To succeed with content marketing, you need content — and you likely need a lot of it. This is particularly true if you’re in a highly competitive geographic area and/or practice area.
How do you know when it’s a better idea to write your own law firm website content or to hire a proxy writer? In this blog post, we’ll discuss when it may be time to delegate content writing to someone else.
When to write your law firm website’s content
No one is in a better position to write your website content than you, the attorney. That’s because content marketing is about connecting with your potential clients and getting into their mindset — and nobody knows your potential clients better than you do.
We love it when attorneys write their content for as long as they possibly can. It ensures that they will succeed online and helps them develop their online voice and persona. It also helps them understand the actual value of content so that they don’t overpay a content writer, or err on the side of buying cheap (and ineffective) content if they eventually decide to delegate that task to someone else.
If you are a new attorney, or just starting your practice, and you have more time than money, it often makes sense to write the content for your law firm’s website.
Whether you write your own content or hire a writer, it almost always makes sense to develop a content plan. A content plan helps you discover and produce the kind of website content that is most likely to benefit your potential clients — and, by extension, your practice. To learn more about content planning for your law firm, see:
- How to Create an Effective Content Plan for Your Law Firm’s Website
- Podcast: Content Planning for Your Law Firm
When to delegate law firm content writing to a ghostwriter
There may come the point when it makes sense to delegate some or all of your content writing to a proxy writer.
If you’re in a highly competitive geographic area or practice area, you’re likely going to need a large volume of content to succeed. In this case, it can make sense to hire a ghostwriter to write your content.
If you plan to use content marketing to attract new cases and you don’t have time to write your content, then it’s likely necessary to hire someone to take on the task of writing content for your law firm’s website.
The same is true if you aren’t inclined to write it yourself.
Choosing a ghostwriter can also make sense if you’re in a position in which you’re writing content for your law firm’s website, but you’d like to supplement your efforts. This hybrid approach in which both you and a content writer contribute to your law firm’s website can help you develop a larger volume of content faster than simply writing it yourself.
However, before you hire a ghostwriter to supplement your content marketing efforts, there are several things to consider, which we’ve outlined below.
What to know if you’re going to delegate law firm content marketing to a ghostwriter
If you’re going to entrust your content to a proxy writer, it’s important to know that not all law firm content ghostwriters are alike. You’ll want to be sure that you’re hiring someone who:
Understands legal ethics – At the end of the day, you are ethically responsible for what gets published on your law firm’s website and blog. A ghostwriter without a legal background may not know which words they can or can’t use. They may not realize that using synonyms for a particular word can change its legal meaning. That can cause serious problems for you. So, before you hire someone, make sure they understand legal ethics (especially Rules 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, or their applicable equivalents).
Understands Google’s guidelines – Google’s Webmaster Guidelines are an essential part of successful online legal marketing. Failure to follow the guidelines can keep your law firm website — and your business — from thriving.
Understands your practice – Law firms come in different sizes, different practice area combinations, different locations, and different target audiences — and all of these things can affect how you approach the content for your law firm. Even if a ghostwriter says they specialize in working with attorneys, dig deeper to see what’s meant by that. They may not understand what you do as an attorney, the nature of your practice, or how your potential clients find you online. A lot of marketers or writers don’t understand how different the business dynamics of different practice areas can be. To learn more about this topic, see: “Does Your SEO Provider Understand Your Practice?“
Learn more about hiring a law firm website ghostwriter
If you hire a ghostwriter, you’ll want to be sure that you stay in control of your website (and what gets published on your behalf) throughout the entire process. To learn more about keeping control when you hire a proxy writer, see: “How to Stay in Control of Your Law Firm’s Website When Using a Ghostwriter.”
