking about your audience. And those are your potential clients. And frankly, it’s also the Google bots. But we’re gonna really be talking a lot about the potential clients that are coming to your website today. Before creating and delivering that content on your law firm’s website, it is very important to understand exactly who will be reading it. Who are your law firms, typical clients, because I am certain that your legal services reach a certain demographic. So it’s very important to speak directly to them. Your law firm’s content should engage them and educate them in a tone that is relatable in a language that they will understand not with a bunch of legal ease.
So based on your past experience, you can focus on your prospective clients by asking yourself, what are the questions they usually ask when someone finally picks up the phone and calls me? These are the questions that they typically ask and I don’t care what area of law here when you know those questions that people are going to ask when they pick up the phone, right? If you’re in personal injury, they’re going to say, how much money am I going to make out of this? How long is it going to take? How much money am I going to owe you? And when? And, all three of those are blog posts, right? It’s about the process of a personal injury case, the types of compensation that are available to potential victims of personal injury, and explaining contingency fees. So there are three articles for you right there.
What are the Challenges Faced by Your Clients?
Another thing you should focus on with potential clients is what challenges are they facing right now? What has brought them to your law firms website? If you are an immigration attorney, then you probably have a very good handle on the pulse of what is going on in your particular area of law. What are your potential client’s goals? Do they want a divorce? Do they want to declare bankruptcy? Are they trying to figure out what kind of bankruptcy to declare chapter seven or chapter 11? Are they trying to decide how to split the marital home or in a state planning? Are they trying to decide how to give that family home to one of their children
After they die, this lends itself to the very next question, what are they worried about? They’re worried about something because they’re on a law firm website, like me, who actually looks at law firm websites every day for fun, because that’s my jam.
Most people don’t sort of peruse the internet for law firm websites, just, you know, because they’re bored. So they are worried about something. And that is either an immigration issue or a business law issue. It could be an estate planning issue, probate issue, whatever it is, they’re worried about something.
Your Ideal Clientele
And then you really have to dig deep to figure out who is your ideal client? Who is the person that you really want to talk to the most. Now you’ll talk to anybody who comes to your law firm website through your article, but who is your ideal client?
These questions are going to bring really different answers for every single lawyer. And every law firm has a different target audience. One tool that you can use to discover your typical client base is called HubSpot, make my persona tool, and I’ll link to it in the show notes. But this can help you create content that will best reach your potential clients.
Ideas for your Content
So now you kind of understand who your potential clients are that are visiting your law firm website. Now, here’s where the rubber hits the road, we need to generate content ideas. And, you know, you need compelling and consistent information that will sort of woo that target audience.
How do you get these ideas? There are several ways to dig up valuable ideas.
Visit Your Competitor’s Website
For your law firm’s website, the very first way to come up with content is to visit your competitor’s websites. Now you cannot plagiarize. Okay, you are absolutely not able to do that. But if you head over to the website of a competing law firm that is crushing it on social media, and on their website, you can go to their blog and look at their content, what topics are they covering? How often do they post new content? What is the quality or the nature of their content? How long are their blog posts? And how do they share that information beyond their website, on social media platforms? If you dig through your competitor’s websites, it can really provide you a lot of valuable and frankly, free insights that can help you direct your own content and frankly, even develop a marketing strategy. Now, again, you cannot plagiarize their content. But the truth is that your potential clients are their potential clients as well.
And I would encourage you not just to look at your competitors in your geographical area. There are estate planning attorneys, personal injury attorneys, bankruptcy attorneys, not in your jurisdiction that are crushing it on their website, go look at the topics that they are writing about bankruptcy law, listen, everyone is going to want to know what is the difference between a chapter seven and a chapter 11 bankruptcy? How long does it take for a bankruptcy to get off of my record? If you’re an estate planning attorney, people may be asking what’s the difference between a will versus a trust? What’s a special needs trust? What’s the difference between a revocable and an irrevocable trust? If you’re a personal injury attorney, you can write about everything from dog bites to slip and fall nursing home injuries, car accident, injuries, trucking accidents, motorcycle accidents, it goes on and on. And if you look at your competitors websites, you can see the topics that they are covering. This is the fastest and easiest way to find and create content for your own website. Because these are great ideas that are that have already been written about.
Listen to Your Clients
The next thing you can do is listen to your clients. Now we just talked about really digging deep into understanding your audience. Take this information. Listen to the needs of your clients to uncover fresh content ideas. Again, you know that there are recurring questions that new clients habitually ask. So gather these frequently asked questions and create either a fact page or make an article on every single one of these questions. Another great way to listen to your clients is that after a case is closed, give your clients an opportunity to speak or write down their honest feedback of their experience. With the legal process, they may have said at some point, you know, it would have been really helpful if you explained what an interrogatory was, or if you had explained the discovery process. These are great, rich resources of things that you can provide valuable information on to potential future clients as well, by frankly, answering their questions before they ask him or before they even know what their questions are. Some businesses offer gift cards or perks in exchange for a personal or written review. And you should consider asking questions like, tell me about your experience with our law firm. Don’t be hesitant to share positive or negative experiences. How can we help future clients navigate this legal process? What should our attorneys understand better about our clients? Or do you even have any further questions or concerns? Offering your clients to speak about their particular experience, after their case is closed can really uncover fresh content ideas for your law firm’s website, so definitely take advantage of that as well.
Legal Forums
Another place to find incredible content ideas for your law firm’s website would be on forums. Many individuals seek advice from peers before they ever consult a lawyer, unfortunately, so you should check forums such as Quora, or Legal Junkies to explore what people are asking about regarding your particular area of law. So there are law related concerns that the average person has, and they are asking and seeking advice from peers on these forums. So definitely check that out.
Facebook/LinkedIn Groups
Another area to look for content ideas is on Facebook groups, or in LinkedIn groups. Many times people will visit legal Facebook groups and ask their questions. Now, it may not be a great idea to answer these questions, because you might be in violation of some sort of ethics, or bar marketing guidelines. However, you can use these Facebook groups linked in groups or forums to find really great ideas for articles on your law firms website. The next way to find incredible content ideas, is to use a content idea generator tool. So I will link to all of these in the show notes. But this might be a good place to start if you are truly staring at a blank page.
And these other ideas haven’t worked. Although I will say again, visiting competitors’ websites, I have always found to be an excellent source of generating content.
Content Idea Generator Tools
But if you are interested in a content idea generator tool, here are a few. The first is called HubSpot idea generator. And this is just a really simple tool for generating topics for blog posts. This tool asks you for five nouns, and then works to create engaging ideas for content.
The next content idea generator tool is called Buzz Sumo. And this particular tool uses cutting edge trends of the moment. So they really look at high traffic keywords, which keywords are just what people put into Google to search. And they gather content ideas from online discussion boards, and these keywords to suggest relevant content ideas.
Another content idea generator tool is called impact blogs, title generator. So impact allows you to navigate between topic ideas, and then customized titles with suggested keywords.
And the last one is called answer the public. This used to be completely free. But I believe at the time of this recording, you were allowed to searches now per day. This is a very thorough tool that takes analyzed data from Google and generates content ideas for you. Like I said, it used to be that you could get as many searches as you wanted per day for free. And now I think it’s like two, but what you do is you input your keywords that you want to be ranked for on Google and then answer the public offers you the most searched phrases that contain those keywords. So this is a really great tool, but again, just to go over those ideas for generating content they are to look at your competitor’s websites.
Think about what potential clients ask when they first pick up the phone. Listen to your clients after the case is closed regarding their honest feedback of their experience, check forums and social media, and then consider using a content idea generator tool.
Actions to Take After Finding Content Ideas
And I’d like to talk right now a little bit about what to do when you find an incredible content idea. Just very quickly, if you have an idea to create content for your law firm, there are a lot of ways to then offer this information to your potential clients. So obviously, a lot of people have a blog, on their website.
So you can create articles for that, you can create practice area pages that include some of this content, you can create email newsletters. And while email is not as trendy as a social media platform, it is still a trusted and well-traveled method of communication, and 92% of adults check their email daily. So sending out an email newsletter with this content that you find can be an excellent way to bring content to past clients. So really, at the end of the day, once you find this incredible content, I’m going to actually have at the end of this series, a podcast about what to do with your content, once you actually create it and how you can disseminate that easily and quickly through social media, your emails, newsletter, and more.
So while coming up with content ideas for your law firm’s website can seem like a difficult and frankly, never-ending task. If you find consistent and relevant content, it is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy. It can draw in prospective clients, keep them on your website long enough for them to see you as an expert, and then pick up the phone and call you right. That’s the point of all of it. It can also raise your search engine standings, which is incredible.
For your organic SEO, if you are often stumped about what to write about, just use these easy ways to get started. Start with looking at your competitors start looking on social media or on forums of what people are asking, and really look at what type of information would be the most valuable for a potential client coming to your website. So this series has already focused on not only why great content matters, but it’s also today talked about finding those really incredible topic ideas to write about to sort of get rid of that writer’s block, if you will.
But there are many more parts coming up keywording organizing and formatting your article, the way to internal and external link on those articles, and how to avoid plagiarism, even self-plagiarism it isn’t what you think.
And eventually to wrap up this whole series. At the very end of all of it, I’m going to explain to you how you can repurpose the content that you write on your website in dozens of different ways so that you can work smarter, not harder.
And I hope that this episode really helped you get a grasp on how to find incredible content ideas to provide value for your potential clients, your existing clients and for the Google bots. And as always, just click that subscribe button because more is common and it’s gonna be really good. Next time we’re going to be talking about keywords, how to find them, and the very best way to optimize your blog post with keywords.
So make sure not to miss that by clicking that SUBSCRIBE button so you’re always the very first to know and never miss out on anything in the Legal Marketing Lounge. Until next time, talk to you soon.