Content writing for law firms, when done right, is a game-changer. It is effective and can produce compounding results. Yet most law firms struggle to write effective legal content that attracts new clients. Let these 6 best practices guide your legal digital marketing efforts and watch your law firm dominate the search engine results pages.

There’s no doubt about it: it’s getting harder and harder for any business to get a regular stream of prospective clients …

And the legal sector is no exception.

But paid ads for the legal sector are notorious for being costly –  and they are just getting more and more expensive.

That’s not to say that paid advertising isn’t incredibly effective, it’s just the cost of a lead will generally stay around a similar price point. Compare that to Google organic and your leads can get exponentially cheaper over time.

That’s why your law firm must have a sound (and long-term) search engine optimisation action plan.

And writing legal content that gets a steady stream of prospective clients should be an essential component of your search engine optimization efforts.

Having seen the Google Analytics data of too many law firms, I can tell you that many are not getting enough inbound leads from their Content Marketing.

So what does it take to make sure your law firm doesn’t invest in a costly yet futile endeavour?

Effective legal content writing means matching how your typical prospects behave when they need a lawyer like you:

They shop around, send enquiries to multiple law firms, ask questions, devour loads of legal content, and read reviews before choosing the right lawyer for them.

In fact, research shows that…

• Although some seek referrals from people they trust, many conduct their own research by searching online to find a lawyer.
• People search online first before asking around for referrals. (Because humans have now evolved to have a new appendage called a smartphone.)
• According to the 2019 Legal Trends Report, 17% of those who searched online used a search engine, 17% visited a law firm website and 9% read online reviews.

Because of this, Content Marketing for lawyers is no longer a “nice to have” — it’s now mandatory if you want to remain competitive.

But planning for, researching, and writing the kind of legal content that is effective at generating leads and new clients can take a lot of time and resources.

Naturally, you want to do the right things right.

But where do you even start?

In this article, we’ll tackle content writing best practices that, if you follow, will produce engaging, effective, traffic-pulling, and lead-generating legal content for your law firm’s website, blog, and more.

Follow A Sound Content Marketing Strategy.

To write effective marketing content and to gain “the most for least” out of your time and energy investment, best to not “just wing it”.

Your content must be crafted deliberately and be informed by your law firm’s content strategy.

For a detailed explanation of how to do so, please read:

Content Marketing Strategy For Law Firms: How to Create Content That Generates Leads and Legal Clients. 

Understand what makes effective legal content.

What qualities must your legal content have?

• Your content is strategic. This means:
  – No generic content. Write specifically for your target audience (we call them personas).
  – It engages potential clients because it matches their Stage of Awareness.
  – Each piece of your content is crafted with a clear goal in mind.
  – They position your legal services as your prospective clients’ best “go-to”.
  – You publish on platforms where they will get read by your target personas.
  – It applies sound search engine optimisation practices.
  – Correct tracking is set up properly so you gather data about their performance (we recommend leveraging the power of Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics).
• Your legal content should target relevant keywords. 
  Your time is precious. So if you’re going to create content, you might as well make sure they are the type that gets more traffic and more clients!
  In a minute, I’ll show you a simple, easy and effective way to write content that positions your legal services effectively based on the actual keywords that your potential clients use when searching for a lawyer like you.
• Provide practical value to your potential clients.
  When crafting content for your law firm website, my #1 tip is to answer your potential clients’ questions.
  But successful content marketing doesn’t just educate and inform. Your prospects expect useful, authoritative, and fresh content but you also need to align it with your legal services while also demonstrating the qualities that differentiate your firm from others.
  This helps develop rapport with them on top of establishing your credibility and authority.
• Turn readers into leads with effective calls to action.
  Too many law firm websites don’t have any or enough calls to action.
  When writing marketing content – especially law firm content – we always make sure to put at least one call to action somewhere prominent.
  Do you want them to fill out a form? Pick up the phone? Join your Q&A session in your upcoming webinar? Tie a note to a pigeon?
  Invite your readers to interact with you then tell them the best way to do so. Ideally, that action gets them into your marketing funnel or advances your target KPIs in some way.

Aim To Be The Go-To Resource For Your Practice Area.

Demonstrate your expertise but always put your potential client first.

Write evergreen content about the legal process involved in your key practice areas.

One great thing about writing content for the legal industry is there are abundant opportunities for timeless content.

As a lawyer, you know what questions your clients ask and what questions they should ask.

Using that as a springboard, write the following types for your blog content:

• How to’s
• Share latest studies and research
• News
• Listicles
• Checklists
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Quizzes
• Create useful tools like calculators

Perform Keyword Research

Creating content that uses the actual search terms your target online users use increases your chances of producing content that ranks well on Google and delivers results much faster.

By targeting specific keywords and tracking your rankings and traffic results from them, you will see whether your content marketing efforts are effective or not, and by how much.

When researching for keywords, the questions you want to answer are:

• “What keywords are my ideal prospects using to search for the solutions my law firm offers?”
• “How many people are searching for it per month?” (Search Volume)
• “How difficult is it for my online content to rank for that keyword?”

Here’s a simplified version of how to do basic keyword research for your law firm:

Step 1: Choose your keyword research tool.

There are several keyword research tools you can use:

• Moz Keyword Explorer
• Ahrefs
• SEMrush

Step 2: Type in a topic or phrase your typical prospect would use.

Think how your prospects think then start by entering words or phrases that your typical prospect would use as they search for the information they are after.

For example, if you are a family lawyer, a phrase you might start with could be “child custody experts”, or “divorce lawyers”.

In the screenshot below I used a paid tool called Mangools KW Finder. You can see that it gives me other terms related to “divorce lawyers”, the traffic potential (search column), and the keyword difficulty (KD column).

Step 3: Aim for easier keywords to rank for (at first).

Continuing from our example, you can see that although “family lawyer” is getting way more searches, “divorce attorney” has a much lower KD.

This means that if you write content targeting the “divorce attorney” keyword, the chances of you ranking for it is much higher and quicker.

So you might decide to write several content pieces targeting “divorce attorney” as your main keyword first (instead of spending way more time and resources trying to rank well for the more competitive “family lawyer”).

Step 4: Identify your secondary target keywords using questions.

Next, find the questions people are asking relevant to your main keyword.

In this case, “how much do divorce lawyers cost” (and its variations) is one of the main questions people are searching for.

So answer that question in your law firm’s website content.

Step 5: Track your progress.

You might want to compile your target keywords in a spreadsheet for easier reference.

Then update your progress as you track how each of your content pieces is doing over time in terms of attracting traffic to your law firm’s website.

There’s so much more to keyword research for effective content marketing, but this quick and easy process should set you in the right direction.

Content Writing For The Search Engines.

• According to a Hubspot study, the ideal article length for SEO purposes is between 2100 to 2400 words.
• Optimise your content with target keywords but don’t overdo it.
• Although we want SEO content, remember to produce content for humans first and foremost — Google’s bots only come second. So next time you send a brief to your legal content writers, tell them to prioritise client-focused resources that address the pains and problems and bring tangible value to the lives of both existing clients and prospective clients.
• Pay attention that the title tags (60 characters) are done properly as well as the meta description (160 characters). Make sure there are no duplications going on.
• Update your website’s content as often as possible.
• Add relevant internal links.
• Check for broken and obsolete links.

Turn Readers Into Warm Leads

Prioritise the quality of their experience.

Creating an exceptional User Experience (UX) for your prospects right from the very beginning sets the tone of your relationship.

In reality, your website content is just a small part of the UX equation.

The technology you use and the design and execution of your website and all your online assets also play a key role in shaping their experience.

So also pay attention to “non-content” elements such as:

• How fast your pages load
• How well your pages are optimised for mobile devices
• Check cross-browser compatibility
• How easy and simple it is for visitors to find the information they’re looking for
• Is your content easy to read and understand?
• Is your website content successful in making your law firm exude credibility and trustworthiness?
• Is there anything on your website pages that may cause confusion?
• Is everything working as it should be?

Have a clear call to action.

Guide your prospects’ thought processes proactively.

Once they consume a specific content piece, what action can you recommend that will get them closer to the solution they are seeking?

Do they need to consume another content piece from you to understand their situation more?

Do they need to fill out a form so you can direct them to the next relevant step?

Do they need to talk to you next so you can provide personalised advice?

Tell them what to do next and provide a clear path to it.

Use a lead capture mechanism.

Most of the visitors who find your website or engage with your content are not ready to hire a lawyer just yet.

In fact, many of them will be at a research stage. That is, they are still trying to understand their own situation.

That’s why capturing their contact details is important.

By offering to send them more relevant and valuable information, you can help them clarify their problems and arrive at the solution that suits them best.

Of course, if you are going to capture leads, put a lead nurturing system in place.

This could be by using a CRM and then sending them regular communications via email.

Gamify Your Legal Content Writing.

Creating useful, lead-pulling content consistently is challenging for legal firms partly because their people don’t see it as part of their responsibility.

The solution? Create a culture where everyone is incentivised to get involved in your content creation process.

Provide some training and guidelines that everyone can stick to and then brainstorm ways to make content creation easy, pleasurable, and rewarding for everyone.

Ask them what incentives would motivate them and then leverage those.

To keep everything organised, you might need to assign a Content Manager and make that person responsible for turning everyone’s contribution into publication-worthy content.

To make it more fun, tap into your team’s competitiveness by gamifying it.

For example, divide people into strategic groups (e.g., based on their knowledge, expertise, and skill set) and give each group a pre-agreed target to hit per month.

Give extra incentives to teams that produce successful content (e.g., content that generated X number of leads, shares or traffic).

Whichever team hits certain metrics or achieves your pre-agreed criteria could get some extra reward (e.g., free lunch, a much longer lunch break for a full week, X hours of time off, etc).

Some of your colleagues may be great at recording a quick video or audio of their insights and helpful advice.
So encourage all forms of contributions. No need to stick to written format only.

Create An Efficient Content Marketing System.

Stick to a Content Calendar. 

Different law firms have different marketing spend allocations so I can’t tell you if you should write your own content or hire legal content writers instead.

Whatever you decide, it’s best to commit to a publishing schedule and stick to it.

Define your weekly, monthly, quarterly, and 6-month “performance targets”.

Based on your available resources, you might decide to publish at least one long-form content (say, a White paper) and 3 shorter forms of content in other formats (videos, podcasts, articles) every single month.

It’s important to commit to a system that you can sustain over the long term.

Solidify Your Content Writing Process First Before Optimising It.

Your content marketing process and the steps involved to execute it will of course depend on your legal writers and available resources.

For law firms, here’s a sample outline of an efficient legal content writing process (amend it as you see fit):

1. Keyword research
2. The content brief could include:   –  Target keywords    – Content type    – The strategic goal for the piece   – Suggested title    – A sentence outline or a list of questions that the piece ought to address    – Company assets or team members that may serve as resources (if applicable)    – The target number of words    – The call to action –  The deadline
3. Write the draft(s)
4. Edit, proofread and finalise
5. Initial review and approval
6. Add supplementary resources such as branded images, graphics, checklist, videos, links, etc (if applicable).
7. Final approval
8. On-page SEO + publish
9. Distribution and marketing (link building, off-page SEO)
10. Tracking + optimisation
11. Update and repurpose (as and when needed

You may need to add or remove certain steps if you decide to outsource to legal content writers.

But legal writers you hire should already know the importance of understanding your target persona and their pain points, as well as your brand’s “tone of voice” before they write a single blog post for you.

Ready To Make Your Content Best All Other Law Firms Websites?

A smart content writing process prioritises your efforts on content that generate leads and open cases (not just mere traffic).

You don’t want your law firm to just get higher rankings. That’s useless if all you’re attracting are people with zero buying potential.

So make sure your legal writers are using proven SEO techniques and the best practices we’ve discussed above to produce original, high-quality content that captivates prospects at various stages of “the buying cycle”.

Then through high-quality link building and outreach campaigns, you can improve your domain authority and overall competitiveness in the Search Engines.

If you have any questions about how to execute any of these content marketing best practices for your law firm, reach out to us anytime and we’ll be happy to help.

Book your free legal strategy call and free audit here.