A law firm blog can be an important part of your law firm’s online marketing plan. Here are four tips for developing an effective blogging strategy that can help your law firm attract and engage new clients and referral sources.
1. Understand how a blog can benefit your law firm
Blogging can help your law firm connect with and engage new clients, as well as establishing your reputation as a thought leader in your practice area(s).
Search engines try to provide relevant, high-quality results that answer search engine users’ questions. Law firm blog content that provides in-depth answers to potential clients’ questions is likely to appear in search engine results for relevant queries. This can increase the flow of targeted traffic to your law firm’s website.
Providing helpful information that answers a potential client’s questions also helps them view your law firm as a trusted resource. This bond of trust can make them more likely to contact you and, ultimately, hire you when they are ready to choose a lawyer.
Blogging can demonstrate that you are engaged and knowledgeable in your practice area, which can help establish your thought leadership and expertise.
If you are just starting to build your law firm’s online presence, it may make sense for you to prioritize building out core areas of your website–such as your homepage, attorney bio(s), practice area and detailed law pages–before you invest a lot of time and effort on blogging. Once your law firm website has high-quality content on these evergreen pages, blogging can be a good way to continue to expand your web presence.
2. Decide what to write about on your law firm blog
Your blog is an opportunity to create a steady stream of content that informs and engages potential clients.
Many of your potential clients won’t be searching for simple keywords and phrases, such as “Portland DUI attorney” or “New York personal injury lawyer.” Instead, they are likely to search for answers to specific questions, such as “What happens if I get a DUI in Portland?” or “What do I do if I got food poisoning at a New York City restaurant?” If your law firm blog provides high-quality answers to these kinds of questions, it is likely to rank well in potential client search results for relevant queries.
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, here are some suggestions:
- Think about the questions your actual clients have asked. Your potential clients are likely to be using search engines to find answers to those same questions. Providing substantive answers to those common questions can be good blog material.
- Blog about conversations with other attorneys or things that happened in court that are relevant to your potential clients.
- Write about misunderstood legal terms or common misconceptions about the law.
- Write about news, events or landmarks that might affect your potential clients.
- Blog about holidays, seasonal occurrences (summer vacation, icy winter conditions, etc.) or memorial/awareness days that are relevant to your practice area and to your potential clients.
Our blog post, “Law Firm Blogging Burnout? 7 Ways To Find Blogging Inspiration Again” can help you identify more potential topics for your law firm’s blog.
3. Decide how often to publish on your law firm’s blog
Blogging is most effective when you do it consistently. Publishing a consistent stream of high-quality new content provides more opportunities for search engines, potential clients, and referral sources to find your law firm’s blog. Over time, this can translate into more targeted traffic coming to your law firm website.
According to Hubspot research, companies that blog more frequently reported significantly more traffic and leads than those that blog less frequently. Small companies (those with fewer than 10 employees) the blogged 11+ times per month reported three times as much traffic and twice as many leads as companies that blogged 6-10 times per month.
Our anecdotal experience has confirmed this. LawLytics members who blog consistently and provide high-quality information report more website traffic and more leads than those who do not blog or who blog infrequently.
Quantity matters to a certain extent, but so does quality. Content that is “thin” and that doesn’t provide useful information most likely won’t move the needle in terms of your law firm’s online marketing efforts, no matter how many pages you create.
4. Create a content plan for your law firm
A law firm content plan should document all the content your law firm plans to publish over the next one to three years. It should include specific milestones, dates, and accountability for each content item you plan to publish on your website and blog.
After you have decided what topics to cover and how many blog posts you want to publish on a weekly basis, incorporate that into your law firm content plan. In addition to the topics you know you want to cover, it can be helpful to allocate time for timely topics, such as a relevant local news story or a new law that could affect your clients. You may not know the exact topic in advance, but you may be able to anticipate publishing timely content a few times a month (or even a few times a week).
For more content planning tips, see our blog post, “5 Questions To Ask When Creating A Law Firm Content Plan.”
Effective law firm blogging strategies
Our on-demand Law Firm Blogging Clinic can help you turn your blog into an asset that builds your law firm’s reputation, educates your readers and attracts more clients.
