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While you may have heard that social media, email marketing, or video marketing is the latest trend in law firm marketing, law firm content is still king. Millions of people turn to information online for help and guidance. Quality content is still a leading way to attract potential clients to your firm. Law Quill can explain the importance of content marketing and how we can devise a tailored strategy for your law firm.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing focuses on the creation and distribution of valuable and relevant content to attract and acquire potential clients or customers. The goal is to drive customer action so that the business is seen as an authority in the field and to entice customers to contact the business. Content marketing is not the bold, in-your-face type of marketing that is featured on television or radio ads. Instead, the focus is on providing quality content to a reader. Requests for customer action may be more subtle or born from finding value in the business’ proposition.
Examples of Content Marketing
Content marketing can apply to any form of print or digital mediums, including:
- Websites
- Practice area pages
- About Us pages
- Attorney biographies
- Articles
- Blogs
- Guides
- E-books
- Infographics
- Resource pages
- FAQs
- Press releases
- White papers
- Case studies
- Guest posts
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Glossaries
Content can be textual, auditory, or visual. If you are conveying information to a third party, you are creating content and can benefit from content marketing.
Importance of Content Marketing
Google is the world’s most popular search engine. When someone looks for an attorney online or asks a law-related question online, they are likely using Google. The higher this search engine ranks your website, the more prominent your website will appear on the search engine and the more people will click on your website. According to Google, the key factors that determine which results will appear for a user’s query are:
- The meaning of the query
- Relevance of content
- Quality of content
- Usability of webpages
- Context and settings
As you can see, content plays a major role in search results. Additionally, without quality content, it is difficult to make the other ranking factors matter.
Adding quality content to a website is one way that law firms can rank organically at the top of search engine result pages. Content marketing also supports other digital marketing channels, such as providing content for social media market. It also helps to generate natural inbound links to improve the SEO of your website.
Elements of Strong Content Marketing
Strong content marketing must have certain elements, including:
SEO
Your content should be optimized for search engines. Some ways to do this include:
- Using keywords that will match users’ queries
- Integrating internal links to your other webpages
- Adding user signals to content
- Formatting content for target-featured snippets
- Showing local relevance
- Optimizing your page title and meta description
- Using short and descriptive URLs
- Optimizing graphics
- Making the site mobile-friendly
- Removing web elements that make the page load slowly
Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites to your firm’s website. Links from other reputable sources can increase the website’s authority and improve your SEO. Backlinks are one of Google’s key ranking factors. Google notices when you have a portfolio of high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites.
One way to get high-quality backlinks is to provide answers to questions people are looking for. Other companies may want to link to your site if you have helpful content that is worthy of recognition. Google wants to help people find answers to their questions and accomplishes this goal by putting the most relevant information at the top of search result pages. Sites with high-quality backlinks signal to Google that your page is relevant and authoritative. Law Quill knows how to incorporate effective link-building strategies to help improve your SEO.
Good User Experience
Google wants to connect its users with websites that match their search query. They want to provide accurate information to users as quickly as possible. When someone conducts an online search, the search engine analyzes various ranking factors to identify which websites will best satisfy the user’s intent. The search engine analyzes factors such as bounce rate, dwell time, and engagement. The amount of time other users spend consuming your content signals to Google that your website is providing a good user experience.
How to Create Quality Law Firm Content
Quality law firm content will:
Accurately Identify Your Audience
Before you add any content to your website, you should carefully identify your target audience? For example, you might be trying to attract the following types of visitors to your website:
- People who are currently experiencing a legal problem
- People who have a family member who is struggling with a legal problem
- Scholars who want to better understand an aspect of the law
- Lawyers who may refer cases to you
- All of the above
Once you know who you want to read and benefit from your content, you can have it written in a way tailored to this audience.
Determine Relevant Keywords
A good quality website will incorporate relevant keywords in a natural way. To do this, you will need to carefully analyze which keywords potential clients are most likely to be searching for. You can use tools such as Google Search Console.
Be Easy to Read
While you have 7+ years of college education, your target audience may have more humble backgrounds. A general rule of thumb is to aim for a 8th to 10th-grade reading level. You can also break up content and make it easier to read by adding:
- Informative headers
- Bullet lists
- Numbered sequences
- Clear calls to action
Be Tailored to Your Visitors’ Needs
When you consider which topics to cover in your content marketing, you should also think about the best way of presenting this information. For example, do you want to create an in-depth practice page, or would you prefer to record a short video explaining the legal issue? Do you want a comprehensive resource page that discusses statutory requirements or a brief blog about the topic?
Remain Relevant for Years to Come
Another factor that search engines consider is whether the page includes fresh, up-to-date, and relevant information. Content should generally be evergreen so that it offers long-term value. A repository of authoritative content that can be relied on for many years can add value to your site and signal to search engines that your site can provide the high quality content that users are searching for. Maintaining evergreen content can also help you when determining which topics to cover so that you spend your resources on topics that offer long-term value and do not need to be updated frequently.
Completely Answer a Question
Quality law firm content is comprehensive. You do not want a reader to find your website looking for an answer and to walk away without one. Quality content will provide a thorough analysis of a topic while also pointing out why hiring a lawyer is in the reader’s best interests.
Show Search Engines It Is Original
Google also looks to whether the content is original. Google rewards websites that offer personal expertise through original content. Good SEO practices combined with original content can drastically improve search engine rankings.
Incorporate Multimedia
Today, many websites feature photos, videos, infographics, and other graphics and forms of multimedia. These additions are becoming increasingly important to Google.
Provide Links
High-quality websites include internal and external links. Internal links lead web visitors to other relevant and helpful pieces of content. External links connect web visitors to other websites, ideally authoritative and relevant ones. A strong link-building strategy can be conducted to help identify and execute the most effective links.
Be Published Across Multiple Channels
Once you invest in quality law firm content, you can maximize this investment by publishing the content across multiple channels, including your website, blog, and social media pages.
Why Should I Hire an SEO Company to Handle My Law Firm Content Marketing?
High-quality law firm content draws people in, gets them to stay on your page, and ultimately reach out to your firm. Content marketing can be a great investment in your firm because it can convert your website visitors into clients for the firm. A strong content marketing strategy will ensure you consistently publish high-quality content on your site. Law Quill can use SEO best practices and conduct competitor analysis to determine a strong marketing plan and help make your content marketing strategy a success.
Let’s face it. You are a busy legal professional. You know the law and how to zealously represent your clients. You may not have the time to devote to learning SEO strategies or how to write content that is targeted to a lay audience. Law Quill has the unique ability to convey your depth of knowledge in a digestible format. You can schedule a phone or Zoom call or email us at support@lawquill.com for a free consultation to discuss our services and how we can help.
