Writer Login Client Login Order Online 877-486-8123

SEO for Law Firms: How to Rank Higher in Search Results

SEO for Law Firms: How to Rank Higher in Search Results

Posted on by David B. Arato

In today’s digital age, the first place most people with legal problems go for help is a search engine such as Google or Bing. For lawyers and law firms, appearing at the top of search results can significantly increase visibility, attract potential clients, and grow the business.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool that, when leveraged correctly, can help law firms achieve higher rankings in search results. Law firms need to understand the power of SEO and take on actionable strategies to rank higher in search results in order to stay afloat in such a competitive legal market.

Read on to learn more about how SEO can help law firms grow and connect with new clients.

Understanding SEO Basics

SEO is the process of optimizing your website to improve its visibility on search engines. It involves various techniques, strategies, and practices designed to enhance the quantity and increase the quality of traffic to your website through organic search results.

The goal of SEO is to make your website more attractive to search engines, which in turn helps it rank higher for relevant search queries. When your website ranks higher, it will be more visible to your desired audience of potential clients. Robust SEO strategies are necessary to attract potential clients online.

What are the Key Components of SEO?

SEO is often divided into several sub-areas that focus on different aspects of website optimization. Some of these sub-areas include the following:

On-Page SEO

Optimizing individual web pages to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic. Keyword optimization, meta tags, content quality, internal linking, and user experience all contribute to on-page SEO.

Off-Page SEO

Actions taken outside your website to impact your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs). Building backlinks from other reputable websites, social media marketing, and influencer outreach all impact your off-page SEO

Technical SEO

Optimizing the technical aspects of your website to ensure that search engines can crawl and index it effectively. Improving site speed, mobile-friendliness, site architecture, and schema markup all improve technical SEO.

Local SEO

For most law firms, local SEO is crucial. Why? Because most of the clients you want to draw are local. Local SEO involves improving your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches. It includes claiming and optimizing your Google My Business listing, getting reviews, and ensuring your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all platforms.

The Importance of SEO for Law Firms

When it comes to marketing, law is an incredibility competitive field, with hundreds of firms competing for cases. AS more and more consumers look to the internet when searching for professional services, it’s critical for law firms to make sure that their potential clients can find them online.

SEO offers numerous benefits for law firms, including:

  • Increased Visibility – Higher rankings in search results lead to increased visibility, making it easier for potential clients to find your law firm.
  • More Traffic – Optimized websites attract more organic traffic, which can translate into more inquiries and consultations.
  • Credibility and Trust – Websites that appear at the top of search results are often perceived as more credible and trustworthy. Effective SEO can enhance your firm’s reputation and authority.
  • Cost-Effective Marketing – SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy – especially when compared to paid advertising. While it requires an investment of time and resources, the long-term benefits can be substantial.
  • A Competitive Advantage – A strong SEO strategy can give your law firm a competitive edge over others in your area who may not be investing in SEO.

Actionable SEO Strategies for Law Firms

How can law firms start “doing’ SEO? Here are some actionable tips to begin optimizing your law firms’ website:

1.     Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. It involves identifying the search terms that potential clients use to find legal services.

Steps for Effective Keyword Research:

  • Brainstorm Potential Keywords: Start by brainstorming a list of keywords related to your practice areas and services. Don’t overthink this part, as these can be extremely simple.
  • Use Keyword Research Tools: Utilize tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to find relevant keywords with good search volume and low competition.
  • Analyze Competitors: Look at the keywords that your competitors are ranking for to identify potential opportunities.
  • Identify Long-Tail Keywords: Focus on long-tail keywords (phrases with three or more words) that are more specific and have less competition. For example, instead of “divorce lawyer,” use “best divorce lawyer in Dallas.”

2.     Optimize the Technical Aspects of Your Website

On-page SEO involves optimizing various elements of your website to improve its visibility and relevance. This involves ensuring that your title tags describe your website and contain relevant keywords. Additionally, you should make sure that each page has a meta description that describes the page and encourages people to click on the link.

You should also make your site easy to navigate by connecting related pages with internal links. This helps both users and search engines navigate your site. Finally, make sure that your site is mobile-friendly – meaning that it displays differently on mobile devices like smartphones. This last step is extremely important, as more than half of all searches occur on mobile devices these days.

3.     Build High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks (links from other websites to your site) are a crucial factor in SEO. They signal to search engines that your content is valuable and authoritative. Think of them as a “vote” for your website. In addition, be aware that these votes are not all equal. For example, a backlink from Forbes is more valuable than a backlink from a shady or spammy site.

You may be thinking “how can I get people to link to my law firm’s site?” Fair question. Here are some strategies that can earn you backlinks:

  • Guest Blogging – Write guest posts for reputable legal blogs or websites. Include links back to your site in your author bio or within the content.
  • Legal Directories – Get listed in reputable legal directories and associations relevant to your practice area.
  • Write Great Content – Create valuable content, such as blog posts, infographics, or whitepapers, that others will want to link to.
  • Networking – Build relationships with other legal professionals, journalists, and bloggers who might link to your content.
  • Press Releases: Distribute press releases for significant events, such as awards or new hires, to gain media coverage and backlinks.

4.     Focus on Local SEO

For law firms, local SEO is essential to attract clients in your geographic area.

Local SEO Strategies:

  • Google My Business: Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing. Ensure your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are accurate and consistent.
  • Local Citations: Get listed in local directories and legal-specific directories with consistent NAP information.
  • Reviews: Encourage satisfied clients to leave positive reviews on Google, Yelp, and other review platforms.
  • Local Keywords: Include local keywords in your content, title tags, and meta descriptions. For example, use “personal injury lawyer in St. Paul” instead of just “personal injury lawyer.”
  • Local Content: Create content relevant to your local area, such as blog posts about local legal issues or news.

5.     Optimize for Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures that your website is easily crawlable and indexable by search engines.

Let’s dive into some essential technical SEO best practices that can significantly boost your website’s performance. First up is site speed – a crucial factor in user experience and search engine rankings.

To get those pages loading quickly, focus on optimizing your images, leveraging a content delivery network (CDN), and streamlining your code. Next, don’t forget about your mobile visitors! Ensure your site is responsive and offers a smooth experience on smaller screens.

To help search engines understand your site structure, create and submit an XML sitemap – it’s like giving them a roadmap to your content. Speaking of search engines, use a robots.txt file to guide them on which pages to crawl and which to skip. Lastly, secure your site with an SSL certificate. Not only does this protect your users’ data, but it also gives you a nice bump in search rankings. By implementing these technical SEO practices, you’ll be well on your way to improving your site’s visibility and user experience.

6.     Create High-Quality Content

Above all else, remember that content is king in SEO. Regularly publishing high-quality content can help you attract and retain visitors, build authority, and improve rankings. You can create content is a variety of formats, all of which can improve your site’s rankings for relevant search terms. Some of the formats you should explore include:

7.     Monitor and Analyze Performance

When it comes to SEO, you can’t simply fix it and forget it – especially in a competitive field like law. SEO is an ongoing process, and you need to regularly check your rankings and take steps to improve or maintain them. There are various free tools you can use to monitor you’re your site’s performance, including Google Analytics and Google Search Console.  In addition, you can take a deeper dive and get actionable advice using paid tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz.

Contact Lexicon Legal Content for Your Law Firm SEO Content Needs

It can often be challenging for lawyers and law firms to keep up with the demanding and ever-changing needs of SEO when it comes to website content. If you need help in this area or don’t have the time to keep up with it yourself, we offer solutions. Our experienced attorney-led legal content writers have what it takes to produce high-quality SEO content. To learn more about our SEO content services, call our office or send us an email today.

Creating Effective Law Firm Content: A How-To Guide

Posted on by David B. Arato

No matter what type of law you practice, the content published on your website must be accurate, informative, and engaging while adhering to ethical guidelines and SEO best practices. If this seems like a lot to balance, you’re right. However, creating effective content for your legal website will not only attract many potential clients but can also establish your authority and convert visitors into leads. Here are some useful simple tips for creating compelling content for legal websites that will resonate with your readers.

Understand Your Audience

Before creating content, you should understand your target audience. Knowing who you are writing for will help tailor your content to their needs and preferences.

Identify Your Audience

Determine the demographics of your potential clients. Are they individuals or businesses? What legal issues are they facing? What legal concerns might they have? Understanding their needs and challenges will help you create relevant and valuable content.

Client Personas

Develop client personas to represent different segments of your audience. Visualizing who you are writing for and what kind of information they might seek can make your content more effective. A client persona can include demographic information like age, gender, location, occupation, income, and relationship status, as well as psychographic details like motivations, interests, pain points, and likes or dislikes. All of this will depend highly on the type of law you practice and the type of clients you serve.

Common Legal Issues

Identify common legal issues your audience faces. This could be anything from personal injury claims to business contract disputes. Addressing these topics will make your content more relevant and useful. It can be helpful to start by making a list of these general topics and then digging deeper into more specific topics under each one. Then, you can brainstorm titles for blogs or the focus of newsletters based on these particular topics or sub-topics.

Craft Engaging and Informative Law Firm Content

Creating content that is both engaging and informative is critical to attracting and retaining visitors to your legal website.

Clear and Concise Writing

Always keep your legal content clear and free of jargon. Avoid using complicated legal terms without a layperson’s explanation. Remember that your goal is to make the information accessible and understandable to a broad audience.

In-Depth Articles

Be sure you provide detailed information on legal topics. Comprehensive articles will help establish your authority and provide value to readers. However, keep your audience engaged by breaking the content into manageable sections with clear headings. Using bullet points and pictures or graphs can also help break up the text, making it easier to read.

Use Case Studies

Case studies are a powerful way to illustrate how legal principles apply in real-life situations. They provide practical examples that can help potential clients understand how you can help them and how specific laws might apply to their situations.

Client Testimonials

 Incorporate client testimonials and success stories. These add credibility and can help build trust with potential clients.

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are a great way to address common concerns and queries. They provide quick and accessible information that can help guide visitors through their legal concerns.

Incorporate SEO Best Practices for Legal Websites

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for making your legal content discoverable and getting it to the top of the search results. Here are some SEO best practices to follow:

Keyword Research

Identify relevant keywords that potential clients might use when searching for legal services. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to determine high-volume, low-competition keywords that you will want to incorporate into your content.

On-Page SEO

Optimize your content for search engines by incorporating keywords naturally into your titles, headings, meta descriptions, and throughout all of the content. Keep your content well-structured by using H1, H2, and H3 tags.

High-Quality, Helpful Law Firm Content

Google prioritizes high-quality, authoritative content. Always focus on crafting informative, well-researched articles with the purpose of providing real value to your readers.

Internal Linking

Use internal links to connect related content on your website. This helps search engines understand the structure of your site and keeps visitors engaged. However, be sure to only link to credible, reliable websites.

Be Sure to Leverage Different Content Formats

Diversifying content formats can help engage a broader audience and improve the overall user experience.

  • Blog Posts – Regular blog posts on relevant legal topics can attract new visitors and keep your audience engaged. Blogs are also excellent for SEO, as they provide fresh content for search engines to index. It’s best to publish a blog at least once, if not two or three times per week, if feasible.
  • Videos – Video content is increasingly popular and can be particularly effective for explaining complex legal concepts. Consider creating video guides, interviews, or testimonials.
  • Infographics – Infographics are a visually appealing way to present information. They can simplify complex data and make it more engaging and digestible to an everyday audience.
  • E-books and Guides – Create and offer downloadable e-books or guides on specific legal topics. Doing so not only provides something of value to your potential clients, but it can also help with lead generation by capturing contact information in exchange for the download.
  • Podcasts – Podcasts are another popular and effective method to reach your audience. Discussing legal topics, interviewing various experts, or sharing client stories can position you as a thought leader in your field.

Monitor and Improve Content Performance

A laptop showing a pie chart and a rising line graph

You will want to regularly monitor your content’s performance and make improvements based on the data you find. If you want to see ongoing success, this is a necessary step.

  • Analytics: Use tools like Google Analytics to track the performance of your content. Monitor metrics such as page views, bounce rates, and conversion rates to understand what’s working and what isn’t.
  • User Feedback: Pay attention to user feedback and comments. While not all feedback you receive will be helpful, this can still provide valuable insights into how your content is being received and highlight areas for improvement.
  • A/B Testing: Experiment with different headlines, formats, and calls to action to see what resonates best with your audience. You might be surprised at how small changes can impact the reach of your content.
  • Regular Updates: Regularly update your content to ensure it remains accurate and relevant. This is particularly important for legal content, as laws and regulations can change. It’s also an essential piece of SEO.

Creating compelling content for legal websites requires a strategic approach that combines many factors, including:

  • Audience understanding
  • Engaging and informative writing
  • SEO best practices
  • Ethical considerations

By following these tips and tricks, you can create content that not only attracts and engages potential clients but also establishes your authority and credibility in the legal field. But don’t stop there. Be sure to regularly monitor and improve your content to ensure it continues to meet the needs of your audience and supports your business goals.

Having Trouble Creating and Maintaining Effective Law Firm Content for Your Website? Contact Lexicon Legal Content Today

If you’re like most attorneys or law firms, you already have a lot on your plate. You probably understand the value and importance of quality content on your website, but maybe you don’t have the time or the experience to give your content the attention it needs. This is where we come in.

At Lexicon Legal Content, we know what takes to create effective content that captures the attention of your potential clients. Our experienced attorney-led legal content writers are ready to take your website to the next level. To learn more, call our office or send us an email today.

Google Update Impacts Legal Content Marketing

Posted on by David B. Arato

Google recently updated its Search Quality Rater Guidelines, which will likely impact your law firm’s content marketing strategies. These guidelines help raters assess page quality. The focus is now on E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness). Your law firm’s website must demonstrate these qualities in its content.

In 2024, Google added “experience” to E-A-T, reacting to AI-generated content like ChatGPT. For legal content and SEO, staying updated and collaborating with an SEO-savvy legal content provider who understands E-A-T and YMYL is crucial. Working with professionals pays off.

Google Update Impacts

The Shift in Direction

Google has shifted focus from YMYL topics like News, current events, Civics, government, and Law to assessing specific content categories for potential harm. According to the quality rater guidelines, content gets labeled YMYL when it poses a high risk of causing damage to readers or others affected. Pages are classified as YMYL if they could significantly impact health, safety, or financial stability due to dangerous topics or unreliable information. Law firm websites must have high-quality content to avoid search engine penalties, as well-written YMYL pages have better chances of ranking well.

EAT, YMYL, and Lawyers

When it comes to legal content, it’s not a stretch to say that inaccurate information can prove harmful to readers and society at large, which makes focusing your efforts on Google’s updated guidelines paramount for law firms and other companies in the legal services space. To begin, the information you share can be actionable, which means it has the potential to guide readers’ behaviors and, thus, has the ability to do harm or cause significant impact – if the content is not carefully considered, accurate, and clearly written.  

Google advises that – even when minor inaccuracies could lead to harm – YMYL is likely applicable. Further, if the topic isn’t one that most people would be comfortable seeking guidance from friends or family, it’s more likely to fall into the YMYL categories. Legal content very likely checks both of these boxes. Finally, the more closely your content identifies with YMYL, which is gauged on a spectrum, the more important E-A-T becomes. 

A High-Quality Focus on E-A-T

Google considers a variety of factors when it determines the quality of the content of a page:

  • The topic and purpose of the page guide the necessary level of E-A-T, amount and quality of main content (MC), and level of information about the MC’s creators. When it comes to YMYL topics, a higher standard for all three is required. 
  • Some factors that can make a page low quality – regardless of its purpose or topic – include having a mixed or mildly negative reputation regarding the website or the content creator or having a shocking or otherwise exaggerated title. 
  • Any type of website can have pages that are identified as low quality, including government and academic websites, and low-quality pages can be about virtually any topic. 

The pages on YMYL topics require more careful scrutiny in terms of factors that are indicative of low quality, and it’s important to note that even one low-quality attribute can push an entire page into a low-quality rating.

The Topic and the Purpose of the Page

The necessary level of E-A-T, as defined by Google, is driven by the page’s topic and purpose. Whatever kind of law you practice, your pages are almost certainly intended to inform readers about important legal matters that could lead to significant actions and profound effects. As such, the very topics of your pages – because the information has the potential to cause harm – are likely to place them squarely in the exacting sights of quality raters, who are required to evaluate the topic when determining page quality. 

A Lack of E-A-T

Google has tweaked its definition of what it means when a page lacks the necessary E-A-T to bypass a low-quality finding by adding a bullet point that states the following – Informational [main content] on YMYL topics is mildly inaccurate or misleading.

Other common examples of pages that are ranked as low quality due to a lack of necessary E-A-T include:

  • The MC’s creator doesn’t have the necessary expertise in the topic at hand
  • The site – although it may be authoritative – is not an authoritative source for the topic at hand (a legal website that offers medical advice, for example). 
  • The MC itself does not inspire trust.

While some pages need no formal expertise to write, it’s critical for the purposes of YMYL topics, which makes it critical for your law firm’s website content. The idea is to highlight the level of legal experience, insight, and skill you have achieved and to ensure that this colors your content. If a page you publish lacks the E-A-T necessary to support its purpose, which is to inform readers on a topic that has the potential to have a significant impact, other factors, such as reputation, cannot save the page from a low rating.  

Do No Harm

Google’s quality raters are trained to recognize that even the most authoritative and generally helpful websites can include pages with harmful MC that are deserving of the lowest ratings. As such, they are called to carefully evaluate each page in terms of its own merits and challenges. Before moving on to any other page quality characteristics, quality raters are required to first check for the following:

  • Untrustworthiness
  • Deception
  • Spam
  • Harmfulness

In its quest to update and upgrade search quality ratings, Google also put out a clear overview of the process involved in the search quality evaluator guidelines. As a provider of legal information, providing informative, well-constructed, compelling YMYL pages is key, which makes focusing on the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the legal content at hand instrumental to offering readers the information they are looking for while remaining in Google’s good graces.

FAQs

What is E-A-T, and why is it essential for legal content?

E-A-T stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Google uses these factors to judge the quality and reliability of information. It’s important because it can impact readers’ lives, finances, or safety.

How can a law firm demonstrate expertise in its content?

Law firms demonstrate expertise by providing detailed legal knowledge, case studies, and practical legal advice highlighting their attorneys’ qualifications and experience.

What gives legal content authority?

Legal content gains authority through credentials like memberships in legal associations, awards, recognitions, and years of experience. This assures readers that the information comes from a credible source.

How can trust in legal content be maintained?

Trust in legal content is maintained by ensuring accuracy, transparency, and reliability. Avoid sensationalized or misleading information, clearly cite sources, and present balanced and factual information.

Why is YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) important in legal content?

YMYL topics, including legal matters, can significantly impact a person’s finances, health, or safety. To protect users, Google requires such content to be accurate, trustworthy, and high-quality.

What pitfalls should be avoided in legal content marketing?

Avoid providing inaccurate or outdated information, lacking precise citations or sources, using overly promotional language, and neglecting to update content regularly to meet current standards.

Final Word

Law firms must create high-quality legal content that adheres to Google’s E-A-T guidelines. Focusing on expertise, authority, and trustworthiness can enhance their online visibility and establish them as dependable sources of legal information.

Why Law Firm Content Marketers Should Have a Legal Background

Posted on by David B. Arato

When it comes to choosing a content marketing agency, you have lots of options. That said, if you are a lawyer or a digital marketing agency with legal clients, you should be working with a specialized legal content marketing agency, preferably with attorney leadership. Here are a few of the reasons why.

An Understanding of the Legal Industry

As someone who has studied the law, it’s easy to forget that things that seem obvious to you may not be evident to others. Things as simple as the difference between a civil or criminal case or who the parties are to a lawsuit are essential when creating content. Working with a trained legal writer ensures a basic understanding of the way the law works and provides the added benefit of efficiency. A writer with a background in the law is not going to have to look up what negligence means every time they craft a blog for an injury firm.

The Ability to Create Content that Aligns with E-E-A-T

It’s certainly true that a generalist copywriter can craft fluffy content that does not mention the law or violate any lawyer advertising rules. For example, they can write blog posts about “Car Accident Injuries” or “Types of Collisions” in 100 different ways. That said, this kind of content does not rank well in search engines. Google has been clear about the fact that it rewards content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T) – especially for content that could affect a person’s well-being (such as law firm content). Crafting content that aligns with the principles of E-E-A-T requires deep subject-matter expertise, so if you are outsourcing your content creation, it’s in your best interest to work with specialist legal writers with a background in law.

The Ability to Conduct Legal Research

It has never been so easy to get information, and the entire catalog of human knowledge is literally at our fingertips. While once, you had to go to a law library to do legal research, for most things, Google works just fine. In addition, searchable databases like Lexis Nexis and Westlaw allow anyone with a subscription to engage in high-level legal research.

While this access to information has clear benefits, it also can lead to a false sense of competence. Access to information does not mean understanding that information, and it certainly does not mean that the person accessing the information has sufficient subject matter expertise to determine if it is reliable. 

As stated by Arthur C. Brooks in The Atlantic last summer:

Google isn’t graduate school . . . If you think you understand something technical and complicated after cursory exposure, you might be able to put the knowledge to good use in your life, but you almost certainly don’t understand it well enough to hold forth on the topic.

In other words, reading an article about the 4th Amendment doesn’t make you qualified to discuss search and seizure law.

Legal Accuracy

Relatedly, a writer with a legal background can use precise language that ensures that the content on your website is legally accurate. For example, a generalist writer may confuse the terms comparative negligence and contributory negligence or strict liability and vicarious liability, leading to inaccurate information on your website.

With Google’s emphasis on trust when it comes to content quality, having misinformation on your site could lead to significant penalties. In addition, inaccurate information could lead to an ethics violation with your state bar or even a malpractice lawsuit if a client relied on the information and had an adverse outcome.

Compliance with the Advertising Rules in Your State

The content on your law firm’s website has to comply with your state bar’s advertising rules. As the old saying goes, “You do not know what you do not know.” A generalist writer may not even think not to use the word “specialize” or “expert” when discussing your focus on your practice area. In addition, there is a big difference between saying, “We will get you compensation,” and “We will get you the compensation you deserve under the law” – of course, the first one promises an outcome while the other leaves the door open for the fact that the reader does not, in fact, deserve any compensation under the law. It is doubtful that a writer without legal training will know about these rules or how to apply them, potentially resulting in content on your website that violates the advertising rules in your jurisdiction.

Call Lexicon Legal Content Today to Connect with an Expert Legal Writer

At Lexicon Legal Content, our team of experienced legal writers – including licensed attorneys and JDs – specializes in creating content for law firms that is clear, accurate, and demonstrates your experience, expertise, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T). As an JD-owned company, we understand the importance of accurate and compliant content for law firms.

How Creating Content Can Help Law Firms Connect with Clients 

Posted on by David B. Arato
Table of Contents

If you’ve researched how to market a law firm (or any business, for that matter) online, you have undoubtedly come across advice telling you to create and post more content. When I first got into this business more than a decade ago and was told that a website “needed content,” I assumed they meant images and other visual elements. I guess it had never occurred to me that someone was actually writing all of the words on the site and that those words had a significant impact on how well the site performed in searches for particular queries. 

Generally, content refers to any media that conveys information, whether it’s written text, video, or audio. The internet has an insatiable appetite for it, and creating good content has the power to connect your legal practice with new clients and provide a substantial ROI. 

The Right Content Can Improve Your Rankings in the SERPs 

From a technical standpoint, content has the ability to get your firm in front of new clients by improving how well your website ranks in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Studies show that websites with more content tend to rank better, and the more pages and blogs you have, the wider you can cast your net for potential internet queries.  

For example, it’s all well and good to have a “Motor Vehicle Accidents” page on your website, but if you drill down into car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, pedestrians accidents, etc., you have a better chance of appearing in searches made by injured clients. 

Your Content Should Demonstrate E-E-A-T 

While Google doesn’t make its search algorithm public, it is clear about what it wants from content. In order for content to rank well on the search engine, it needs to demonstrate experience, expertise, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T). This is especially true for pages that could have an impact on a person’s future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety – commonly referred to as Your Money or Your Life pages (YMYL).  

How can your law firm content pages demonstrate E-E-A-T? 

  • Make sure readers can verify the information on your site. For example, if you discuss a statutory legal provision, link to an official .gov source. 
  • Create a robust About Us page that highlights the attorneys in your firm. Include information about where they went to law school, community involvement, notable case results (if permitted by your state bar), publications, and other biographical information. 
  • Make sure your content provides value to the reader. 
  • Create content for people first, not search engines. That said, be sure to follow SEO best practices regarding website content. 

It’s Important to Keep Your Content Fresh 

Importantly, you can’t just create a piece of content that initially shoots to the top of the SERPs and just rest on your proverbial laurels. Content “freshness” is a confirmed ranking factor, and I’ve personally seen our own pieces of content go straight to the top of the rankings for high-volume queries and drop over time as other pieces outrank it.  

It’s important to regularly produce high-quality content of interest to your potential clients in order to maintain your SEO rankings. In addition, repetition of your message is key. That isn’t to say you should post the same content over and over again – in fact, Google will ignore it if you do. It’s also not about saying the same thing in hundreds of different ways. It’s about repeating the message – specifically, that you can help people with certain types of legal problems – within the context of providing useful information. 

For example, if you are a DUI defense lawyer, you might want to produce blog content titled: 

  • Do I Need a Lawyer for My First DUI? 
  • What are the Penalties for a First DUI? 
  • Is a First-TIme DUI Serious? What are the Defenses to a First-TIme DUI? 
  • How Long Should I Wait to Call a Lawyer after a DUI Arrest? 
  • How Can a DUI Lawyer Help Me? 
  • DUI FAQs 

This list could go on and on. While all of this content should be unique, it should also ultimately focus on why the reader needs legal counsel and how a lawyer can help. The more content you create, the wider the net you are casting to connect with your potential clients. 

Content Can Establish Your Firm as a Thought Leader 

While improving your site’s positioning in the results is certainly a worthwhile goal in and of itself, regularly creating content can also establish your firm as a thought leader in your practice areas. By positioning your website as a go-to source for information, you can increase your firm’s standing in your community and develop a reputation as a subject matter expert. 

Doing so can lead to other forms of exposure, as well. An owner of a well-regarded PI marketing agency recently quipped to me that “talking about yourself is great, but having other people talk about you is better.” 

When you create lots of content about things you know about, you increase the chances that you are going to be quoted in publications, asked to do an interview for your local news, invited on a podcast, or asked to speak at an event. In other words, content can turn into exposure, which in turn can lead to tons of new business and opportunities. 

Put Your Content Out There 

Relatedly, you should explore multiple channels in your content marketing efforts. Posting on your own site is great for your SEO and builds authority, but look for other places to publish things that you create. For example, I regularly publish in Attorney at Work and Attorney at Law Magazine and am always looking for new places where our potential clients may be lurking online to publish. 

As a B2B business, we focus on publications that are read by legal professionals. For a law firm that works with individuals, you may consider publishing content on other law firms’ websites, local newspapers, news websites, or websites of interest to your target clientele.  

Not only does publishing content on other sites increase its reach, but it also results in more backlinks, which can significantly improve your site’s SEO. You can think of backlinks as “votes of confidence” for your website, and the more you have, the more relevant your site is in the eyes of Google. 

Creating Great Content Takes Time and Effort 

It’s clear that a modern law firm needs to engage in regular content creation in order to stay competitive in the digital marketing space. Unfortunately, creating content takes a significant amount of time. And it’s not just the actual writing that takes time. In order to regularly create content that ranks, you need to:

  • Engage in keyword research 
  • Come up with content topics 
  • Optimize your content for SEO 
  • Post your content and engage in on-site optimization best practices 
  • Promote your content on social media and other channels 

As a busy practicing lawyer, there is a good chance that you simply don’t have the time to either learn how to be a content marketer or create the content itself. Fortunately, the attorney-led team at Lexicon Legal Content is available to help. We create optimized blogs, practice area pages, FAQs, e-books, video scripts, and other forms of content designed to improve your website’s rankings in the SERPs and get your potential clients to pick up the phone. Contact us today to learn more.

Why Lawyers Need a Strong Content Marketing Strategy

Posted on by David B. Arato

As an attorney, you have a lot of useful legal knowledge in your head. While you use this knowledge to help your clients daily, you could also leverage it to produce useful content that would bring more prospects to your door.

For example, if you don’t already have a law blog, you’re missing out on the many benefits of legal content marketing. Only about a third of all law firms have a blog on their website that they post regularly to, giving them the upper hand.

An effective digital marketing strategy includes content marketing. Compelling content ranks well on Google and provides potential customers with information about their legal issues. No matter the size of your practice, you have the potential to rank at the top of Google and other search engines with consistent, effective legal content.

Law school may not have prepared you or other legal professionals for legal blog writing or drafting website content, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t crucial to the success of your practice.

What is Legal Content Marketing?

Whether you like it or not, traditional methods of marketing your law practice are becoming less effective and more obsolete by the minute. Taking its place is legal content marketing.

Legal content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on generating and distributing relevant, valuable, and consistent content. Content marketing aims to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable consumer action.

Effective legal content marketing involves the distribution of relevant, timely, and valuable legal content, including:

  • Blogs
  • Website content
  • Newsletters
  • White papers
  • Social media posts
  • Emails
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Well researched web pages that explain legal concepts
  • Practice area pages
  • Other tools and mediums

These pieces of legal content don’t directly promote the law firm but rather stimulate some type of interest in the firm’s services. Content marketing is essential for today’s digital landscape, as consumers have become increasingly numb to typical advertising tactics.

Cultivating Relationships with Prospective Legal Clients

When legal content marketing is done correctly, it conveys expertise and value to current and potential clients and shows that you value them.

The consistent use of a well-planned law practice content marketing strategy lays the groundwork for and cultivates relationships with your prospective and existing clients. Your readers are more likely to hire you when they need legal counsel if they think of you as a:

  • Valuable source of advice and guidance
  • Partner who wants to help them solve their problems and achieve success

The Benefits of Legal Content Marketing

Content marketing can benefit your legal practice in several ways. An effective content marketing strategy will not only address legal issues but can also:

Enhance Online Visibility

You will attract more prospects and website visitors with an effective marketing strategy, especially when society is frequently searching for legal solutions to their pain points. Providing valuable, educational, and informative content about topics that interest your audience and potential clients will enhance your online visibility through your website or social media accounts.

Create More Leads

Not only does proper content marketing highlight your law firm online, but it also generates more solid leads. Educating others interested in what you have to offer builds trust and helps them feel more comfortable becoming a client. Developing relationships with prospective clients will inevitably bring more quality leads.

Boost Loyalty

Client loyalty is crucial in legal marketing and business because the more loyal your clients are, the more repeat business you will get—either from repeat clients or others they have referred to you. Offering informative content can help them start to build trust with your brand and see you as a thought leader.

Increase Authority

Developing quality, helpful content is a key ingredient to improving online authority and becoming a thought leader in your legal niche. Not only does content help you build trust with current and potential legal clients, but it can also position your law firm as the most authoritative source on a particular topic.

Streamline Meetings

The initial consultation and first few meetings with a prospective legal client are bound to be full of many questions. Giving potential legal clients informative content at every stage of their legal journey will help them find answers to questions they may have before even becoming a part of your audience.

Return on Investment

Content marketing is also excellent because it’s known to be cost-efficient as long as you are willing to learn and shift the practice as needed. There are also a lot of great legal writers out there who can write content for you. Putting together content can be a cost-efficient tactic that garners a great ROI, unlike online ads, where you’ll always have to keep spending money.

Putting Content Marketing to Work for You

Content marketing can be used to attract leads, highlight your legal services when a potential client is ready to research potential attorneys to hire, and sign legal clients. To be an effective content marketer, you must concentrate on delivering the appropriate content at each stage of the sales cycle, beginning with awareness all the way through hiring. It might sound like a complicated process; however, thinking of it this way helps simplify it.

Focus on Different Aspects of Your Legal Clients Journeys

However, the problem many content marketers have with effectively using different types of content is when they focus on only a single portion of the client journey. Instead, they pigeonhole themselves into creating every piece of content to boost awareness or generate conversions.

Unfortunately, this lopsided strategy won’t be effective because it fails to get the attention of the average person and prospective clients at each part of their journey.

But why do marketers make this mistake?

There are many possible reasons, including the following:

  • Lack of knowledge regarding how to optimize their content for each area of the sales cycle
  • Not understanding what makes content valuable to the client
  • Limited availability of resources or experience to create content

These shortfalls lead marketers to drop the ball with their content efforts.

Compelling Content Marketing in Each Stage of the Sales Cycle

Too many law firms approach sales on an ad hoc basis, which means the ball can be dropped, and sales opportunities will be missed. With a planned content marketing strategy, you will avoid this mistake.

Awareness Stage

During the first stage of the sales process, concentrate your content on your audience’s top concerns. Address their common concerns, challenges, and questions, as this provides you with the best chance of engaging with them. At this stage, your content should be educational, how-to advice. Selling should be reserved for the consideration and closing phases.

The best content for the awareness stage includes legal blog posts, articles, interactive tools, e-books, infographics, viral content, videos, and newsletters.

For instance:

  • A personal injury lawyer publishes a legal blog post about maximizing injury compensation.
  • A family attorney offers an e-book on considerations for divorcing couples with children.
  • A business attorney sends a newsletter focused on new business laws that small businesses should be aware of.

Consideration Stage

The consideration stage should transition to feature a cross between helpful information and marketing. This content aims to educate the audience about what to look for when seeking legal help and how lawyers can address their legal needs. Your content at this stage should always be on what your business offers.

Practical content ideas at the consideration stage include:

  • Case studies
  • How-to articles
  • How-to videos
  • Checklists
  • Worksheets
  • Interviews
  • Webinars

For example:

  • A family or business attorney posts a guide entitled “Three Ways to Handle the Family Business in a Divorce” that details the various options for what to do with a business owned by both spouses when divorcing.
  • A car accident lawyer conducts and publishes case studies about “The Biggest Mistakes Most Injured Victims Make When They Hire a Personal Injury Attorney.”
  • A business attorney offers a checklist on how to incorporate a small business.

Closing Stage

Content marketing plays an essential role when a prospective client is close to making a hiring decision. At this stage, it’s okay to concentrate on selling your services. But remember to continue to drive home why you are the best attorney for their needs and wants.

Shift the focus to your expertise, skills, and the differentiating benefits of what you have to offer.

The best content for this stage usually includes:

  • Case studies
  • User-generated content
  • A client’s guide
  • Informative videos
  • Research report
  • Email marketing, including a newsletter
  • Social ads

For instance:

  • A personal injury firm creates a research report proving that injured parties that hire a personal injury firm more often than not garner higher compensation for their damages.
  • A business law practice generates short videos showcasing the variety of its work across various business industries to show its capabilities and diverse expertise.
  • A family law firm encourages clients to contribute testimonials about its compassionate attorneys and top-notch legal service in court.

Steps to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

Identify your audience

Creating content for a specific audience involves clearly understanding their challenges, priorities, and preferences. If what you have to share doesn’t provide value or interest them in some way, you will lose them before you even have them. Sometimes, crafting profiles of your desired audience members and prospects is a good idea before starting a content marketing strategy.

Select the Right Formats

When identifying what content format to start with, think about the stage of the sales cycle you are aiming for and what formats will help you showcase your value best. The right formats will vary depending on the type of law you practice and your potential audience; for some, the right content will be a legal blog post; for others, perhaps a checklist.

Ensure Quality Content

Always keep in mind that your audience will judge your marketing content on its quality, as they should. Considering this, choose the right person, internal or external, to create your content.

Perhaps you want to write your own content or feel another attorney at your firm would be better suited for the job. Or maybe you don’t feel you have the time or expertise to create your own content and want to outsource it to legal content marketing experts. You can work closely with a legal content writer, law blog writers, and your marketing department to write clean copy on a timely basis.

Furthermore, suppose you don’t outsource the job to someone else. In that case, you should strongly consider hiring a professional proofreader to review anything before it is published or sent to your audience. Editing is essential, and your reputation depends on it.

Determine Your Content Distribution

How will you distribute your law content to your audience and current and prospective clients? Will you post content on your website, email it to your list of contacts, or print it for a specific event?

Begin by thinking about “where” you know your audience will likely direct their attention, and then select formats that make sense.

For instance:

  • An article might make sense to distribute with an email
  • A graphic checklist or worksheet can be posted on your social media accounts, which will allow them to be easily shared and create more marketing opportunities for you
  • A helpful guide is a good follow-up after meeting with a prospective client

Choose a Sustainable Schedule

Once you can identify your target readership and the best formats for each sales cycle stage, create a short-term, between three and six months plan. It’s far too easy to develop an overly ambitious content marketing plan, especially when you are first starting out. Your motivation may exceed the realities of your time constraints.

However, it’s critical to consider your budget and resources so that the content plan you design is realistic. Track the time it takes you to create each piece of content so that you can build that time into your schedule. Even if you choose to outsource your content creation, you will need to account for the time it takes to take care of related tasks, such as providing topic ideas or reviewing the content they give back to you.

Adhere to Content Marketing Best Practices

Compelling content is clearly written and won’t use any jargon that only you and your legal colleagues will know. Ensure your content also includes detailed how-to advice. Often, a short, relevant, actionable piece of content is best.

SEO Considerations for Content Marketing

When done correctly, quality legal content marketing makes it easy for ideal prospects to find your law firm. However, you can significantly boost your efforts with search engine optimization (SEO).

Essential best SEO practices include the following:

Remember that keywords are the foundation of SEO efforts. These all-important words or phrases are the terms a likely prospect uses in a search engine when searching for a company, product, or service—including legal services.

Incorporate the appropriate keywords into your content, and you will attract more traffic. The best keywords are:

  • Plain language: Language your target audience uses to detail their difficulties and needs
  • Relevant: Keywords should reflect the expertise, products, and representation you provide
  • Specific: Combine your focus, legal industry expertise, prospective client needs, and other relevant details

SEO isn’t new and has evolved, so the results shown to your potential clients depend partially on your content’s quality, relevance, and if it matches its headline.

Tips for Legal Writing Keyword Use

Using the right legal content keywords throughout your legal writing and marketing content is imperative if you want it to rank and get seen by prospective clients. Here are some helpful guidelines when utilizing keywords:

  • Concentrate on one or two keywords per piece of content. Avoid “keyword stuffing.” You can do this by writing about what matters to your prospects, not just writing to be able to use keywords. Most search engines like Google will see right through your efforts if you don’t, and your content rank much lower.
  • Use your keywords in the title of your content; this way, it’s clear what the content is about.
  • Use keywords throughout the entire piece of content, but be sure to incorporate them naturally.
  • Stay on topic by providing quality content with advice related to a headline so that it will perform best.

 Putting it All Together

Whether you practice family law, criminal law, criminal defense, civil litigation, immigration law, intellectual property law, or other practice areas in the legal field, a content marketing strategy is essential in today’s competitive landscape. Building and executing your legal content marketing approach is a significant endeavor that won’t happen overnight.

However, legal professionals can get help crafting technical content and legal blog writing from legal blog writers, legal content writers, and other marketing experts with proven experience. They can also start by focusing on one area at a time, such as a legal blog or social media posts. The point is to get started somewhere and see where it takes you.

Is There a Magic Number When It Comes to Law Firm Blog Posts?

Posted on by David B. Arato

If you’re regularly updating your law firm’s blog, you already know that blog posts help you connect with current and potential clients alike. You may wonder, however, if there’s a magic number, schedule, or time frame regarding how often and when you should be posting. Should you be slapping content up every day – even if you really don’t have much to say – or should you leave people wanting more by posting intermittently? Fortunately, it’s no longer a guessing game – there are some tried-and-true guidelines to help guide how often you should be updating your law firm’s blog. 

Continue reading “Is There a Magic Number When It Comes to Law Firm Blog Posts?”

Get More from Your Current Content with Historical Optimization

Posted on by David B. Arato

You recognize that content is king, but you may not be making the most of the content that you already have. And this is where historical optimization shines. Historical optimization sounds more technical than it needs to be – the bottom line is that it involves breathing new life into the content you’ve already published, which can do you a world of good in terms of giving your return on investment a bump.

Continue reading “Get More from Your Current Content with Historical Optimization”

10 Legal Content Marketing Terms You Should Get to Know

Posted on by David B. Arato

Marketing your legal content seems easy enough – write stellar copy and get it out there where it needs to be. There are, of course, challenges along the way. One of the primary building blocks of solid legal marketing is understanding the terminology that populates its principles and methodologies. Because even major players use terms in different ways – sometimes with newly imagined meanings – it’s important to have a nuanced understanding of the basics. Others may play fast and loose with their legal marketing terms, but once you and your team have settled on meaningful definitions that work for you, you’ll be far better prepared to make your mark in legal marketing.

Continue reading “10 Legal Content Marketing Terms You Should Get to Know”

Four Easy Ways to Find Fresh Ideas for Your Law Firm Blog

Posted on by David B. Arato

Whether you are a solo practitioner or part of a large law firm, improving your Google search rankings and online authority should be one of your top marketing priorities. When your audience likes and can relate to what you are publishing online, Google rewards you, as do your prospects when they turn into clients. The best way to accomplish these goals is to draft high-quality content for your website frequently.
However, creating compelling content isn’t as easy as it might sound. For most attorneys, wordsmithing tasks become buried by the dozens of other duties they must complete. Publishing excellent content that resonates with your desired audience must be a priority, or your blog won’t be an effective marketing tool. You won’t reap the rewards you desire. In fact, it’s so crucial that we highly recommend creating an editorial calendar that can serve as a guide and will remind you to keep creating content.

Finding Fresh Content Ideas

Sometimes it’s less about prioritizing your blog and more about fresh ideas. Far too often, lawyers give up on their blog because they run out of topics they want to talk about or think their audience wants to hear. Generating new content doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming—consider these tools to help keep your content up to date and innovative.

What Are People Asking About Online?

Research what people are asking about online. Garner ideas from questions people are asking about in your area of practice. TextOptimizer is one tool that can help you get inside your readers’ heads. It allows you to research what questions are being asked about specific topics. Simply type in a keyword on the “Find Content Ideas” page. For instance, typing “personal injury” reveals these results:

  • Do I have a personal injury case?
  • Do I have a personal injury claim?
  • What is a personal injury lawsuit?
  • Do I need a personal injury lawyer?

For more detailed results and tools, you can pay for the subscription service on the site. Its additional features can help you narrow down content suggestions and find keyword combinations that meet search engine requirements.

Many people turn to the internet daily for answers to their questions. If your website can provide a reliable answer, it will see more traffic and reach higher rankings.

Enlist the Help of Your Intake Team

To help specify your topics even further and keep them relevant to your potential clients, consider asking your intake team to document your prospects’ questions and concerns. This step can provide you with insight into what your audience is looking for when it comes to legal information and help.


Apps such as Slack or Google Docs are an excellent way for them to record the questions they receive on intake. Such a database will provide a convenient way to view them easily in one place when you are ready to do so.

Use Keyword Research Tools

While keywords are typically thought of in terms of SEO, they can serve other purposes. Taking the time to research relevant keywords can give you some valuable insight into your prospects’ questions and interests. Check out these tools:

  • Kparser generates several keyword ideas around the main topic of your choosing. It can provide you with fresh topic ideas that you may never have even thought about.
  • Answer the Public allows you to use keywords or key phrases and receive an aggregated view of the questions Google and Bing receive. For example, if you type in “slip and fall,” you will receive hundreds of different answers and topic ideas.

Recognize Seasonal Trends and Relevant News

Your audience experiences many of the same things you do, including seasonal trends such as:

  • Holidays
  • Back to school
  • Summer vacation
  • Travel
  • The Super Bowl and other popular sporting events
  • Gearing up for winter weather conditions

Suppose you practice family law. In that case, you may want to focus on parenting topics and shared custody during the Christmas season or summer vacation. If your practice focuses on estate planning, make it a point to discuss tax topics during the first quarter of the year.

You may also want to focus on what is nationally recognized on certain days or weeks of the year. For example, if you are a business attorney, publish a blog about National Small Business Week a week or two before it’s recognized.

Making your blog timely and relatable to what is going on will also help draw traffic to your site. Your prospects also pay attention to the news from various sources. As such, if there have been recent news stories or changes to the law that impact your area of expertise, be sure to address these matters in your content. Not only will it help increase your online traffic, but it can show your audience that you stay up to date and are an authority in your area of practice.

Do You Need Help Publishing Frequent Fresh Content?

It’s easy to get bogged down when it comes to publishing fresh and timely blogs on your law firm’s website. Whether you find it challenging to make room in your schedule to write and post your blog or to keep your readers coming back for more with fresh content, our team of attorney-led writers can help. Call us today at 877-488-8123 or contact us online. Our seasoned marketing professionals are happy to address your content needs and show you how we can help.