One useful blogging technique that can drive new business to your firm is to publish blogs about current events related to your practice area.
But, there are only so many current events and developments about a particular practice area that occur at any one time in the geographic location where you practice.
Sometimes, attorneys worry that they’ve run out of current events to blog about, or that there’s no value in covering current events related to their practice area in geographic areas outside of their practice location.
However, there are actually a number of benefits in covering relevant current events that are outside of your practice location.
Here’s how blogging about topics outside of your geographic area can benefit you.
1. Your law firm blog post can be part of the larger national or regional conversation.
When you blog about national news — or regional news outside of your geographic area — you’ll add your voice to subjects that are getting widespread attention and are of interest to the general public.
It’s likely that people are already reading about newsworthy stories from other outlets. Adding your opinion to the larger conversation through a blog post (or even a series of blog posts) can interest many people.
2. You’ll bring your unique viewpoint to the issue.
Just because you’re writing about a topic that may not currently affect potential clients in the geographic area where you practice doesn’t mean that your viewpoint isn’t important.
Thought leadership is a valuable element of your law firm’s online marketing strategy. Blogging on a regular basis demonstrates thought leadership. Blogging about stories outside of your practice location is one more opportunity for you to become a thought leader.
Whether the topic you’re discussing is directly relevant to your geographic area or not, blog posts are a great way to demonstrate your expertise, as well as to showcase your personality.
Potential clients and referral sources often care about what you can do for them as an attorney, but who you are is also an important factor in their decision to hire you.
Bring your unique viewpoint to the regional or national issue you’re writing about. What are your thoughts on this development? What are the current laws in the state (or states) where you practice? How do the laws or procedures differ? What do you think would happen if the law were to change in your geographic area?
3. Even if the current event isn’t in your geographic area, you can still optimize the law firm blog post for your audience.
Even when you’re blogging about a development outside of your geographic area, you can still optimize the blog post for your target audience.
For example, maybe you’re a DUI attorney practicing in Seattle, and Washington law surrounding DUI doesn’t change all that often. Maybe there aren’t newsworthy DUI-related stories in your region right now, either. At that point, you might start looking to major developments in DUI law from around the nation.
Maybe you decide that you want to write about the recent changes to DUI law that have taken place in Utah. In March, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill into law that lowers the DUI limit from a BAC of 0.08 to 0.05.
You can still optimize the piece for your target geographic audience. For example, maybe you title your meta description something like:
Seattle DUI attorney discusses recent BAC changes in Utah
In the piece, you might explain the recent changes and go on to discuss what you think the consequences of these changes could be, as well as discussing the changes in the context of the current laws in your practice location.
Here are some examples of what you might discuss:
- How will lowering the BAC from .08 to .05 affect the restaurant and tourism industries?
- Once this law goes into effect, might there suddenly be a sharp increase in Utah DUI arrests?
- If a female weighing 115 pounds has a single glass of wine, could she now be over the legal limit?
- Could someone pass field sobriety tests and still be arrested if they blow a .05 on a breathalyzer test?
- Might there be changes made to this law before it goes into effect?
- What could this change mean for non-Utahns who visit Utah on business or vacation?
- What do you think this would mean for Seattleites if Washington State were to pass a similar law? What might be the unintended consequences of passing such a law?
- Do you think it’s possible that Washington State could ever pass such a law?
- What should Seattleites know about DUI laws in their own city?
Blogging about topics outside of your geographic area is an opportunity for your law firm.
Blogging about developments in your geographic area is an opportunity for you to publish new material that demonstrates your expertise and showcases your personality.
But blogging about topics outside of your jurisdiction is also an opportunity for your law firm. Keep an eye out for those opportunities.
Widening the scope of current events to include other regional and national stories allows you to publish fresh content that develops your online presence as a thought leader and can help you attract potential clients and referral sources.