Is Your Law Firm Website Content Focused On Your Target Audience?

by Victoria BluteJan 28, 2018

Does your law firm’s website content focus on your target audience?

Law firm websites can become powerful business generators when they provide a large volume of useful, educational website content for an attorney’s target audience.

Targeted content often focuses on:

The unique needs of your potential clients and how they search
Providing detailed answers to their unique questions
Their unique demographic makeup (where they are geographically; how old they are; what level of education they have, etc.)

Here are three reasons why thinking about your target audience can improve your law firm website content to drive more (and better) business to you.

1. Thinking about your target audience can make your law firm website content more focused and useful.

Sometimes, attorneys write law firm website content that’s too unfocused to be useful to their potential clients.

Unfocused content can include (but isn’t limited to) any of the following:

It might not address specific information about the firm’s practice areas.
It might not have a useful local focus.
It lacks enough detail to provide meaningful answers to a potential client’s questions.

Your law firm’s website should act as an educational tool. When attorneys write website content with a focus on educating their potential clients, it tends to address a lot of these problems naturally.

Target audience focus can help you find new ways to address your potential clients through content:

Questions an ideal potential client is likely to ask, and writing content that sufficiently addresses those questions
Information that you provide potential clients with when they consult with you in person about their case or matter
Important information about local laws, rules, and landmarks

When you’re thinking about what your potential clients need from you, you’re more likely to write content that mirrors the kinds of questions that they need answers to.

2. Your target audience needs focused content that is relevant to their search queries.

Content marketing works best for attorneys when they make the effort to get inside the minds of their target audience and write content that educates and inspires them. It also works best when attorneys can meet potential clients where they’re at.

Consider things like:

Where are your law firm’s potential clients located?

A local focus in your content is generally important to succeed with content marketing. To learn more about local content, listen to our podcast episode, “The Importance Of Local Pages For Law Firm Web Marketing.”

What kind of language do your clients use to describe their case or problem?

For example, a potential client for a personal injury attorney might not search for a term like “premises liability.”

But they might search for something like:

“What can I do if I was seriously injured in [city/state/county] at somebody’s home when I was a guest there?”
“Am I responsible if I was seriously injured as a guest in my friend’s home?”

This isn’t to say that attorneys shouldn’t explain the concept of premises liability within the related content they write about a question like this. But think about how your potential clients are likely to talk about something.

They may not have a legal background. Potential clients ask a variety of different questions about their case or problem using all kinds of terminology.

Make sure that you’re writing in a way that directly addresses how they speak. Make the content easy for them to understand.

What kinds of searches might your potential clients conduct?

Sometimes, attorneys fixate on the idea that potential clients always search directly for an attorney, or even that the potential client knows they need an attorney in the first place.

This often is not the case.

Potential clients usually know they have a problem. They don’t always know they need an attorney. Potential clients may not understand how they could benefit from hiring an attorney. As a result, they often turn to Google to learn more about their problem and to learn what they should do next.

Example: An attorney might be interested in taking cases related to permanent hair loss caused by the chemotherapy drug Taxotere.

A potential client for that attorney might not know that they have a reason to reach out to an attorney.

But that client might Google questions like:

“Has anyone else taken Taxotere and their hair hasn’t grown back?”
“Is permanent hair loss a side effect of Taxotere?”

Another example: A potential client for a criminal defense firm might not realize they need an attorney yet. But they might Google questions like:

“How to beat a domestic violence charge in California”
“How much jail time can you get for a first time domestic violence charge in Sacramento?”

Think about the kinds of questions that your potential clients have asked you when they meet you in your office. What do you talk to them about during the course of their case or matter?

If you can translate the answers to those questions into your content, you’re more likely to be found when potential clients make relevant searches.

3. Web visitors who find targeted, detailed content are more likely to be quality potential clients.

Targeted, detailed content attracts a targeted audience to your law firm’s website.

Trying to appeal to a general audience with general or thin website content can make it harder for your site to be a relevant match to a related search.

If a potential client does find that content, it can also make it harder for you to connect with them emotionally.

An attorney may believe that all website traffic is good traffic. But what if you’re getting traffic from people who are not your potential clients? Traffic won’t do you much good if that traffic doesn’t come from viable potential clients who need your services.

Targeted content helps your firm get found by potential clients. Once they find your site, that targeted content builds trust with them. When they feel that they trust, know, and like you, they’re more likely to reach out to you.

Targeted content gains the trust of search engines and potential clients

General, unfocused content can make it harder for your firm to be found in search results and/or connect with quality potential clients.

As outlined in its Search Quality Ratings Guidelines, Google holds law firm websites to a higher standard of quality.

Content that does not gain the trust of potential clients (or search engines) includes:

Content that lacks appropriate detail
Content that is too general
Content that is stuffed with keywords
Content that is copied from somewhere else

…and other forms of low-quality content.

Expertise, trust, and authority are qualities that Google considers when it ranks law firm website pages. Good content can demonstrate all three.