Many attorneys miss easy, valuable opportunities to use their law firm’s website to connect with local potential clients.
When attorneys write their website content with a broad focus, it tends not to be found by potential clients. That’s because potential clients often search with a local focus, and general content is too non-specific to be a good fit for their search query. As a result, overly broad content isn’t likely to be found by — or resonate with — potential clients.
Creating content with a local focus makes it easier for potential clients to find you, trust you, and hire you.
Here are three tips for a better local content strategy.
Develop content around “local” questions that your potential clients have.
Potential clients tend to think and search in ways that aren’t accurate representations of legal terminology and structure. (This is especially true if they don’t have a legal background.)
Your potential clients may not be familiar with the law, but they’ll make searches anyway — and Google’s goal is to return the best possible answers for their queries.
By targeting concepts that reflect your specific geographic location and your potential clients’ words, you can capture the attention of more potential clients in your geographic area.
It’s a good idea to use the language that potential clients use, even when it’s not an accurate reflection of the law. You’ll have an opportunity to explain the nuance and details once you have a potential client visiting your site, but you need to let them know that you understand the way that they think, first. That’s why it’s a good idea to create local content that reflects their searches and the words that they use.
Practice area and detailed law pages can provide useful information to local potential clients while highlighting your local knowledge and skills.
The information on these pages should provide meaningful, detailed answers to potential clients’ questions. Don’t create different local pages by performing a find-and-replace of the city, town, or jurisdiction name.
(This kind of content doesn’t provide helpful information to your potential clients, and it can violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.)
Even if a law is the same throughout the state, there may be local nuances to rules and procedures that could affect local potential clients. (For example, maybe police stations in different jurisdictions in your geographic area handle arrests for the same crime in different ways.)
Practice area and detailed law pages can highlight your local experience. For example, a detailed law page about assault laws in Georgia law could include statements such as “Our firm has handled X number of assault cases in Fulton County.”
There are lots of opportunities to localize your content and make it easier for potential clients to find. What do your potential clients need to know about things like local rules or courts? How do people colloquially address specific landmarks or locations?
Create “local” headings and subheadings
When potential clients conduct searches related to their case or problem, they scan the search results to look for information that closely matches what they’re searching for.
This is why it’s a good idea to create local headings and subheadings that show potential clients that your firm has the information they’re looking for. (LawLytics makes it easy to add local headings and subheadings that help your firm get found online.)
Adding local information to headings and subheadings can help them access that information, and adding local headings and subheadings can also help the search engines better understand what your content is about and if it’s a good match for a relevant query.
Create law firm website content around local landmarks
Creating content around the questions that your potential clients have is an excellent way to attract better and more traffic to your law firm’s website.
However, keep in mind that potential clients are also likely to look up information about important local landmarks related to their case or matter.
As a result, it’s a good idea to provide them with that information. (Your law firm’s website, ideally, should act as a one-stop-shop for all the information a potential client could need about their problem. The more information you provide, the more opportunities you have to connect with a potential new client.)
By creating content around these landmarks, you provide potential new clients with helpful information that shows that you understand their problem and care about getting them the information they need.
Examples of local landmarks could include hospitals, police stations, courthouses, common intersections where accidents occur, information about local immigration resources, and more.
The depth of the information that you provide — and how you present it — is important: When you create content for your potential clients, it helps them learn more about their problem and begin to trust you. It can also help them realize that their issue is complex and requires your assistance. That can encourage a potential client to contact your firm.
LawLytics makes creating highly visible local content easy.
Tailored, local content is what drives free search engine traffic to law firm websites. LawLytics makes it simple to create this content and provides attorneys with everything they need to thrive online.
When attorneys use LawLytics, they discover that creating a web presence that helps them get found by potential clients is simple and affordable. We provide you with the system, strategy, and support you need to have a thriving law firm website.
To see how LawLytics makes it easy for you or anyone you choose to produce content that ranks well in search results, schedule an interactive 20-minute demo.
