What Is Content Marketing For Law Firms?

Here’s Why Lawyers Must Leverage Content Marketing To Attract More Prospective Clients

No matter what your law firm’s practice area is, you have to attract the right clients if you want to take on more cases and grow your firm’s bottom line.

But this can be challenging in the age of digital marketing, where your firm must compete to attract and earn the trust of your target audience. And you can’t always rely on a referral system, primarily if you practice personal injury or bankruptcy law.

Content marketing is a great way to engage with prospective clients organically and build credibility for your law firm. It also gives you a platform to share the social proof that your legal services are well received and in high demand. This means you need to write amazing blog posts, while also building out your social media presence.

You can also use white papers, case studies, and other types of content marketing to drive more traffic to your website and increase inbound calls.

On the one hand, you could invest in paid search to attract new clients, but this approach can be a heavy cost. On the other hand, you could reach potential clients as they search for your services or ask questions online.

Writing blog posts and producing educational content that answers common questions that potential clients ask is a great way to scale your firm and attract qualified leads.

Here’s what law firm content marketing is all about, why legal professionals need a solid plan, and how you can create different types of high-quality content to attract and retain your ideal clients.

What Is Law Firm Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the act of sharing valuable content on your law firm’s website that will attract potential customers and answer any questions they may have. This marketing approach focuses on your target audience’s needs and produces content to address them.

Content marketing is a great way to get prospective clients to engage with your brand, drive traffic to your website, and build awareness without spending much money. Many new clients will find your law firm by doing a simple Google search once they need your services by asking specific questions. You will be able to drive more qualified leads to your intake team by publishing answers to your target audience’s questions.

The best part of this marketing strategy is that the content you produce will be an asset to your firm because it will not expire, so it will continue to drive qualified leads for years to come!

But is content marketing essential for legal professionals? Let’s find out.

Why Do Law Firms Need Content Marketing?

Busy lawyers may wonder why content marketing is a necessity.

The main goal of law firm content marketing is to position your firm as an industry leader and expert. You can build a relationship with potential clients in their time of need as they look for answers to questions associated with their needs.

This gives you an excellent opportunity to show that you know what they are going through and that your team has the experience and knowledge to help them out!

This is incredibly important for the competitive legal market where potential clients are using searches to vet possible lawyers for their needs.

But there are several reasons why it pays to invest time and energy into crafting high-quality, informative content for your law firm website, including:

• It cuts marketing costs: While highly targeted, PPC ads can be expensive, especially if not every click is a qualified lead. Billboards and bus signs can be lower cost, but they are not as targeted, and difficult to track success. Content marketing allows you to attract the right people for only the cost of writing the blog or filming the video, which means a higher ROI for your law firm.
• It builds your law firm’s credibility: Content marketing revolves around answering your target audience’s questions. This means the content you create will answer the questions people are typing into Google. Not only does this help you rank for specific keywords, it also positions your legal professionals as experts in the practice area, making it more likely for a client to reach out.
• It builds authority with search engines: Google wants to show sites that are authorities in the field, and you can improve your site’s trust with Google by producing content that educates and entertains your audience. Your site will rank higher in Google results as you produce more educational content. High-quality content will help build authority with Google to improve your ranking and drive qualified leads, which will greatly impact your online presence.
• It gives resources for your team to share: Generating great content means your whole team will have access to common resources that can be shared with clients to help them understand the legal process and what your firm can do for them. This content can be used for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts. This means your content marketing strategy will fuel other areas of your business, so it’s a great investment overall!

The secret to successful content marketing is to create relevant, helpful content that is easily shared on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook. The more your content circulates, the more effective it will be.

Let’s look at the different types of content marketing your law firm can use to enhance your marketing strategy.

Different Types Of Content Marketing Formats For Law Firms

Content marketing for your law firm goes beyond just blog posts and social media posts. In fact, there is a whole strategy based on where your target audience is in the buying process, who you are trying to reach, and when you are trying to reach them.

Content marketing requires a systematic approach to be successful. There are some examples of the different types of content formats law firms can use to attract prospective customers and some ideas of how to angle them for your specific legal services.

The type of content you produce will vary based on your target audience and your business goals. This means that each piece of content you create should reflect the demographics of your target audience and contain useful information.

For instance, if you’re looking for a bigger social media following, craft shareable content like videos, podcasts, and infographics that quickly capture your audience’s attention and inspires them to share it on their pages.

Or focus on blogs if you want to capture organic web traffic as potential clients search for answers to their complex cases. These can be linked in social media posts to increase the shareability and reach of your law firm.

No matter what type of content you create for your content marketing strategy, here’s how to make it shine for your target audience.

How To Create Great Content For Your Audience

Whether you’re a legal professional or a marketing director at a large law firm, you can take a few content generation tips from the top marketers to help take your legal practice to the next level.

For instance, if you’re a personal injury attorney, you’ll want to focus on articles that someone in the process of looking for a personal injury attorney will find helpful. You will need to consider their needs before, during, and after an injury to show that your team has the necessary knowledge and experience.

These could include an insurance claim flow chart, a checklist of questions to ask during a free consultation, or a short video on how to navigate medical bills that end up in collections.

Here are some things you can do to ensure the content you create for your target audience helps your website achieve all the right metrics.

Plan Out Valuable, Relevant Legal Content

Legal content marketing is unique because there are many possible practice areas to hit. So you must pinpoint the right content from the getgo to ensure you support your firm’s goals and meet the needs of your target audience.

Take the time to devise a content marketing plan to serve your marketing strategy. A plan is different than a strategy because it outlines exactly how you will develop specific pieces of content to use in your legal content marketing strategy.

You can also take a page from marketing experts and create customer personas. These profiles will compile common traits and needs of an ideal client, allowing you to pinpoint topics and types of content that will attract them to your law firm.

Do Keyword Research For SEO Optimization

Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of improving your website or content to perform better on search engines. The way to do this for your content marketing efforts is to use the correct keywords that users will enter into the search bar tool to find answers to their legal questions.

You can see the keywords you need to use through independent research. The easy way is to use Google Analytics to find which keywords are used to find your law firm’s website. Or you can do manual keyword research with these easy steps:

1. Make a list of broad topics that relate to your law firm’s practice area
2. Brainstorm a list of phrases you think customers will use in their search
3. Type these terms into the search engine to find new possibilities
4. Incorporate these search terms organically into your online

Using the right keywords in your legal marketing content will help ideal clients find the valuable information they need and convince them to trust your firm with their case.

It’s important to use the keywords strategically and avoid stuffing them into the content in a nonsensical way. This will lower your quality score and hurt your rankings in the SERPs.

If you find this process confusing, hiring some SEO marketing professionals to optimize your website and content may be better to ensure it gets the traffic you are looking for.

Identify Valuable Topics Clients Want To Know About

Next, and brainstorm topics within your firm’s practice area to determine what blog topics you should write about based on the needs of your audience. Relevant content will best support your contempt marketing strategy and attract the right people to your website.

For instance, if you are creating online content for a personal injury firm, consider focusing on topics like car accidents and workman’s comp that answer common legal questions potential clients will have.

Create Diverse Content Worth Sharing

When it comes to your law firm’s content marketing strategy, there’s no one size fits all solution. One thing that all firms need to do is create a variety of different types of content to incorporate into their marketing efforts.

Any kind of content aims to offer valuable information and actionable advice that your potential customers can use to find solutions to their problems. It should be well written, accurate, and guide the reader towards contacting your law firm for more information.

Here’s how to create content with valuable information that your ideal client will want to share on their social media platforms.

• Don’t Over Do It: Remember, your potential clients are likely not lawyers or legal experts, so keep your content simple. Opt for short sentences, write in an active voice, and go for clarity over wit.
• Format Content For Skimming: Likely, readers will just skim your content to find specific information, so use bolded titles, lots of white space, and bullet points to make it easy for them to absorb valuable information quickly.
• Always Be Specific: Don’t add fluff- it won’t serve your purpose. Pack your content with as much helpful information as possible to help users find what they want. Add features like checklists and quick guides to expedite the process.
• Futureproof Your Content: Avoid terms that date your content. Don’t discuss upcoming events that will soon be in the past. This can cause your content to appear outdated and your readers to pass over what you have to say.

You can use these tips for various content types, like blog posts, infographics, and videos. Your focus should be on making legal content that is easy to digest, valuable, and useful for your target audience.

The more diverse your content catalog, the more favorable potential clients will view your law firm as a leader in the industry.

Review & Repurpose Existing Content

If you’ve already tried your best at content creation, revisit your existing content and see how you can adjust it to fit your current marketing campaigns.

First, check to see if there are any outdated statistics or information you can adjust to make the content more relevant.

Add backlinks to new, updated content to help drive traffic to different parts of your website. This is a great way to add valuable information for repeated pain points your readers may be experiencing.

Your Law Firm Can’t Afford To Overlook Content Marketing

You don’t need experience at a marketing agency to generate good content, but you need to think like a marketer!

Legal professionals can write blogs, film short videos, and design infographics that will offer valuable legal information to attract new clients to their website.

Take the time to do the research required to understand your target audience and infuse the keywords they use in their Google searches.

Once you know who your content will be speaking to, you can generate top-notch pieces that will work overtime to elevate your law firm’s marketing strategy.

Not sure how you’ll fit content generation into your busy schedule? Consider enlisting expert blog writing services to jumpstart your legal marketing strategy.